The 34th Annual CSUSB Student Research Competition, held on Feb. 7, featured 31 student presenters from a variety of disciplines. Twelve of those students have been selected to represent CSUSB at this year’s CSU state-wide Student Research Competition on April 24-25 at Cal State East Bay.
 
The Student Research Competition gives students the opportunity to develop their presentation and communication skills while showcasing their scholarly achievements. Students present their research before a panel of judges and winners advance to the statewide CSU Research Competition, where they will compete against other outstanding scholars in the California State University system.
 
“With the support and guidance of their faculty mentors, our campus delegates will go on to represent our university in an outstanding manner at the statewide competition,” said an email from the Office of Student Research.
 
The following students and faculty mentors have been selected for the CSU Student Research Competition:
 
College of Arts and Letters:
Presenter: Shane Burrell
Faculty Mentor: Mihaela Popescu
Department: Communication Studies
Title: Identification in Virtual Environments; Identifying in Virtual Reality
Competition Category: Humanities and Letters
 
College of Education
Presenter: Matthew Atherton
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Eun-Ok Baek
Department: Instructional Technology
Title: The Efficiency of Using 3d Models to Teach Lifting and Rigging Concepts to Learners of Varying Spatial Ability
Competition Category: Education
 
College of Natural Sciences
Presenter: Joanna Moreno
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Christopher Hill
Department: Kinesiology
Title: The Power of Observations and its Effects on Imagery Capabilities 
Competition Category: Health, Nutrition, and Clinical Science
 
Presenter: Melissa Taha
Faculty Mentor: Drs. Ira Leifer & Don Blake
Department: Biochemistry
Title: Shaking the Ground with NASA
Competition Category: Physical and Mathematical Sciences
 
Presenters: Nikolay Maslov & Aaron Keniston
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jeremy Mallari
Department: Biochemistry
Title: Understanding the Binding Mode of Falcilysin, an Essential Metalloprotease
Competition Category: Biological and Agricultural Sciences
 
Presenter: Sonia Perez-Gamboa 
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Qingquan Sun
Major: Computer Science
Title: Human Recognition Using a Convolational Long Short-term Memory (C-LSTM) Neural Network
Competition Category: Computer Science and Engineering
 
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Presenter: Natassja Martin
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Ryan Keating
Department: History
Title: The Memory of the War: A Glance into Public Support for WWII and Vietnam
Competition Category: Humanities and Letters
 
Presenter: Fernando Sanchez
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Isabel Alonso
Department: History
Title: Umm Kulthum and Arual Celebrity
Competition Category: Humanities and Letters
 
Presenter: Edward Zakher
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Rishabh Kumar
Department: Economics
Title: A Reason to Move, a State-Wide Story
Competition Category: Business, Economics, and Public Administration
 
Presenters: Elizabeth Rahmani & Holly Timblin
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jacob Jones
Major: Clinical Counseling
Title: The Mediating Role of Leisure Activities on the Relationship Between Depressive Symptoms and Cognitive Functioning in Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease
Competition Category: Behavioral and Social Sciences
 
The Student Researcher Recognition Luncheon will be on May 15, from noon to 2 p.m. in the Santos Manuel Student Union Fourplex, where these students, along with other outstanding student researchers, will be recognized for their accomplishments.
 
For more information about the CSUSB Student Research Competition, visit the Office of Student Research website.