2012 Award Winners

Alcoa Undergraduate Research Award

First Place: Jerene Yang (CS, Mathematical Sciences), "Graphical Numerical Inference aka Brain Surgery for Excel"

Second Place: Ryan Billings (H&SS Interdisciplinary), Sean Chin (H&SS Interdisciplinary), Salim Peshawaria (Psychology, SHS), "CMU Connect"

Third Place: Ethan Frier (Design), Jonathan Ota (Design), "Increasing the Visual Presence of Bike Commuters at Night"

Allen Newell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research

Hui Han Chin (Computer Science), "Applications of Spectral Algorithms for Image Processing Tasks"

Alumni Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Computer Science

Nikhil Khadke (Computer Science), "Transparent System Call Based Performance Debugging for Cloud COmputing"

Award for Artistic Excellence

Cortney Wittekind (Humanities and Arts), "BORDERS: Photography and Stories from Burma"

Stefan Dezil (Drama), Yulin Kuang (English, Social & Decision Sciences), Benjamin Welmond (Art, Self-Defined), "First Kiss"

Alexander de Ronde (Humanities and Arts), "Flora Feministica"

Megan Ratliff (Humanities and Arts), "The Body and the Sky as Social Fields"

Ines Pujos (English), "In the Navel of the Universe"

Boeing Blue Skies Award

First Place: Nathaniel Barshay (CS), Tomer Borenstein (ECE), Brandon Kase (CS), Dylan Koenig (ECE), Evan Shapiro (CS), Nisha Singh (Psychology, Social & Decision Sciences), Leonard Sokol (H&SS Interdisciplinary), "Effortless Embedded Engineering"

Second Place: Adrian Trejo (CS, Mathematical Sciences), "Transient Analysis of Queuing Systems"

Third Place: Benjamin Cowley (ECE), "DataHigh: Graphical User Interface for Visualizing and Interacting with High-Dimensional Neural Activity"

CIT Senior Honors Research Poster Competition

First Place: Kathryn Kukla (Biomedical Engineering, ChemE), "Evaluation of Adipose ECM Gels for Breast Reconstructive Surgery"

Second Place: Cecily Sunday (EPP, MechE), "An Investigation of Adaptive Electrically-conductive, Solid Lubricants in Sliding Contacts"

Third Place: Steven Devincentis (ECE), "Drone + RK: A Multi-agent UAV Platform"

IBM Smarter Planet Award

Nathaniel Barshay (CS), Tomer Borenstein (ECE), Brandon Kase (CS), Dylan Koenig (ECE), Evan Shapiro (CS), Nisha Singh (Psychology, Social & Decision Sciences), Leonard Sokol (H&SS Interdisciplinary), "Effortless Embedded Engineering"

Douglas Bernstein (Biomedical Engineering, MechE), "A Flexible Wireless Capsule Endoscope with Biopsy Potential"

Brent Strysko (ECE), "Wireless Monitor and Control"

Christopher Tomaszewski (CS, MechE, Robotics), "Cooperative Robot Watercraft and Hull Design Planning"

Johnson & Johnson Undergraduate Research Award

First Place: Nancy Brown (Philosophy), "Heath Care Access for Undocumented Hispanic Immigrants in New York City and the US"

Second Place: Nathaniel Barshay (CS), Tomer Borenstein (ECE), Brandon Kase (CS), Dylan Koenig (ECE), Evan Shapiro (CS), Nisha Singh (Psychology, Social & Decision Science), Leonard Sokol (H&SS Interdisciplinary), "Effortless Embedded Engineering"

Third Place: Ryan Billings (H&SS Interdisciplinary), Sean Chin (H&SS Interdisciplinary), Salim Peshawaria (Psychology, Science & Humanities Scholar), Jonghyun Thom (H&SS Interdisciplinary), "CMU Connect"

Psychology Department Competition

First Place: Amritha Mallikarjun (SHS), "Accents and Dual Language Acquisition" Alexander Keinath (Psychology), "The Influence of Constituent Familiarity on the Ability to Bind Associations"

Runner-up: James Bursley (SHS), "Unconscious Neural Reactivation in Associative Learning"

Richard Schoenwald Phi Beta Kappa Prize for Undergraduate Research

David Huang (Biological Sciences), "Candida albicans Adherence Regulator ACE2 is a Pivotal Target of SNF5"

