The fifth annual BIG EAST Undergraduate Research Poster Symposium took place on Saturday, March 14, at Madison Square Garden, bringing together outstanding undergraduate scholars from across the conference for a day of academic competition and collaboration. The event featured 55 teams representing all 11 BIG EAST member institutions, with five teams from each school. Each team, consisting of one or two currently enrolled undergraduate students, presented original research to a panel of judges.
Projects were evaluated on a range of criteria, including visual quality and clarity of content, effectiveness of the introduction, depth of results and discussion, presentation style, and the presenters’ ability to respond to questions. Judges also assessed how well each team provided sufficient background, engaged the audience, and demonstrated subject knowledge. The symposium continues to serve as a premier platform for undergraduate students to showcase innovative research in a high-profile setting.
In addition to individual honors, overall team standings recognized the collective performance of each institution. UConn earned first place overall, followed by Creighton in second and Butler in third, highlighting the depth and consistency of research excellence across their student teams.
In Category 1: Social Sciences, Humanities, and Business, Corey McCall of Villanova earned first place for his study on how alcohol consumption alters depression- and anxiety-like behaviors in mice. Greta Kezakimana of DePaul placed second for her work on violence prevention through a community-oriented approach, while Lennard Fredric Boholst of Marquette finished third for his research on remittances and Filipino household health spending.
In Category 2: Engineering, Physics, Chemistry/Biochemistry, and Biology (Non-Health), first place went to Hailey Dewalt of UConn for her research on antimicrobial defense mechanisms in Hawaiian bobtail squid eggs. Etzer Lindor of Providence earned second place for his work on manganese-metabolizing bacteria in Rhode Island soils, and Milica Nenadovich of Butler placed third for her investigation into ligand-binding partners of the receptor FSHR-1 under oxidative stress in
C. elegans.
In Category 3: Health Sciences/Biomedical, Junyi Wang and Grace Chu of Georgetown earned first place for their research on epigenetic mechanisms of the autism-associated gene
Chd1 in
Drosophila. Ty Monson of Creighton placed second for his work developing nanoparticle-based treatments for ALS, and Krish Reddy of Seton Hall earned third place for his research on combating drug-resistant pathogens using a lipid-modified green tea derivative.
Team winners received a trophy, while individual performers garnered medals. Recognition was also highlighted during the BIG EAST Men’s Basketball Championship game, underscoring the conference’s commitment to celebrating both academic and athletic excellence.