Session III

Representative Maura Hirshauer hails from the 53rd Congressional district of Illinois, representing West Chicago and Bartlett. I worked with the Representative’s office to research and propose legislation that modifies Illinois’s Baby Bonds System. In the status quo, Illinois offers a $50 dollar seed fund for the opening of a 529 account for any child born after 2022. My proposed legislation, ... Read More

We have reported previously that during hypoxia exposure, the expression of mature miR- 17~92 was first upregulated and then downregulated in PASMC and in mouse lungs in vitro and in vivo. Here we investigated the mechanisms regulating this bi-phasic expression of miR-17~92 in PASMC in hypoxia. We measured the level of primary miR-17~92 in PASMC during hypoxia exposure and found ... Read More

KiwiWrite Math Software LLC is a web application designed for students who have dysgraphia, a condition that makes it difficult to physically write, that allows students to edit their math worksheets in PDF or image format online. As an intern, I handled a variety of tasks that varied over time according to business needs, ranging from software testing to creating ... Read More

Leishmaniasis is an infectious, neglected tropical disease that needs further funding for research purposes. Leishmaniasis is a parasite associated with neglected populations who experience poor domestic sanitary conditions, weak immune systems, malnutrition, and lack of financial resources. In majority of cases, this disease is fatal if left untreated. Treatments and therapies have shown a lack of effectiveness over the disease ... Read More

After stroke, patients experience significant loss in performing activities of daily living (ADL) such as reach-and-grasp. The paresis mainly affects the side of the body contralateral to the lesion and slight deficits to the ipsilesional side, causing an asymmetry in impairment. However, we lack a comprehensive understanding of how functional reach-to-grasp is impaired following stroke, especially during bi-manual tasks. This ... Read More

Context: Computational convection simulations are a critical tool for understanding the dynamics of a variety of different environments; including the complex interiors of stars. Methods Direct-Numerical-Simulations of Rayleigh-Bernard convection are performed within a periodic rectangular domain. A localized decrease in thermal diffusivity (𝛼𝛼) is imparted within the domain at a certain temperature, with a parameterized amplitude (A) of decrease. Runs ... Read More

Atopic dermatitis (AD; eczema) is a chronic skin disorder characterized by inflammation, itching, and compromised skin barrier function. Pathogenesis involves genetic factors, immune dysregulation, and skin barrier ceramide alterations. This research project explores the relationship between the ceramide de novo pathway and AD severity. Severity was determined serially based on assessing erythema, scaling, edema, and erosion using a 12-point scale ... Read More

Alcohol use in America remains a complex issue shaped by cultural, historical, and socioeconomic factors, with variations that often highlight the immigrant paradox between immigrants and native-born Americans. It's been ingrained in many social customs, traditions, and religious practices across regions and demographics, making it vital to use those factors to understand differences in consumption rates between these two groups. ... Read More

The epidermal compartment of skin balances proliferation for tissue self-renewal and terminal differentiation for essential barrier function. This study examines how keratinocytes, the cells that comprise the epidermis, build a barrier as they become terminally differentiated. To assess the function of the epidermal barrier, we used an epithelial voltohmmeter (EVOM2) to measure the transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER, Ω⋅cm2) of keratinocyte ... Read More

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to determine the efficiency and stability of introducing natural killer (NK) cells in the existing immunotherapy for melanoma cancer known as LAG-3 CD223. NK cells are already in use for HIV immunotherapy, however, are not available in current cancer treatments. Including NK cells can allow the body to develop a natural means to attack ... Read More

Authorities all across the world are trying to minimize carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and this decarbonization step is necessary if the global climate issue is to be resolved. Researchers at Argonne have modified a natural gas-burning microturbine to burn natural gas-hydrogen fuel blends with the aim to reduce CO2 emissions. Emissions and efficiency data are obtained viaexperiments performed at Argonne. ... Read More

