2026 Winners - Edward F. Hayes Advanced Research Forum
Award Amounts | 2026 Hayes Advanced Research Forum
Hayes Forum monetary awards are graciously provided jointly through the continuing support of The Graduate School and the Enterprise for Research, Innovation, and Knowledge (ERIK). Postdoctoral awards are paid through the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs.
Oral/Talk Presentation Award Amounts
1st Place - $600
2nd Place - $400
3rd Place - $200
Honorable Mention - No Monetary Award
Poster Presentation Award Amounts
1st Place - $200
2nd Place - $150
3rd Place - $100
Honorable Mention - No Monetary Award
Winners | 2026 Hayes Advanced Research Forum
Winners' entries are listed with their names, department/program of enrollment, and the title of their winning Hayes Forum presentation.
Please note: Honorable mentions are listed in alphabetical order.
Oral/Talk Winners
The Arts
1st Place – Amarth Chen, Digital Animation and Interactive Media, A Framework for Imaging System Simulation
2nd Place – Natalia Moreno-Buitrago, Music Education, Desde el principio: Engaging Parents in Their Children’s Learning
3rd Place - Evan McIntyre, Music Education, Music Teachers' Perceptions of Musical Literacy Development
Honorable Mention - Sophia Reeder, Digital Animation and Interaction Media, Design Your Anatomy: A User Interface for Real-Time Mocap Instruction and Performance
Honorable Mention - Isabelle Thomas, Music Theory, “Same as it Ever Was”: Gesture and Meaning in David Byrne’s Physicality in “Once in a Lifetime” from Stop Making Sense
Honorable Mention - Zihao Yuan, Dance Studies, Recentering the Cultural & Gender Identities of Queer Chinese Diasporic Dancers through Hybridization in the U.S.
Biological Sciences
1st Place – Gayathri Dileepan, Medical Scientist Training Program, The Ikaros Zinc Finger Transcription Factor Aiolos Promotes the Formation of Lung-Resident Memory CD8+ T Cells
2nd Place – Caleb Gooden, Molecular Genetics, Genome-wide Resolution of LTR Retrotransposon Promoters and their TissueSpecific Regulatory Programs
3rd Place - Sara Sequeira, Comparative Biomedical Sciences, Tracing Salmonella Dublin on the Move: A Network-Based Infection Model in US Cattle Systems
Honorable Mention - Zianne Olverson, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Electronic-Cigarette Use During Pregnancy Increases Offspring Asthma Susceptibility in a Sex-Dependent Manner
Business
1st Place – Jacob Rathjens, Organizational Behavior and Human Resources, The Effect of Virtuality on Negotiations Between Co-located Teams
2nd Place – Nancy Shen, Marketing, The Unwilling Ambassador Effect: Logo-Prominent Freebies Reduce Consumer Willingness to Spread Positive WOM
3rd Place - Indeesh Mukhopadhyay, Marketing and Logistics, Boredom Begets Speed, Speed Begets Boredom: The Feedback Loop of SpeedConsumption
Honorable Mention - Anjali Tapadiya, Business Administration, Collateral Damage: How Imposter Scams Become Brand Transgressions
Honorable Mention - Yawen Zheng, Logistics, Delivered on Demand: Uncovering the Value of On-Demand Delivery for Retail Success
Education and Human Ecology
1st Place – Amy Watson-Grace, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Sensory Processing and Autism Eligibility: Are State Policies Compliant with IDEA?
