FAST 2014 Projects
2014 Winners
- Mark Anderson: The objective of this research was to determine if feeding CLA to obese pigs would alter the amount of fat and muscle tissue in obese male and female pigs that were either supplemented with CLA or with a second control oil (soybean oil).
- Lei Chen and Chi-Chung Jorn Yu: Can Latest Biometric Technologies Be Trusted?: A Pilot Study of the Reliability and Tamper-Resistance of Touch ID and Retina Scanner
- Tom Garrett: Tom Garrett, associate professor of film and FAST Award recipient, will be using his stipend to help pay travel expenses as he and two students spend part of the summer in Los Angeles, shooting a documentary about Academy Award-winning director John Avildsen.
- Hannah Gerber: Another FAST Award winner is the team lead by Hannah Gerber, assistant professor of literacy, which is tackling trash and sanitation issues in developing nations that do not have the infrastructure for clean up or recycling programs.
- Santosh Kumar: Given the importance of microfinance in the design of poverty alleviation policy, we started a microfinance project in Tamil Nadu, one of the southern states in India. We formed Self Help Group (SHG) of women in 150 villages and provided them financial capital and entrepreneurial training to start a business in her village. We also collected data from other 150 villages that formed the control for our analysis. The proposed randomized nature of research design will let us evaluate the causal effect of microfinance on poverty and women empowerment.
- Todd Primm: Other FAST Award winners are taking a more traditional approach to research, including a team led by Todd Primm, associate professor of biology, which is looking at the effects of antibiotics on a host. While the subject matter is not unique, it was the group’s fresh approach that caught the attention of the EURECA advisory board.
- Joni Seeling: My current research characterizes the regulation of Wnt signaling by PP2A in frogs, and translates this information to the regulation of Wnt in human cancer. A clearer understanding of how B56 subunits modulate Wnt signaling will allow us to better understand colon tumorigenesis and may lead to innovative approaches for the treatment and prevention of one of the most deadly cancers.
- Narasimha Shashidhar: In this project, we set out to analyze the forensic artifacts that are potentially available/left behind on the host machine after a user has browsed the Internet using one of these “private” browsing modes. This research ultimately led us to explore a certain esoteric file on the Windows Operating System called the prefetch file.