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SDSU Undergraduate RSCA Program Projects for Fall 2024

 

College of Arts & Letters

Joseph Sabia will advise Nathan Rosenthal in analyzing nationally representative datasets and qualitative interview data to document barriers to accessing social security and disability insurance supplemental income for LGBT persons with disabilities.

Timothy Boyd is continuing his work with Ming-Hsiang Tsou from the Department of Geography's Center for Human Dynamics in the Mobile Age. Together with one Ph.D. student, they are preparing analysis of human movement change across San Diego  during COVID-19 for conference presentations.

Joel Varon, with guidance from Rutger Hadge, will investigate the GPA gap between first-generation and non-first-generation college students in an introductory philosophy course through surveys and interviews.

 

College of Education

With mentorship from Elizabeth Buffington, Shaye Phung will continue reviewing current course offerings in the College of Education and how well they support development of cultural competency for career preparation and graduate level coursework.

As part of the Research and Equity Scholarship Institute (RESISTE), Felicia Herrera Villarreal will mentor Daniela Ortega-Ramos to examine STEM pathways and support for Latine and other racially minoritized students at two- and four-year Hispanic-Serving Institutions.

 

College of Engineering

Tiffany Casaje and Adrianna de los Garzas will work with Julio Valdes to improve earthquake resistance of sandy soils by developing biodegradable, injectable clay-water mixtures.
Junfei Xie will serve as the faculty mentor for Pablo Olivares and Alejandro Rivera Lara as they work to iterate on hands-on learning activities for an AI and robotics course using an easily accessible hardware testbed platform.
Eric Smith and Arthur Gratas will work on developing and enhancing the efficiency of miniaturized antenna systems as part of Satish Sharma's Antenna and Microwave Lab.
Sean Park's student Jesus Vargas will gain hands-on experience with micro and nanotechnology as they develop a compact, lightweight means of using rooftop solar energy for controllable indoor lighting.

 

College of Health and Human Services

Mentee Mia Mangney will continue working with Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences professor Giang Pham to study overarching structure and sentence-level grammar in kids' storytelling in Spanish and English. She will co-author proposals for upcoming conference presentations.
Megan Ebor will mentor Jen Lothridge and Marlena Ngim in the process of collecting data, engaging community members and producing health communication multimedia focused on Black women and girls living with or vulnerable to HIV.
Charlize Chu, with guidance from Shira Goldenberg and the Migration, Health and Human Rights lab, will investigate how policies such as immigration detention and rapid deportations shape social determinants of health (e.g., precarious housing, food insecurity) among asylum seekers.
Surabhi Bhutani's student London Caceres will study the food preferences of people who prefer to stay up late and be more active later in the day through in-lab and at-home data collection.

 

College of Professional Studies & Fine Arts

Madison Swayne will guide Jasmine Tran in uploading and organizing environmental testing and remediation records into an easily accessible database to assist with environmental justice efforts for National City.
With Megan Welsh Carroll as a mentor, Andy José Lopez will build on efforts from a class project to map and audit the availability of baby changing stations, menstrual products and gender-inclusive restrooms on SDSU's campus.
Isabella Kalivas and mentor Kimberly Kras will work the San Diego County Public Defender's Grant Litigation Unit to review individuals' whose long sentences are eligible for reduction and the policies that and court proceeding associated with these cases.
Mentor Sondra Sherman and mentee Lila Zeichner will create contemporary art jewelery pieces inspired by specific landscapes after collecting references and developing skills in cold-connection construction techniques.

 

College of Sciences

In Computer Science, Bryan (Donny) Donyanavard will mentor David Kaauwai and Alyssa Serrano to measure and modify the behavior of an autonomous driving software in real-world scenarios, specifically for lane-keeping and navigation algorithms.
With mentorship from Jennifer Thomas, Savana Hampton will measure the effects of prenatal edible CBD doses in pregnant rats to better understand potential risks, benefits and implications for humans.
As part of Jillian Lee Wiggins's Lab, Madelin Gredvig will investigate potential mechanisms for how trauma-exposed adolescents do or do not develop symptoms of anxiety.
Kinsey Brock and a graduate student in the Department of Biology's evolution-focused track will mentor Rory Mendelow to analyze body measurement data in lizards across urban and less urban habitats in the Greek island of Naxos.
Jordan Edens will investigate metabolites from mice infected with a diarrhea-causing parasite of global importance, alongside mentor Laura-Isobel McCall.
Together with mentor Matt Anderson, Faith Poutoa will improve oil sensors to detect patterns in fluorescence over time from different types of spilled oil through machine learning and image analysis algorithms.
Nicholas Barber's student Alec Juliano will extract and prepare DNA samples from soils collected from restored prairies and unplowed prairies to build a comprehensive grassland soil dataset.
Isabelle Bernal, along with mentor Patrick Shoemaker, will develop code to retrieve data from a database of all the neurons in the fruit fly brain to better understand how the neurons responsible for responding to moving visual objects are connected.
Roberto Marquez, with guidance from mentor Ricardo Carretero, will solve numerically complex equations of motion using computational techniques to understand behavior of microscopic twisters in Bose-Einstein condensates, the coldest form of matter in the universe.

 

Fowler College of Business

Justin Deppiesse will explore how accounting students us AI tools and how universities can guide responsible and effective use with mentor Aner Zhou.
Mentor Liang Ma will guide Daniel Diner in collecting data on demographics, employment history, educational backgrounds and professional networks of board members for closed-end funds.

 

Imperial Valley

Adrian Guzman Herrera and Neyda Jimenez will continue exploring their own and others' stories as transfronterizx students to characterize how a sense of belonging contributes to well-being and academic success. Vanessa Falcón Orta will be their mentor.

Magdalena Altamirano will guide Maya Hossaini in analyzing written works, images, paintings and textiles as artifacts of womens' work, the barriers they faced and how they overcame them in early modern Spain.