2nd Place - Ashwini Chebbi, Nutritional Sciences (OSUN), Feasibility and Efficacy of a Well-Formulated Ketogenic Diet in delaying progression of Polycystic Kidney Disease in patients at risk for Rapid Progression
3rd Place - Abby Bush, Human Development and Family Sciences, Perceptions of Leadership in Early Childhood Education: Alignment and Discrepancies between Administrators and Teachers
Honorable Mention - LeeAnn Swager, Human Development and Family Science, Mental Healthcare Providers’ Perspectives on Virtual vs. In Person Eating Disorder Treatment
Engineering
1st Place – Kelly Johana Serna Vasco, Biomedical Engineering, Engineering of Ligand-Functionalized Extracellular Vesicles for Gene Replacement Therapy for a Rare Genetic Pulmonary Disease
2nd Place – Mejalaa Mega Jayaseelan, Biomedical Engineering, Development of a 3D In Vitro Fibrotic Lung Platform for Modeling Early Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Pathogenesis
3rd Place - Srinvasan Subramaniyan, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Feedback Control GPU Scheduling for Real-time Embedded Systems
Honorable Mention - Yuzhang Liu, Biomedical Engineering, Transcriptional and Functional changes in Dorsal Root Ganglion neurons from Male and Female mice with injury induced Discogenic Back Pain
Honorable Mention - Jonathan Fritz, Biophysics, Computational Modeling Elucidates Mechanistic Targets for Treating Surfactant Dysfunction After Bacterial or Mechanical Lung Injury
Honorable Mention - Muhammed Ahmed Sultan, Biomedical Engineering, Motion-Robust Whole-Heart MRI-based Late Gadolinium Enhancement (LGE) Reconstruction Framework for Accurate Assessment of Heart Fibrosis
Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
1st Place – Sochina Ranjit, Food Science and Technology, Paenibacillin as a Future Natural Food Preservative: Increasing the Productivity by Revealing Quorum Sensing Mediated Gene Regulation in the Producer, Paenibacillus polymyxa
2nd Place – Megan Jamison Hart, Environmental Science Graduate Program (ESGP), What’s in Your Water? A Comparative Analysis of Micro- and Nanoplastics in Treated Tap Water and Bottled Water
3rd Place - Khadijat Adefaye, Animal Sciences, Assessing the Potential of Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation Body Formation Via Intrinsic Protein Disorder Within the Hepatitis E Virus ORF1 Polyprotein
Honorable Mention - Gabriella Gephart, Food Science and Technology, Bioprotective Capabilities of an Artisanal Strain of Lactococcus lactis and Consumer’s Sensory Acceptability of the Resulting Cottage Cheese
Health Sciences
1st Place – Carolyn Lee, Veterinary Preventative Medicine, Dairy Cows Infected with Influenza A(H5N1) Reveals Low Infectious Dose and Transmission Barriers
2nd Place – Madison Blake, Health and Rehabilitation Services, Comparing Novel Machine-Learning Derived Weights versus Standard Weights for the Charlson Comorbidity Index in Predicting Mortality for Autistic Older Adults
3rd Place - Gabriel Lee, Medicine, No Symptoms, No Problem? Analyzing Symptomatic and Asymptomatic Sexually Transmitted Infection Testing Outcomes at a Student Run Free Clinic
Honorable Mention - Elizabeth Ghias, Epidemiology, Residential Mobility Patterns of New Jersey Colorectal Cancer Cases Diagnosed 2014-2019: Implications for Characterizing Environmental Exposures
Honorable Mention - Cara Noel, Biomedical Sciences Program, Assessment of EBV DNA Methylation to Guide Antiviral Use in EBV-Associated Lymphoma
Honorable Mention - Jessica Wedig, Mollecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, CD200-CD200R Signaling Promotes Myeloid Cell Immunosuppressive Function and Reduces Efficacy of Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Pancreatic Cancer
Humanities
1st Place – Ka Fei Law, Chinese Linguistics, The Production of Cantonese Sentence-Final Particles: Immersed Speakers vs. Heritage Speakers
2nd Place – Savannah Wooten, Musicology, Culture, Race, and Shifting Perceptions of Jazz at OSU in the 1970s
3rd Place - Katie Anne Conner, Linguistics, Creaky, She Spoke; Examining f0, Vocal Creak, and Perceptions of Young Women’s Professionalism
