2024 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Aindrila Saha
Graduate Student
Neuroscience, SMPH
Mentor: Raunak Sinha
Poster presented:
“Functional development of cone photoreceptors in the primate retina and retinal organoids”
Honorable Mention
Celia Bisbach
Postdoctoral Researcher
Waisman Center, VCRGE
Mentor: David Gamm
Poster presented:
“Modeling Usher Syndrome using Human Stem Cell-derived Retinal Organoids”
Honorable Mention
Kushin Mukherjee
Graduate Student
Psychology, L&S
Mentor: Karen Schloss
Poster presented:
“Estimating human color-concept associations from multimodal language models”
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2023 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Jacob Khoussine
Graduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Mrinalini Hoon
Poster presented:
“Retinal output dysfunction in a model of congenital stationary night blindness.”
Honorable Mention
Michele Salzman
Graduate Student
Comparative Biomedical Sciences, SVM
Mentor: Freya Mowat
Poster presented:
“Age-associated changes in a measure of visual function in companion dogs”
Honorable Mention
Anoushka Kuckreja
Middleton HS Student, Research Intern
Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Bikash Pattnaik
Poster presented:
“Reducing the fidelity of specific tRNA to bridge the translation gap”
2022 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Zikang ‘John’ Zhu
Graduate Student
Neuroscience, SMPH
Mentor: Ari Rosenberg
Poster presented:
“Differential Clustering of Visual, Choice-, and Saccade-Related Activity in Macaque V3A and CIP.”
Honorable Mention
Michael Landowski
Post-Doctoral Student
Medical Genetics, SMPH
Mentor: Aki Ikeda
Poster presented:
“A Novel Function of Transmembrane Protein 135 in Peroxisomal Homeostasis”
Honorable Mention
Clementine Zimnicki
Graduate Student
Psychology, College of L&S
Mentor: Karen Schloss
Poster presented:
“Squares vs. Maps: effects of configuration on the dark-is-more bias?”
2021 Winner and Honorable Mentions
No awards given this semester due to pandemic
2020 Winner and Honorable Mentions
No awards given this semester due to pandemic
2019 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Sarah Rempel
Postdoctoral Reseercher
Neuroscience, SMPH
Mentor: Timothy Gomez
Poster presented:
“Human stem cell-derived photoreceptors switch from cell autonomous neurite growth to non-autonomous process stretching with retinal organoid age.”
Honorable Mention
Ryan Niemeier
Graduate Student
Biomedical Engineering, SMPH
Mentor: Jeremy Rogers
Poster presented:
“LINK: A unified imaging platform with multiscale potential”
Honorable Mention
Abhilash Sawant
Graduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Mrinalini Hoon
Poster presented:
“Mixed GABA-Glycine inhibitory synapses mediate postsynaptic inhibition on mouse ON alpha retinal ganglion cells”
2018 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Allison Ludwig
Graduate Student
Comparative Biomedical Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: David Gamm
Poster presented:
“Comprehensive in vivo assessment of human pluripotent stem cell-derived photoreceptor survival & differentiation potential in the S334ter rat model of retinal degeneration.”
Honorable Mention
Kazuya Oikawa
Graduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Gillian McLellan
Poster presented:
“Association between aqueous humor (AH) transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta and intraocular pressure in a spontaneous glaucoma model”
Honorable Mention
Abhilash Sawant
Graduate Student
Neuroscience, Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentors: Mrinalini Hoon & Raunak Sinha
Poster presented:
“Mixed GABA-Glycine synapses on mouse retinal ON alpha ganglion cell dendrites”
2017 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Divya Sinha
Postdoctoral Researcher
Waisman Center; Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Dave Gamm
Poster presented:
“Modulations of mitochondrial respiration in hPSC-RPE.”
Honorable Mention
Erica Macke
Graduate Student
Medical Genetics, SMPH
Mentor: Aki Ikeda
Poster presented:
“Age-dependent retinal abnormalities and neurodegeneration in the small kinky tail mutant”
Honorable Mention
Chris Racey
Graduate Student
Psychology, College of L&S
Mentor: Karen Schloss
Poster presented:
“Color naming fluency does not explain color preference when chroma is controlled”
2016 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Heather Schmitt
Graduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Rob Nickells
Poster presented:
“Targeting HDAC3 activity prevents retinal ganglion cell nuclear atrophy and apoptosis after optic nerve injury”
Honorable Mention
Brad Gundlach
Graduate Student
Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
Mentor: Mikhail Kats
Poster presented:
“Enhancing human color vision by breaking binocular redundancy”
Honorable Mention
Erica Macke
Graduate Student
Medical Genetics, SMPH
Mentor: Aki Ikeda
Poster presented:
“Age-related retinal abnormalities and neurodegeneration in the Small Kinky Tail mutant”
2015 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Maggie Maes
Graduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Rob Nickells
Poster presented:
“BAX oligomerization kinetics and its role in retinal ganglion cell death.”
