PURA Winners Honored for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and Innovation

PURA Winners Honored as the best in research and innovation. 

This year, the Provost Undergraduate Research Award(PURA) program is very proud to honour the recipients of the award they have given. 

The winners of the PURA are a very representative sample of different academic disciplines, which is joined together by the desire to further knowledge and solve real-life challenges that are not straightforward. 

Ethan Bai was credited with having carried out a study to expose the “three-dimensional structural dynamics of multi- chamber Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC), cardiac organoids, by using Optical Coherence Tomography”. His work provides useful information on the modelling of cardiac diseases and advanced imaging methods.

 Claire Deng studied the “functional characterisation of genes involved in the regeneration of retinal ganglion cells in a zebrafish model of glaucoma, which is in the new field of vision restoration and neurodegenerative study”. 

Sandhya Ganesh conducted a study in the field of clinical cardiology, which focused on correlation of the parameters of “cryoablation procedure and the outcomes in the patients with atrial fibrillation and provided arguments in favor of the better treatment and patient care”. 

Kenzi Griffith studied the impact of noninvasive ultrasound neuromodulation on blood pressure, which emphasizes novel, non-pharmacological interventions on heart functions.

Sara Kaufman studied “cardiac differentiation of enhanced blastomere-like stem cells, and this study paves the way to the regeneration of cardiovascular functions through novel, non-pharmacological interventions.”

 The article by Aarushi Pant is a study of “how genetic risk factors associated with late-onset Alzheimer disease affect the blood-brain barrier in vitro”, which can be considered an important contribution to the body of research on the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases.

 To enlarge the interdisciplinary domain of the PURA program, Florin Selaru did a study on “three-dimensional mapping and analytical examination of the maturing nervous systems in vertebrate species”. His work adds to the comparative neuroscience to bring out structural and developmental patterns between species.

 Daniel Yao made contributions to the field of “computational research by his work on characterising the active sampling estimators of recall analysis of classification models”. His work facilitates the design of better performance metrics in machine learning and data-driven systems. 

The PURA program celebrates all award winners in terms of their outstanding research work, commitments, and academic performance. Their publication is indicative of the power of undergraduate research and how it is vital in developing future scientists, clinicians, and innovators. All the winners of PURA should be congratulated on this much deserved reward.