CSUSB honors excellence in research at annual Meeting of the Minds Symposium

Cal State San Bernardino celebrated the achievements of its students and their faculty mentors at the Meeting of the Minds Student Research Symposium, an event that underscores the university’s commitment to academic excellence, innovation and discovery.

Meeting of the Minds, held on April 10 as part of CSUSB’s Research Week, featured more than 250 oral and poster presentations, along with engaging art exhibits, showcasing the impressive range of scholarly and creative accomplishments by undergraduate and graduate students.

The symposium provided CSUSB students a platform to present their research and creative work to a broad audience, while honing their public speaking and presentation skills. Top presenters were honored with certificates at the Office of Student Research Recognition and Awards Luncheon.

Winners of this year’s poster presentations include:

Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration
Jeevan Sai Gali
Graduate, Information Systems and Technology
Faculty Mentor: Nima Molavi
Presentation Title: “Predicting Late Deliveries in International Healthcare Logistics Using Machine Learning Models”

Koa Young
Undergraduate, Information Systems and Technology
Faculty Mentor: Benjamin Becerra
Presentation Title: “Correlation Between Health Insurance and Social Determinants Using Data Science”

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Itzayana Garcia
Graduate, Social Work
Faculty Mentor: Caroline Lim
Presentation Title: “Structural Barriers Undocumented Individuals Face Pursuing Professional Licensure”

Valdrex Philippe
Undergraduate, Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Cari Goetz
Presentation Title: “Correlates and Influences on Desire for Children”

College of Natural Sciences
Ashley Horn
Undergraduate, Biology
Faculty Mentor: April Karlinsky
Presentation Title: “One of These Bodies is Not Like the Others: Contrast Effects Emerge When Rating Body Sizes of Individuals Presented in Groups”

Edgar Rolon
Graduate, Biology
Faculty Mentor: Nicole Bournias-Vardiabasis
Presentation Title: “Passive Electronic Cigarette Exposure Initiates Squamous Metaplasia in a Developing 3D Human Tracheobronchial Epithelial Tissue In-Vitro Model”

College of Arts and Letters
Kendra Tallchief-Stanley
Undergraduate, English
Faculty Mentor: Erin Hall
Presentation Title: “Using an Automated Tool to Compare the Vowel Production of Spanish-English Bilinguals With and Without a History of Language Disorder”

James R. Watson and Judy Rodriguez Watson College of Education
Camille Rhyne, Sasha Tesoro, Jasmin Escalante
Graduate, Education
Faculty Mentor: Lisa Looney
Presentation Title: “Engagement, Consistency, and Care: How Research Assistants Support Students in Cognitive Training”

Winners of this year’s oral presentations include:

Mohammed Arfa Uruj
(Session 1) Graduate, Computer Science, Natural Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Nabeel Alzahrani
Presentation Title: “Cancer Detection Using Deep Learning: A Survey of Modern Techniques”

Rachel Kanter
(Session 2) Undergraduate, Psychology, Social & Behavioral Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Christina Hassija
Presentation Title: “Moral Injury as a Mediator Between High Betrayal Trauma and Mental Health Symptoms”

Jessica Swan-Prung
(Session 3) Graduate, Psychology, Social & Behavioral Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Brittany Bloodhart
Presentation Title: “Women in STEM and Parental Influence Using the Expectancy-Value-Cost Theory”

Jessica Andrews
(Session 4) Undergraduate, Child Development, Social & Behavioral Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Stacy Morris
Presentation Title: “Charisma Check: Exploring Social Skills in Adolescents Through Dungeons and Dragons”

Emma Avila
(Session 5) Undergraduate, English, Arts & Letters
Faculty Mentor: Kate Simonian
Presentation Title: “Boy and Butcher Girl”

Alewa Anaya
(Session 6) Graduate, Psychology, Social & Behavioral Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Nicolaas Brunet
Presentation Title: “The Impact of Eyewear on Early and Mid-Latency ERP Components of Face Processing”

Luis Trejo and Rene Toribio
(Session 7) Undergraduate, Biology, Natural Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Nicole Bournias-Vardiabasis
Presentation Title: “Evaluating the Effect of Nicotine Exposure on Drosophila melanogaster, a Model for Respiratory Diseases”

Maria Fernanda Esqueda
(Session 8) Graduate, Social Sciences and Globalization, Social & Behavioral Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Rajrani Kalra
Presentation Title: “Whittier: The City of Displaced Angels – A Geospatial Analysis of Gentrification in Whittier, California”

Logan Ashbaugh
(Session 9) Graduate, Computer Science, Natural Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Yan Zhang
Presentation Title: “A Comparative Study of Sentiment Analysis on Customer Reviews Using Machine Learning and Deep Learning”

Rudy Garcia
(Session 10) Undergraduate, Sociology, Social & Behavioral Sciences
Faculty Mentor: King-To Yeung
Presentation Title: “Pathways to Transformation: Higher Education and Cognitive Resilience for Formerly Incarcerated Students”

Vishwa Bhatt
(Session 11) Graduate, Computer Science, Natural Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Jennifer Jin
Presentation Title: “Prompt Engineering & AI-Assisted Learning: Improving ChatGPT’s Response Quality”

Alejandra Lujan, Marissa Sanchez, Angie Martinez
(Session 12) Graduate, Psychological Sciences, Social & Behavioral Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Cynthia Crawford
Presentation Title: “Impact of Adolescent Nicotine Exposure on Methamphetamine Reward”

Apolo Ibanez-Rincon
(Session 13) Graduate, Biology, Natural Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Angela Horner
Presentation Title: “Effects of Early-Life Exercise on Tendon Morphological and Material Properties”

Saul Arias
(Session 14) Undergraduate, Mathematics – Teaching Mathematics Concentration, Natural Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Laura Wallace
Presentation Title: “Instruct Mathematics: Reconnect with Effectiveness”

Del Gerard
(Session 15) Graduate, Entrepreneur, Business & Public Administration
Faculty Mentor: Michelle Russen
Presentation Title: “Lifting Black Leaders: A Bottom-Up Approach to Facilitating Hospitality Leadership”

Harleen Kaur Maroak
(Session 16) Graduate, Public Health, Natural Sciences
Faculty Mentors: Kathleen Ragsdale, Terezie Tolar-Peterson, Kendra Byrd
Presentation Title: “Macronutrient Evaluation Results: ComFA+Fish Instant Porridge – A Novel Complementary Food Targeting Childhood Stunting in Zambia”

Paola Lopez
(Session 17) Graduate, Industrial Organizational Psychology, Social & Behavioral Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Mark Agars
Presentation Title: “Clocking out: Experiences of Customer Sexual Harassment, Coping, and Psychological Well-Being Among Waitresses”

Calvin Glisson
(Session 18) Graduate, Computer Science, Natural Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Qiuxiao Chen
Presentation Title: “HSDA: High-Frequency Shuffle Data Augmentation for Bird’s-Eye-View Map Segmentation”

Farheen Akhter
(Session 19) Graduate, Computer Science and Engineering, Natural Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Qingquan Sun
Presentation Title: “Deep Learning Based on Bed Posture Recognition Using Pressure Sensor Arrays”