The campus’s 2024 Grad Slam finalists are (listed alphabetically by last name):
Sarah Alnahari
Public Health
Advisor: Professor Mariaelena Gonzalez
Research: Sarah’ s public health research delves into the social, historical, and political landscape surrounding tobacco control within minority and immigrant communities.
Maged Elshatoury
Materials and Biomaterials Science Engineering
Advisor: Professor James Palko
Research: Maged's research focuses on electrochemical methods for detecting and eliminating carcinogenic materials in water like Trichloropropane (TCP) in California's Central Valley. By integrating advanced detection techniques like SAMs on gold electrodes, he aims to improve detection limits. The goal is to develop efficient, scalable, and sustainable solutions for clean water access in affected communities.
Cayce Fylling
Applied Mathematics
Advisor: Professor Mazime Theillard
Research: Cayce's research focuses on computationally modeling the dynamic motion patterns of swarms or collectives of living agents, with a particular emphasis on bacterial colony behavior.
Tony Hua
Economics and Management
Advisor: Professor Zack Grossman
Research: Tony is a behavioral economist studying how various social and psychological motivations, e.g., concerns of one's self-image, affects economic decisions.
Samuel Leventini
Mechanical Engineering
Advisor: Professor Ashlie Martini
Research: Dopants provide protection for MoS2 coatings against various environmental conditions so that we can best use them in many different applications.
Daniel Miliate
Mechanical Engineering
Advisor: Professor Ashlie Martini
Research: Daniel is a computational researcher in the Martini Research Group. His work helps enable space exploration, using simulations to study how mission critical lubricants break down on a molecular level.
Jose Morales
Mechanical Engineering
Advisor: Professor Ashlie Martini
Research: Cleaner oils help remove varnish deposits from metal surfaces, preventing engines and other mechanical components from failing.
Pravien Rajaram
Chemistry and Biochemistry
Advisor: Professor Ryan Baxter
Research: prPravien's research poject aims to use sunlight to increase the production of medicinal compounds in plants.
Alejandra Santoyo
Cognitive and Information Sciences
Advisor: Professor Kristina Backer
Research: Alex's research is all about music — from how we process it to why we perceive it as music. She primarily uses electroencephalography (EEG) to record brain activity in order understand these questions.
Ambarish Varadan
Quantitative and Systems Biology
Advisor: Professor Juris Grasis
Research: Ambarish is part of the Grasis Lab, where he is investigating whether and by what mechanism(s) bacteriophages activate human intestinal epithelial cells.
