a picture of seth frey in front of the aspire audience
Dr. Seth Frey's presentation, "Imagining the fourth dimension and much, much higher".

ASPIRE Hosts its 8th Annual Symposium - 2023

  • by David R Garrett

The ASPIRE Undergraduate Research Program held its eighth annual Spring Research Symposium on June 9th, 2023, at the Center for Mind & Brain. The event featured a keynote address by Dr. Seth Frey, as well as presentations by two students, Jake Blumwald and Shyam Agarwal. Additionally, each of the ASPIRE Scholars presented posters, showcasing the research they completed during the 2012-2023 academic year.

ASPIRE (Accelerating Success by Providing Intensive Research Experience) offers a select group of UC Davis undergraduate students a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in conducting research under the mentorship of world-renowned UC Davis faculty.

ASPIRE Scholars begin their research work in their freshman or sophomore year and continue throughout their undergraduate tenure. The program includes faculty mentors from various departments and centers at UC Davis, such as the Center for Mind & Brain, the Center for Neuroscience, the Department of Psychology, and the Center for Poverty Research. ASPIRE Scholars have a diverse range of majors, including Engineering, Psychology, Biology, and Neurophysiology & Behavior.

Keynote

Dr. Seth Frey

  • Imagining the fourth dimension and much, much higher
Oral Presentations

Jake Blumwald

  • Title: Abstract Spaces in the Brain: Identifying a Grid-Code for Value-Based Decision Making
  • Co-authors: Erie Boorman and Mark Orloff

Shyam Agarwal

  • Title: Unveiling Unasked Questions: Harnessing Survey Responses to Unleash Hidden Knowledge
  • Co-authors: Seth Frey
Poster Presentations

Abrar Sadikeen

  • Title: Relationship between tract-specific white matter hyperintensities and functional connectivity in aging subjects
  • Co-authors: Dr. Audrey Fan, Jessica Korte, Quimby Lee

Amanda Li

  • Title: A Computational Analysis of Public Opinion Following a Celebrity Publicity Stunt
  • Co-authors: Seth Frey

Annabel Marshall

  • Title: Lexicality, Concreteness, and Neighborhood Density in Visual Word Recognition
  • Co-authors: Kurt Winsler, Steve Luck

Arshi Tanwar

  • Title: Temporal Binding in relation to Trace Fear Condition and Aging
  • Co-authors: Brian Wiltgen

Brian Li

  • Title: Investigating Energy Efficiency in Biological Neurons and Artificial Neural Networks
  • Co-authors: Rishi Chaudhuri

Chelsea Nnajiofor

  • Title: Investigating the role of expertise in the categorical cuing search effect
  • Co-authors: Brett Bahle

Hannah Hanif

  • Title: 3D Kinetic Pinch Block: Novel Instrumentation to Investigate Bimanual Motor Control and Fatigue
  • Co-authors: Dr. Carolynn Patten & Theresa E. McGuirk

Jenna Dohner

  • Title: Gaining Greater Insight Into the Amygdala Through Cell Types

  • Co-authors: Andrew Fox

Julissa Diaz Garcia

  • Title: Directive Language in Monolingual and Bilingual Caregivers

  • Co-authors: Kathrine Graf-Estes

Karen Ly

  • Title: Pre-activation of Semantic Features During Language Comprehension
  • Co-authors: Tamara Swaab

Katie Schwenker

  • Title: Making Math Fun: Developing Cognitive Strategies and Math-Positivity Through Gameplay

  • Co-authors: Yuko Munakata & Allison Zengilwoski

Kriti Iyer

  • Title: Understanding Neural Correlates of Joint Attention in Infants

  • Co-authors: Lindsay Bowman

Maitri Khanna

  • Title: ERP Letter Decoding Analysis: Insights into the Interactive Activation Model of Visual Word Recognition
  • Co-authors: Annabel Marshall, Kurt Winsler, Steven Luck

Nicole James

  • Title: Social Media Effects on Adolescent Self-Esteem

  • Co-authors: Drew Cingel

Niki Hosseinzadeh Khaligh

  • Title: Hidden strengths in childhood: An asset-based perspective on measures of inhibitory control

  • Co-authors: Yuko Munakata, Allison Zengilowski & Diego Placido

Noshin Akhtar

  • Title: Developing a Biomarker Signature to Predict Long-term Motor Outcome Following Stroke

  • Co-authors: Carolynn Patten

Renee Rosiles

  • Title: Contextual cues modulate the development of opiate tolerance

  • Co-authors: Brian Wiltgen

Sai Katta

  • Title: Neuronal Mechanisms of Feature- Based Attention A Pupillometric Study

  • Co-authors: Sreenivasan Meyyappan

Sophia Chen

  • Title: Can Single Channel Event-Related Potential Measures Reliably Detect Alzheimer's Disease?
  • Co-authors: John Olicheny

Valerie Klein

  • Title: Collaborative Tasks & Intersubject Correlation: A Naturalistic Hyperscanning Paradigm Using AR Tangram & Muse EEG

  • Co-authors: Richard Huskey

Wenlan Pan

  • Title: The Association Between Openness and Compassion in Consensually Non- monogamous Romantic Relationships

  • Co-authors: Rose Bern & Paul Eastwick

Yasmine Lewis

  • Title: The Effects of Pair-Bonding on Territorial Aggression in Female California Mice

  • Co-authors: Jace Kuske & Brian Trainor

Yillin Sun

  • Title: Infant Looking Behaviors Towards Familiar and Unfamiliar Animal Types

  • Co-authors: Shannon Koltz & Lisa Oakes