MSI Graduate Student Symposium

The GSA is excited to announce the 1st MSI Graduate Student Symposium on Friday, August 22nd, at the Patton Center. We will be hosting 11 students from the Integrative Biology and Chemistry Departments as our invited presenters. Through this event, the GSA hopes to create a student-led platform to strengthen connections between our MSI community and colleagues in Austin, fostering collaboration and sharing research across disciplines.

MSI Graduate Student Symposium – Program Schedule

8:45 AM – Opening Remarks
Sharon Herzeka, Lu Lin

9:00 AM – Keynote Presentation
Tracing Energy and Nutrient Fluxes in Coastal Marine Ecosystems: An Integrative Approach
Speaker: Simon Brandl

10:00 AM – Lightning Talks

• Design of Single-Molecule Peptide-DNA Hybrid Nanostructures for the Regulation of Protein Function – Imon Phukan
• Sediment-Hosted Abyssal Microbial Communities Supported by Diffuse Hydrothermal Fluid Flow – John Hinkle
• C-S-H Synthesis Using the Sol-Gel Method – Hajila Njenga
• PEGlyated Chitosan Nanoparticles for Gene Delivery – Mohammed Bhia
• Ichthyoplankton Community Uses Marginal Habitats During Estuarine Ingress – Juan Pablo Lozano-Peña

10:45 AM – Break

11:00 AM – Departmental Seminar
The Ecological Implications of Microplastic Pollution in New Zealand Coastal Sediments
Speaker: Samantha Ladewig

12:00 PM – Lunch Break

1:00 PM – Novel Acid Excretion Mechanism Under Hypersaline Conditions in Early Life Stage Sheepshead Minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus) – Lu Lin

1:15 PM – Platinum Grain Boundary Effect on Oxygen Reduction Reaction – Debasree Mandal

1:30 PM – The Effects of Noise on Sexual Selection in Túngara Frogs – Sydney Jansen

1:45 PM – Tracking the Gossip: Characterizing Shoaling Behavior of a Cichlid Fish – Sarah Muh

2:00 PM – Blennies, Benthics, and Beyond: Energetic Insights from Tiny Fishes – Melman Neill

2:15 PM – Templated Freeze-Casting for Porous Organic Battery Electrodes with High-Rate Capabilities – Rinish Reddy

2:30 PM – Safe and Stable Electrolytes for Next Generation Sodium Metal Batteries – Sridhar Sethuram Markandaraj

2:45 PM – Computational Design for Zeolitic Electrolytes for Solid-State Batteries – Jiaao Wang

3:00 PM – Break

3:30 PM – Spatial and Temporal Variability of the Isotopic and Stoichiometric Signatures of Halodule wrightii in Baffin Bay, Texas – Sofia Armada Tapia

3:45 PM – A Suicide Enzyme MybB Catalyzes Unusual Sulfur Incorporation in the Biosynthesis of Antitubercular Mycobacidin – Houyuan Zhao

4:00 PM – Earth-Abundant Electrocatalysts for Water Splitting: Insights into Their In Situ Phase and Morphological Transformations – Kenta Kawashima

4:15 PM – Tracing Arctic Coastal Carbon from Inorganic to Invertebrate – Mathea Kurtz-Shaw

4:30 PM – Vegetation Recruitment and Ecosystem Functionality in Restored Marsh Sites of the Nueces River Delta – Maggie McLaughlin

4:45 PM – A Multi-Faceted Approach to Understanding Pteropod Ecology and Vulnerability to Ocean Acidification in the Gulf of Mexico – Lauren Bomer