RISE: Poster Symposium
The RISE application deadline has passed and applications are now closed.
At the end of the six-week program, RISE students will prepare an abstract and poster for the Poster Symposium. The symposium will give you the chance to practice the essential skill of science communication in front of an audience comprised of those familiar with research as well as the general public.
Interns will present a poster in one of these subject areas: astronomy, biology, biomedical engineering, chemistry, computer science, earth & environment, electrical and computer engineering, mathematics & statistics, mechanical engineering, medical laboratory research, neuroscience, nutrition, physics, psychological & brain sciences, psychology, and public health.
Practicum students will present a poster based on a research project in the area of computational neurobiology. Please take a look at a selection of posters from past years:
RISE Internship track (2025)
Biology
Chemistry
- Bridging Misconceptions and Affective Barriers: A Two-Pronged Approach to Supporting Students Learning Atomic Theory in General Chemistry – Aiden Choi
- Construction of Cap5M Ortholog Kinases via DNA-to-Protein Expression Pathways – Chloe D’Arpino
- Structural Rearrangement of Twisted MoS2 in Atomic Substitution Nitridation Reaction – Karen Huang
- Investigation of Structural Rearrangement of Twisted WS2 In Atomic Substitution Nitridation Reaction – Tyler Munsie
- A Systemic Evaluation of Atomic Representations in General Chemistry Textbooks – Siddharth Siravara
Computer Science
- A Developmentally-Inspired Vocabulary Benchmark for Infant-Level Vision-Language Models – Helen Chen
- SWARE: Real-Time Visualization of Order- Aware Data Ingestion – Philip Chindris
- Benchmarking Small-Scale Vision-Foundation Models through Developmentally-Inspired Cognitive Assessments, A New Ecosystem for Academic Pretraining Research – David Li
- Adapting Memory-Based Developmental Psychology Tests for Infant-Inspired VLM Benchmarking – Jeffrey Li
- Creating Novel VLM Benchmarks Derived from the NIH Baby Toolbox – Shawn Li
- A Space Efficient Approximation of Optimal Transport via Hierarchically Separated Trees – Ian Wu
- Benchmarking Small-Scale Vision-Foundation Models Through Developmentally-Inspired Cognitive Assessments – Andrew Zagula
- Approximating Optimal Transport with Hierarchically Well-Separated Trees – Charles Zhang
- Evaluating Baby-Scale Vision-Language Models with a Developmentally-Inspired Vocabulary Task – Amy Zhao
- Where’s the Edit? Visual Models vs. Local Semantics – Audrey Zheng
- Establishing a Benchmark for Baby-Level Vision Foundation Models – Andrew Zhu
Earth and Environment
- Optical and Chemical Analysis of Driving Factors for DOC Concentration and Composition – Shaleen Bhattacharya
- Analyzing Fluctuations in Aromaticity and DOC Concentration Using a Coupled Solar–Microbial Exposure System – Ryan Jung
- Foliar Water Uptake in Urban Broadleaf Trees – Matthew Lee
- From ACE to ACS: Refining Urban Albedo-Temperature Metrics by Integrating Surface Energy Flux Responses – Junwon Park
Electrical & Computer Engineering
- Transient Thermal Simulator Using Machine Learning – Ronni Chang
- Optimizing Gold Nanorod Synthesis for Photoacoustic Retinal Stimulation and Biocompatibility – Michael Coppellotti
- Hardware Accelerator for CKKS Encryption – Athithan Elamaran
- Privacy-Preserving Inference on Embedded Devices – Elliott Jang
- Inter-site Variability in Autism Prediction Models with Resting State Functional MRI Data – Ayaan Seshadri
- Analysis of Brain Regional Volumetric Changes in Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Generative Adversarial Networks – Minghui Grace Yao
- Photoacoustic Gold Nanorods: Synthesis and Characterization – Jerry Yu
Mechanical Engineering
- Separation Dynamics of Binary Mixtures Through Colorimetric Cotton Chromatography of Lactic Acid – Olivia Ahn
- Spatially Encoded LiDAR Based Residual Learning for Obstacle Detection – Elizabeth Chung
