UNO’s annual research celebration filled campus with ideas worth experiencing. View the graduate and graduate award winners.
What’s new: The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) hosted a two-day celebration of student research and creative activity March 26–27, featuring a keynote speaker, expert panel, and a full day of student-led presentations and performances.
Event highlights
Zoom in:
- March 26: Johns Hopkins University neuroscientist Alex Kolodkin, Ph.D., kicked off the event with a lecture on neural circuit assembly in the Milo Bail Student Center Ballroom.
- March 27: The Weber Fine Arts Building/CEC spaces/Strauss Performing Arts Center transformed into a hub of discovery, with undergraduate and graduate students presenting research through posters, presentations, performances, and interactive exhibits.
- March 27: A keynote and panel discussion brought together leaders in business, engineering, and cancer research to explore the impact of interdisciplinary collaboration.
People are also reading…
Why it matters
Pragmatic Research and Discovery is one of four pillars in UNO’s strategic plan.
- Investigators secured more than $40 million in external funding for research in FY 2024-2025, including more than $600,000 in student awards.
- Ten current and emeritus UNO faculty members are among the top two percent of cited scholars in the world, according to a ranking of 100,000 researchers from Stanford University and Elsevier.
Award recipients
Undergraduate performance
Undergraduate exhibit or demonstration
- Best: Ana P. Lopez-Zurita, “Hasta la Piel Collection (Down to My Skin Collection)”
- Outstanding: Rachel Cloeter, “Deconstruction: Saint John's Chapel”
- Meritorious: Simon Miller, “Charlie Vessel”
- Honorable Mention: Marie-Claire Broohm, “I'll change the name later”
Undergraduate poster presentation
- Best: Claire Wing and Jayden Smith, “Cytotoxic Effects of Ethanol on the OVCAR-8 Ovarian Carcinoma Cell Line”
- Outstanding: Chris Schinzel, “Examining Long Term Effects of Antibiotic Administration in Callithrix jacchus”
- Meritorious: Clara Wallace, "Do feeding patterns explain greater energy use observed in cold-adapted prairie lizard (Sceloporus consobrinus) populations?’"
- Honorable Mention: Kaitlyn Parker, “Effects of dietary protein during zebrafish (Danio rerio) development on stress expression and cortisol after exposure to chronic stress during adulthood”
Graduate poster presentation
- Best: Brandon Doehne, “The Role Of Physiological Metrics in Baseball Pitching Performance”
- Outstanding: Chukwuma Adinchezor, “Gastrointestinal Transit Time in Captive Common Marmosets (Callithrix jacchus): Associations with Stool Consistency and Gut Microbiome Structure”
- Meritorious: Nagesh Palukuru, “Analyzing Trends and District-Level Disparities in Chronic Absenteeism in Douglas County, Nebraska (2019–2020 to 2024–2025)”
- Honorable Mention: Brian Schlattman, “Direction-specific wobble-board instability as a rehabilitation strategy to restore orthogonal postural geometry in older adults”
Undergraduate oral presentation
- Best: Wells Johnson, “IRE1 and Filamentation in C. albicans”
- Outstanding: Dominic Koperski, “Investigation of Antimicrobial PA-12 in Selective Laser Sintered Prosthetic Sockets”
- Meritorious: Victor Rivero, “Validation of a human-specific, multiplex platform for detecting common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) inflammatory analytes”
- Honorable Mention: Kaitlyn Oswald, “The Impact of Chronic Stress, Cortisol Dysregulation, and Lifestyle Adaptation on Informal Caregivers: A Literature Review”
Graduate oral presentation
About the University of Nebraska at Omaha
Located in one of America’s best cities to live, work and learn, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) is Nebraska’s premier metropolitan university. With more than 15,000 students enrolled in 200-plus programs of study, UNO is recognized nationally for its online education, graduate education, military friendliness and community engagement efforts. Founded in 1908, UNO has served learners of all backgrounds for more than 100 years and is dedicated to another century of excellence both in the classroom and in the community.
