Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

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Characterizing the Mechanisms of C. elegans PRMT1 Temperature Dependence

Arianna Towne

Over time, cellular enzymes evolve through amino acid mutations which allow them to remain functional at temperatures specific to the host organism. This activity may be partially or completely lost when enzymes are removed from their optimal temperature range, as is observed for the C. elegans protein arginine methyltransferase 1 (cPRMT1). This construct demonstrates maximum enzymatic activity at the C. elegans optimum of 20°C, but no activity at 37°C where activity for mammalian PRMT1 variants is observed. Given dysregulation of PRMT1 has been linked to various disease states, we are interested in exploiting the biophysical mechanisms of cPRMT1 temperature dependence to improve our understanding of catalysis and regulatory means of this enzyme family.
Change in Social Movement Engagement and Leadership Should Equal a Change in Civic Education

Tess Tureson

It seems as if almost everything in our world has changed with the introduction of the internet, personal computers, iPhones, and social media. We write emails instead of letters. We listen to podcasts and read articles online instead of buying a newspaper. Presidents communicate with the world on Twitter. The way we engage with politics has entirely changed. Yet, we are still going about civic education in schools the same way, teaching students to give speeches in city council meetings, write letters to their representative, and find current events from traditional news sources. This study offers new statistical evidence that the way people interact with social movements, how they rise to lead them, and who it is that gets to lead has all started to change in correlation with onset of widespread social media use. This study looks at the socioeconomic status of the leaders of social movements (a combination of their education, job prestige, and income), showing that on average it has lowered since politics has moved to be increasingly conducted online. We are seeing a wider age-range in social movement leadership as leaders operate behind screens. This study also looks at two case studies to break down the differences between movements that started before social media and movements that began after the most common platforms were already in place. The change is happening, and it’s time it reached our schools as well.
Establishing a Framework of Nitrogen Acquisition for Martian Agriculture

Tyler Wallentine

Nitrogen (N) forms a crucial part of DNA, proteins, and other biomolecules and is an essential element to life. Luckily, N is abundant in Earth’s and Mars’ atmospheres in its atmospheric form (N₂); however, plants and humans are unable to metabolize it in this state. N₂ gas is only able to be consumed by undergoing nitrogen fixation, an intensive process that breaks the extremely-stable N ≡ N bond in order to form bioavailable ammonia (NH₃). Many prokaryotes are capable of nitrogen fixation. Plants may uptake fixed N from these, which are then consumed by other lifeforms including humans as a source of nitrogen. Due to an apparent lack of biological activity on Mars, it is estimated that N will be overwhelmingly present as N₂. If humans want to permanently settle Mars, which demands in situ food production, they must devise a means to efficiently fix nitrogen to enable agrarian success. Industrial nitrogen fixation is infrastructurally intensive, and this work therefore elects to evaluate biological nitrogen fixation as an avenue to Martian cultivation. Three different microorganisms are evaluated for their capacity to fix nitrogen: Rhodopseudomonas palustris (R. palustris), Azotobacter vinelandii (A. vinelandii), and Azospira suillum (A. suillum). Initial efforts to culture these in-lab are detailed. An outline for a modular system in which these organisms may be advantageously used is proposed to be evaluated with further research and studies.
Universal Healthcare: Is it the Future?

Izzy Wappett

About 8.5% of the United States population has no form of healthcare. The rest of the population either has a form of public or private insurance given to them by the government, private insurers, or employers. But there are countries worldwide that have systems where every citizen has healthcare. This is called universal healthcare. Universal Healthcare has shown to be more effective because it portrays healthcare as less of a privilege and more of a right to all. But many Americans view this kind of system as controlling and a system that takes away your freedom. But as studies and personal accounts have shown, universal healthcare is more beneficial to the whole population than systems with sole private healthcare. We will explore the healthcare system of the United States and Canada to find out if the United States should finally enact plans that are similar to those of our friendly neighbors to the north. But to form a system that still portrays the ideals of our nation but instead is a system built for the rich, have the system built majority.
Disambiguation of Large-Scale Educational Network Data for Social Network Analysis