Honorable Mention - Court(ney) Felle, Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy, The ‘Genre’ of Chronic Illness: Chronic Pain Patient Narrative-Making
Mathematical and Physical Sciences
1st Place – Valmuri Srivardhan, Organic Chemistry, Electrocatalytic Upcycling of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Plastics
2nd Place – Purva Shripad Damale, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dynamic Spray Mass Spectrometry for Rapid and Direct Analysis of Complex Mixtures
3rd Place - Barbara Fornaciari, Physical Chemistry, Structure-Dependent Hydroxyl Radical Quantum Yields in Eumelanin Probed by Fluorescence Spectroscopy
Honorable Mention - Poulomi Chakraborty, Physics, High-throughput Computational Search for Topological Thermoelectrics
Honorable Mention - Yiwei Zhou, Chemistry, Understanding 59Co NMR Temperature Sensitivity by Spin-Crossover Co(III) Complexes
Social and Behavioral Sciences
1st Place – Valeska Tan, Design Research and Development, Understanding Patient and Provider Perceptions of Social Isolation, Loneliness and Boredom in the Cancer Patient Experience
2nd Place – Julia Nauman, Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD), Maladaptive Daydreaming in Autism Spectrum Disorder and AttentionDeficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
3rd Place - Cyenna Ulrich-Cech, Environmental Sciences Graduate Program (ESGP), Extreme Heat and Adverse Health Experiences of LGBTQIA+ Populations in Ohio
Honorable Mention - Eunjee Ko, Psychology, Automatic Action Representation of Vaping in the Brain Predicts Future Intention to Vape Among Young Adults Who Use E-Cigarettes
Postdoctoral: Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
1st Place – Stephanie Frost, Chemistry Education, The Power of Words: GTA Inquiry on Language Use in Chemistry Instruction
2nd Place – Lauren Doocy, Public Affairs, Exploring Excess Interaction of Drinking Drivers and Model-Based Estimates of Drinking and Driving Prevalence and Relative Risk
Postdoctoral: Biological, Life, Health Sciences, and Biomedical Engineering
1st Place – Jana Cable, Microbial Infection and Immunity, Modeling Repeated Respiratory Virus Infections to Understand Long-Term Cardiac and Pulmonary Injury
2nd Place – Angela de Aguila, Institute of Brain, Behavior, and Immunology, Manipulation of the Gut Microbiome Alters the Intraperitoneal Immune System
3rd Place - Nisitha Wijewantha, Biomedical Engineering, Real-Time, Label-Free Monitoring of Nanoparticle Drug Release via Nanopore Sensing under Physiological Conditions
Postdoctoral: Physical & Mathematical Sciences and Engineering
1st Place – Firoz Shah Tuglak Khan, Inorganic Chemistry, Understanding Spin Dynamics by Tuning Molecular Symmetry in Metal Complexes
2nd Place – Ratnadip De, Spectroscopy, Ultrafast XUV Circular Dichroism Reveals Transient Spin Polarization in Chiral Copper Oxide: A Pathway to Understanding Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity
3rd Place - Srikanth Dasari, Chemistry, Clock-Like Zero-Field Spin Dynamics in Chemically Stable Ni(II) Complex Spin Qubit for Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Imaging
Poster Session Winners
Session 1: Biological & Health Sciences (Combined Session)
1st Place – Alison Deitsch, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Long Stays and Revolving Doors: A Comparison of Psychiatric Hospitalizations Among Autistic and Non-Autistic Older Adults
2nd Place – Tasnin Akter Nila, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Probing the Secondary Structure of KIF5A pre-mRNA in Wild-Type and DiseaseAssociated Mutants
3rd Place - Ayushi Das, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (MCDB), A Novel Mouse Model to Identify Antigen-Specific Immune Responses in Pancreatic Cancer Cachexia
Honorable Mention - Sharefa Duhaney, Health Behavior and Health Promotion, Toward a Trauma-Informed, Brain-Injury-Aware System: Staff Exposure, Preparedness, and System-Level Implications
Honorable Mention - Addie Schlussel, Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, Improving Dryland Restoration: Connecting Seedling Function with Recruitment Success
