2 MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 WELCOME WELCOME TO OUR 20TH MEETING OF THE MINDS. That ‘s right—it is our 20th anniversary and we are especially happy to celebrate this milestone with all of you. Meeting of the Minds is a true campus-wide event that touches all faculty, staff and students who are associated with our university. Twenty years ago, a far-thinking Associate Vice Provost, Barbara Lazarus—joined by an adventuresome graduate of Carnegie Mellon and founding director of the URO, Jessie Ramey— created our campus-wide research symposium aptly named Meeting of the Minds. It started very small with a handful of students. It has grown to be a hallmark of Carnegie Mellon and a model for others. There is a great deal to see and hear today. The abstracts in this booklet provide a good map to begin your journey. Be prepared for the descriptions to come alive in novel and interesting ways. Whether you travel through the poster displays or attend a few oral presentations, watch a performance or contemplate our art installations, you will be dazzled by the diversity and quality of the projects our undergraduates are showcasing. Feel free to visit people you know and those you don’t know. This is a chance to introduce yourself to different academic parts of our campus. There are two important times to keep in mind. At 2:30, President Subra Suresh will deliver a short keynote address in the first floor Kirr Commons area. We will also hold a drawing for participating students for a smart watch and a Fitbit, and make announcements for the final rounds of particular competitions. Plus we will have a special celebration for our 20th anniversary. At 5:00 pm, our Awards Ceremony begins in McConomy Auditorium. Winners of the 18 Meeting of the Minds competitions will be announced and prizes will be awarded. A list of all competitions is included near the end of this program booklet. Thank you again for coming, and please enjoy our 20th annual Meeting of the Minds. MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 3 4 MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS SPECIAL THANKS . 7 PRESENTATIONS . 9 ABSTRACTS . 11 COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING . 13 Biomedical Engineering . .15 Chemical Engineering . 17 Civil and Environmental Engineering . 30 Electrical and Computer Engineering . .32 Engineering and Public Policy . 47 Materials Science Engineering . 47 Mechanical Engineering . 57 COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS . 71 Architecture . 73 Art . 74 Design . 75 Drama . 78 CROSS-COLLEGE . 79 Bachelor of Computer Science and Arts . 81 Bachelor of Humanities and Arts . .83 Biology and Psychology . .92 BSA . 93 Computational Biology . 97 DIETRICH COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES . .99 Economics . 101 Economics and Statistics . 106 English . 109 Ethics, History, and Public Policy . 112 History . 114 Information Systems . 121 MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS DIETRICH COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES (CONT.) Linguistics . 123 Modern Languages . 123 Psychology . 124 Self-defined . 133 Social and Decision Sciences . 135 Statistics . 137 MELLON COLLEGE OF SCIENCE . 145 Biological Sciences . 147 Chemistry . 154 Mathematics . 161 Physics . 167 SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE . 173 Computer Science 175 Language Technologies Institute 189 SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES SCHOLARS . 191 TEPPER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS . 203 Business Administration 205 Economics 208 SPECIAL COMPETITIONS . 211 DONORS & SPONSORS . 221 INDEX OF PARTICIPANTS BY DEPARTMENT . 227 INDEX OF PARTICIPANTS BY NAME . 234 6 MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 SPECIAL THANKS WE EXTEND OUR THANKS TO: ■ ALUMNI RELATIONS ■ COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING DEAN’S OFFICE ■ SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE DEAN’S OFFICE THIS SYMPOSIUM WAS FUNDED BY THE OFFICE OF THE PROVOST AND THE UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH OFFICE. Many thanks to Kourtney Bandish, Amy Burkert, Suzanne Choi, Catherine Copetas, Thomas Cortina, Joanna Dickert, Marcia Gerwig, Jen Keating-Miller, M. Stephanie Murray, Matt Lambert, Kurt Larsen, Catherine Spence, Shoba Subramanian, Joanne Ursenbach, Jen Weidenhof, MediaTech, Cohon University Catering Staff, Cohon University Center Staff, AlphaGraphics, A.G. Trimble Company, MissElaineous Balloons, and all the other wonderful students and staff who make this event work. MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 7 Please note: Research project titles, student names, advisor names and abstracts were submitted by the student researchers Due to the great number of students and the large volume of text contained in this booklet, it is impossible for the Undergraduate Research Office to ensure the accuracy or omission of information submitted for publication 8 MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 PRESENTATIONS DESCRIPTIONS OF TYPES OF PRESENTATIONS STUDENTS WHO ARE PRESENTING AT THE SYMPOSIUM COULD SIGN UP TO DO ONE OF FOUR DIFFERENT TYPES OF PRESENTATIONS: POSTER PRESENTATIONS 1 Students will be standing by their posters for two hours or so to answer questions. Students participating in the Sigma Xi poster competition will be by their posters from 10 a.m. until 