Overview
The Richard J. and Martha D. Denman Undergraduate Research Forum is an annual event that showcases research projects from the brightest undergraduates at Ohio State. Since 1995, the Denmans have supported this forum and continue to promote Ohio State as alumni.
The Denman Undergraduate Research Forum provides an opportunity for graduating student researchers to share their research endeavors with the broader community. This is our only competitive poster forum in which winners are recognized in each category as determined by faculty, staff, and Denman alumni reviewers. Students will be reviewed on their ability to communicate their research process and results effectively in both their written poster content and accompanying oral presentation. During the Denman Forum, we celebrate not only the hard work of these students, but also the dedication of their faculty research mentors.
In addition to the generous awards provided by the Denmans, we also partner with several organizations to award discipline-specific prizes, including the Center for Ethics and Human Values, the Infectious Disease Institute, the Secondary Data Core, and the Sustainability Institute. Students researching topics related to these fields are especially encouraged to apply to present at the Denman Forum.
Who can participate in the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum?
The Denman is open to students graduating in any semester of the calendar year of the event who have conducting faculty-mentored research. The 2024 Denman Forum, therefore, is open to students graduating in spring 2024, summer 2024, and autumn 2024.
Although the majority of students present alone, students working on the same project under the same faculty mentor are allowed to present in pairs. Additionally, students may present research that was conducted under the supervision of a non-Ohio State faculty mentor.
While final results are not necessary to present, because this is a competitive forum, having results to share may help our reviewers evaluate your work.
What are the application requirements for the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum?
Students should be prepared to complete a Qualtrics application with the following information:
- Student's background and contact information
- Research mentor's name and contact information
- Research/creative project title, abstract and category selection
- Research/creative project co-presenter, if any
- Ohio State advising report upload (used to verify 2024 graduation)
Is the work presented in the Denman automatically published?
Students who participate in the Denman Forum are eligible to submit their work to the Ohio State's Libraries' Knowledge Bank Denman Collection. We do not automatically publish any work, and students are not required to submit their work to the Knowledge Bank. Students should confer with their research mentor before publishing.
Application Information
The Denman Forum application will be available on January 2, 2025. The 30th annual Denman Undergraduate Research Forum will take place on Tuesday, March 4 in the Ohio Union.
Denman 2024 Winners
The 29th annual Denman Undergraduate Research Forum included over 200 presentations from senior undergraduate researchers. We congratulate all our participants for their hard work throughout their undergraduate research experience! Every presentation received scored reviews from three separate reviewers. These scores were totaled to determine winners in each of our 10 categories. Winners were invited to an awards reception on Thursday, March 7, 2024, where they received a certificate of scholarship, placement medallion and ribbon, and cash prize. Thanks to the generosity of the Denman family, our Honorable Mention winners received $200; Third Place received $300, Second Place, $400; and our First Place winners received $500. The Denman Forum is meant to showcase research from the brightest undergraduates at Ohio State, and we applaud these students for this well-deserved honor and celebrate their excellent work and determination! Please select a category below to read the winners' names and project titles.
Insect & Other Animal Sciences
First Place: Kara Flaherty, "Evaluating the Effect of Placental Lactogen on Fatty Acid Concentration and Hepatitis E Virus Replication in Human Liver Cells"
Second Place: Hannah Largen, "The use of acceptance and avoidance behaviors expressed by various species to evaluate animal response during brief human-animal interactions"
Third Place: Olivia Houpt, "Understanding the impact of Bythotrephes longimanus on Yellow Perch angling success in western Lake Erie"
Honorable Mention: Natalie Sebunia, "Trends in Raptor Admittance in Urban and Rural Wildlife Rehabilitation Centers"
Business, Society & International Relations
First Place: Ryanna Tietje, "Securing the Future of the Farm: Impacts of Farm Succession Planning"
Second Place: Sarah Kocher, "TravelReady Currency Package: Enhancing the Currency Exchange Experience"
Third Place: Grace Zhang, "Extreme Governance: A Modern Analysis of Dual-Class Firms in the United States"
Honorable Mention: Madison Meixner, "An Exploration of the Implementation of Political Gender Quotas and Public Opinion: A Case Study of Sierra Leone"
Earth & Beyond
First Place: Mackenzie Hoog and Sheriden Schuerman, "An Exploration of Climate Change Experience and Climate Self-Efficacy"
