Winners of Grad Slam Semifinal Round 1, who will advance to the Finals, are, from left, Leah Kuritzky, Dibella Wdzenczny, Michelle Oyewole, Damien Kudela, and Deborah Barany. Credit: Patricia Marroquin
In the first of two Grad Slam semifinal rounds, 10 presenters from a variety of disciplines wowed the audience with their research, expertise, and passion for making a difference. These graduate students are tackling important world problems such as climate change, coral reef degradation, energy inefficiency, the extinction of languages, racism, and treating diseases. Here is a recap of their presentations:
Leah Kuritzky spoke about maximizing light efficiency and output, while reducing costs. Credit: Patricia MarroquinLeah Kuritzky was the first presenter and she started off with a bang, or rather a flash, by lighting up the room with a prototype of a laser light. Leah hopes to maximize light efficiency and output, while reducing costs, which is critical in a country where 22% of the electricity goes toward lighting.
Haddy Kreie’s presentation juxtaposed mass media images of voodoo with more realistic representations of voodoo culture. Haddy’s research explores how the popular media images of voodoo in black culture assume and promote racial inferiority.
Philip Deslippe asked the audience to raise their hands if they practiced yoga or knew anyone who did. A large number of hands shot up in the air. Philip then explained how having such a high number of participants of yoga would not have been the case 40 years ago before yoga became mainstream and popular. Philip turned the traditional notion of yoga on its head and described how re-enculturation has made yoga a worldwide phenomenon.
Philip Deslippe addressed how re-enculturation has made yoga a worldwide phenomenon. Credit: Patricia Marroquin David Jacobson described how the human genome project, a 10-year, $3 billion study with the goal of understanding human DNA, only mapped 2% of the DNA. David asked, “What does the other 98% (the so-called non-coding DNA) do?” According to David, researchers need to map the entire web of interactions during the coding process in order to truly understand how life emerges and how diseases can be treated.
Dibella Wdzenczny showed some images that traditionally come to mind when thinking about Siberia (freezing, desolate land, tigers) and commented on the fact that people in Siberia are usually left out of the picture. What’s more problematic is that the many different languages in Siberia are disappearing as children are forced to learn Chinese and Russian in school. Since language is essential for understanding people, culture, and knowledge, Dibella believes that Siberia needs more linguists who can record languages and prevent them from extinction.
Michelle Oyewole started her presentation with two images of delicious-looking strawberries. She explained how even though these images look the same, the group of strawberries on the left gave off three times more emissions than the ones on the right. According to Michelle, “As organic agriculture continues to expand, there’s an increasing need to quantify emissions from these fields.” Michelle’s research looks as these emissions in relation to climate change and she hopes to find ways to reduce the emissions.
Deborah Barany compared the human brain to computers and described how even though we have incredibly advanced computers, like IBM’s Watson, computers are still very far behind in imitating human goal-directed actions. Deborah’s research uses a fMRI machine to study the brain. She hopes to find a way to harness thoughts and translate them into action.
Samantha Davis talked about efforts to help coral reefs recover. Credit: Patricia MarroquinDamien Kudela described how stopping bleeding has been a problem that has plagued scientists for a very long time (bandages have been traced back to ancient Greece). Damien’s research focuses on finding the “just right” dosage for blood clotting because “the quicker we can provide treatment, the more likely it is the patient will survive.”
Logan Fiorella shared how teaching is a highly dynamic process and past research fails to capture the complex nature of teaching. He designed a new model to help researchers and educators understand the many variables of the learning by teaching process.
Samantha Davis started her presentation with an image of a beautiful coral reef. Unfortunately, according to Samantha, coral reefs are dying off at an increasingly rapid pace and she believes this may be due to the coral reefs’ lack of resilience. Samantha hopes to uncover the causes of diminishing resilience in order to help coral reefs recover so that future generations can enjoy the beautiful oceans the way that we do.
After much contemplation, the judges selected the following five presenters to move on to the Grad Slam Final Round on Friday, April 18, at 3 p.m. in Corwin Pavilion:
Leah Kuritzky
Damien Kudela
Deborah Barany
Michelle Oyewole
Dibella Wdzenczny
