The honorees, left to right: Mateo Antonio Lopez of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Sharifa Kelly of Monroe, N.Y.; Mackenzie Zupko of Montgomery, N.Y; and Jayda Cavanaugh of Wolcott, Conn.
Mount Saint Mary College students Mateo Antonio Lopez of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Jayda Cavanaugh of Wolcott, Conn.; Sharifa Kelly of Monroe, N.Y.; and Mackenzie Zupko of Montgomery, N.Y recently received the college’s Student Research Scholarship Award for research they conducted with faculty mentors during the 2021-22 academic year.
All four students presented their research at prestigious conferences.
Developed by the Mount’s Research on Campus Committee (ROCC), the Student Research Scholarship Award recognizes outstanding undergraduate student scholarship at the Mount. It’s awarded to students who have performed research under the guidance of Mount faculty members.
Kelly and Zupko attended the 76th annual Eastern Colleges Science Conference (ECSC) at Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y. Their presentations were based on research they started last year as part of the Mount’s Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE), coordinated by James Moran, associate professor of Biology and ROCC chair.
Zupko presented “The Artificial Oxygen Carrier OxyVita Stimulates Inflammatory Cytokine Expression in Mouse Splenocytes.” Kelly discussed her research, “The Effect of Thyroxine on the Metamorphosis of the North American Gray Tree Frogs (Hyla versicolor).”
Antonio Lopez and Cavanaugh presented their research at the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, held this year in Philadelphia, Pa. Cavanaugh presented “Genomic Annotation of Chromosome L3 in Drosophilia ananassae” and Antonio Lopez presented “Annotation of a Newly Sequenced Genomic Region in Drosophilia ananassae.”
MATEO ANTONIO LOPEZ
Antonio Lopez, who graduated in May 2022, is moving to Memphis to continue his education at the University of Tennessee’s Health Science Center.
The Mount opened up a new world of learning for Antonio Lopez, who was part of the SURE program, the college’s chapter of the American Chemical Society, and a member of the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP).
“When I came to the Mount, I became fascinated about how much you could learn about Biology,” he explained. “There was always so much to learn and always room for improvement. That’s what really motivated me during the process. I wanted to be a better version of myself every day.”
One career path he would like to explore is the field of Bioinformatics, which involves using technology to understand and interpret biological data, such as DNA or amino acid sequences.
JAYDA CAVANAUGH
Cavanaugh, who graduated in May 2022, earned a job as a research technician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Genomics in Boston, Mass. She will begin in August 2022.
At the Mount, she was president of Beta Beta Beta, the national honor society for Biology; secretary of Gamma Sigma Epsilon, the national honor society for Chemistry; and both a Ralph and Aquinas Scholar, recognitions given to the college’s best and brightest students.
“This school provided all the resources I needed to be a successful first-generation college student,” Cavanaugh explained. “I relied heavily on the close-knit community at the Mount.”
It was through SURE that Cavanaugh discovered her true calling.
“You go to the Mount and you leave a scientist,” she explained. “I’ve grown so much as a person, as a scientist. Now I’m always asking questions.”
SHARIFA KELLY
Kelly is the only student to have received the Student Reseach Scholarship Award in both 2021 and 2022. Last year, Kelly was honored for her research “The Effects of Thyroxine on the Metamorphosis of Gray Tree Frogs,” which she presented at the 2021 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting.
Kelly has also dedicated much of her time to the SURE program.
Some of Kelly’s SURE projects have included “Ecotoxicity of Common Herbicides: Effect on the Head Regeneration and Behavior of the Brown Planaria (Girardia Tigrina),” “The Effects of Thyroxine on Tree Frog Metamorphosis,” and most recently, “The Effects of Thyroxine on Arginase Gene Activity and Urea Excretion in Tree Frogs.” Carl Hoegler, professor of Biology, served as Kelly’s mentor for all three of these projects.
MACKENZIE ZUPKO
Zupko has been a familiar face on the Mount’s Dean’s List for good reason: she has a genuine love of Natural Sciences.
During last year’s SURE program, Zupko, who will graduate from the Mount in 2023, worked on the project “Investigating Health of Mice Exposed to Artificial Hemoglobin, OxyVita.” OxyVita is a blood substitute that, when perfected, can be manufactured as a liquid and is the first working blood substitute in powder form in the world as well. Zupko found that weekly OxyVita injections increases the antibody response in the test mice with each exposure, but the mice don’t seem to have been significantly impacted by the reaction.
This summer, Zupko continued her research into Oxyvita with the project “Evaluating the Inflammatory Response in Mouse Organs Following Exposure of the Artificial Oxygen Carrier OxyVita.”