Honorable Mention - Lily Schumacher, Biophysics, Specific Plant KASH Domains are Differentially Required for Individual LINC Complex Roles in Arabidopsis thaliana
Session 2: Education & Human Ecology and Social & Behavioral Sciences (Combined Session)
1st Place – Grace Amadon, Clinical Psychology, Mobility Domains are Differentially Associated with Executive Function and Neural White Matter Integrity Across the Adult Lifespan
2nd Place – Olivia Horn, Clinical Psychology, Neighborhood Deprivation, But Not Physical Activity, is Associated with Episodic Memory and White Matter Integrity in Aging
3rd Place - Kara Fort, Communication, How Americans Defend Political Falsehoods: The Influence of Ideology, Information Environment, and Epistemic Beliefs
Honorable Mention - Suraksha Baral, Agriculture, Environmental, and Development Economics, Cross-Country Evidence on How Normative Framing Shapes Household Food Waste Behavior
Honorable Mention - Sara Martin, Educational Studies – Special Education, Middle School FLIP Recess: Improving Social Outcomes for Students with Disabilities
Session 3: Food, Agriultural, and Environmental Sciences
1st Place – Sushma Katari, Agricultural Engineering, A Multi-Sensor Imaging Strategy to Enhance Soybean Growth Monitoring
2nd Place – Hrithik Shetty, Food Science and Technology, Mathematical Modeling of High Moisture Extrusion Cooling Die Using NonLinear Viscoelastic Rheological Models to Optimize the Texture of Plant-Based Meat Analogs
3rd Place - Manpreet Kaur, Food Science and Technology, Controlling Off Odors in Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and Yellow Perch (Perca flavescens) Fillets via Antioxidant Rich Diet
Honorable Mention - Sandeep Dhakal, Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering, Remote Sensing Based Phenotyping of Rubber Dandelion: Linking Canopy Traits to Root Biomass and Natural Rubber Yield
Honorable Mention - Adam Chismar, Food Science and Technology, Correspondence Between Stated and Operational Preferences – An Examination of Overall Liking, Preference Rankings, and Three Methods of Takeaway Choice
Honorable Mention - Brynn Johnson, Horticulture and Crop Science, Defining Nitrogen Rates and Mowing Heights on Community Level Sports Fields
Session 4: Engineering
1st Place – Krutarth Pandit, Chemical Engineering, Advanced Chemical Looping Gasification of Biomass for High-Purity Syngas Production with Inherent CO2 Capture: A Pathway to Sustainable Liquid Fuels
2nd Place – Kaitlyn Cimney, Biomedical Engineering, Cerclage Wire for Affordable Plate Fixation in Murine Critical Sized Defect Models
3rd Place - XingZhi Li, Integrated Systems Engineering, Numerical Simulation of Microdamage in Equine Superficial Digital Flexor Tendon
Honorable Mention - Mimi Cai, Integrated Systems Engineering, You’ve Been Framed! Reducing Algorithm Influence in Healthcare DecisionMaking
Honorable Mention - Syed Murtaza Arshad, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Read4DFlow: Real-time Whole-Heart 4D Flow Imaging from a 5-Minute Scan Using Multi-Dynamic Deep Image Prior
Honorable Mention - Yizhen Jia, Material Science and Engineering, Flexible Light-Addressable Potentiometric Sensors for Cellular Imaging of Electrophysiological Signals
Session 5: Math & Physical Sciences
1st Place – Andrew Lorig, Chemistry, C-H Deuteration Enabled by Stepwise Electrochemical Transformations in Solid State
2nd Place – H Rainak Khan Real, Grography, From Microns to Meters: Using Remote Sensing to Understand the Spatial Ecology of Iron-Oxidizing Bacteria on the Arctic Tundra
3rd Place - Andrew Gothard, Biostatistics, Continuous Logic Forest: An Ensemble Machine Learning Technique for Discovering Logical Combinations of Binary Markers
Honorable Mention - Jude Stapf, Chemistry, Enhancing 59Co NMR Sensitivity and Accuracy for Next-Generation MRI Probe Design
Honorable Mention - Rohan Maji, Chemistry, Remote Tuning of a Zr/Co Heterobimetallic Catalyst for Olefin Isomerization
Honorable Mention - Piyush Anil Kumar Sharma, Physical Chemistry, Carbonate-Enhanced Photocorrosion Limits the CO2 Reduction Reactivity on CuFeO2 Delafossite Photocathodes