Second Place: Blake Murray, "An Evaluation of the Accuracy of Numerical Weather Prediction for a Summer Antarctic Severe Storm"
Third Place: Jacob Welter, "Physiological responses of the resilient coral Stylophora pistillata to chronic elevated temperature"
Honorable Mention: Radhika Abeywickrama, "Understanding Pollen Development Through Isolation of Genes used in Exine and Aperture Formation in Arabidopsis thaliana"
Engineering & Technology
First Place: Carter Taylor, "Experimental Measurements and Numerical Finite Element Models of Radial Indentation"
Second Place: Ethan Butler, "Delta-Wing Leading Edge Vortex Control Using Active Flow Control Jets"
Third Place: Katie Vatke, "Optimization of Rapid Sand Filtration for Passive Water Treatment"
Honorable Mention: Michael Tomechko, "High Capacity Iron-poor Ferrites for Syngas Generation from Carbon Dioxide and Methane"
Health Under the Microscope
First Place: Riley Britt, "Repeated social defeat increases perineuronal nets via microglia and neuronal IL-1 signaling in a region-dependent manner"
Second Place: Anupama Narayana, "Defining Mechanisms of Binding Utilized by the Infective Endocarditis Pathogen Streptococcus mitis"
Third Place: Emily Williams, "Identification of Genes Critical to Fitness of a Cariogenic Bacteria in Mixed-Species Settings"
Honorable Mention: Benjamen (Hank) Kern, "MG53 AAV Constructs as a Gene Therapy for Dysferlinopathies"
The Human Experience
First Place: Ray Mathew-Santhosham, "Puzzling Pictures: Feasibility Study of a Collage Art Trauma Reprocessing Intervention for LGBTQ+ Emerging Adults"
Second Place: Maggie Duffy, "An Attentional Serial Reaction Time Task"
Third Place: Nicole Pickard, "Previous Trauma Impacts Human Behavior During Equine Assisted Services"
Honorable Mention: Morgan Vereb, "Channels of Knowledge: The Future of Community Library Design"
Innovations in Medicine
First Place: Christina Isckarus, "A Novel Adjuvant to Enhance NK Cell Response in HIV Preventive Vaccines"
Second Place: Sadie Potts, "Investigating the Effect of Small Molecules on the Differentiation of Müller Glia-Derived Progenitor Cells into Retinal Neurons"
Third Place: Shulian Guo, "Optogenetic Modulation of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) Engineered for Precise Control of Arrhythmias"
Honorable Mention: Dina Bayachou, "Investigating the effect of phosphomimetic mutations of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein on viral RNA binding"
Pediatric & Family Health
First Place: Sanjana Ranade, "Hormonal contraceptives in adolescence perturb the neuroimmune environment of the prefrontal cortex"
Second Place: Divya Gopal, "ADHD Symptom Severity and Neural Reward Processing in Children"
Third Place: Calyn Evans, "Exploring early indicators of persisting versus resolving childhood apraxia of speech"
Honorable Mention: Jordyn Singleton, "Peripartum Opioid Exposure Alters Neuroimmune Cells and the Maternal Behavior of Postpartum Rats"
Public Health
First Place: Lyric Ransom, "Effective distribution of VWM resources does not depend on VWM capacity"
Second Place: Olivia Farinas, "Characterizing the indoor microbiome in an unoccupied house used for research"
Third Place: Varshini Chennupati, "Follicular T and B Cell Interplay in ART-Treated Perinatally HIV-Acquired Adolescents"
Honorable Mention: Rachel Mitchell, "The Combined Effect of Anxiety and Substance Use on Quality of Life in Traumatic Brain Injury Patients"
Understanding Cancer
First Place: Alexander Abreo, "Brd4 inhibition leads to Reduction of Myeloid Derived Suppressor Cells in Solid Tumors"
Second Place: Reem Ahmed, "Factors Impacting Tumor Displacement Artifact and Pseudo-Lymphovascular Invasion in Testicular Germ Cell Tumors"
Third Place: Amanda Jay, "Engineering an fgfr4 knockout zebrafish to study genetic cooperation in rhabdomyosarcoma"
Honorable Mention: Hasan Pracha, "MIF Inhibitor CPSI-1306 targets HNSCC with reduced markers of immunosuppression"
Partner Awards
Sponsored by the Center for Ethics and Human Values:
These awards are accompanied by a $500 cash prize.
Center for Ethics and Human Values Award: Madison Meixner, "An Exploration of the Implementation of Political Gender Quotas and Public Opinion: A Case Study of Sierra Leone" and Averi Wolf, "Woven Roots - A Holistic Women's Wellness Center"
Civil Discourse for Citizenship Award: Morgan Vereb, "Channels of Knowledge: The Future of Community Library Design"
Sponsored by the Infectious Disease Institute:
IDI Award: Varshini Chennupati, "Follicular T and B Cell Interplay in ART-Treated Perinatally HIV-Acquired Adolescents"
Sponsored by the Secondary Data Core:
These awards are accompanied by a $100 cash prize.
Secondary Data Core Award: Reid Miller, "Early onset substance use behaviors predict past 30-day substance misuse in adolescents" and Deondray Radford, "A Content Analysis of Highly Viewed #Autism TikTok Videos"
Sponsored by the Sustainability Institute:
SI Award: Robert Furlong, "A contribution to the the biological production of Hydrogen Gas by the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii;" Briana McNeal, "The buzz around climate change: Analyzing the underlying causes of increased attention towards climate change topics in academic and media-based literature and exploring their interconnections;" and Mark Yaseen, "Organic Aqueous Zn-Tetrazine Redox Batteries"