The phenomenon of dark matter has perplexed physicists for decades, and, to find it, some physicists hypothesize a dark sector of particles. These particles interact little with Standard Model particles and have an electromagnetism like force carried by dark photons. We find that using one trigger that searches for isolated muons with pT>24GeV and another that searches for a muon ... Read More

PAWS Chicago, the city’s largest animal rescue, is committed to tackling urban pet homelessness and abuse. Throughout the internship, work has been done with various programs, such as adoption, crisis-care, Parvo+ puppy care, CACC (Chicago Animal Care and Control) diversion, pet food pantries, feral cat TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release), domestic and international transports, fundraising, and more, to aid in PAWS’ ... Read More

3D reconstruction for images has several applications including mixed reality, game development, and film production. Recently, several 3D reconstruction algorithms have been proposed such as Neural Radiance Fields (NERF) and 3d Gaussian Splatting, which can synthesize realistic images from novel viewpoints. However, these algorithms do not model the physical interactions of objects in scenes, which are crucial for an immersive ... Read More

Beginning in February 2022, Russia’s invasion in Ukraine marked one of the largest invasions of a European country since World War II and impacted numerous people worldwide. Our project aims to study public opinions and topics of discussion during this international crisis by analyzing daily tweets and news articles from April 2022 to June 2023. For our analyses, we utilized ... Read More

In 1820, the correlation between magnetic field and electricity was discovered by physicists and led to the study of electromagnetism. Magnets put charge particles (electrons) in motion, creating magnetic fields that make magnetic forces. This force can be measured through the use of a magnetometer, which requires real magnets and time to put the experiment together. These magnetic fields are ... Read More

Leishmaniasis, caused by Leishmania parasites, poses a significant health burden globally, particularly in tropical regions. Despite its prevalence and impact, current treatments are expensive, often requiring hospitalization, and face challenges such as drug resistance. This study aims to develop more effective and affordable treatments for various forms of leishmaniasis. Using the compound DNDI0003202883 as a starting point, two carboxylic acids ... Read More

In cancer treatment, nano-scintillators have emerged as crucial for advancing X-ray-activated therapy. These innovative materials possess a unique ability to convert X-ray radiation into visible light, enhancing the effectiveness of treatment and reducing damage to healthy tissues. This paper provides an in-depth exploration of the synthesis and characterization of nano-scintillators designed explicitly for this purpose. It delves into various fabrication ... Read More

The gut-microbiome is a crucial part of the human digestive system, responsible for the regulation of metabolism as well as the immune system. Fiber and high fiber diets have been researched to understand their correlation with the health of the gut-microbiome. However, recent findings have shown that fiber can have additional health effects, such as inflammation, in certain populations (Wastyk ... Read More

Under the supervision of Dr. Anil U. Mane, this investigation explores the environmental factors and the electrical resistance characteristics of microchannel plates. In particular, it examines the fundamental query: What impact do variables such as choice of materials, film thickness, temperature variations, and atmosphere have on the resistance properties displayed by these thin films? As researchers in the field of ... Read More

Extant literature suggests that rewards in the environment drive learning. Additionally, older adults have demonstrated an impaired ability to learn from reward feedback. However, recent work indicates that information can be just as, if not more, useful as rewards in reinforcement learning paradigms. The Battleship project aimed to explore how these cues uniquely guide learning about one’s environment differently across ... Read More

A popular Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm in the gaming world used for the Robo player is called Minimax. This paper presents research aimed at improving the efficiency of minimax algorithms in the context of quantum chess, a variant of traditional chess that incorporates principles of quantum mechanics. Quantum chess introduces additional complexity due to the superposition and entanglement of quantum ... Read More

To learn more about the roles of Hox A9/A10 in leukemia development, we use an in-vivo model for myeloid differentiation. Mixed lineage leukemia 1 (MLL1) is a gene rearrangement of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). Ubiquitination, the addition of ubiquitin to proteins, also modifies AML

Patients with MLL-1 rearranged variation of AML do not survive for more than six months with ... Read More

