Schedule

Session 1: Genes, Development, and Biological Adaptation

Same Cells Different Menus: Metabolic Pathways that Divide Pathogenic and Non-Pathogenic Th17 cells

Dr. Dequina Nicholas, Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, University of California Irvine

Bring the Noise: Variability in the Response to Estrogen in Xenopus laevis and the “Out of Africa Hypothesis”

Dr. Tyrone Hayes, Distinguished Chair for Innovative Teaching and Research, Professor of Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley

Single cell analysis highlights differential gene expression patterns between the upper and lower jaw

Dr. Sierra Marable, Postdoctoral Researcher in Biology, California Institute of Technology

BREAK

Nitric Oxide: a Host-derived Molecule Enabling the Survival of Bacteria in Infection-like Conditions 

Sarah Weisflog, PhD Candidate in Biology, California Institute of Technology

Lactobacillus brevis that secretes ornithine can prophylactically promote regeneration processes in Drosophila

Judah Bates, PhD Candidate in Biology, California Institute of Technology

stk32a links sleep homeostasis to suppression of sensory and motor systems

Jasmine Emtage, PhD Candidate in Biology, California Institute of Technology

Special Seminar

From Entropy to Equity: The Hidden mechanisms of wealth creation throughout your scientific career

Ajay Kshatriya, MBA., Chief Executive Officer of Aizen Therapeutics, Operating Partner at Wilson Hill Ventures

Session 2: Materials, Energy, and the Physical Universe

Structure–Function Relationships in Monolithic Materials for Integrated Reactive Systems

Dr. Leslie Gilliard-AbdulAziz, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California

Low-cost nitride surface passivation of GaAs solar cells for the space solar power project 

Susana Torres-Londoño, PhD Candidate in Materials Science, California Institute of Technology

Discovery and Engineering of Energy Storage Materials in the age of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning 

Dr. Keith Phuthi, Postdoctoral Researcher in Nanoengineering, University of California San Diego

BREAK

Illuminating the Invisible: The Quest to Detect Dark Matter

Dr. Alvine Kamaha, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Los Angeles

The Unique Formation and Evolution of Magnetars and Constraining Fast Radio Burst Progenitors with Polarization

Myles Sherman, PhD Candidate in Physics, California Institute of Technology

Special Seminar

Infrastructure That Centers Equity, Trust, and Community

Dr. Khalid Osman, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University

Session 3: Computation, Cognition, and Complex Systems

Breaking the Black Box: Democratizing AI and GPU Architecture at Scale

Dr. Blaise-Pascal Tine, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of California Los Angeles

Can Your Brain Tell the Difference? Neural Signatures of Real vs. AI-Generated Faces

Thomas Henning, PhD Candidate in Social and Decision Neuroscience, California Institute of Technology

Perception-Based Safety for Robotic Systems

Gilbert Bahati, PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering, California Institute of Technology

BREAK

Introducing RV2B: A Robust Tool for Fitting the Radial Velocity Curve Equation 

Dr. Don Dixon, Postdoctoral Scholar in Astrophysics, Vanderbilt University

SPT AGN Monitoring System: Moving Towards Simultaneous Millimeter-wave, Gamma-ray, and Optical Observations 

Dr. John Hood, Postdoctoral Scholar in Astrophysics, University of Chicago

Special Seminar

Neutrophils Biophysics Through the Lens of NETosis

Dr. Hawa Racine Thiam, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University

Session 4: Physical Systems, Dynamics, and Discovery

The Supermassive Black Hole Canvas: Expressing the intricacies of Relativistic Jet Launching Mechanisms Using Curved Spacetime Geometry

Dr. Ronald Gamble, Assistant Research Scientist, University of Maryland, Cosmic Origins Research Scientist, NASA

The Effects of Supermassive Black Hole Feedback on Galaxy Morphology using Simulations

Patricia Fofie, PhD Candidate in Astrophysics, University of California Irvine

Frequency Scatter in Kinetic Inductance Detector Arrays for the Terahertz Intensity Mapper

Talia Saeid, PhD Candidate in Astrophysics, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Arizona State University

BREAK

Capturing subsurface impacts of recent rainstorms in the San Joaquin Valley using coda wave interferometry

Nelly-Wangue Moussissa, PhD Candidate in Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California Berkeley

Keynote Seminar

Tiny Moonshots: Microelectronics Made for Space and in Space

Dr. Debbie Senesky, Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

Poster Session & Social Reception

Dabney Gardens

Postdoctoral Researchers

Aerosolized Inhibitory TLR4 Therapeutics for Environmental Endotoxin-Induced Non-Allergic Asthma

Dr. Keziyah Yisrael-Gayle, Postdoctoral Researcher in Biomedical Science, University of California Riverside

Researcher Scientists

In The Context of Curls: Evaluating Cultural Fidelity in AI-Generated Representations of Black Women’s Hair

Blanca Burch, Creative Technologist and AI Innovation Scholar, Spelman College

Chalicothere Mobility

Preston Dozie Rukewe Willard Itie, Paleontology Technician, Kleinfelder, CRM Tech, Environmental Science Associates, & Soar Environmental

Graduate Students

Instructional Design for Student Success in STEM

George Lane, MBA., Ed.D. Student, University of Miami

Label-Free Enrichment of Adipogenic hMSC Subpopulations Using Insulating Dielectrophoresis

