Graduate Research Conference
The 38th Annual Graduate Research Conference (GRC) was held on Wednesday March 23, 2016 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. The Graduate Student Association (GSA) was proud to host this conference to allow our researchers, graduate students, professional students, and postdoctoral fellows the opportunity to present their work and discoveries. The interdisciplinary nature of our campus allowed us to showcase a variety of research within one conference, including basic, nursing, social, and applied sciences.
This year, we had abstracts from over sixty students and postdoctoral fellows on a wide range of topics, which were featured in four oral and six poster presentation sessions. Our keynote speaker, Dr. Quincy Samus of Johns Hopkins University and UMB alum from the Program of Gerontology, gave a talk about the importance of scientific communication as a means to progress the field as a whole, which is one of the goals GSA hopes to accomplish by hosting the GRC each year. The Three Minute Thesis competition also had their inaugural showcase, featuring their finalist L. Latéy Bradford, who talked about her research in less than three minutes.
The GSA awarded Outstanding Presentation awards to top-scoring individuals from each of the ten sessions. Two special awards were also awarded, one from the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) and another from the Geriatrics and Gerontology Education and Research (GGEAR) Program. We want to congratulate the winners, and acknowledge them and their work:
Amol Shetty, Outstanding Oral Presentation, “Deciphering Cryptic Relatedness in Peruvian Populations with Native American Admixture using Whole Genome Sequencing”
Lisa Leung, Outstanding Oral Presentation, “Mass Spectrometry of Membrane Glycolipids Permits Microbial Typing of ESKAPE Pathogens”
Jeffrey Kleinberger, Outstanding Poster Presentation, “Implementation of Genetic Sequencing into Clinical Practice: The Personalized Diabetes Medicine Program”
William Hendrich, Outstanding Poster Presentation, “Activation of the Constitutive Androstane Receptor Improves the Therapeutic Index of CHOP in Lymphoma Treatment”
Christina Young, Outstanding Poster Presentation, “AP1 Factors are Required for Normal Skin Development During Embryogenesis”
Maggie Matern, Outstanding Poster Presentation, “Hair Cell-Specific Analyses using the Gfi1-cre Mouse”
Amber Mueller, Outstanding Poster Presentation, “A Humanized Mouse Model of Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy”
L. Latéy Bradford, Outstanding Poster Presentation, “Dynamics in the Vaginal Ecosystem and Development of Vulvovaginal Candidiasis”
Carlo Mercado, Outstanding Oral Presentation, “Post-Transcriptional Regulation of SLC12A3 by Alternative Splicing and Nonsense-Mediated mRNA Decay”
Elizabeth Weingartner, Outstanding Oral Presentation, “Direct Suppression of Antibody Secretion by Human T-regulatory Cells"
James Lyons, OTT Award Winner, “Microtubule Network (MT), TRPv4, and Sclerostin: Novel Insights into Bone Mechanotransduction”
Sarah Holmes, GGEAR Award Winner, “Factors That Influence Physical Activity Among Residents in Assisted Living”
The event concluded with a social hour and reception in the SMC Campus Center. The GSA would like to thank all of the students, judges, volunteers, researchers, and attendees for participating in this year’s GRC! We were happy to see such a great turnout, and look forward to next year’s conference.