As the number of deepfake image generators has skyrocketed, so has the number of deepfake detection models. However, explainability in these models remains underexplored, which is the key to building trust with users, and these are black box models. To address this issue, we studied how humans can understand the model’s justification behind its decision by integrating explainable AIs (XAIs) ... Read More

Reducing HIV infection is a public health priority, with the Getting to Zero (GTZ) initiative in Illinois striving to stop new HIV infections by 2030, ending the epidemic in the state. Increasing HIV prevention, self-management, and harm reduction among at-risk populations is critical. HIV prevalence in individuals engaged in transactional sex or sex workers is 12 times greater than the ... Read More

Painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN) is a debilitating complication of diabetes with patients suffering from a painful, burning sensation in their extremities. Available treatments have limited effect in masking the pain without addressing the underlying mechanisms of the disease, which are currently poorly understood. Keratinocytes are in close proximity to cutaneous nerve terminals, enabling bidirectional communication between keratinocytes and cutaneous nerves. ... Read More

PM Construction is a general contracting company that performs a wide range of construction contracts, but specializes in commercial construction. The focus of the business project was to use various Computer Aided Design (CAD) softwares to design construction plans and generate estimates for job costs and scope of work. Over the course of seven months, the company provided opportunities to ... Read More

High-performance computing (HPC) applications often suffer performance degradation due to contention on storage servers when multiple compute nodes access small files. This paper proposes a cooperative cache layer to alleviate bottlenecks by funneling I/O requests through a specialized service on a single node, distributing results via a binary tree overlay network.

Objectives include reducing load on storage servers, increasing cache ... Read More

For our analysis of dark photons and the doubly-charged Higgs boson to get an accurate prediction of the number of events that can be expected, cross sections can be used in conjunction with luminosity that is set by each collaboration respectively and efficiency which is given by monte carlo. Using the given luminosity and efficiency it can be expected that ... Read More

Approximately 10% of breast cancers are hormone-receptor-positive. Despite the array of available drugs for metastatic breast cancer, ribociclib stands out as one of the most potent options, particularly effective against HER2- breast cancer. However, its efficacy is countered by notable side effects including liver issues, neutropenia, skin reactions, and cardiac/respiratory problems. This research project aimed to computationally design molecules derived ... Read More

The USA is currently facing its largest illicit drug consumption crisis among younger generations. Additionally, high-intensity drinking is currently at historically high levels prompting diverse prevention efforts. Research has revealed disparities in substance use behaviors and disorders by sex and ethnicity, yet few studies have examined intersectionality of these factors. A better understanding of how biological (sex) and environmental/societal (race, ... Read More

Single ventricular defects are a type of congenital heart disease that can be treated through the Fontan Procedure, where a conduit is implanted connecting the inferior vena cava (IVC) to the pulmonary artery (PA). Native vasculature grows over time, whereas the synthetic conduit does not. This study focused on the growth of the PA over time, resulting in conduit shape ... Read More

Equity in STEMM Innovation and AI (EQ-SI) is a diversity-driven organization aimed to increase female and racial minority presence in the medical field. EQ-SI was created by Ms. Dima Elissa, who is also the CEO of VisMed3D, a biotechnology consulting company. Our business project catalyzed many of EQ-SI’s projects including the expansion of the curriculum and development of STEMM Prep+, ... Read More

Neuroblastoma is the most common extracranial solid tumor in childhood. Those with high-risk (HR) disease have a long-term survival rate of approximately 60%. Patients with high-risk neuroblastoma treated with the Anti-GD2 antibody have demonstrated significant improvements in outcome. Despite these improvements, approximately 30-35% patients continue to experience poor clinical outcomes. We aim to develop a biomarker of outcome which may ... Read More

Changes in the physical characteristics of cancer cells are a hallmark of tumorigenesis, and understanding how these changes affect tumor progression can provide novel therapeutic insights. Prior studies have discovered that increasing cancer cell stiffness reduces metastatic burden by activating cytotoxic T lymphocytes. MRTFA and MRTFB are two transcription factors that cause the stiffening of cancer cells, and preliminary data ... Read More

