WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., April 15, 2021 — A total of 52 West Liberty University students competed in the annual RECAP symposium (Research, Creative Activity, and Performance) this spring and the winners were announced virtually in a ceremony streamed by Topper Station.
The ceremony included a recorded message of congratulations from President W. Franklin Evans. Names of winning students were announced by Dr. Robert Kreisberg, professor of biology; Dr. Drew Banghart, assistant professor of English; and Danielle Mehlman-Brightwell, instructor of communications.
Top prizes in each category consisted of a Kindle Fire 7 tablet and first and second runner-ups received certificates. Award winners, categories and titles of research include:
- Research Paper category, Kendall Souder, Ellettsville, Ind., “Resazomycins: A Family of Novel Antibiotics to Target Clinically Significant Gram-Negative Bacteria.”
- Oral Presentation category, Souder again captured this category with her work entitled, Determining the Mechanism of Action of Resazomycins.
- Graduate Research Posters category, Michelle Williams, “Target Training Juvenile False Water Cobras.”
- Undergraduate Research Posters category, Haley Miller, North Lewisburg, Ohio, “Trophic Partitioning of Cambarus carinirostris, Cambarus robustus, and Faxonius obscurus in Kings Creek, WV by Stable Isotope Analysis”
- Art Posters category, Michelle Eisen, “I Think I’ll Miss You.”
Judging of presentations was done by a faculty committee led by Danielle Mehlman-Brightwell (oral presentations), Dr. Drew Banghart, assistant professor of English (research papers), Dr. Melinda Kreisberg, professor of biology (creative work and performances) and Dr. Gayle Jesse, associate professor of computer information systems (research posters).
Other winning students in each category include:
- Research Papers, 1st Runner Up Christian (Luke) Beall and 2nd Runner Up, Jennifer Whitfield.
- Oral Presentations, 1st Runner Up, Susan Smith and Michelle Yadrick, 2nd Runner Up Emma McClelland
- Graduate Research Posters, 1st Runner Up, Sydney Ozersky and 2nd Runner Up, Katherine Phillips.
- Undergraduate Research Posters, 1st Runner Up, Brian Ringhiser and 2nd Runner Up, Kaitlyn Taylor and Justin Sanclemente
- Creative Works, 1st Runner Up, Abigail Beckelhimer and 2nd Runner Up C’ierra Buchanan
View the entire RECAP award ceremony by clicking the Topper Station link posted here: https://topperstation.com/watch/recap-2021.
The first RECAP was held in 2017- 2018 and participation has grown despite the limitations of COVID-19 and the changes it brought to the annual scholarly competition, according to the judges. (RECAP was canceled last spring due to the pandemic.)
For more information, please call 1.866.937.8542 (WESTLIB), visit westliberty.edu or follow WLU on social media.