We are delighted to welcome you to the annual Barnard Biology Research Symposium! This symposium is dedicated to showcasing and celebrating the exemplary work of our Guided Research & Seminar and Senior Thesis Research & Seminar students. Under the guidance of their dedicated mentors, both at Barnard and throughout New York City, our students have spent the 2021–2022 academic year working independently on projects ranging from those in cell biology to bacterial antibiotic resistance to clinical trials.

This page is your guide to today's event. Today, we feature the meticulous and painstaking work of our presenters and congratulate them and their mentors on their steadfast commitment to their research! We hope today’s presentations and posters will inspire the next generation of Barnard Biology majors to follow boldly in their footsteps in the pursuit of knowledge across biological disciplines. 

The presentations during session one beginning at 9:30 am will be hosted in the Diana Center Event Oval and on Zoom, as will the poster abstracts after the break at 2:30 pm. Then, poster presenters will break out and host breakout rooms where they will discuss their posters and answer visitors' questions. The link to today's event is provided below.

Want a copy of today's program? Download it here. Questions or difficulties accessing the Zoom Meeting on the day of the event can be sent to the department administrator, Melissa Flores (mflores@barnard.edu).

Note: A brief how-to-use Zoom guide is provided on pages 12–18 of this program. Please make sure you have updated to the most recent version of Zoom (see pages 13–14 for how to update your Zoom BEFORE joining the symposium).

Biology majors enroll in Senior Thesis Research & Seminar to satisfy their senior capstone requirement for the major. This yearlong course requires students to work on independent research projects under the guidance of their mentors. It culminates in both a scientific paper and a 15-minute research talk presented in today’s first session. 

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(From left to right.) Top: Olivia Eliopoulos, Alyssa Semmelman, Karolina Szenkiel, Emma Breber, Abi Spingarn, Rachel Cho, Magdalene Pernambuco, Shaila Fye, & Theyjasvi Ashok.

Bottom: Sarah Braner, Jessica Wang, & Vivian Zhao.

Not Pictured: Andrea Kubas-Meyer & Gabriella Chefitz.

Zoom Meeting ID: 946 8346 6789 | Passcode: 905913
(click here to join the meeting)

As you join the meeting, please ensure that your microphone is on Mute (see pg. 17). Questions at the end of a presentation will be moderated by Professors Goldstein, Miranda, and Balaban in the chat (see pg. 17–18; please send questions to 'Everyone', which is the default, rather than to a specific presenter). To clap at the end of a presentation, use the clap emoji under the reactions button (see pg. 17).

9:15 am Opening Remarks by Professor JJ Miranda

9:30 am Emma Breber

Hoxa5 participates in the regulation of epaxial myofiber diameter and type in a mouse model
Jennifer H. Mansfield (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

9:45 am Shaila Fye

TreeTracer: A computational tool to analyze context dependent substitutions in a phylogenetic framework
Brian R. Morton (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

10:00 am Karolina Szenkiel

Investigating the role of bacterial metabolism in antibiotic resistance
Allison J. Lopatkin (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

10:15 am Vivian Zhao

Investigating CA1-CA3 functional connectivity in spatial memory encoding
Attila Losonczy and Tristan Geiller (Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University)

10:30 am Theyjasvi Ashok

The effect of Hoxa5 loss of function on Hox cluster gene expression
Jennifer H. Mansfield (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

10:45 am Abi Spingarn

Narrowing Down the Cellular Components that Mediate the Cephalic-Phase Insulin Release in Mice
John I. Glendinning (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

11:00 am Jessica Wang

Exploring genetic features that define recipient capabilities in Klebsiella pneumoniae
Allison J. Lopatkin (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

11:15 am Break

11:30 am Olivia Eliopoulos

The impact of male fitness components on sexual conflict
Alison Pischedda (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

11:45 am Gabriella Chefitz

Uncovering transcriptional crosstalk between two cancer-causing viruses
JJ Miranda (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

12:00 pm Alyssa Semmelman

Mutations in the phosphatase SHP2 affect Ras phosphorylation state
Neel Shah (Department of Chemistry, Columbia University) and Anne Elise van Vlimmeren (Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University)

12:15 pm Andrea Kubas-Meyer

Elucidating the effects of type I IFNɑ treatment on CD34+ progenitor cells in CALR mutated myeloproliferative neoplasms via single cell multi-omics
Anna S. Nam (Weill Cornell Medicine; New York Presbyterian Hospital)

