2025 News 2025: Office of Undergraduate Research announces Spring 2025 Awards

2025 News 2025: Office of Undergraduate Research announces Spring 2025 Awards
Office of Undergraduate Research announces Spring 2025 Awards

OUR awards support student researchers by funding their proposals for research projects

The Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) is dedicated to supporting students who aspire to solve problems, make discoveries, and engage with research faculty beyond the classroom. Student researchers often gain significant advantages from these experiences, enhancing their graduate school applications and job placements. We should also commend their faculty supervisors, whose contributions sometimes go unnoticed. 

Please join us in congratulating the Spring 2025 OUR award recipients and their faculty mentors. These awards support student researchers by funding their proposals for research projects under the guidance of faculty supervisors. The awardees will present their work at the undergraduate research symposium in Fall 2025.

Spring 2025 recipients are: 

Katia da Silva – Nursing

  • Supervisor: Kristen Sethares
  • Title: Developing a Kinesthetic Learning Plan for Diabetes Management in Patients with Low Health Literacy

Elena De Pra – Chemistry and Biochemistry

  • Supervisor: Catherine Neto
  • Title: Comparison of Quercetin and Quercetin-3-Galactoside’s Inhibitory Potential Against Enzymes Involved in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Hillary McGee – Biochemistry

  • Supervisor: Tracie Ferreira
  • Title: Extraction, Fractionation, and Characterization of Cellular Vaults from MCF-7 Cancer Cells for Drug Delivery Applications

Aiden Morgado – Bioengineering

  • Supervisor: Christopher J. Brigham
  • Title: Transformation of Chitinolytic Machinery into Ralstonia eutropha

Mia Oliveira – Biology

  • Supervisor: Robert Drew
  • Title: Utilizing Environmental DNA for the Detection of Invasive Goldfish (Carassius auratus) and Koi (Cyprinus rubrofuscus) in Southeastern Massachusetts Water Systems

Maria Psichopaidas – Adult Nursing

  • Supervisor: Kristen Sethares
  • Title: Travel Nursing Career

Mehul Puri – Bioengineering

  • Supervisor: Milana Vasudev
  • Title: Gliding Motility Gene Deletion in Bacteria Cellulophaga lytica Using Suicide Vector pYT313

Ryley Thatcher – Biochemistry

  • Supervisor: Catherine Neto
  • Title: Massachusetts Cranberry Cultivar-Specific Impacts on Phytochemical Composition and Antioxidant Activity

Emma Thiboutot – Bioengineering

  • Supervisor: Tracie Ferreira
  • Title: Formulation of Smart Hydrogels with Embedded Nanoparticles for Targeted Melanoma Treatment