2021 IMSAloquium Student Investigation Showcase

Welcome to IMSAloquium 2021. This is IMSA’s 34th year of leading in educational innovation, and the 33rd year of the IMSA Student Inquiry and Research (SIR) Program.

This year is the first year that all student projects were conducted remotely for the entire academic year. For the second straight year, IMSAloquium will be remote. Projects will be presented concurrently in virtual “rooms” over the course of three morning sessions. After an absence from IMSAloquium last year, we are pleased that students from the IMSA Internship program will again be participating in IMSAloquium. One year ago when we wrote the welcome letter for the first remote IMSAloquium, we commented that as awful as COVID-19 is, it serves as a reminder of the importance of research. At that time, we had no way of knowing that science would bring us highly effective vaccines in such a short time.

Within this booklet, you will find a collection of abstracts from outstanding student projects. The topics range from biomedical research, chemistry and physics to mathematics to the social sciences, as well as business and entrepreneurial projects form our Internship students. Our students have worked hard on their projects, some individually, some in groups, and today is the day for them to display their hard work.

Many of our students have worked with mentors at leading universities, research laboratories, and businesses. Other students have worked with IMSA faculty on campus. In addition, this is the second year that students participated in on-campus SIR courses, and their work is represented at IMSAloquium. The SIR team would very much like to thank both our off-campus and on-campus mentors for their outstanding work with our students. The IMSA SIR program and the IMSA Internship program could not exist were it not for all of our mentors working with and advising our students.

In addition to thanking our SIR mentors, we wish to thank all the IMSA faculty and staff who helped support the SIR and Internship programs throughout the year, and their assistance with coordinating and hosting this year’s IMSAloquium.

We hope you enjoy your morning and find it to be a rewarding and educational experience!

Sincerely,

IMSA SIR Program Team
Sowmya Anjur, Ph.D.
Cathleen Cunz
Dave DeVol, Ph.D.

IMSA Internship Manager
Sue Fricano

IMSA Principal and Chief Academic Officer
Comfort Akwaji-Anderson, Ph.D., Principal
Jeanette Bartley, Ph.D., Dean of Academics and Equity
Paul Gaszak, Dean of Student Support and Equity

IMSA President
José M. Torres, PhD