Adam Weaver

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a research method which quantitatively maps qualitative social interactions between individuals who comprise a ‘network’. Delineating these social networks yields highly valuable data, including SNA measures like centrality, which can be used to measure social influence, connectivity, and more. Further, these networks can also be visualized by graphing individuals as ‘nodes’, and then by drawing ‘edges’ (the lines that connect them) to produce sociograms. With these sociograms, researchers can concurrently conduct visual and statistical analysis of relations between node and network traits of interest. As a result of these capabilities and the growth of social learning, SNA has become increasingly popular in educational settings. However, the difficulties in consolidating students’ interaction data into quantitative networks has steered SNA researchers towards oversimplified social environments which do not exhibit ambiguous connections. For example, research is well established in observing students’ online interactions, where participant information is collected concurrent with interaction data. Similarly, SNA studies in face-to-face contexts are typically bounded to single classrooms which greatly reduces the number of participants’ possible ties. These examples observe environments that are easily monitored, and bar the observation of the true underlying social networks. Hence, a gap exists for those hoping to understand the true, non-course-bounded networks of undergraduate students. To this end, our research group is currently conducting a study comparing all participating freshmen and sophomore engineering students’ interactions to academic outcomes at USU using social network analysis. The current disambiguation process for this large (1000+ nodes), ambiguous (open response name identified ties), interaction data is manually intensive, intricate, and takes careful organization--increasing with network size. Therefore, charged with the task of interaction data disambiguation, I have organized the overarching disambiguation task into a hybrid blend of automation and manual stages, to take advantage of emerging network information throughout the process (i.e., previously ambiguous responses are connected to an entity). The procedural analysis I present in this poster then highlights the technicalities of these stages, which begin with simple spelling checks, and end with a sub-network comparison process (similar to agglomerative hierarchical clustering) to yield accurate and complete network data. My methodology proved effective in matching many ambiguous names with their counterparts found elsewhere in the network. However, several names were still unable to be consolidated and had to be de-identified in their present conditions. Therefore, this presentation also highlights procedures that could be refined through modern SNA clustering methods, including possibilities for defining supervised algorithm parameters and comparing our manual to automated results for such algorithms. As the need for understanding the relationship between interpersonal interactions and educational outcomes expands, so too are the needs for improved SNA methods. To meet these growing needs, researchers must develop new and effective procedures for the disambiguation of authentic interaction data. This presentation provides an example of such research, developing and disseminating more effective and efficient approaches for network development.
Creating Safe and Brave Spaces on Gender and Sexuality Via Autoethnography Assignments on Campus

Emily Wells, Ilyena Wagner, and Audrey Thomas

Discrimination is still a prominent and widely faced issue on college campuses across the United States, especially in the case of gender and sexuality. Many college environments are unsafe spaces for those whose identities fall outside of the socially accepted norms and can lead to dangerous isolation and feelings of invisibility. Issues faced by students in the LGBTQ+ community and their health and well-being have only been studied more recently, and further research is required to build a safe college environment for all students. This study explores the use of autoethnographies as a method of improving campus environments and analyzes perception changes within autoethnographies as they relate to identities such as sexuality, gender, race, class, mental health, or religion.
Log Proximity and Moss as Indicators of Conifer Seedling Abundance in Old-Growth Douglas-Fir/ Hemlock Forests

