Undergraduate Research Symposium features iSchool students and mentors

Several iSchool undergraduate students will participate in the 18th annual Undergraduate Research Symposium. During the event, visitors will learn about undergraduate research projects through oral and poster presentations, creative performances, and art exhibits. All are welcome to attend the symposium, which will be held on April 24 from 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. in the Illini Rooms and South Lounge of the Illini Union. Oral presentations will be held on the second floor of the Illini Union.

iSchool students and mentors include:

• Abeeha Fajar, BSIS senior, will present "Understanding Through Touch: A New Form of Communication," from 9:00-10:15 a.m. in room 210.
• Xiaoran Zhou, BSIS senior, will present "Recognizing Interest Groups in News Articles About Emissions Rules," from 9:00-10:15 a.m. in room 215. Mentors: Associate Professor Jodi Schneider and Postdoctoral Research Associate Heng Zheng
• Luyang Si, BSIS+DS senior, will present "Analyzing the Consistency of Retraction Phrases Among Different Journals in Crossref Data," from 12:15-1:30 p.m. in room 210. Mentors: Associate Professor Jodi Schneider and PhD student Malik Salami
• Raphael Chen, BSIS+DS freshman, will present "Exploring Chess Players' Responses to Success and Failure via Machine Learning," from 12:15-1:30 p.m. in room 210. Mentor: Assistant Professor Nigel Bosch
• Max Zhang, BSIS+DS junior, and Luyang Si, BSIS+DS senior, will present "Psychological Motivation Factor That Enhance Confidence and Participation in Sports Among Students With Poor Physical Fitness," from 2:00-3:15 p.m. in room 209. Mentor: Associate Professor Peter Darch
• Leana Shin (Political Science) will present "Technology on Trial: Reimagining Asylum Adjudication in a Digital Age," from 2:00-3:15 in room 213. Mentor: Assistant Professor Meicen Sun
• Cedric Dredd (Business) will present "A.I. Bigotry: Tracing the Source of Existing Biases in A.I. Models Used to Predict Recidivism," from 3:45-5:00 p.m. in room 209. Mentor: Teaching Assistant Professor Haileleol Tibebu
• Wenqi Shan, BSIS+DS freshman, will present "Industry Influence on Global AI Policy," from 3:45-5:00 p.m. in room 209. Mentor: Assistant Professor Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo
• Evan Price, BSIS senior, will present "Little Stories for Little Children: Yiddish Children's Book Art and Diaspora Nationalism in the Soviet Union," from 3:45-5:00 p.m. in room 215.
• Aashvi Busa (Computer Science) will present the poster, "WormFindr: Automatic Segmentation of Neurons in C. elegans," from 12:15-1:30 p.m. Mentor: Teaching Assistant Professor Jill Naiman 
• Vedha Pant, BSIS+DS sophomore, will present the poster, "Reduction of a Biophysical CA1 Region of the Hippocampus Into a Mean Field/Population Rate Model," from 9:00-10:15 a.m. 
• Sanjana Jose (Molecular & Cellular Biology) will present the poster, "Exploring the Temporal Spread of Antibiotic Resistance Within Piglets Following Antibiotic Treatment," from 10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Mentor: Informatics PhD student Saralexis Torres 
• Magdalena Trzupek, BSIS+DS sophomore, will present the poster, "Exploring Gen Z's Perceptions and Attitudes Toward AI Use in Marketing," from 2:00-3:15 p.m. Mentor: Interim Executive Associate Dean and Visiting Professor Jiangping Chen 
• Lya Mun, BSIS+DS sophomore, will present the poster, "Individual Cattle Identification Using Computer Vision," from 10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
• Weiting Yang, BSIS+DS junior, will present the poster, "Analyzing Food Security in College Students Taking Contemporary Nutrition," from 12:15-1:30 p.m.
• Tianqi Fu, BSIS+DS junior, will present the poster, "Advancing Speech Intelligibility and Keyword Recognition Through Hybrid NLP and ASR Techniques," from 2:00-3:15 p.m.
• Kyle Keliuotis (Brain & Cognitive Science) will present the poster, "WormFindr: Automated Image Segmentation Tool for Analysis of Nematode Electron Micrographs," from 2:00-3:15 p.m. Mentor: Teaching Assistant Professor Jill Naiman
• Arianna Pardo, BSIS+DS sophomore, will present the poster, "Trying to Connect: Overcoming Barriers to Global Collaboration at the Middle School Level," from 3:45-5:00 p.m.
• Alejandra Arias, BSIS+DS junior, will present the poster, "Measuring University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Student's Knowledge on Information Security Concepts Based on Student Demographics," from 3:45-5:00 p.m. Mentor: Interim Executive Associate Dean and Visiting Professor Jiangping Chen
• Mallika Pallipuram, BSIS senior, will present the poster, "Occurrence of Disfluencies in Spoken Language," from 3:45-5:00 p.m.
• Luyang Si, BSIS+DS senior, submitted an image, "Psychological Motivation Factors That Enhance Confidence and Participation in Sports Among Students With Poor Physical Fitness," for the Image of Research competition.
• Riddhima Patllollu, BSIS sophomore, is a 2025 cohort member of the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program. Mentor: PhD student Muhammad Hassan