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Service Learning and Undergraduate Research Office of the Provost

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The UAB Office of Service Learning and Undergraduate Research connects students, faculty, and community nonprofit partners to enrich student academic learning, promote civic engagement, and to strengthen and support our local and global communities.

Winners

Oral - Live Presentations

  • First Place: Jack Zlotea
  • Second Place: Micah Williams
  • Third Place: Danah Dib

Oral - Recorded Presentations

  • First Place: Alex Yates
  • Second Place: Matthew Carder
  • Third Place: Racheal Fairley

Poster Presentations

  • Live Presentations

    First Place: Ashley Barnett, Olivia Johnston, Suhas Kellampalli, and Esther Lim

    Second Place: Sarah Van Winkle

    Third Place: Shameria Baker

  • Arts

    First Place: Shameria Baker

    Second Place: Derek Dang, Lyndsey Plymon

    Third Place: Madison Kirkwood, Haley Ugolini

  • Biological and Life Sciences

    First Place: Sharrell Greene

    Second Place: Lily Bice

    Third Place: Sumanth Chandrupatla, Karen Colin, Mai Ellington, and Melissa Mercer

  • Business

    First Place (tie): Alex Barnett & Walton Lake

    Second Place: Sibley Myers

    Third Place: Jessica Stokes, Hanna Becerra

  • Education

    First Place: Emmie Prewitt

    Second Place: Katie Foy, Nadia Spann, Priya Chennupati, Rebecca Dennis and Kate Mallery

    Third Place: Michael Heim, Maggie Gossage, Jayden Pyles, and Ethan Wan

  • Engineering

    First Place: Savannah Wasko, Nathan DeVoss, Narcy Armireddy

    Second Place: Brock Horton, Corinne Crawford, Wyn Brittain

    Third Place: Chattada Viriyaphap (Pi), Rachel Lewis, Andrew Smith, Ramsey Scott

  • Health Sciences

    First Place: Akshay Aluri

    Second Place: Gillian Marlow, Trevor Turner, Jacob Nelson

    Third Place: Cole Barefoot, Richard Preus

  • Physical Sciences

    First Place: Dexter Mitchell

  • Service Learning

    First Place: Allyson Criswell, Isabella Parkhurst, Danny Reyes, Aman Pokal, Dexten Retchloff

    Second Place: Lindi Deboe

  • Service Learning - Honors English

    First Place: Lyana Pham

    Second Place: Charigan Dobbins

    Third Place: Arden Tapp

  • Social and Behavioral Sciences

    First Place: Tianna Prowell

    Second Place: Ashley Barnett, Olivia Johnston, Suhas Kellampalli, and Esther Lim

    Third Place: Destyni Cravens

  • Works in Progress

    First Place: Reagan Fields, Jamea English, Diya Jacob, Clarissa Jones, Lavanya Jaishankar

    Second Place: Kristie Muya

    Third Place: Lauren Kimberly Picken, Serena Satori Thomas, Eric Alexander Hurley, Ayush U Patel, Sergi Luis Cebrian-Claramunt

Meet your Virtual Fall Expo 2021 Keynote Speaker: April Hoge

AprilHoge 300x300April Hoge has worked with Health Services Research & Development at the Birmingham Veterans Affairs Health Care System since 2017. During her time at the VA, her work has focused on understanding and improving health care for Veterans who are homeless-experienced. Most notably, she led the development, testing, and evaluation of a tool, named the HOGE, to assess aspects of service delivery in VA’s Homeless Patient Aligned Care Teams. Recently, April has led a local team of clinicians as project coordinator and implementation facilitator as part of a national quality-improvement project that focuses on implementing evidence-based practices for opioid-related care in both inpatient and outpatient settings. April’s work with the VA has involved qualitative and quantitative health services research; survey development, administration, and validation; project and analytic management; implementation science and practice; and dissemination of findings to stakeholders and the general research/clinical communities.

April is a 2016 graduate of the UAB School of Public Health and the Global and Community Leadership Honors Program. While completing a year of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA, April began graduate school in the UAB SOPH and subsequently graduated with her MPH with a concentration in Health Behavior in the Spring of 2018.

Winners

Oral - Live Presentations

  • First Place: Alexis Kennedy
  • Second Place: MarKayla Bell
  • Third Place: Tanvi Bhadkamkar

Oral - Recorded Presentations

  • First Place: Suma Ejantkar
  • Second Place: Saige Thompson
  • Third Place: Michaela Philip

Poster Presentations

Meet our 2021 Summer Expo Keynote Speakers: Kerri Tang & Kenneth Davis

Monday, July 26, 10:00 a.m.

kerri tangKerri Tang

Kerri Tang is a rising second-year medical student in Michigan with research interests in women and children’s health. She completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees in public health at UAB. In 2020, she received a Fulbright research award to Germany to study predictors of mental health among early childhood educators. She is currently studying barriers to postpartum contraception in Michigan.

kenneth davisKenneth Davis

Kenneth Davis is a rising second-year MD/MBA student at UAB with research interests in biochemistry and bioinformatics. He completed his undergraduate studies in chemistry and mathematics and received his masters degree in mathematics at UAB. In 2019, he was a Barry Goldwater Scholarship nominee. In 2020, he received a Fulbright research award to Germany to study microbiomes pertaining to lung disease.

Winners

Oral Presentations

  • First Place: Derek Dang, Sahar Moughnyeh, Emily Stephens, Karishma Parbhoo, Ryleigh Fleming, Sarah Adkins-Jablonsky
  • Second Place: Charlene Mansour
  • Third Place: Jaclyn Aida

Poster Presentations

  • Arts and Humanities

    First Place: Gavin Baker

    Second Place: Jaimee Deese

  • Business

    First Place: William Atkinson

  • Biological and Life

    First Place: Connor Campbell

    Second Place (Tie):

    • Rose Albert
    • Jessica Ryan

    Third Place: Leanna Crafford

  • Education

    First Place: Madison Dahlke, Emmie Prewitt

    Second Place: Hannah Grace Hatley, Kylie Adcox

  • Engineering

    First Place: Chattada Viriyaphap, Rachel Lewis, Tyler Gilson, Rufus Wanarua Njeru

    Second Place: Lara Tapy, Russ Fuller, Adam Luechtefeld, Isabella Reed, Jason Zhang

    Third Place: Amy Heerten, Chase Newton, Ian Svantesson

  • Health Sciences

    First Place: Rose Albert

    Second Place: Mary Faulkner

    Third Place: Emily Baugh

  • Physical and Applied Science

    First Place: Jace Duhon, Najla Ibrahim, Nash Robinson

    Second Place (Tie):

    • Arielle Griffin, Seokhoon Kim, Gavin Bingham
    • Eric Choi, Garrett Hendley, Yuvika Harsh

    Third Place: Kai Battle, Khaldoun Faris

  • Service Learning

    First Place: Emma Kate Sellers

    Second Place: Lyndsey Plymon

    Third Place: Meredith Kaletski

  • Social and Behavioral Sciences

    First Place: Emma Kate Sellars

    Second Place: Mel Ebeling, Ann Carol Braswell, Audria S. Wood, Taylor R. White, Marissa A. Lausen, Sasha Isaac

    Third Place: Destyni Cravens

  • Works in Progress

    First Place (tie):

    • Brayden Rohr, Esther Lim, Thanushri Srikantha
    • Leanna Coffey, Arushi Kotru, Keeton Morgan, Kelly Schattle, Sarah Van Winkle

    Second Place: Olivia Johnston, Hadley Rosengrant

    Third Place: Kylie Schomber, Carlos Martinez Diaz

Video Research Awards

Cindy Nguyen

FIRST PLACE: Cindy Nguyen, "The Epigenetic Effects of Exercise on a Rodent Model of TLE"

Dante James

SECOND PLACE: Dante James, "Entropy Production of a Single Driven Qubit"

Ryleigh Flemming

THIRD PLACE: Ryleigh Flemming, "Breaking the Barries of Traditional Service Learning in a Pandemic"

Meet our 2021 Spring Expo Keynote Speaker: Cristen Gavin, PhD

Dr. Gavin is an Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Biomedical Programs for the UAB Heersink School of Medicine, an Assistant Professor of Neurobiology, an Assistant Professor of Psychology, and Co-Director of the Undergraduate Neuroscience Program (UNP), an interdisciplinary program between the Department of Neurobiology in the School of Medicine and the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. In addition to teaching commitments in the program, Dr. Gavin oversees curriculum and faculty development, academic advising, recruitment, and manages undergraduate neuroscience research in the UAB Heersink School of Heersink Medicine. Dr. Gavin also serves as co-director of the UAB Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) an NIH-funded initiative to increase diversity in biomedical sciences at the graduate level and beyond.