Isabella Wetzler

It is increasingly essential to develop a comprehensive understanding of forest processes so that we may better conserve and maintain our old-growth forests in the face of climate change. In the Pacific Northwest, logs might elevate and remove conifer seedlings from light competition with moss and herbs, but seedlings growing on the forest floor may benefit from log shade. Moss can retain moisture which may result in higher water availability for seedlings, but in droughty conditions the desiccated moss might leave seedlings ‘high and dry’. Logs increase mircrosite heterogeneity, providing cool, moist microclimates for seedlings and protecting them from droughty summer conditions and direct solar radiation. The purpose of my study was to determine whether logs and moss facilitate conifer seedling establishment on the forest floor, to examine which factors may influence seedling establishment on logs instead of the forest floor, and to determine whether these relationships differ with different moisture availability.The Wind River Forest Dynamics Plot (WFDP) is a 500 year old forest in the south Washington Cascades, containing 133 seedling quadrats in a regular grid and 9,987 mapped pieces of coarse woody debris. The forest floor had taller moss but lower moss cover, whereas log surfaces had shorter moss and higher moss cover. Logs and the forest floor had the same herb height, and both had more moss in wet areas than dry areas of the WFDP. Conifer seedlings were taller and more abundant on top on logs and, on the forest floor, the data of seedling density and log proximity was consistent with the hypothesis that logs facilitate seedling establishment. Moss cover limited seedling establishment in both wet and dry areas, but data indicated seedlings had different relationships to moss height in wet and dry areas. My findings suggest that moss is a better indicator of seedling abundance than log proximity, but these relationships may change when seedlings have different limiting pressures such as moisture in dry areas or light in wet areas of the WFDP.
Perceived & Personal Mental Health Stigma

Katie White, River Jarman, Brenden Jones, and Gabrielle Archambault

An exploration of stigmatizing beliefs held by college students, as well as the students' experiences with stigma and discrimination in relation to their own reported mental health problems. The Day's Mental Illness Stigma Scale and the Mental Health Stigma Scale were used to measure varying aspects of stigmatizing beliefs including treatability, relationship disruption, hygiene, anxiety, visibility, recovery, professional efficacy, discrimination, disclosure, and positive outcomes.
Discovering Virally Encoded Proteins That Block Type IV CRISPR Immune Systems

Andrew Williams

Bacteria and the viruses that infect them have been at war from the beginnings of life until today. Due to selective pressure from viral infection, bacteria have evolved various biological defense systems, including CRISPR-Cas systems that use a genetic memory of previous viral encounters to protect against future invasions. However, recently it has been shown that viruses have evolved counter-strategies to evade CRISPR systems. Virally encoded proteins called anti-CRISPRs use a variety of mechanisms to block the activity of CRISPR immune systems in order to infect bacterial cells. The Jackson lab at USU recently showed that a Type IV-A CRISPR-Cas system native to the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a bonafide defense system, but an anti-Type IV CRISPR mechanism has yet to be described. We identified 51 genes that we hypothesize to have anti-Type IV CRISPR activity. Using a colony PCR assay plasmid curing assay we screened each of the putative anti-CRISPR genes for activities that block Type IV CRISPR system targeting. Several of the putative anti Type IV-CRISPR genes have protected target sequences in our assay indicating Type IV anti-CRISPR activity. These identified genes will be expressed and purified in an attempt to better understand the mechanisms of Type IV CRISPR system inhibition.
Hating Pink: The Development of Internalized Misogyny

Jacey Wilson

For women, expectations of gender roles as placed on them as children can mean growing up with a self-perception of inferiority and a prediction for themselves of incapability. Misogyny’s place in society is a concept which is fairly widely-recognized. Women face misogyny in day-to-day interactions and in larger-scale issues like the gender wage gap. More recognizable are more violent acts of sexism such as sexual violence against women and the structural wage gap. However, less commonly recognized and discussed are the acts which perpetuate sexism quietly, such as benevolent sexism. Many women experience negative psychological effects due to the patriarchal standards which they observe outwardly and internalize. Furthermore, internalized misogyny can expand to internalized oppression and impact queer women, transgender women, and women of color differently and often more significantly. When stated and unstated misogynistic ideas are upheld and acted upon, women and girls often develop internalized misogyny. There should be no rules for womanhood.