Fall 2021

Students are listed in presentation order.

Quantifying the Shapes of the Brain's Most Acrobatic Cell -- Hawley Helmbrecht

Hawley Helmbrecht is a 4th year Ph.D. candidate in the department of chemical engineering at the University of Washington. Hawley’s research in the Disease Directed Engineering Lab working under her PI, Dr. Elizabeth Nance, focuses on developing data science pipelines and packages to (1) quantify brain cell shapes and (2) connect nanotherapeutic data to biological outcome data. During her Ph.D., Hawley has also completed the Advanced Data Science Option and a one-year traineeship with Pacific Northwest National Laboratories. Additionally, Hawley is a dedicated mentor to 8 undergraduate students many of whom have completed research with her for > 1.5 years.

Using Predicted Protein 3D Structure Features for Predicting Drug-Target Interactions -- Ashmitha Rajendran

Ashmitha Rajendran is a 1st year BIME PhD student, NLM fellow, and bioinformatician at a breast cancer early detection startup, Gabbi. Before joining UW, she worked on early detection of prostate, breast, and lung cancers at the Knight Cancer Institute. Previously, she worked at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, proving epigenetic drivers of pediatric brain cancers. Ashmitha completed her masters in Quantitative Biology from Northwestern University, working on predicting response to immunotherapies in melanoma and bachelors in biomolecular engineering, bioinformatics, and neuroscience from UC Santa Cruz.

The Path to Financial Literacy -- Helen Achilles Andrews

Helen’s doctoral work explores how young adults make financial decisions, including questions about financial literacy and financial literacy education. Researchers continue to measure low levels of financial literacy in the U.S., and many are calling for increased financial education in our schools. But Helen finds that offering financial education in a K-12 setting may be easier said than done. By digging deeper, she exposes questions and controversies surrounding financial education that deserve some attention. Helen transitioned from a career in finance and investments, into teaching and research, she is a current PhD student.

Sending News Back Home: Analyzing Information Disorder in the Vietnamese Diaspora -- Sarah Nguyễn

Sarah Nguyễn is a PhD student at University of Washington’s Information School. Their research investigates information infrastructures during crises and misinformation crises among immigrant diasporic communities. Previously, Sarah contributed to library and archival programs that advocate for openness and preservation of at-risk digital media: qualitative data privacy and preservation, open education resources, preservation of podcasts and dance, and software reproducibility. (Twitter: @snewyuen)

Does Carrying Loads on One Side Affect the Way People with Below-Knee Amputation Walk? -- Satria Ardianuari

Satria was a Fulbright scholar and is originally from Indonesia. He is a concurrent graduate student in Mechanical Engineering and Rehabilitation Science at UW and a research assistant at the VA Puget Sound Center for Limb Loss and MoBility (CLiMB). He has a keen interest in learning and developing his research skills in rehabilitation engineering with a view to helping improve mobility and function for individuals with limb loss and neuromusculoskeletal deficit.

Between Essential and Expendable: Seattle Gig Workers' Experiences of Precarity Through the Covid-19 Pandemic -- Lindsey Schwartz

Lindsey Schwartz is a Masters student at the UW Information School with developing interests in urban sociology and critical data studies. She previously worked as a research assistant with the Open Data Literacy Project and TASCHA, and is continuing research on policy protections for gig workers through a study of Seattle’s Driver Resolution Center, an ordinance-based initiative for mediating disputes between workers and platform companies.

Assessing Covid-19 Vaccine Adoption Behavior Change Campaigns on Social Media -- Niharika Arora

Niharika’s research offers an application of the ‘Fogg Behavior’ theory of change to influence change of behavior. Her research is an assessment of a five-week social media campaign on Facebook to influence Covid-safe vaccination adoption, using the Fogg Behavior Model that explains how three factors of motivation, ability, and prompt converged together for campaign success. She analyzes how these drivers depicted in the communication message, contributed to influence vaccine adoption in 50000+ people across Washington state. This public health campaign is a joint effort by the nonprofit Restart Partners and UW Communication Leadership program, funded by Facebook and Washington State Department of Health.