Funded and Focused Research Students
Research funding is an inseparable part of science, math and education. Many Bailey College undergraduates are learning early how financial support impacts innovation, discovery, solutions and their futures. Meet some of them.
Donya Behroozi
STATISTICS
RESEARCH: Creating AI software to better understand, diagnose and treat chronic lower back pain. As a member of Cal Poly's Bioinformatics Research Group, Bittner is analyzing data and shaping the design of algorithms to find novel and biologically significant connections between pain management, behavioral health, physical therapy, complementary medicine and surgery.
FACULTY MENTORS: Jean Davidson and Paul Anderson
SUPPORT FROM THE WILLIAM AND LINDA FROST FUND
Madeline Bittner
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
RESEARCH: Investigating sexual abuse, misconduct and exploitation of students by teachers and K-12 school employees in the U.S. through comparative analysis between data of reports received directly from school districts. Behroozi and her colleagues published an article on their research.
FACULTY MENTOR: Billie-Jo Grant
SUPPORT FROM THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Nika Bondar
PHYSICS / CHEMISTRY
RESEARCH: Building detector efficiency simulations for ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) in Switzerland. The Fast Interaction Trigger detector enables ALICE to select the most pertinent collisions for studying quark gluon plasma, a state of matter whose properties pose many of the key issues in the theory of quantum chromodynamics.
FACULTY MENTORS: Jennifer Klay and Shanju Zhang
SUPPORT FROM THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION AND THE WILLIAM AND LINDA FROST FUND
Salvatore Deguara
CHEMISTRY
RESEARCH: Design and synthesis of novel pharmaceutical candidates using selective optimization of side activities in commercial medications. This project aims to develop novel anti-anthrax and anti-ebola medication derived from an existing antimalarial agent. .
FACULTY MENTOR: Scott Eagon
SUPPORT FROM THE WILLIAM AND LINDA FROST FUND
Genesis Glover
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
RESEARCH: Exploring how the entirety of proteins — which regulate energy metabolism, stress responses, structures and signaling cascades in all cells — in marine invertebrates and mammals regulate the response to environmental stress (i.e., climate change), while maintaining growth by applying mass spectrometry.
FACULTY MENTOR: Lars Tomanek
SUPPORT FROM THE WILLIAM AND LINDA FROST FUND
Elijah Guptill
MATHEMATICS
RESEARCH: Investigating a certain subset of k-regular sequences through the application of complex analytic methods to their corresponding power series. Guptill plans to analyze and classify the dynamic behavior of these sequences in analytic terms.
FACULTY MENTOR: Ryan Tully-Doyle
SUPPORT FROM THE WILLIAM AND LINDA FROST FUND
Carolyn Key
MARINE SCIENCES
RESEARCH: Monitoring and studying Pismo clam populations on California's Central Coast as part of Cal Poly's Marine Conservation Lab. Key's senior project focuses on understanding how well the public is informed of the Pismo clam fishery regulations and what factors might influence awareness.
FACULTY MENTOR: Ben Ruttenberg
SUPPORT FROM THE SANTA ROSA CREEK FOUNDATION
Cooper Koenig
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
RESEARCH: Improving algorithms for knowledge graph generation using deep learning and data science. As a member of Cal Poly's Bioinformatics Research Group, Koenig is studying how recent advances in large language models can help clinicians and researchers bridge relevant theories into an operational framework suitable for understanding, diagnosing and treating chronic lower back pain.
FACULTY MENTORS: Jean Davidson and Paul Anderson
SUPPORT FROM THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Isabella Lamont
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
RESEARCH: Developing point-of-care, accessible, diagnostic tools for a variety of pathogens through capturing target genomic sequence and using nucleotide amplification to detect specific pathogen biomarkers using a variety of bioinformatic and bioengineering tools. This device can quickly and accurately detect specific strains or treatment resistance variations to optimize treatment specificity, in order to improve overall health outcomes.
FACULTY MENTORS: Jean Davidson and David Clague
SUPPORT FROM HEWLETT-PACKARD AND THE WILLIAM AND LINDA FROST FUND
Connor Poggemann
PHYSICS
RESEARCH: High energy astroparticle research with the VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) collaboration alongside Jodi Christiansen. They are investigating flaring behavior of blazar jets, one of the universe’s highest energy structure that are found very close to supermassive black holes.
FACULTY MENTOR: Jodi Christiansen
SUPPORT FROM THE WILLIAM AND LINDA FROST FUND
Tatum Schneider
MARINE SCIENCES
RESEARCH: Creating a Mobile Recirculating Aquaculture System (MRAS) built from scratch by Schneider and recent graduate Mila Bernsten. The MRAS will be used to grow seaweed, conduct experiments, demonstrate the steps and importance of aquaculture, and contribute to the public knowledge of aquaculture systems.
FACULTY MENTOR: Kevin Johnson
SUPPORT FROM THE SANTA ROSA CREEK FOUNDATION
Madeleine Yang
MARINE SCIENCES
RESEARCH: Researching and monitoring Pismo clam population along Pismo Beach to understand the fluctuations in population over time. Using the collected data to inform management agencies about the species population and educate the public about the species.
FACULTY MENTORS: Ben Ruttenberg
SUPPORT FROM THE SANTA ROSA CREEK FOUNDATION