- Investigating Ion Transport in Nanochannels – Xiangtuo Cui
- Expanding the Workspace of a Robotic Platform for Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures – Mihir Kotbagi
- Autonomous Path Following via Optical Flow of Environmental Features – Pranav Tripathi
Medicine
- Modulating PLC-DAG-Munc13-1 Signaling in INS-1 β-cells to Mitigate Basal Insulin Hypersecretion in Glucolipotoxicity – Dylan A. Foss
- JQ1 Epigenetic Modulation of Pancreatic β-Cells Promotes Fatty Acid Oxidation via Increased Phosphorylation of Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase and Partially Reverses the Effects of Glucolipotoxicity – Hung Q. Le
- Detection of Vascular Tau Pathology in Atherosclerotic Mouse Model – Michelle Li
- Effect of Atherogenic Factors on Tau Pathology in Endothelial Cells – Christina Lin
- BODIPY Fatty Acids (BFA) Enhance Glucose Stimulated Insulin Secretion (GSIS) via Nutrient Amplification in Ins-1 Beta Cells – Tanisha Sood
- Modulating ALDH2 Activity with Kakkalide and Disulfiram to Affect Alcohol-Induced Endothelial Dysfunction – Tony Song
- Glucolipotoxicity Impairs Calcium-Dependent Fatty Acid Amplification of Insulin Secretion via Impaired Lipid Signaling Pathways in Pancreatic β-Cells – Aryan Velu
- An Examination of Glucolipotoxicity on β-Cell Calcium Sensitivity and DAG Production Through KCl-Stimulated Depolarization – Kelly Yeh
Medicine: Anatomy & Neurobiology
- Correlation Between Geriatric Depression Scale Scores and Cognitive Flexibility Performance on an Adaptive Brain-Training Application – Megan Jung
- Prefrontal Activation During Music and Math: Hemodynamic Patterns in Musicians and Non-Musicians – Seeun Lee
- Smartphone Game-Based Cognitive Performance in Older Adults and Its Relationship with Cognitive Status – Maria Megill-Herrera
- Optimizing Quantitative Analysis of Oxygenated and Deoxygenated Hemoglobin Volumes in fNIRS Time Series Measurements – Zoe Tran
Medicine: Biochemistry & Cell Biology
Medicine: Infectious Diseases
- Polyreactivity of Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies Directed to the Membrane External Proximal Region of HIV-1 Envelope – Daniel Lee
Medicine: Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics
- Slower Rhodopsin Bleaching in Retinal Rods Lacking Transducin – Aanvi Trivedi
Medicine: Vascular Biology
- The Role of KMT2D in Pericyte Development – Vivian Chen
- The Role of Endothelial Kmt2d in Sprouting Angiogenesis – Terry Xie
Medicine: Virology, Immunology & Microbiology
- Longitudinal Genetic Variation in Human Coronavirus OC-43 Identified via Novel Long-Read Sequencing – Daniel Lee
- Genomic Analysis of HCoV-OC43 in Relation to Intra-Host and Temporal Genetic Variation – James Peng
- CD169 Mediated Internalization of Ebolavirus and HIV-1 in THP-1 Macrophages – Rithvik Venisetty
Neuroscience
- Chronic Activation Across Development Alters Ventral Hippocampal Projections – Cayla Shvartsman
- Expression of Perineuronal Nets and Cannabinoid Type 1 Receptors Across Development – Chloe Chung
- Evaluating Lateral Differences in Brain4Care Intercranial Pressure Waveforms in Neurocritical Patients – Dehao Zheng
- The Role of Optogenetic Activation of Dopamine Neurons in Compulsive Grooming and Neural Changes in Drosophila melanogaster – Ella Kim
- Dopamine Activation in the Insular Cortex’s Effects on Producing ASD-Like Behavior – Isabelle Son
- Impacts of Acetylcholine in Relation to Learning in Neurodevelopmental Disorders –Jolynn Cai
- Redefining Neurologic Deterioration Acute Brain Injury – Michelle Zhang
- Acetylcholine Silencing Effects on Aggression – Riley Trenchard
- Caffeine as a Seizure-Modulating Agent in Drosophila melanogaster: A Behavioral and Optogenetic Approach – Shiv Bansal
- Drosophila Dopaminergic Neuron Location Importance – Sung Ha Yoo
Physics
- Correlating Stress Development and Nanopattern Formation of Si Thin-Film Under Low-Energy Ion Bombardment – Marlene Ludwig
Psychological & Brain Sciences
RISE Practicum: Computational Neurobiology (2025)
Note: All students contributed equally to group projects.