Honorable Mention
Pawan Shahi
Graduate Student
Pediatrics, SMPH
Mentor: Bikash Pattnaik
Poster presented:
“Read-through therapy for blindness using iPS-RPE cells”
Honorable Mention
Li Xuan Tan
Graduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Aparna Lakkaraju
Poster presented:
“FDA-approved sphingomyelinase inhibitors stimulate cellular clearance and reduce inflammation in the retinal pigment epithelium”
2014 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Patrick Barney
Undergraduate Student
Waisman Center; Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Joe Phillips, Gamm Lab
Poster presented:
“Biological and synthetic membranes for human indued pluripotent stem cell-based transplantation therapy.”
Honorable Mention
Daniel Albers Safir
Graduate Student
Computer Sciences, College of L&S
Mentor: Michael Gleicher
Poster presented:
“Lightness Constancy in Surface Visualization”
Honorable Mention
Maggie Maes
Graduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Rob Nickells
Poster presented:
“BAX oligomerization kinetics and its role in retinal ganglion cell death.”
2013 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Caitlin Mac Nair
Graduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Rob Nickells
Poster presented:
“ATP signalling pathways trigger glial activation in the mouse retina.”
Honorable Mention
Ennio Perez
Undergraduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Dave Gamm
Poster presented:
“Investigating the role of VSx2 (CHX10) in human retinogenesis using iPS cells”
Honorable Mention
Karissa Tilbury
Graduate Student
Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Mentor: Paul Campagnola
Poster presented:
“Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) microscopy and multiphoton fabrication”
2012 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Patrick Halbach
Graduate Student
Pediatrics, SMPH
Mentor: Pattnaik & Pillers
Poster presented:
“Oxytocin regulation of retinal epithelium cell function.”
Honorable Mention
Chi-Chieh Huang
Graduate Student
Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Mentor: Hongrui Jiang
Poster presented:
“A bio-inspired cylindrical lens based on reflection from an array of micro-mirrors fabricated on a cylindrical flexible substrate”
Honorable Mention
Caitlin Mac Nair
Graduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Rob Nickells
Poster presented:
“Attenuated glial activation after optic nerve crush in BAX-deficient mice”
2011 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Michelle Wilson
Graduate Student
Surgical Sciences, SVM
Mentors: Christopher Murphy and Paul Nealey
Poster presented:
“Hydrogels with well-defined peptide-hydrogel spacing and concentration: Impact on epithelial cell behavior”
Honorable Mention
Bader Aldalali
Graduate Student
Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
Mentors: Li Zhang and Hongrui Jiang
Poster presented:
“A micro camera utilizing a microlens array for multiple viewpoint imaging”
Honorable Mention
Erica Rosenbaum
Graduate Student
Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, SMPH
Mentor: Nansi Colley
Poster presented:
“XPORT, an eye-specific chaperone for Rhodopsin and TRP, is essential for photoreceptor cell survival”
2010 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Brandon Smith
Graduate Student
Computer Sciences, L&S
Mentor: Li Zhang
Poster presented:
“Light field video stabilization”
Honorable Mention
Joel Shires
Graduate Student
Neuroscience, SMPH
Mentor: Michele Basso
Poster presented:
“Basal ganglia play a key role in spatial memory for eye movements”
Honorable Mention
Ryan Liegel
Graduate Students
Cell Biology, Neurobiology & Anatomy at Medical College of Wisconsin
Mentor: D.J. Sidjanin, MCW
Poster presented:
“Blind sterile locus 2 (bs2) is a hypomorphic mutation in Agps”
2009 Winner and Honorable Mentions
Winner
Greg Cipriano
Graduate Student
Computer Sciences, L&S
Mentor: Michael Gleicher
Poster presented:
“Molecular surface abstraction”
Honorable Mention
Xuefeng Zeng
Graduate Student
Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
Mentor: Hongrui Jiang
Poster presented:
“An endoscope utilizing tunable-focus microlenses actuated through infrared light”
Honorable Mention
Feng Liu and Yuzhen Niu
Graduate Students
Computer Sciences, L&S
Mentor: Michael Gleicher
Poster presented:
“Exploring perceptual plausibility for vision and graphics applications”