12:30 pm Sarah Braner

Detecting Dengue Virus in Wastewater
JJ Miranda (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

12:45 pm Rachel Cho

Examining the effects of imidacloprid on cell stress responses associated with proteostasis and metabolism in Apis mellifera
Jonathan Snow (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

1:00 pm Magdalene Pernambuco

Recharacterizing hothead and hothead-like mutations in Arabidopsis thaliana
Hilary S. Callahan (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

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Biology majors enroll in Guided Research & Seminar to satisfy the upper-level biology labs required for the major. This yearlong course requires students to work on independent research projects under the guidance of their mentors. It culminates in both a scientific paper and the poster presented in today’s second session.

Image

(From left to right.) Top: Christina Lin, Mariel Correa-Maynard, Hibah Vora, Liliana Seoror, Shivi Dua, Ariana Carranza Cedrón, Parker Parrella, & Annie Rozenblyum.

Bottom: Ligaya Lim, Jackie Balestrieri, Annabelle B. Elikan, Natalie L. Lovinger, & Janani Varadarajan.

Not Pictured: Cindy Cao & Aanya Singh.

Student Poster Session Welcome and Abstracts (2:15 pm to 2:45 pm)

Zoom Meeting ID: 946 8346 6789 | Passcode: 905913
(click here to join the meeting)

As you join the meeting, please ensure that your microphone is on Mute.

Student Poster Session (2:45 pm to 4:00 pm)

Poster 1 Jackie Balestrieri

Correlation between plasmid conjugation rates in Klebsiella pneumoniae clinical isolates
Allison J. Lopatkin (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

 

Poster 2 Cindy Cao

Characterizing homeotic transformations of UNC-42/PROP1 neurons in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans
Oliver Hobert and Yasmin H. Ramadan (Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University)

 

Poster 3 Ariana Carranza Cedrón

Optimizing protein correlation profiling to study the composition of molecular complexes
Marko Jovanovic and Ella Doron-Mandel (Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University)

 

Poster 4 Mariel Correa-Maynard

The sensory cues of male mate choice: do male fruit flies use vision and hearing to assess female body size
Alison Pischedda (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

 

Poster 5 Shivi Dua

Role of Translesion Synthesis and Nucleotide Metabolism in BRCA1 Deficient Breast Cancer Cells
Alberto Ciccia and Angelo Taglialatela (Department of Genetics and Development, Columbia University Irving Medical Center)

 

Poster 6 Annabelle B. Elikan

Using dsRNA to Knockdown Nosema ceranae Genes and Treat Infection in Apis mellifera
Jonathan Snow (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

 

Poster 7 Ligaya Lim

Chorda tympani nerve is not necessary for eliciting cephalic-phase insulin release in mice
John I. Glendinning (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

 

Poster 8 Christina Lin

Role of visual features in evoking aggressive gill flare behavior in Betta splendens
Andrés Bendesky and Claire Everett (Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University)

 

Poster 9 Natalie L. Lovinger

Characterizing the effects of stress response on protein synthesis in honey bees
Jonathan Snow (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

 

Poster 10 Parker Parrella

Characterizing bleomycin as a treatment for Nosema ceranae infection in honey bees
Jonathan Snow (Department of Biological Sciences, Barnard College)

 

Poster 11 Annie Rozenblyum

Myeloid-Specific Overexpression of Lipa Promotes Atherosclerosis
Hanrui Zhang and Fang Li (Seymour, Paul and Gloria Milstein Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center)

 

Poster 12 Liliana Seoror

Screening for benomyl resistance and sensitivity in Caenorhabditis elegans using the Million Mutation Project
Martin Chalfie and Zhenhao Guo (Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University)

 

Poster 13 Aanya Singh

The effect of light on the primary metabolism in Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Lars Dietrich and Kelly N. Eckartt (Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University)

 

Poster 14 Janani Varadarajan

Contribution of Ang2-mediated vascular destabilization to liver metastasis and immunosuppression in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors
Minah Kim and Alessandra Leong (Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center)

 

Poster 15 Hibah Vora

Identifying copy numbers for rheumatoid arthritis linkage in whole genome data of a founder population
Itsik Pe’er (Department of Computer Science, The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia University)

 

Closing Remarks (4:00 pm) | Back to top

Thank you for your support of our students today!