Past Award Winners

Fall 2025 Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Fair Award Winners

Ten students and two faculty members standing on a stage displaying award certificates — Ten undergraduate students received awards for their outstanding research posters at the Fall 2025 VURS. Awards were presented by Tom Withrow, Professor of the Practice of Mechanical Engineering and Associate Dean for Experiential Learning, and Kathy Friedman, Professor and Vice Chair of Biological Sciences and Associate Provost for Undergraduate Research (center).

Basic and Natural Sciences

Co-winner: Kalina Stoyanova

Title: Modality-Specific Serial Dependencies for Auditory and Visual Motion Direction
Faculty Mentor: Mark Wallace

Co-winner: Sunny Chen

Title: Investigating the Non-Neuronal Roles of SHANK3 in Choroid Plexus Endothelia
Faculty: Neil Dani

Runner-up: Isaac Tamayo-Sarver

Title: Dysplastic Progression in Gastric Precancer is Supported by Stromal Environment and SPON2
Faculty Mentor: Jim Goldenring

Runner-up: Eldaah Paulraj

Title: Plasminogen Drives Innate Immune Training Through DNA Methylation
Faculty Mentor: Kasey Vickers

Clinical and Translational Research & Public Health

Winner: Catherine Wang

Title: Investigating the Role of Tumor-Expressed Cardiac Antigens in Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor-Associated Myocarditis
Faculty Mentor: Justin Balko

Runner-up: Cooper Donovan

Title: Superposition Allows Embarrassingly Parallel Acoustic Simulations for Multi-Element Arrays in Transcranial Focused Ultrasound
Faculty Mentor: Charles Caskey

Engineering, Computer Science, Data Science, and Mathematics

Winner: Laura Caroline Jung

Title: Easy Breezy? — Design and Validation of a Low-Cost Wind Generator for Investigating the Biomechanics of Walking in Wind with an Above-the-Knee Lower-Limb Prosthesis
Faculty Mentor: Michael Goldfarb

Runner-up: Shansita Sharma

Title: Segment the Signal: Automated Physiological Quality Assessment
Faculty Mentor: Catie Chang

Social and Behavioral Sciences, Education Studies, and Humanities

Winner: Emily Benfield

Title: Seats & Status: How Classroom Placement Shapes Peer Reputations for Students with/at-Risk for EBD
Faculty Mentor: Kristen Granger

Runner-up: Shana Lee

Title: Naturalistic Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Intervention
Faculty Mentor: Elizabeth Biggs