Meeting Information

The 4th Annual IRCBC Undergraduate Student Research Symposium was held on Friday, November 2, 2007 at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. The meeting is designed as a forum for undergraduate students who have performed research in biology, chemistry, and related fields to share the results of their work with fellow students and faculty from Mid-West region universities. The presentations given are shown below.

Symposium Schedule

8:00 AM Registration

8:30 AM Welcoming Remarks – Michael Mueller, Ph.D., Department of Chemistry, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology


Morning Session I (8:45 – 10:15 AM)
Developing a PCR-Based Assay to Identify Iridoviruses in Amphibian Populations
Meagan Gallagher* and Jennifer O’Connor

Spatial and Temporal Variability of Water Quality in a Constructed Wetland
Whitney Selby*, Penney Miller, Ella Ingram, and Michael Robinson

Analysis of J.I. Case Wetland Bacterial Content Using Both Culture-Independent and Culture-Dependent Methods
Cherie Garvis*, J. Peter Coppinger, Ella Ingram, and Penny Miller

Analysis of the Biological Function of a Constructed Wetland
Britt Hofmann*, Ella Ingram, Penny Miller, and Michael Robinson

Bacterial Diversity of the Oral Cavity in a Small Community
David Bander* and J. Peter Coppinger

Analysis of the White River for Phosphate and Nitrate Levels
Marija Watson* and John A. Buben

A Potential Role for P24 and P41 in Cell Division and Growth Rate in Mycoplasma pneumonia
Chandra Lesniak*, Jason Cloward, and Duncan Krause


Morning Session II (10:30 – 12:00 PM)
Proprioceptive Sensitivity of Stroke Subjects with Hemiparesis
Andrew J. Steward*, Megan O. Conrad, Robert A. Scheidt

The Effect of Ligand and Alcohols on the Rate of Dissociation of the Estrogen Receptor
Michele M. Mumaw* and Mark E. Brandt

Probing the Effect of Alcohols on the Estrogen Receptor Ligand-Binding Domain by Fluorescence Spectroscopy
Evan Breedlove* and Mark E. Brandt

Generation, Display, and Isolation of a Randomly Mutated Polypeptide Library in Yeast
Spencer Perkins* and Richard Anthony

The Application of Microdialysis in the study of Retinal Vascular Physiology: A Feasibility Study
Brent Witten*, and Jameel Ahmed

Estimating Picophytoplankton’s Abundance and Contribution to the Global Carbon Cycle
Melissa Chrisman* and Adam Martiny

12:00 PM Invited Speaker – John Beals, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Eli Lilly & Company – "The Role of Protein Engineering in Improving Pharmaceutical Properties of Biotherapeutics"


Afternoon Session I (1:30 – 3:15 PM)
Minimizing 18O/16O Back-Exchange in the Relative Quantification of tRNA
Rachel Selby*, Colette Castleberry, Mahmud Hossain, and Patrick A. Limbach

Ethanol Production from Sweet Sorghum
Amanda Grantz* and Kimberly L. Ogden

Factors Influencing Filtration Performance
Emily Dosmar*

In-line Methods for Pre-concentrating Samples for Micellar Electrokinetic Capillary Chromatography (MEKC) and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) Combined with UV Absorption Detection
Katherine Sorvig* and Daniel Morris Jr.

Probing Metal Ion Binding Sites on DNA using Sparfloxacin
Amanda Gehring* and Daniel Morris, Jr.

Thermodynamic Properties of Heterogeneous Mixtures
Ross Hoehn* and J. M. Honig

Slow Hydrolysis Reactions in Aqueous Iodine Solutions – Spectroscopic and Computational Studies.
Sarah E. Waller* and Roderick M. Macrae


Afternoon Session II (3:30 – 5:00 PM)
Enantioselective Synthesis of Aminocyclobutanol
Rachael R. Chase and Richard W. Fitch

Selective Monoalkylation of Tetraethylene Glycol.
Yingxiao Liu, Kiersten Yake, and Richard W. Fitch

Comparison of Palladium(0) Catalysts in the Cross-Coupling of Functionalized Aryl Halides
Amanda Isom* Eric Smith, and Rebecca B. DeVasher

Solution Effects of Various Ion Exchange Resins Applied to Palladium-Catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura Cross-Coupling Reactions
Eric Smith*, Amanda Isom, and Rebecca B. DeVasher

Particle Size Analysis of Catalytically Active Palladium(0) and Various Exchange Resins
Cecilia Latta* and Rebecca B. DeVasher

The Design of Greener Undergraduate Labs: Green Chlorination of Vanillin and a Greener Synthesis of Creatine
Ryan Bernhardt* and Carl Lecher



Each presentation will be allotted a total of 15 minutes:
10 minutes for formal oral presentation
5 minute question-and-answer period

Standard audiovisual equipment will be provided. The preferred format is a PowerPoint presentation.  The PowerPoint file should be submitted by email at least two days before the meeting.


Find us:

The symposium will be in the Kahn Room of the Hulman Memorial Union.



IRCBC website                                  Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology