ASPIRE Symposium Celebrates Undergraduate Research - 2017
By Diana Selmeczy – The ISS ASPIRE Undergraduate Research Program held its third annual Spring Research Symposium on June 9, 2017 at the Center for Mind & Brain. The event featured a keynote by Dr. Simona Ghetti, a student presentation by Raphael Geddert, and poster presentations by each of the ASPIRE Scholars, detailing the research they completed during the 2016-2017 academic year.
ASPIRE (Accelerating Success by Providing Intensive Research Experience) offers a select group of UC Davis undergraduate students a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience conducting research under the mentorship of world-renowned UC Davis faculty.
ASPIRE Scholars begin working on research in their freshman or sophomore year, continuing throughout their undergraduate tenure. The program includes faculty mentors from a variety of departments and centers at UC Davis, including the Center for Mind & Brain, the Center for Neuroscience, the Department of Psychology, and the Center for Poverty Research. ASPIRE Scholars have a range of majors including Engineering, Psychology, Biology, and Neurophysiology & Behavior.
Research topics presented at the 2017 symposium included:
Keynote Speech
Building Blocks of Episodic Memory: A Neurodevelopmental Account
Professor of Psychology Simona Ghetti
Student Talks
Examining Attentional Bias to Inherent and Conditioned Threat Using Behavioral and Electrophysiological Measures
Authors: Raphael Geddert, Emily Kappenman, Steve Luck, Jaclyn Farrens, Amanda Ng
Posters
- Applications of Microphone Array Algorithms and Eyetracking for Enhancing Selective Auditory Attention
Nathaniel-Georg S. Gutierrez, Lee M. Miller
- The (Not-So) Great Equalizer? – Challenges and Shortcomings of the US Education System
Maryam Awwal, Jacob Hibel, Sean Arseo, Thalia Tom et al.
- Attentional Capture and the Mechanisms of Salient Distractors
Sandya Ganesh, Nicholas Gaspelin, Steven J. Luck
- Exploring the Role of Context Similarity in Retrieval-Enhanced Learning
Alex Asera, Tanya Jonker, Charan Ranganath
- Value Orientations and Household Chaos in a Sample of Mexican-American Families
Selena Silva, Erin Smith, Charlotte Ellberg, Leah C. Hibel
- Development of Optimism Across the Lifespan
Priyanka Sanghavi, Richard Robins, Ted Schwaba, and Wiebke Bleidorn
- Experimental Studies of the Psychological Consequences of Childhood Poverty
Jennifer La, Camelia E. Hostinar
- Self and Success: Self-Concept Coherence and Improved Accuracy on Difficult Math Tasks
Brynna Thigpen, Janani Prabhakar, Christine Coughlin, Simona Ghetti
- Effects of Body-Based Cues on Spatial Memory in Humans
Nikhil Jaha, Derek J. Huffman, Arne D. Ekstrom
- Effects of Parental Scaffolding on Infant Play
Rachel Suk, Lisa Oakes
- Do Early Traumatic Experiences Spur Addictive Behavior?
Amy Wong, Lynea Witzak, Karen Bales
- Exploring the Relationship Between Saccades and Covert Attention
Kelsey Klein, Taylor R. Hayes, John M. Henderson, George R. Mangun
- Empowering Research
Justin Wang, Amanda Guyer
- Scanpath Simulator
Kamal Sadek, Taylor R Hayes, John M Henderson
- Neural Responses to Moral versus Positive Stimuli
Michelle Shi, Jonas Miller, Paul Hastings
- Knowledge and Its Effect on Object Perception and Visual Search Performance
Samir Townsley and Joy Geng