Dr. Gavin received her PhD in Neuroscience from UAB. Her research areas include cellular and molecular mechanisms of structural and functional plasticity; memory; and mechanisms of neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Winners

Oral Presentations

  • First Place: Mike Anderson
  • Second Place: Micah Williams
  • Third Place: Kiana Little, Veronica Mixon, Tamika Smith, Armah Henrietta

Poster Presentations

  • Arts and Humanities

    First Place: Bailey Pilcher, Asna Poonawalla
    Second Place: Charles Steward, Maria Harika, Ohtra Awad
    Third Place: Kirstin Burdette, Katherine Carothers

  • Business

    First Place: Aleena Khan

    Second Place: Spencer Dixon

    Third Place: Stephen Clark

  • Biological and Life

    First Place: Sarah Sims

    Second Place: Vashti Convers

    Third Place: Cindy Nguyen

  • Education

    First Place: Ivy Gentry, Ryan Lauterbach, Erin Wiley

    Second Place: Madison Dahlke

    Third Place: Allison Namie

  • Engineering

    First Place: Marianne Abraham, Denzil Otali, Demarcus Washington, Pi Viriyaphap

    Second Place: Emma Sautman, Cole Adams, Adela Harvey

  • Health Sciences

    First Place: Jeremiah Chu

    Second Place: Austin Wyatt, Suchetha Shashi, Raimi Liebel

    Third Place: Kate Mallery, Craig Peters, Ashley Barnett

  • Physical and Applied Science

    First Place: Akshar Patel, Pi Viriyaphap

  • Service Learning

    First Place: John Medley

    Second Place: Tayyaba Khan

    Third Place: Juliette Sosa Valle

  • Social and Behavioral Sciences

    First Place: Destyni Cravens

    Second Place: Sky Morris

    Third Place: Kylie Morris

  • Works in Progress

    First Place: Samuel Wilcox

    Second Place: Greg Jenkins

    Third Place: Gabrielle Smith, Kinnsley Travis, Seth Hubbard, May Van Houten, Abby Nash, and David Sabillon

Meet our 2020 Fall Expo Keynote Speaker: Ariel D. Smith

Ariel D. Smith's headshotAriel D. Smith is an American Studies Ph.D. Candidate and instructor at Purdue University, where she also serves as Scholar-in-Residence for the Black Thought Collective. Ariel is the founder of The Food Truck Scholar, a media and educational platform for the food truck industry, and the host of its podcast. Launched in 2019, the podcast has listeners in 60 countries worldwide and counting. For the second year in a row, The Food Truck Scholar has been ranked the number one podcast related to the food truck industry. Her work has been recognized within and beyond the academy on local, national, and international platforms.

A native of Birmingham, AL, Ariel is a 2015 graduate of UAB Collat School of Business and the Global and Community Leadership Honors Program. Ariel also holds a Master of Education from Vanderbilt University.

Live Keynote on Nov. 30 at 10:00am on Zoom. Recording of the Speech will be uploaded to the Canvas page for those who are unable to attend the Zoom meeting.

 

Summer Expo 2020 poster noting that expo was held online.

The 2020 Summer Expo is going digital! Don't miss your opportunity to get involved in the undergraduate research process.

The expo showcases the research and service learning work produced by UAB undergraduates and other students in UAB summer research programs, summer REU programs, and other summer opportunities.

It will be held on July 20-24. For more information contact Gareth Jones at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

To request accessibilty from the event, please contact:

  • Students — Disability Support Services at (205) 934-4205 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Faculty/Staff — AWARE Program at (205) 975-9973 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

After all abstracts have been submitted, you will be assigned a number for submission purposes and be registered for the Canvas course. Look for the invitation to join the course.

Create Your Presentation

Poster presentations should be limited to five minutes, while oral presentations should be limited to 12 minutes or less. You can use the following formats/software:

  • PowerPoint slides
  • PowerPoint slides with narration (required for Oral Presentations) Find out how to do this here. You may use other programs of your choice.
  • Poster slide with animation and narration (same as PowerPoint with narration)
  • Video of you talking about your research
  • Video of you presenting with a physical poster
  1. Summer Expo 2018
  2. Summer Expo 2019
  3. Summer Expo 2016
  4. Spring Expo 2017

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