Research Appreciation Day

by Amanda Brooks, PhD, Director of Research and Scholarly Activity

Due to the pandemic, the 9th Annual Research Appreciation Day was held virtually and with both campuses participating. Dr. Richard Kennedy, our keynote speaker, from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, presented a talk titled, "Vaccines: the immune system in action". We were also excited to hear from ten of our students and student groups from both campuses about their ongoing research. They are doing amazing things and did a great job presenting and leading the discussion over Zoom for the almost-200 participants.

We want to congratulate all the students who presented their posters at this year’s event. We had close to 80 student participants from both campuses who navigated virtual poster presentations on Teams. Please keep in mind that these are still available for viewing until the end of the year.

Congratulations to the student presenters and faculty mentors. We offer additional recognition and congratulations for our awardees at Research Appreciation Day 2020:

Awards for Poster Presentation:

• 1st Place: Daniel Sullivan, Jacob King, Telyn Peterson, Courtney Shill-Russel, Dr. James Small. "A Comparison of the Bouquet Speculum and Traditional 2-Blade Speculum."

• 2nd Place: Mitchell Allen, Bryan Daines, Blake McKinley, Kayd Pulsipher, Dr. Isain Zapata, Dr. Ben Wilde. "The Evaluation of Anxiety and Depression Among Medical Students."

• 3rd Place: Shane Hyde, Ryan Henschell, Dallas Steiner, Nicole Synder, Jeremy Bergman, Sean Charczenko, Edwin Fundingsland, Dr. Regan A. Stiegmann. "An Assessment of eHealth & Health Literacy in Digital Health Research Involving Patients with Chronic Disease: A Literature Review."

Awards for Oral Presentation:

• 1st Place: Anna Jacobs. "Impact of in vivo CSH RNA interference on placental vascularity regulators."

• 2nd Place: Lacie Phibbs. "Epigenetic histone modifications at the center of the Barker hypothesis and their transgenerational implications."

• 3rd Place: Kalvin Zee et al. "Quantitative Ultrasound to Assess Adult Tendons."

Directors Choice Award:

• Blake McKinley, "The Rash That Progressed to Be a Life-Threatening Illness."

Thank you to our participants, judges, and visitors for making Research Appreciation Day a memorable event. We want to express our gratitude to the Research Appreciation Day committee—Melissa Henderson, Mike Jorgensen, Judy Simmons, and Joe Richard—as well as Kelli Petersen and Gina Marzulla. This year’s event would not have been possible without you. We would also like to give a huge shout-out to IT for all their support.

Start planning for Research Appreciation Day 2021. We will see you there!