Skin is a vital organ that protects us from harmful substances including chemicals and bacteria. The epidermis, the outermost layer of skin, is in equilibrium between proliferation and differentiation to maintain tissue regeneration and barrier function, respectively. This equilibrium is largely dictated by calcium levels. Our study aims to understand the proliferation of keratinocyte skin cells in response to different ... Read More

The purpose of this design investigation was to create three user-friendly artificial intelligence (AI) models, specifically convolutional neural networks (CNNs), each designed using different and novel techniques for brain tumor detection from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans. These models aimed to assist medical professionals in overcoming inefficiencies, reducing human error, and surpassing existing models in accuracy by addressing various gaps ... Read More

The purpose of this research was twofold: 1) t investigate if plants that used varied photosynthetic pathways (C3 or CAM) decrease permafrost thaw amount and subsequent CO₂ accumulation and 2) ascertain if plant abundance has any additive impact Plants were selected from CAM and C3 groups due to their variations in methods of CO₂ fixation. This experiment addressed a gap ... Read More

Scintillating bubble chambers detect particle interactions between ionizing radiation and molecules in superheated liquids—liquids maintaining their state of matter despite being heated past their boiling point. These particle interactions can generate nuclear recoils, causing hot spikes experienced by small groups of the liquid’s molecules, which lead to bubblenucleation in the chamber. Interactions with dark matter may also produce nuclear recoils; ... Read More

We engineer a haptic device that renders touch and force-feedback across the user’s entire body by stimulating the brain. Our technique builds upon transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a neuroscience technology that non-invasively stimulates the brain using an electromagnetic coil. Medical-grade TMS coils are typically large, handheld devices, which makes integrating them into an actuated system challenging. Our technical contribution is ... Read More

Self-determination theory (SDT) states that humans are motivated to pursue things that are intrinsically valuable to them, such as wellness or autonomy. Serious games implement different tactics such as identity, interactivity, agency or control, challenge, narrative, feedback, and immersion, to motivate the player to play the game and absorb its “serious” content, which is meant to improve the player’s expertise ... Read More

Melanocytes are highly differentiated cells that produce pigment melanin inside melanosomes. Vitiligo is an autoimmune disease characterized by the immune system attacking melanocytes. The result is symmetric white patches on the skin devoid of melanin. While there is no cure for vitiligo, researchers have found too few regulatory T cells (Tregs) in the skin of patients with vitiligo, and injecting ... Read More

Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease that phlebotomine sandflies carry that typically affects impoverished tropical and subtropical regions, such as Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and southern Asian countries. Currently, 98 nations have endemic leishmaniasis (Bilal Zulfiqar et al., 2017). These sandflies carry protozoan parasites which can induce fever, weight loss, swelling of the spleen and liver, and abnormal blood ... Read More

Prosthetic foot stiffness is typically prescribed based on a person's weight and activity level, which may not be optimal for a particular patient. This study investigates how different prosthetic foot stiffness levels affect foot-ankle roll-over shape. The aim is to enhance gait function and prosthetic design for transfemoral prosthesis users. The study mechanically characterized the keel and bumper components on ... Read More

Physical fingerprints are frequently used as evidence in forensic investigations. However, fingerprint evidence is often chemically tampered with. The purpose of this experiment was to determine the individual impact that two chemicals: sodium hypochlorite and isopropyl alcohol have on the DNA that can be successfully extracted from a fingerprint. The results collected from this research can inform the advancement of ... Read More

Entanglement is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics that describes when two particles are intrinsically correlated and that one of the particles cannot be described without the others. The phenomenon of entanglement is not well understood by physicists. However, we may be able to better understand its behaviors by quantifying entanglement through entanglement measures. Entanglement measures aim to quantify the ... Read More

Human retinoblastoma is a pediatric cancer initiated by RB gene mutations in the developing retina. Originating in the retina, RB evolves in four separate stages. However, most patients do not have a distinct transition through these separate stages and these stages are not always preceded by a detectable preface state, making the cancer difficult to model. In this project, we ... Read More