Sigma Xi Poster Competition

First Place: David Huang (Biological Sciences), "Candida albicans Adherence Regulator ACE2 is a Pivotal Target of SNF5"

Second Place: Alexander Edelman (Physics), "Energetic Barriers to Magnetic Switching in Compacted Nanoparticles"

Third Place: Neereja Sundaresan (ECE), "The Future of Magnetic Media, Self-Assembly of Block Copolymers"

SRC-URO Poster Competition

First Place: Leah Yingling (Biomedical Engineering, MSE), "Automated Histological Classification of Teratoma Tissue Classes"

Second Place: Andrea Pickel (MechE), "Properties of Iron Cobalt Magnetic Nanoparticle-based Solder Composites"

Third Place: Kwabena Agyeman (ECE, EPP), "CMUcam4: Open Source Programmable Embedded Color Vision Sensor"

Statistics Poster Competition and Statistics Oral Presentation of an Honors Thesis

First Place, Oral Presentation: Yi Xiang Chong (Mathematical Sciences, Statistics), "Incorporating Flexibility into the Normalized Cut Image Segmentation Algorithm"

First Place, Poster: Brandon Ngiam (Mathematical Sciences), Carl Sturges (Statistics), Anna Svirsko (Mathematical Sciences), "Anti-Piracy Laws + Box Office Sales: A Case Study in France"

Second Place, Poster: Michael Pane (Statistics), Nicholas Rock (SHS), George Volichenko (Statistics, SDS), "Reducing Costs for the Port Authority"

Third Place, Poster: Shirui Hu (Mathematical Sciences, Statistics), Eliot Knudsen (Statistics, Mathematical Sciences), I-Ta Yang (Mathematical Sciences), "Analysis of Pittsburgh Bus Schedule and Data"

Honorable Mention: Elizabeth Lorenzi (Statistics), Joon Su Min (Statistics), Laura Patzer (Statistics, English), "Analysis of Film Distributors iTunes Promotion"

Honorable Mention: Nancy Geronian (Statistics), Jung Moon Jang (Statistics), Jeff Lee (Statistics), Kaylee Makel (Economics, Social & Decision Sciences), Victor Wilczynski (Economics), "Census on Parking Meters at Carnegie Mellon University"

Honorable Mention: Cam Bogie (Statistics), Ben Gorman (Economics, Statistics), Chelsea Grindle (Mathematical Sciences, Statistics), Jongwoo Lee (Statistics), George Nardi (Philosophy), George Volichenko (Statistics, Social & Decision Sciences), "Internet Piracy at CMU: Student Behavior and Opinions"

STUDIO for Creative Inquiry Award

Timothy Sherman (CS, Art), "9Billion: An Alternate Reality Game at CMU"

Stefan Dezil (Drama), Yulin Kuang (English, Social & Decision Sciences), Benjamin Welmond (Self-Defined, Art), "First Kiss"

Samuel Lavery (Humanities and Arts, HCI), "Resurrecting the Homestead Steelworks"

Toyota Ideas for Good Scholars Award

Stephanie Goldfein (Chemistry Modern Languages), "A Stop-Flow Liquid/Membrane/Liquid Interface for Improved Analysis of Small Organics in Water by Mass Spectrometry"

Undergraduate Economics Program (UEP) Competition

First Place: Ashish Prakash Thakrar (Economics, Music), "The Rising Cost of Diabetes Care: Annual and Geographic Variation in Expenditures, Decomposed by Price and Utilization"

First Place: Lyubov Zeylikman (Economics, Psychology), "What's the Deal with Free Shipping?"

Second Place: Alisa Deychman (SHS), "Merger Retrospective: Examining Kimberly-Clark and Scott Paper Merger"

Undergraduate Environmental Research Award

First Place: Masanari Kato (ChemE), "Synthesis and Surface Tension Reducing Performance of a Bacitracin-Derived Molecule"

Runner-Up: Sophie Grodsinsky (CEE, EPP), "Nanomaterial Measurement Consistency"

Runner-Up: Raphael Astrow (H&SS Interdisciplinary), Mallory Hayase (H&SS Interdisciplinary), "University Ecological Footprint Calculator"