- Simulating Direct Electrical Stimulation to Restore Fear-Extinction Balance in PTSD: Integrating Spiking Neural Networks and Mean-Field Models – Atiksh Rai, Ayden Roche, Iden Stein, Patrick Ji
- Correlating C4 Protein Levels with Synaptic Pruning and Analyzing Their Implications on Gamma Oscillations as a Biomarker for Schizophrenia – Ella Goldklang, Julia Song, Ethan Wan, Henry Wise, Sabrina Xu
- A Multiscale Systems Biology Framework to Model BDNF–proBDNF-Mediated Bifurcation Dynamics in CNS Neurotrophin Signaling – Sunwoo Choi, Ethan Liu, Krishna Moorjani, Abhay Murthy, Arpit Ramani
- Computationally Simulating Opioid-Induced Alterations in VTA–NAc Circuits: A Hybrid Biophysical-Reinforcement Model of Reward Prediction Error – Arjun Avineni, Minu Lee, Anvay Yadav, Peter Yang
- Simulated Single-Cell Transcriptomics Reveals Shared Neuroinflammatory Pathways in Age-Related and Radiation-Induced Hippocampal Dysfunction – Danielle Hu, Katie Ji, Alex Kuai, Kailin Xuan, Haoyi Zhang
- Modeling Multiple Sclerosis-Induced Demyelination with NMDA- and GABA_B-Mediated Synaptic Dysregulation in the Polysynaptic Reflex Arc –Samantha Oring, Amaya Kowalczyk, Vartan Arakelian, Maitreyi Madhira
- Investigating the Neural Consequences of Gut Microbiome Dysbiosis in Huntington’s Disease – Brayden LeSon, Emma Liu, Arushi Mishra, Isabella Shen
- Analyzing the Effects of Synaptic Pruning and Neuronal Death in Alzheimer’s Disease on Memory Recall Accuracy in a CA1 Hippocampal Model – Jaqueline Bellaria, Clare Cho, Claire Liu, Katelyn Rocha, Amy Sun
- Biologically Representative Machine-Learning-Based Emotion Recognition Circuit for Modeling Social Impairment Disorders – Annika Sandholm, Gavin Tardif, Mark Cai, Travis Hamerling, Alexandre Douieb
- Deriving a Novel Index for Objective Probabilistic Prediction of Parkinson’s – Victoria Kovalev, Alex Dauche, Aditya Menon, Siddharth Yenamandra
- Simulating Mitochondrial Failure in a Dopaminergic Neuron Upon Exposure to Increasing Dosages of MPP+ Neurotoxin – Allison Duh, Vidha Ganji, Natalie Ho, Reilly Moini, Gloria Wang
- A Novel Association of Atypical Hemispheric Weighting and Differential Mirror Neuron System Dynamics in Autism Spectrum Disorder – Sydney Bock, Jacob Pena, Sarah Kovalev-Sheinberg, EmmaRose Zilla
RISE Practicum: Data Science (2025)
Note: All students contributed equally to group projects.
- Python Tower Control: A Proof-of-Concept Deep Reinforcement Learning Algorithm Airport Tower Controller – Dashan Liu, Grant Revelle, Salar Sekhavat
- Machine Learning Applications in Sports-Based Predictive Analysis: A soccer Metrics and Outcomes Case Study – Jiajia Huang, Kamil Benhaddou, Mihir Mandlekar
- Predicting Turbulent Channel Flow with Generative Adversarial Physics-Informed Neural Networks – Rui Jerry Huang, Alicia Gu, Matthew Dyson, Michael Han
- Forecasting Boston MBTA Transit Dynamics: A Performance Benchmarking of Statistical and Machine Learning Models – Aiden Zhou, Sai Siddharth Nalamalpu, Kaining Yuan
- Reassessing Volatility Proxies for Financial Forecasting: An Empirical Study of ATR vs. Standard Deviation and IQR in Predictive ETF Trading with Deep Learning – Jonathan Yan, Akshay Murthy
- Multivariate Analysis of Determinants Causing Capacity Fade in Second-Life Lithium-Ion Batteries – Leah Wu, Daniel Nie, Aanya Patel
- Modeling Gentrification Risk Across U.S. Zip Codes: A Predictive Analysis Through 2035 – Jaden Tang, Evan Yip, Jay An
- Quantifying Political Polarization with Network Science – Nathaniel Chen, Justin Li, Aiden Lee
- Predicting Crime Trends with NLP on Business Reviews: A Case Study in Philadelphia – Jasper Ng, Haiyue Ma, Sunho Lee, Cyrena Yang
- A Systemic Evaluation of Multitaper and Single-Taper Methods for Spectral Density Estimation in Neural Signals – Anika Kumar, Elaine Zeng, Jiatong Zhao
- Resilient Anomaly Detection in Ocean Drifters with Unsupervised Learning, Deep Learning Models, and Energy-Efficient Recovery – Claire Guo, Jiachi Zhao
- PhishFence: Integrating Explainable AI with Probabilistic Classifiers for Phishing Detection – Andrew Lee, Connor Lee, Thomas Ha
- Evaluating the Bechdel Test: An Analysis of Gendered Dialogue in Film Through Natural Language Processing (NLP) – Brooke Ye, Philip Spradlin, Prianca Sharan
- Analyzing Trends of Aperiodic EEG Activity in Neurotypical Versus Neuropsychiatric Patients Across Lifetime Using Power Spectral Density – Aayan Ali, Michael Qu, Samarth Gupta
- Assessing Mean Reversion Prediction of Machine Learning Models for ETF Pairs Trading – Arnav Nair, Akshath Pasam, Arush Shah
- Evaluating Institutional Factors Influencing Teacher Retention in Massachusetts through Supervised Machine Learning Models – Joanna Zhao, Durva Dhok, Janani Shanmugam, Baohui Wang
- Investigating the Functional Characteristics of High-Frequency Oscillations Through Multitaper Spectral Methods and Regression Models Using Patient Metadata – Grace Li, Tanmayi Kunduru, William Huang, Erica Zhao
- Forecasting State-Level Unemployment with Hybrid Statistical and Neural Time Series Models Under Normal and Shock Conditions – Nellie Chen, Tony Lu
