EEB Undergraduate Symposium

Event time: 
Monday, April 27, 2026 - 8:30am to 5:00pm
Location: 
SPL 57, 217 Prospect St. & SCL CH2, 225 Prospect St. See map
Event description: 

DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY & EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

2026 Senior Symposium

Monday, April 27th

SPL 57 & SCL CH2

8:30am-5:00pm

8:30am-9:00am

Breakfast

SPL 57

9:15am-10:15am

Presentation Session I

SPL 57

10:15am-10:30am

Coffee Break

SPL 57

10:30am-11:30am

Presentation Session II

SPL 57

11:30am-12:30pm

Lunch

SCL Courtyard

12:30pm-1:30pm

Presentation Session III

SPL 57

1:30pm-2:30pm

Poster Session

SCL CH2

2:30pm-5:00pm

Ice Cream Reception and Awards

SCL Courtyard

Time

                                      Presenter & Title

Advisor

8:30 – 9:00

Breakfast

9:00-9:15

Welcome & Opening Remarks

Presentation Session I

9:15-9:30

Peregrine Todd

Edwards

The Impact of Physical and Climatic Barriers on the Gene Flow of two High Alpine Plant Species in the Central Southern Andes

9:30-9:45

Amelia Fortgang

Dunn

Exploring Diversity in Agalamatidae (Cnidaria: Siphonophorae) at the Genomic and Developmental Level    

9:45-10:00

Maya Sestan

Post

Drivers of Diversity and Habitat Specialization in Chironomidae (Non-Biting Midges) Across Connecticut Lakes      

10:00-10:15

Lila Salazar

Muñoz

Evaluating Behavioral and Physiological Plasticity to Rising Temperatures in a Tropical Lizard 

10:15-10:30

Coffee Break

Presentation Session II

10:30-10:45

Jane Chen

Edwards

Investigating How Leaf Bud Packing Affects Seasonal Heteroblasty in Temperate Woody Angiosperms

10:45-11:00

Karinne Tennenbaum

Comita

(Forest) Age is just a number: predation pressure does not vary across secondary succession in Panama

11:00-11:15

Helen Shanefield

Wong

Exploring dual-mycorrhizal associations in Quercus: carbon allocation in response to nutrient availability

11:15-11:30

Jacob Koch

Ashton

Tropical Edge Effects Study: Investigating regrowth dynamics bordering planted forests and pastureland of secondary forests in Brazil

11:30-12:30

Lunch

Presentation Session III

12:30-12:45

Hannah Qin

Ezenwa

Using Extracellular Vesicles to Investigate Immune Responses to Helminth Infection in African Buffalo

12:45-1:00

Rediet Taye

Doolittle, Schmitz

In Conservation’s Chokehold: An evaluation of the efficacy of lion collaring and geofencing as a human-carnivore conflict mitigator in the Greater Mara ecosystem

1:00-1:15

Nithya Guthikonda

Sargis

Postcranial functional morphology of the Dryas Monkey (Chlorocebus dryas): An assessment of substrate use and its implications for guenon locomotor evolution

1:15-1:30

Gustavo Orosco

Biwer

Exploring the Implications of CD4+ T Cell VEGFR Expression During Pregnancy on Preeclampsia Pathogenesis

1:30-2:30

Poster Session

1

Ke’Mara Davis

Sargis, Aronsen

Reconstructing Life History from Bone and Tooth: Skeletal and dental biomarkers in a captive Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii)  

2

Meenakshi Ambati

Medzhitov, Ruslan

Baseline Ex Vivo Mast Cell Gene Expression is Largely Conserved Across Sex Genotypes in the Four Core Genotype Mouse Model

3

Miray Laktineh

Goldfarb

Stress Effects on Memory Representations: Examining the role of arousal in a naturalistic narrative paradigm    

4

Sean Liu

Muñoz

Methodological, Ecological, and Evolutionary Patterns in Anuran Hydric Regulation

5

Nire Oloyede

Edwards

Mapping Latitudinal Diversity of Patterns of Ptyxis and Vernation in Woody Plants

2:30-5:00

Reception and Awards