This research presents an overview for search query management in StackOverflow, a popular platform for programming in which users can ask and answer questions about their code. With the use of Natural

Language Processing (NLP) techniques, and models including TF-IDF (Term Frequency – Inverse Document Frequency), GloVe (Global Vectors for Word Representation), OpenAI’s GPT, and Sentence-BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from ... Read More

As autonomous vehicles (AVs) become increasingly prevalent, their interaction with human drivers presents a critical challenge. Current AVs lack social awareness, causing behavior that is often awkward or unsafe. To combat this, social AVs, which are proactive rather than reactive in their behavior, have been explored in recent years. With knowledge of robot-human interaction dynamics, a social AV can influence ... Read More

The existence of organic molecules outside of the atmosphere can serve as an indication of life outside of Earth and contribute to our understanding of the formation of stars. We search for methanol in star forming ultra-compact and hyper-compact HII regions through the use of spectral analysis. Examining data collected from the Very Large Array in region G032.7441 we compiled ... Read More

Since 2019, there has been a notable rise in yearly heart transplantation rates following circulatory death (DCD) in the United States. The primary procurement methods are direct procurement and perfusion (DPP) and normothermic regional perfusion (NRP). DPP relies on ex situ machine perfusion with cold crystalloid cardioplegia followed by normothermic blood reperfusion. NRP involves in situ reperfusion using an open ... Read More

This project aims to investigate and identify the disparities in resource allocation across Chicago's Public School System. Leveraging an array of data science tools including Microsoft Excel functions, Python, and Jupyter Notebook, we have conducted comprehensive analyses. Our data derives from publicly accessible datasets obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from CPS and the Illinois State Board of ... Read More

This paper presents a Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication system designed to enhance road safety by leveraging Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything technology and the Global Navigation Satellite System. Unlike Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), which rely on external sensors and direct vehicle control for collision avoidance, this module focuses on boosting driver awareness through real-time auditory alerts. Utilizing the vehicle's onboard diagnostic port for ... Read More

Leishmaniasis is a tropical disease caused by infection, primarily spread by sandflies. Current treatments are unreliable, toxic, and expensive, making them unfeasible for many. A new treatment is being researched, using 5-chloro-1,3-benzoxazol-2-amine, a promising lead amine researched by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative's Open Synthesis Network. The synthesized analogs underwent Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Infrared Spectroscopy tests to ... Read More

In this paper, we investigate the efficacy of the divide and conquer approach for implementing distributed logistic regression and distributed support vector machine (SVM) algorithms for classification of large-scale datasets. This approach is designed to handle datasets that exceed thecapacity of a single processor, necessitating the partitioning of data into multiple subsets. Logistic regression or SVM is then applied to ... Read More

We studied the optical properties of Eu-doped bismuth borate glass samples. A series of bismuth borate glass samples were prepared with variations in mole percentages per compound. These molar ratios were as follows: xBi₂O₃: (99-x)B₂O₃ : 1Eu₂O₃ where x = 30, 40, 50, 60 mol %. These mixtures were then melted, quenched, annealed, and polished to create four transparent glass ... Read More

Mixed reality (XR) can be simply described as a fusion between augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR), allowing interactions to occur between a virtual world and physical elements. With powerful applications in the educational, medical, and entertainment industries, our exploration of this vast technology primarily focuses on utilizing a virtual setting to track the location of objects in the physical ... Read More

Breast cancer is a significant public health concern, with varying incidence and mortality rates among different demographic groups. Recent studies suggest a potential association between air pollution and breast cancer rates, prompting our investigation within specific Chicago areas from 2015 to 2021. Analyzing data from Metopio, across 77 community areas, we focused on PM2.5 as the primary air pollution variable. ... Read More

