PULSE Seminar Series

Presentations by Undergraduates in Life Sciences and Engineering (PULSE)

Dating back to December 2020, Morgan State University's Office of Undergraduate Research partnered with the Johns Hopkins Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Coppin State University (CSU) in a cross-institutional seminar series. Beginning in Fall 2021, we made the decision to identify a research theme for respective semester dates. Every seminar will feature an undergraduate student from each institution who will present their research in an approximately 20-minute presentation (15 minute presentation with 5 minutes for questions and answers). 

April 2024 (Chemistry & Biochemical Sciences)

• MSU: Anaya Van Heyningen
  Topic: "Titanium Dioxide Exhibits Cytotoxicity on OECM-1 Squamous Carcinoma Cells"
• JHU: Kevin Nguyen
  Topic: "Spatiotemporal Regulation of Transcription Factors at Single-Molecule Resolution"
• CSU: Genesis Hernandez and Andrea Serrano
  Topic: "Qualitative Analysis of Fatty Acids and Lipids in Liver Tissue using GCMS"

March 2024 (Biological & Cell-Based Sciences)

• JHU: Susan Kim
  Topic: “Studying the heart’s pacemaker activity with optical mapping”
• MSU: Jahari Nelson
  Topic: "Phosphorylation of sarcomeric protein cTnl protects the heart against ischemia/reperfusion in both young and old mice"

February 2024 (Computational Sciences)

• MSU: Adonnis Price
  Topic: "Extractive Text Summarization using a Similarity Matrix"
• JHU: Ojas Chahal
  Topic: “Multimodal Deep Learning for Predicting Acute, New-Onset Heart Failure in COVID-19 Patients”

November 2023 (Chemistry & Biochemical Sciences)

• JHU: Sneja Raj
  Topic: “Mechanical Property Characterization of WE43 and ZX10 Magnesium Alloys for 3D Fabrication and use in Biomedical Applications”
• CSU: Angelo Chatmon
  Topic: "Semi critical CO₂-ethanol assisted extraction of photoinduced bioactive pigments from seaweed micro algae"

October 2023 (Biological & Cell-Based Sciences)

• CSU: Mariam Allison
  Topic: “Chaperoning of Asparagine repeat-containing proteins in Plasmodium falciparum” 
• JHU: Amanda Looi
  Topic: “ChAT (Choline Acetyltransferase) expression on CD4+ T cells”

September 2023 (Computational Sciences)

• JHU: Ryan Chou
  Topic: “Correcting for Rater Effect in Surgical Skills Assessment” 
• MSU: Mariah McMichael
  Topic: "Exploring the Impact of Student Learning and Programming Pedagogy while Adjusting to COVID-19 (An HBCU Case Study)"

April 2023 (Biological & Cell-Based Sciences)

• MSU: Emma Gudmundsson
  Topic: "Exploring Physiological Changes Caused by a Novel CACNA1A Mutation"
• JHU: Sean Healy
  Topic: “Vaso-lock: A Bio-inspired Suture-less Anastomosis Device”

March 2023 (Computational Sciences)

• CSU: Chika Iwuji
  Topic: "Silver Nanoparticle Synthesis and their Antibacterial Applications"
• MSU: Teqwon Norman
  Topic: "Intro to Quantum Computing and Security"
• JHU: Ann Jiang
  Topic: “”

February 2023 (Chemistry & Biochemical Sciences)

• MSU: Trinity Bolton
  Topic: "Engineering enzymatic activity in Neisseria meningitidis serogroup W capsule polymerase to make novel polysaccharides"
• JHU: Joshua Devier
  Topic: “Fractionation, Characterization, and Fusion of Immune Cell Organelles for Synthetic Cellular Biology”

November 2022 (Computational Sciences)

• CSU: Carolina Pellicier
  Topic: "Drought tolerance of Camelina, Sorghum, and Switchgrass Biofuel crops"
• MSU: Shaimeira Meekins
  Topic: "Dreadphobia: Evaluating the Usability of a Virtual Reality Application to Support Mental Health In Black Communities"
• JHU: Kiki Zhang
  Topic: “ImagingR: An Interactive Web Application for Visualizing Multimodality Imaging Data Using R and Shiny”

October 2022 (Biological & Cell-Based Sciences)

• MSU: Iyana Gross
  Topic: "Outcomes of Patients with Accelerated/Blast-Phase Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPNs)"
• JHU: Sarah Bortel
  Topic: 
• CSU: Nya Erin Hursey
  Topic: "Super Resolution Imaging of DNA Damage Response"

September 2022 (Chemistry & Biochemical Sciences)

• JHU: Alejandro Soto
  Topic: "Rational Design of a Sustained Release Nanodelivery System for Semaglutide to Treat Type 2 Diabetes"
• CSU: Olaide Akintade 
  Topic: "Magnetite nanoparticles for microplastics removal: synthesis and characterization"
• MSU: MaryAgnes Balogun
  Topic: "Molecular Biology and Bioinformatic Studies of the Neisseria meningitidis serogroup W Capsule Polymerase"

