Grove City College STEM students captured a pair of first place awards at the Penn State Behrend Sigma Xi 27th Annual Student Research Conference.
Michelle Chu, a senior Molecular Biology major from Cincinnati, Ohio, won first-place for her oral presentation titled “Complementary Genetic Screens Reveal Inactivating and Constitutively Activating Mutations in Two-Component Systems of Bacillus anthracis”. Chu worked on the presentation with Dr. Devin L. Stauff, an associate professor of Biology.
“Michelle is a brilliant, exceptionally hard-working student who has spent three years including one summer working on her project in my lab, so it is great to see her work receive recognition”, Stauff said.
Karen Postupac, a junior Computer Information Systems major from Export, Pa., won first-place award for her oral presentation titled “Making Database Management Systems Manageable: User-friendly Automatic Report Generation.” Postupac was mentored by Dr. Lory J. Al Moakar, assistant professor of Computer Science.
Robert Hawranko, a sophomore Physics major from Sarver, Pa., also presented research at the conference earlier this month in Erie. Hawranko, mentored by Dr. Glenn A. Marsch, professor of Physics, discussed the binding of small molecules to proteins using fluorescence spectroscopy techniques.