Zuri Rashad, PhD Candidate in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California Irvine

Distributed Computations of Secure Supersingular Elliptic Curves

Krystal Maughan, PhD Candidate in Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Vermont

U^2QFusion: Uncertainty-Aware Cross-Modal Model for Robust Multi-Sensor Fusion in 3D Object Detection and BEV Segmentation

Yulin Xu, PhD Student in Computer Science, University of Southern California

Evaluating Data Modalities, Model Scale, and Safety in On-Device Stress Prediction

Ibukunoluwa Soyebo, PhD Student in Computer Engineering, University of Southern California

Succinate Dehydrogenase Role in Anaerobic Respiration of Mytilus galloprovincialis

Jordan James Bond, PhD Student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Irvine

Behavior Inspired Crowd Modeling

Jeffrey Millan, PhD Student in Computer Engineering, University of Southern California

Application of color theory to improve foundation aesthetics across skin tones

Raihaanah Safee, PhD Candidate in Experimental Therapeutics, University of Toledo

Learning Personalized Affective States Under Limited Data Using Gaussian Process Regression

Rodrigo Aguilar Barrios, PhD Student in Computer Engineering, University of Southern California

Novel Peptides Linking Histone H3-Dependent Cupric Reductase Activity to Cellular Metabolism

Znala Williams, PhD Candidate in Molecular Biology, University of California Los Angeles

Exploring the Formation of Low-Mass Compact Object Mergers

Melanie Santiago, PhD Student in Astronomy, University of California San Diego

A Humanized Mouse Model of Microglial-Driven Neuroinflammation in HIV Infection, With and Without Antiretroviral Drug Therapy

Catherine Diadhiou, PhD Candidate in  Infectious Diseases, Immunology, and Pathogenesis, University of Southern California

Synthesis of encapsulated semiconducting nanowires via van der Waals injection-molding

Tré A. Willingham, PhD Student in Condensed Matter Physics, University of California Irvine

Oluwasegun Emmanuel Irewole, MS Student in Biology, California State University Fresno

Oluwasegun Emmanuel Irewole, MS Student in Biology, California State University Fresno

Investigation of PEGylated Zirconium Metal-Organic Frameworks for pH-Responsive Drug Delivery 

Destine’e Reid, MS Student in Chemistry, California State University Los Angeles

Hybrid FPGA-Raspberry Pi System for Real-Time Music Emotion Recognition

Festo Bwogi, MS Student in Computer Engineering, California State University Fullerton

A kinetic perspective on ion partitioning into ion exchange membranes

Ouriel Ndalamba, MS Student in Environmental Engineering, Princeton University

Effect of Urbanization on the Evolution of an Immune Gene

Emmanuel Okposio, MS Student in Biology, California State University Fresno

Identification of genes responsible for Caenorhabditis elegans resistance to Chalcone 17 and 30 using CRISPR-Cas9

Ayuba Abaka, MS Student in Biology, California State University Fresno

Undergraduate Students

Assessing GAN-Generated Synthetic Images for Improving Imbalanced Medical Image Classification

Britney Collier, Undergraduate Student in Computer Science, California State Polytechnic University Pomona

Synthesis of Zinc Phthalocyanines within Zeolites

Ariyanna Glass, Undergraduate Student in Chemistry, Georgia State University

Into the Thick of it: Searching for Heavily Obscured Supermassive Black Holes with Chandra

Yabo Ogunduyile, Undergraduate Student in Physics, California State University Los Angeles

Normative RNFL Thickness Mapping in Rhesus Macaques: A Translational Tool for Detecting Optic Neuropathy

J’adore Bailey, Undergraduate Student in Global Disease Biology, University of California Davis

D-E-A-D or Alive: Unwinding the Roles of Vts1, Stp22, and Vps34 in Ded1-Mediated Cellular Stress Response

Edsiah Nelson, Undergraduate Student in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and Biomedical Physiology, University of Georgia

Understanding the Role of the Immune System in the Regression of Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) and Extended Theoretical Cancer Approaches

Jasmine C. Harris, Undergraduate Student in Cellular & Molecular Biology, University of California Irvine

A Clinical Test of Water Permeable Nail Polishes on Human Nails 

Pria Maineri, Undergraduate Student in Cosmetic Science and Formulation Design, University of Toledo

Using Mixed Reality Techniques to Identify Oculomotor Dynamics as Markers of Adult ADHD Symptomatology

Leah Scott, Undergraduate Student in Psychology, California State University Fresno

Chemical Diversity and Seasonal Dynamics of VOC Emissions in Coastal Sage Scrub

Kennetta Roebuck, Undergraduate Student in Chemistry, Harvey Mudd College

Pilot Evidence for a Multidimensional Measure of Spanish-English Language Experience

Victoria Garcia, Undergraduate Student in Psychology, California State University Fresno

Leveraging Refusal Subspace Geometry to Patch Multilingual Jailbreaking Attacks

Chigozirim Ifebi, Undergraduate Student in Applied and Computational Math, California Institute of Technology

Leveraging Refusal Subspace Geometry to Patch Multilingual Jailbreaking Attacks

Brent Kong, Undergraduate Student in Applied and Computational Math, California Institute of Technology

Conceptual Design and Performance Evaluation of a Stirling-Driven Small Modular Nuclear Reactor

Naol Dufera, Undergraduate Student in Astronomy, Orange Coast College