TORCH Architecture is an Architecture firm from Naperville, Illinois. TORCH has completed a wide range of projects, but a majority of the projects that I have aided them with were their commercial projects, specifically car dealerships. There is an extensive revision process for every building permit at the end of a project, so I worked with colleagues to write response ... Read More

Many extensions of the Standard Model predict the doubly charged Higgs boson (H++), a beyond the Standard Model particle. To search for the H++, we compare data with Monte Carlo background estimates through a validation plot to examine if there is a statistically significant difference. To generate this plot, we first created a framework to process and work with data ... Read More

Ferrofluids, composed of magnetic nanoparticles suspended in a carrier liquid, offer unique fluidic properties and can be manipulated by external magnetic fields. My research project focuses on employing varying magnetic fields to control ferrofluids and investigates manipulating them to explore their potential for innovative navigation systems.

The experimental setup uses high-speed cameras to image a ferrofluid drop on a hydrophobic ... Read More

Machine learning applications in diagnosing and predicting seizure symptoms among high-risk patients are critical to prevent life-threatening injuries. Despite existing research achieving near-perfect accuracies in controlled environments, existing models often falter in clinical settings and wearable devices, resulting in high false alarm rates and lower prediction success for Tonic-Clonic seizures. The OpenSeizureDatabase has revolutionized training models by incorporating previously unavailable ... Read More

High comorbidity exists between AUD and mood disorders, especially in women, with unclear causes. Depressive symptoms may affect alcohol abuse liability and mood effects. Women, twice as likely to have depressive disorders, face higher AUD risk post-major depressive disorder diagnosis.

Understanding alcohol abuse and depression link in women is vital. We assessed alcohol abuse liability in moderately to heavily drinking ... Read More

Bladder exstrophy and neuropathic bladder are conditions that lead to dysfunctional bladder function, which congenital malformations or conditions may cause. Current surgical treatment can lead to a variety of complications, sparking a need for recreating bladder tissue to repair bladder function. During the study utilizing neonatal mesenchymal stem cells (nMSCs)-seeded elastomeric Poly(1,8-octanediol-co-citrate) (POC) scaffolds, rats underwent an approximate 50% bladder ... Read More

SciTech is a former children’s museum turned mobile learning center, focusing on STEM based educational activities. During the course of our internship we focused on marketing, program designing, and communication with other local businesses. We started by helping SciTech rebrand themselves and change into a more mobile company, and creating a solid frame by managing their social media. This included ... Read More

Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) affecting over 90 countries today. Visceral Leishmaniasis, is the most serious form of Leishmaniasis. Current treatment is shown to be toxic such as Liposomal amphotericin and no vaccine or medicine prevents or reduces infection. The project is partnered with Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi). The purpose of this project was to use ... Read More

Several machine learning models trained on electronic health records (EHR) data have been able to predict risk for Type 2 Diabetes accurately, but the efficacy in risk prediction for models trained on synthetic genotype data remains to be tested extensively. Using data gathered from Genome-Wide

Association Studies (GWAS) analyses, we identified several genes correlated with Type 2 Diabetes, each with ... Read More

Clinical Large-Language Models (LLMs) are essential to the biomedical industry: they can analyze and interpret physician notes, anonymize patient health information, and supplement diagnoses in various medical practices. Nowadays, most widely used clinical large-language models are trained on medical text that masks protected health information---corpora unlike the data that the models are used on in the field. Despite this, little ... Read More

The Chicago Black Renaissance marked a significant cultural, social, and artistic movement among African-Americans in the South Side of Chicago following the Great Migration in the early 20th century. This period witnessed a flourishing of racial pride expressed through various forms of creativity such as literature, music, and art. Walter Sanford, a prominent artist of this movement, contributed significantly to ... Read More

Hox genes are conserved across all eukaryotic life. Playing an integral role in limb development, Hox genes produce transcription factors that regulate gene expression within embryos, subsequently impacting morphogenesis and the location of the spine and limbs. Playing such a crucial role in developmental genetics, investigations into transcription factors within Hox genes have been a recent topic of interest in ... Read More