On March 29, the Office of Undergraduate Research announced the winners of the sixth annual Texas Student Research Showdown at a virtual award ceremony.

Students participating in this research communication competition created two-minute videos to explain their research and creative activity to a general audience. A panel of 16 judges scored the videos on their ability to capture an audience’s attention, tell a narrative, convey rigorous scholarship, and target a general (rather than expert) audience. Current undergraduates also voted for an audience award winner.

This year’s event featured 45 videos from 87 students competing in two categories (science, technology, and engineering; arts, humanities, and social sciences). The submitters of the winning videos received awards generously funded by a gift from Kimberly and Scott Martin.

STEM Category

First place ($2000)
Zoe Lalji

• Watch: VALOR: VR Accessibility Layer for Open Research

Second place ($750)
Arian Veyssi

• Watch: Save Plastic Save Money: Recycling/Reusing Biological Plastic Wastes

Honorable mention:
Sanjna Bhatia, Satya Chintapalli, Jazzalyn Zou, Emily Samson

• Watch: Examining the Degradation of Polystyrene by Mealworms in the Presence of Alternate Food Sources

Nicholas Duggar

• Watch: Thermal Optical Limiter Using Bi-material Mirror

Katherine Faulkner

• Watch: Categorizing Variations of Phanerozoic Foraminifera Mineralogy

Kaitlyn Ng

• Watch: CityDNN

Alizer Khowaja

• Watch: Quantifying the Emissions Impact of Repurposed EV Battery Packs in Residential Settings

Aniket Sanghi

• Watch: Reference Star Differential Imaging of the PDS70 Planetary System using HST/WFC3 Images

Davis Roe

• Watch: Covid-19 + Injury Connections: A Literature Review

Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Category

First place ($2000)
Destiny Gonzales

• Watch: Interworm – Earworm Research

Second place ($750)
Danielle Nwosa

• Watch: Period Poverty in Nigeria: Systemic Causes and Sustainable Solutions

Honorable mention:
John Erard

• Watch: The Reparto de Tierras in Michoacán, Mexico

Sophie Schott

• Watch: The HEARD Study

Aidan Wilhite, Shilpa Rumalla, Madison Sheridan, Madeleine Montgomery

• Watch: Art Without a Frame: Digital Storytelling in Bosnia

Soufia Ali, Mahija Ginjupalli, Maharajni Perla, Oishika Das

• Watch: Knowledge Is Power: M-Learning Health Empowerment for the Rohingya Refugees of Bangladesh

Audience Award ($1000)
Sophie Schott

• Watch: The HEARD Study