12:00 noon in Rangos 1 and 2. Students participating in the CIT poster competition will be by their posters from 12 noon to 2:30 p.m. in Rangos 3. Students participating in the general poster session will be by their posters from 12 noon until 2:30 p.m. or from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. in the common areas of the Cohon University Center. Please feel free to wander through the poster presentations and ask questions of the students. ORAL PRESENTATIONS 2 Students have been assigned a 20-minute time slot and will be located in one of five rooms along the second floor corridor(Dowd, Pake, McKenna, Peter, Wright or Class of ’87). Students have been instructed to prepare a 10-minute oral presentation about their research, leaving five minutes for questions from the audience and five minutes to gather up their materials and make way for the next presentation. VISUAL ARTS 3 Students’ work is displayed in the Connan Room. Students will be standing by their work from 12 noon until 2:30 p.m. or from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. to answer questions. PERFORMING ARTS PRESENTATIONS 4 Students will perform in McConomy Auditorium at a time assigned to them. They have been instructed to leave time after their performance for discussion with the audience. MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 9 10 MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 ABSTRACTS MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 11 12 MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 13 14 MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING CARNEGIE MELLON’S GLOBAL MEDICAL BRIGADES GOES TO NICARAGUA STUDENTS Neil Carleton Chemical Engineering | Nadia Florman Mechanical Engineering | Tiffany Fu Materials Science Engineering | Maya Holay Chemical Engineering | Nicole Huang Mechanical Engineering | Megan Pudlo Biomedical Engineering | Anna Zhang Chemical Engineering ADVISOR Jason D’Antonio | Biological Sciences ROOM/TIME Hoch Commons-2nd Floor, Rangos side / 12-2:30 pm This year, Global Medical Brigades engineering students received a CIT travel grant to visit rural Nicaragua over Spring Break to investigate engineering solutions in the developing world. This report compiles the findings from their trip and explores sanitation and environmental engineering applications that are vital to developing countries. INCREASING ENGINEERED CARDIAC MUSCLE TISSUE ALIGNMENT IN 2D STUDENT Sean Kim | Biomedical Engineering ADVISOR Adam Feinberg | Biomedical Engineering ROOM/TIME Rangos 1 & 2/Sigma Xi Group 2 / 11:45 am Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in most developed countries, yet currently there are no therapies to fully restore cardiac function after a large injury without transplantation. One potential mode of treatment lies in engineering cardiac tissue that can be patched into the site of injury. The contractile part of the heart – myocardium – consists of 2-dimensional laminar sheets of cardiac muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) wrapped around the heart. One of the key factors in developing such engineered cardiac tissue in vitro lies within creating a confluent layer of aligned cardiac muscle cells capable of synchronous contraction, for maximum contractile force. Previous studies in the field have shown that surfaces with extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins micropatterned on them can stimulate cells to form aligned confluent cardiac sheets. However, the degree of cell alignment and the force produced by such engineered tissue can both be significantly increased. Two new patterns were developed; a pattern of 10µmwide lines of fibronectin with 4µmspacing, and a software-generated fiber-like pattern that mimics ECM structure in native chick myocardium. Statistical analysis showed that 10µmx 4µm pattern produced greater cell alignment compared to the 20µmx 20µm(control pattern), while the synthetic biomimetic pattern showed a statistically insignificant difference. The findings of this study show that the alignment of cardiac muscle cells in 2D can be improved by controlling the structure of the ECM protein. MEETING OF THE MINDS 2015 15 PATTERNING BIOMIMETIC HYDROGEL-BASED SCAFFOLDS FOR CARDIAC TISSUE ENGINEERING STUDENT Madeline Monroe | Biomedical Engineering ADVISOR Adam Feinberg | Biomedical Engineering ROOM/TIME Hoch Commons-2nd Floor, Rangos side / 12-2:30 pm In developing a regenerative solution to treating cardiac disease, an important factor is generating a scaffold that will allow for cardiac cells (cardiomyocytes) to form functional tissue. A preferred method is engineering a scaffold that closely resembles the cardiac tissue extracellular environment, both in terms of composition and structure. However, this is a challenge due to the fact that the extracellular matrix is a complex three-dimensional system comprised of a network of many proteins, including fibronectin (FN), which forms the basement membrane of the extracellular matrix. Contributing to this goal, the aim of my research was to develop a scaffold fabrication method that integrated aligned FN into hydrogels that could be stacked to form functional cardiac tissue. Fibronectin was transferred onto hydrogel scaffolds through the use of established methods such as microcontact printing and gelatin transfer. This resulted in biomimetic hydrogel (fibrin and collagen) scaffolds lined with FN.