Undergraduate Research Day 2020

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/20158

With students involved in so many research opportunities, Undergraduate Research Day provides the perfect opportunity for them to share their work with the campus community. Held each April, Undergraduate Research Day showcases current research, scholarship, and artistic endeavors.

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    Comprehensive Multi-Timespan Analysis of Known AGN
    (2020) Riitano, Luca; Goodman, Jordan
    Only two sources of Very High Energy (VHE) gamma-rays (~50 GeV to ~10 TeV) from outside of the Milky Way have been detected by the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory. Although varying timescale analyses have been performed, a complete search of all multi-day time scales has not been executed. The primary sources of extragalactic VHE gamma-rays are Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), supermassive blackholes at the center of other galaxies, actively feeding on matter. I propose a comprehensive analysis of known AGN in all multi-day time scales since HAWC began operations. Such an analysis would allow for limits to be placed on the frequency of AGN flares, and improve our understanding of AGN in the VHE regime. In order to determine the significance of the flux received, a False Alarm Rate (FAR) must first be established by analyzing the significance distribution of pseudomaps created by poisson fluctuating the background. This step requires the bulk of computing time and is nearly complete. The next step will be to run the program to determine the significance of known AGN on a comprehensive set of timescales.
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    E. coli biofilm adhesion to porous and nonporous surfaces in spaceflight conditions
    (2020) Raghu, Apurva; Fang, Michelle; Adam, Debbie; Gooya, Niki; Keppetipola, Pali; Serrano, Daniel
    Biofilms are communities of microorganisms that have the capacity to facilitate the development of diseases. Previous literature has found that biofilm growth is affected by surface properties: for example, in some cases there is reduced biofilm formation on porous surfaces compared to non-porous surfaces. As humans continue to explore space, understanding the behavior of biofilms in spaceflight conditions will become critical. Research has indicated that bacterial colonies within microgravity environments exhibit atypical behaviors of increased growth and virulency. To help shed some light on these aspects of biofilm growth, our study analyzed the formation and adhesion of E. coli on porous and nonporous 99.99% aluminum on Earth and in space. The experiment was conducted both on Earth and at the International Space Station to determine if the presence of gravity impacts biofilm physiology on these surfaces. E. coli growth on nonporous and porous aluminum were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Qualitative analysis reveals a possible size difference between the Earth and space bacteria. However, no significant qualitative differences were observed between gravity and microgravity samples on porous and nonporous aluminum surfaces. We are currently analyzing our samples to corroborate or invalidate the presence of structural differences on biofilms in porous vs. nonporous surfaces and Earth vs. space settings. Further research is required to assess the morphology of individual bacteria on these aforementioned materials and growth settings.