Keynote Panelists and Awards Ceremony
Fifth Annual St. Mary’s Research Celebration
April 9-10, 2025
Celebrate our events by tagging on social media – #URW2025 #StMUResearch
Keynote Speaker and Award Ceremony
April 10, 2025, 3:30 – 5:00 PM, University Center, Conference Room A
Our keynote panel will speak on “Building and Broadening Interdisciplinary Research”. The ceremony will conclude with student and faculty recognitions. Student awards will include poster presentations along with Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF). Faculty recognitions will include Senior Mentor awards, Internal Faculty Research Grant awardees, and new grant recipients for this fiscal year.
Click on the button below for more detailed information about the 2025 faculty and student awardees.
Invocation
Rev. William Meyer
S.M., D.Min, Rector
Opening Remarks
Melissa Karlin, Ph.D. & Irene Holguin
Co-Chairs, University Research Council
Creating a One-School Research Culture
Winston Erevelles, Ph.D.
President
Welcome Remarks
Jason Pierce, Ph.D.
Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs
Keynote Panelists
Belinda Román, Ph.D.
St. Mary’s University
Belinda Román is an Associate Professor of Economics at St. Mary’s University. Before joining St. Mary’s Román was Professor of Economics for Palo Alto College in San Antonio. She is Vice President of the Association for Social Economics and President- Elect. Dr. Román is also Secretary/Treasurer of the San Antonio Business and Economics Society (SABES). Román also holds memberships in the American Society of Hispanic Economists, serving on their Communications Committee, the National Economics Association, the Association for Borderland Studies, and the International Federation for Feminist Economics.
Her research includes collaborative work with the Brookings Institute-Global Cities Initiative and impact studies for the SABÉR Research Institute. Prior to academia, Román worked in Latin America for a United States Agency for International Development-funded project, on Capitol Hill in the U.S. House of Representatives, and in London for both non-profit and for-profit entities.
Lori Boies, Ph.D.
St. Mary’s University
Lori Boies is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at St. Mary’s University where she also directs the Bioinformatics major and minor program. Boies teaches on a variety of subjects at St. Mary’s to include those in bioinformatics, genomics, and public health. She is currently developing a MS program in Medical Genomics for St. Mary’s University. Boies works with undergraduate students on research projects focusing on gene annotation as well as epidemiological and biostatistical studies. Outside of her time at St. Mary’s, she volunteers in the community in a variety of ways to include previously working with and serving on the board of the Bexar County Medical Society Alliance and Texas Medical Association Alliance. She currently is involved with the National Institute on Scientific Teaching, the Genomics Education Partnership, and the American Medical Association Alliance.
Janet Armitage, Ph.D.
St. Mary’s University
Janet Armitage is Chair and Professor of Sociology and Director of Public Health Programs at St. Mary’s University. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on disparities in health, wellness, and healthcare systems, with a particular emphasis on compassion and its transformative role across individual, organizational, and institutional contexts. Her recent work explores the development and application of active compassion in medical education, alongside investigating how organizational compassion can alleviate workplace distress and suffering in its diverse forms.
Sue Nash, Ph.D.
St. Mary’s University
Sue P. Nash is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Health at St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, TX. She earned her Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University. Her research interests include broadly: health and wellbeing, social psychological processes such as compassion, the intersection of race and religion and food insecurity.
Student Recognition
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships Awards
SET
Aislinn Reyes Conder
Diego Figueroa
Isabella Lopez
Marvin Masabo
Tales Silva Leão
Humanities
Rene Barbier
Megan Davis
Greehey School of Business
Max Masabo
Poster Presentation Awards
SET
First Place: G. Sophia Noriega
Second Place: Callah Preti and Erick Y. Morales Orrante
Third Place: Chiara Angelyn O. Maldonado, Paola C. Garcia, and Maria F. Gamez
Humanities
First Place: Carina Pawlak
Second Place: Elizabeth Gonzalez
Third Place: Jayden Mendez
Third Place: Benjamin Kruck and Pamela Molina
Greehey School of Business
First Place: Megan Beach, Adolfo Duran, and Gabriel Gomez
First Place: Sophia Phelan
Second Place: Victoria Olguin
Third Place: Abdullah Mohammad Mahi
Faculty Recognition
Faculty Research Mentoring Awards
Senior Faculty Award
Teresa Van Hoy, Ph.D
New Awardees
Veronica Contreras-Shannon
National Institutes of Health
“Flow Cytometer for Research and Education Capacity Building at St. Mary’s University”
Carol Redfield
Texas Workforce Comission
“Governor’s Summer Merit Program”
Melissa Karlin
National Science Foundation
“NSF HSI ELPSE: Next Generation Educational Instrumentation to Train our Next Generation of Underrepresented STEM Students”
Melissa Karlin
USAA Foundation Grant
“PUI-SATX Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP): ¡Adelante!
Terry Shacleford
National Institutes of Health
“Incucyte SX5 Live-Cell Analysis System”
Jennifer Harr
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
“A Whole Animal Model for Investigation of Ingested Nanoplastic Mixtures and Effects on Genomic Integrity and Health”
Sven Hoekstra
Department of Defense
“Home-Based Passive Heat Therapy – Towards a Scalable Intervention to Improve Cardiovascular Health in Persons with Spinal Cord Injury”
Rick Sperling
City of San Antonio
“Animal Care Services Stray and Roaming Dog Survey”
IFRG Awardees
Richard Cardenas
“Modeling of Plasma Etching Processes for Semiconductor Manufacturing with MATLAB”
Jamie Crosswhite
“Data-Driven Learning & Storytelling for Effective Research Communication”
Colton Daniels
“Extensive Research on Intimate Partner Violence, Religion, and Health among College Students”
Mohamed Ibrahim
“Design and Development of Autonomous Active Metamaterials with Self-Adaptive Mechanical Responses”
Madison Wooldridge
“Investigation of the Bioremediation Capabilities of Plastic Eating Mushrooms on 3D Printed Polymers”
Juan Ocampo
“Collaborative Innovation in Agro-Technology: A Binational Partnership for Sustainable Agriculture in an Underdeveloped Country Using AI-Driven Drones with Digital Twins”
Ricardo Ramirez
“AI Models to Identify Cancer Processes”
Parker Shectman
“Agglomeration of Particles Streaming Down a Zigzag – Application to Agricultural and Mineral Commodities, and Red Blood Cells – Lab Experiment and Computer Simulation”
Solomon Wang
“Mobile Finance and Household Financial Distress”
Sharmin Aktar
“Incremental Online Learning for Domain-Adaptive Intrusion Detection”
Kaitlin Hill
“A Mathematical Model of the Effect of Permafrost Thaw on Global Energy Balance”
Sven Hoekstra
“Community-based Thermal Interventions for the Improvement of Cardiometabolic Health in Persons with Hypertension”
Xavier Montecel
“Fundamental Eucharistic Ethics: Liturgy, Virtue, and the Promise of Holiness”
Rafael Moras
“Enhancing Conflict Resolution and Professional Ethics in Engineering Education: The Role of the University Ombuds and the Potential of Generative AI”