Students, faculty, and administrators representing the David C. Frederick Honors College (FHC) met in late July at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg for the FHC’s first-ever 2025 Summer Research Conference.
"This was a landmark day for the FHC. For the first time in our history, we had a summer research symposium that allowed us to share, together, in real time the knowledge that each of our summer fellowship recipients had produced,” said Nicola Foote, dean of the Frederick Honors College. “The summer symposium allowed FHC students from both of our campuses to learn together and celebrate their accomplishments. Additionally, it highlighted powerfully how the FHC cross-campus partnership is already proving to be an incredible benefit for students at both Greensburg and Pittsburgh. "
Fifty-eight undergraduate students representing the FHC and the FHC at Pitt-Greensburg presented their research done in the areas of the social sciences, biological and health sciences, arts & humanities, as well as interdisciplinary and other STEM fields.
“The partnership between the Frederick Honors College at the Pittsburgh and Greensburg campuses provides exciting learning opportunities for Pitt students,” said Robert Gregerson, president of Pitt-Greensburg. “A great example is the FHC Summer Research Conference held on the Greensburg campus. Students from a wide array of disciplines presented results from their research projects, and they were all outstanding! At Pitt-Greensburg, we are proud of this partnership that drives academic innovation and student achievement.”
Students arrived from Pittsburgh mid-morning and gathered in Powers Hall Auditorium for the opening remarks. The day’s schedule also included lunch and time for socializing at the end of the presentations.
"This first-ever event was a success,” said Frank Wilson, PhD, assistant vice president for Academic Affairs at Pitt-Greensburg and interim associate dean of the Frederick Honors College at Pitt-Greensburg. “By all accounts, it is likely to become an annual end-of-summer FHC research conference. We are hopeful that having it regularly hosted in Greensburg will make it a ‘signature event’ for us, and an important example of the growing collaboration between FHC campuses."
Two sets of sessions (morning and afternoon) showcased the students’ work that included these topics:
Examining the Associations Between Academic Stress, Subject and Objective Socioeconomic Status and Depressive Symptoms- Convoluted Democracy in the Cultural Appalachian Region
- From Data Collection to Program Direction: Shaping Latinx Studies at Pitt
- Surveying Pitt's Advising Coordination Project Phase A: Understanding Student and Faculty Perceptions and Feedback
- Indigenous Knowledge in Arctic Environmental Policy: A Focus on Alaskan Indigenous Communities
- A War on Slavery: A Discussion of How Northern Abolitionists Changed the Public Mind
- Investigating Oxidative Stress-Induced Extracellular Matrix Remodeling in Human Aortic Smooth Muscle Cells
- 2-Methoxyestrone Reduces Progression of Inflammatory and Angioproliferative Pulmonary Hypertension
- Defining N-cadherin organization at the cardiomyocyte adherens junction
- Evaluating Examination Forms in a Basic Applied Statistics Course using Classical Test Theory
- Endometriosis and Epidemiology: Identifying Diagnostic Trends and Risk Factors
- Using CURE-Based Labs to Investigate Environmental Stress Response Genes in the Grain Crop Sorghum
- Identifying the source of calcium and its role as the driving force for dopamine efflux using Amphetamine as a tool
- Platelet mitochondrial function in the pathogenesis of Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF)
- The Role of UBXD2 and UBXD8 in ER-Associated Degradation of Misfolded Membrane Proteins
- Profilin-1 Stabilization for ALS Therapy
- Evaluating Congruence Between Cancer Models and Tumor of Origin: A Faster Approach
- Synthetic Modulation of Time in a Human Embryo Model
- The Interplay between Stress, Sleep & Physical Activity
- Crochet Models as a Tool For Concussion Education
- Maya Burns
- Neuroscience Can’t Fix Racism—But It Can Help RECI Illuminate the Path to Racial Equity
- The Family Archive: What Three Generations of Women Can Tell Us About Survival
- London's Literary Tourism: a field study of an industry and the culture surrounding it
- MRI-Based Brain Vessel Segmentation: A Novel Approach for Advancing Alzheimer’s Disease Research
- Design and Development of Enhanced Phase-Shift Mask Architectures for Nanopatterning
- Volatility in LLM Persona-Driven Generations
- Engineering Extracellular Vesicles to Demonstrate the Role of miR-149-5p in Musculoskeletal Regeneration
- Pathways to CCL5-Mediated T Cell Recruitment: Reprogramming the Tumor Microenvironment
- Race and a History of Preeclampsia Influence Circulating Neuroinflammatory Biomarker Levels in Women
- Epstein-Barr Virus: The Vampire That Immortalizes B Cells
- Revealing the underlying mechanism of the triosephosphate isomerase (TPI) R5G mutant
- C. elegans lysosomal acid lipase functions are rescued by human LAL gene
- The biophysical mechanisms of cell systems sensing and responding to osmotic pressure
- Naked mole-rat ovarian reserve is regulated by continuous active DNA-damage repair machinery
- Developing a scaffold protein to make small proteins large enough for Cryo-EM
- Understanding CA2-Projecting Hippocampal Interneurons
- Circulating Mybpc3 in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
- Biomarkers and Symptoms as an Indicator of Endometriosis
- The Effects of Physical Activity on Gene-Related Risk for Alzheimer's Disease
- Humanity’s Mother: Eve and Original Sin as the American Female Archetype
- Of Lies and Lust: Making a Historically Accurate Mystery Novel
- How Historical Dramas of France, England, and Spain Obscure Colonial Exploitation in the Portrayal of Royal Power
- Sleep in Preschool-Aged Children at Risk of Childhood ADHD
- “Um,” They Don’t Sound Autistic: How Gender-Normative Speech Patterns Mask Female-Specific Manifestations of the Autism Profile
- Neighborhood Context and Family Environment: Evaluating Environmental Influences on Emotion Regulation Development in Youth
- The Impact of Parental Interaction on Children's Math Skills
- Cells mimicking functionality of Cystic Fibrosis show hyper-responsiveness toward IL-13 in Human Airway Epithelial Cells
- Biological Animation: A look into how SMUG1 finds and excises DNA damage
- Mapping Corticothalamic Circuits to Define Motor Thalamus Using Transgenic Mice
- Environmental enrichment is not a prophylactic for traumatic brain injury
- Contributions of NADPH Oxidases to PINK1-related mitophagy in Parkinson's Disease
- Understanding how different EV sources affect regenerative capabilities in tendiopathy
- Estrogen-mediated effects on aortic extracellular matrix composition and architecture in pre and post-menopausal women
- TRPV1-positive primary afferents mediate pelvic tactile allodynia in endometriosis and uterine VEGF-associated mouse models of chronic pelvic pain
- Influence of Mechanical Properties of the Extracellular Matrix on Cardiac Fibroblast Behavior and Function
- Identification of new regulators of the acute to chronic lifestyle transition by Pseudomonas aeruginosa
- Exploring the Impact of Multidimensional Sleep Patterns on Cognitive Performance in Older Adults