April 2022 (Computational Sciences)

• JHU: Nehali Gupta
  Topic: "Tissue Engineering Approaches for Cultivated Meat"
• CSU: D’Angelo Thompson 
  Topic: "Inductive Sol-Gel Crystallinity Associated with Shape and Size of bi-metallic Ca-Mg-Hydroxyapatite Scaffolds: A Synergistic Study"
• MSU: John-Paul Akinbami
  Topic: "Insights Into SIADW Enzyme Reaction Mechanism Through Molecular Modeling"

March 2022 (Biological & Cell-Based Sciences)

• MSU: Micaela Fleetwood
  Topic: "Correlating PSMA PET Imaging with Clinical and Pathologic Results in High-risk Prostate Cancer"
• JHU: Ranjani Ramasubramanian
  Topic: "Computational Methods for the Evaluation of de novo Antibody Designs"
• CSU: Kaylah Castillo & Ashley Roman 
  Topic: "Extraction and Qualitative Analysis of Lipids from Plasma Tissue"

February 2022 (Computational Sciences)

• CSU: Elijah Williams
  Topic: "Theoretical calculations of graphene oxide"
• MSU: Ime Essien
  Topic: "Differential Morphing Attack Detection in Respect to Age and Gender"
• JHU: Kesavan Venkatesh
  Topic: "Trustworthiness of Saliency Maps for Explainable AI in Medical Imaging"

November 2021 (Chemistry & Biochemical Sciences)

• JHU: Lucas Zhou
  Topic: "Higher Serum Cholesterol Levels Are Associated With Reduced Systemic Inflammation and Mortality During Tuberculosis Treatment Independent of Body Mass Index"
• CSU: Chika Iwuji
  Topic: "CREST Summer Research Accomplishments on Sediment and Soil Plastic Determination: Chemistry, Spectroscopy and Microscopy Preliminary Results"
• MSU: Barrington Henry
  Topic: "Mechanochemistry in Pharmaceutical Industry: Getting Molecular Insight"

October 2021 (Biological & Cell-Based Sciences)

• MSU: LaDonna Wyatt
  Topic: "Nanofer-25s Nanoparticle-mediated Growth and Particle Distribution in a Cyanobacterial Model"
• JHU: Dennis Gong
  Topic: "Machine Guided Structure Function Predictions Enable In-Silico Nanoparticle Screening for Polymeric Gene Delivery"
• CSU: Jawaun Harris
  Topic: "Storage Stability of Nanoparticles"

September 2021 (Computational & Data Sciences)

• CSU: Olaide Akintade
  Topic: "Magnetite nanoparticles for microplastics removal: synthesis and characterization"
• MSU: Teddy Wimberly
  Topic: "CS=Me: Exploring Psychological and Social Factors that Impact How Black/African American Women Identify with the Field of Computer Science"
• JHU: Joseph Boen
  Topic: "Inferring Copy Number Variation from Gene Expression Data: Methods, Comparisons, and Applications to Oncology"

April 2021

• MSU: Christopher Taylor, Electrical Engineering major
  Topic: "Neural correlates of attention during gambling predict cumulative winnings"
• JHU: Sandeep Kamhampti, Biomedical Engineering major
  Topic: "Estimating DNA methylation potential energy landscapes from nanopore sequencing data"

March 2021

• CSU: Tobi Olutimehin, Computer Science major
  Topic: "Creating a Chatbot using Python and Flask"
• MSU: Myles Lewis, Computer Science major
  Topic: "Exploring the Impact of Exposing Coding Interview Practices to Early CS Majors"
• JHU: Vivek Gopalakrishnan, Biomedical Engineering major
  Topic: "Multiscale Comparative Connectomics: Linking brain networks to neurological phenotypes"

February 2021

• JHU: Jody Mou, Biomedical Engineering major
  Topic: "Deep Learning Guided Design of Peptide Binders"
• CSU: Nathaniel Witt, Chemistry major
  Topic: "Characterization of carbonaceous compounds formed from Fischer-tropsch reaction at the Solar Nebula"
• MSU: Dolapo Nurudeen, Biology major
  Topic: "The Synthesis of Fac-tricarbonyl (Pentylcarbonato)(α-dimine) Rhenium Complexes"

December 2020

• MSU: Rolling Zebaze, Biology major (ASCEND scholar and ABRCMS 2020 poster winner)
  Topic: "Effects of Wealth on COVID-19 Mortality and Morbidity"
• JHU: Christopher Shallal, Biomedical Engineering major
  Topic: "Advancing Prosthesis Comfort & Control through Novel Sensors & Materials"
• CSU: Alanna Newby, Chemistry major
  Topic: "Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Palmitoyl Carnitine by LC-MS"