Halmos’ Top Biology Students Reflect on Their Honors

This spring, five of the highest academically performing biology students from the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences orally presented the highlights of their honors in Major Portfolio to a large Zoom audience of faculty and many of their peers. The students reflected on their journeys as Sharks.

In addition to maintaining a minimum 3.8 GPA, each student also was required to complete four 4000 level didactic elective courses and a major research project in an independent study, internship or practicum course.

The research project titles included: Development of “Sharkavir:”  A New Hypothetical Inhibitor for HIV-1 Protease (Feza Abbas); Impacts of COVID-19 on Global Healthcare Research and Management (Stephanie Autore); Synthesis of Metal-Binding Polymers for Water Purification using  Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain-Transer Polymerization (Sneha Polam); Periodically Disturbing the Spatial Structure of a Microbial Community Composed of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus Determines its Composition (Brandon Toscan); and The effect of stress on the transcriptomes of circulating immune cells in patients with Gulf War Illness (Kyle Hansotia).