Meet eight students presenting their work at Intersections Friday

From the moment they step foot on campus, Case Western Reserve University undergraduate students have ample opportunity to gain real-world experience in research settings. Across disciplines, they make integral contributions to the university’s research landscape. 

At the end of each term (fall, spring and summer), undergraduates are invited to showcase their findings at the Intersections symposium, giving them valuable opportunities to gain skills in public speaking, hone their research communication tactics, and demonstrate their hard work.

This semester, Intersections takes place Friday, April 17, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Veale Convocation, Recreation, and Athletic Center. Members of the campus community are encouraged to attend to learn about the students’ work.

We spoke with eight of Friday’s presenters to give you a preview of what to expect. In total, there are 520 poster presentations (with multiple or single presenters) and more than 800 individual presenters (some are presenting more than one poster). 

Get more details about Intersections.

Answers have been edited for clarity and length.

Quentin Flattmann

Fourth-year student majoring in biology working with faculty mentor Christopher Cullis, PhD

1. Tell us about the project you’ll be presenting.

My project introduces a new genome assembly tool called DoveTailor, designed to reconstruct dynamic plant mitochondrial genomes and packaged in a user-friendly UI. We’ve also had early success applying it to other non-traditional DNA structures, such as extrachromosomal elements.

Most traditional assembly tools assume there is a single dominant genome structure, which works well for many systems. However, I designed DoveTailor for cases where multiple interconverting DNA structures may exist. Instead of selecting one “best” path, it explores many possible paths through sequencing data to recover distinct genomic forms.

We’ve applied this to plant mitochondrial genomes, which can exist as multiple structures that merge and separate. In the Stormont Cirrus line of flax, environmental conditions can even induce the formation of new genetic material, and one leading theory is that these sequences are first assembled extrachromosomally. What excites me most is the possibility of using DoveTailor to detect these structures in existing sequencing data, signals that are often discarded.

2. What did you enjoy most about working on this project? What kind of work went into it?

My favorite part of this project and all my time working with Dr. Cullis has been the sense of mystery. While the project involved a lot of coding and working with complex data structures, what really motivates me is not knowing what the output will reveal.

Early on, we tried to identify candidate genes in Stormont Cirrus that might explain its environmentally induced genetic changes. This required writing code to filter large datasets down to a small set of results, and I remember opening the output file like a kid on Christmas.

There are only a few plant mitochondrial genomes that have been fully characterized, so each dataset feels like exploring something largely unknown. I’m especially interested in the mystery of how Stormont Cirrus can reproducibly generate new genetic material in a way that doesn’t fit typical models of duplication or mutation.

3. Have you presented before?

I presented at the fall Intersections some early results but I’m excited to show this project in its full form this spring!

4. Why do you believe students should get involved with Intersections?

Research can often feel like a solitary process. At Intersections, students get the chance to share their work and, just as importantly, to see how people in completely different disciplines approach problems. It also gives you the opportunity to see another side of your peers which you might not otherwise encounter. 

Cristiana Miele

Fourth-year student majoring in psychology and Spanish, mentored by Yehudis Keller, a graduate student

1. Tell us about the project you’ll be presenting.

I'm presenting my capstone project examining how reading and writing fanfiction as a coping mechanism influences self-concept and identity. I begin by outlining what makes fanfiction unique as a form of fiction and how those differences impact the experience of escapism. I'm looking at it through the lens of gender and sexuality and how women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and sexual assault survivors are influenced by the content they read. 

2. What did you enjoy most about working on this project? What kind of work went into it?

I really enjoyed getting to research fanfiction. There's not a lot of focused literature on it, especially as it's been considered "weird" because mainstream media views it as a space for freaks and fangirls. It's really a safe space for minorities to find media that is a good representation of their identity when often it's lackluster or nonexistent in mainstream fiction. These people can express themselves and explore the intricacies of their identity because it's hard to find those spaces in real life. 

I conducted a literature review, and a lot of my time went into sorting through papers that focused on general fiction rather than fanfiction. Most of the papers focused on fanfiction argue that these spaces are valid and relevant and that more research should be conducted on it, so I'm really excited to be contributing to this area, and hopefully filling a gap in the literature.

3. Have you presented before?

I'm very excited to present at Intersections for the first time! Over spring break, I presented a paper I first authored at the Eastern Sociological Society conference that discusses why we should use TikTok for sociological research, and I presented it again as a poster at the Social Science Research Day, here at CWRU on April 10. I also will be presenting this capstone poster at the American Men's Studies Association conference being held here in June. 

4. Why do you believe students should get involved with Intersections?

Intersections is a great way to practice presentation skills outside of the classroom. It's one thing to present a powerpoint to your peers, but presenting your own research to strangers who pass by can teach you a lot of things you didn't know you knew.  I think it's really important to push yourself into experiences that set you up for success but lie outside of your comfort zone. 

Ramkarthic Ramanathan

Third-year student majoring in biology, mentored by Jacob Scott, MD, PhD

1. Tell us about the project you’ll be presenting.

Cancer treatment often fails because cancer cells evolve to survive therapy. What's interesting, though, is that when cells become resistant to one drug, they can sometimes become more sensitive to another, a phenomenon known as collateral sensitivity. 

My project looks at how these trade-offs change over time. Instead of treating drug sensitivity as something fixed, I built a computational model where cancer cells grow, mutate and evolve under different conditions. This allowed me to track how their responses to multiple drugs shift throughout the entire evolutionary process.

What I found is that these relationships aren't stable. They change in nonlinear ways depending on treatment pressure and the underlying evolutionary landscape. In some cases, patterns of sensitivity become stronger before breaking down entirely. 

Overall, this suggests that timing plays a key role in treatment. More broadly, this kind of model could be applied to patient data, using inferred evolutionary trajectories to simulate how a tumor might respond to different drugs over time, and potentially help guide more adaptive, personalized treatment strategies. 

2. What did you enjoy most about working on this project? What kind of work went into it?

I really enjoyed working on a project at the intersection of different disciplines. It was exciting to bring together my experience in computer science, machine learning, and math with my interest in biology, and see how those pieces could come together to answer a real problem. I also valued getting to work alongside people in the lab with different interests and areas of expertise, which pushed me to think about the project from new perspectives. 

A lot of the work involved building and refining the computational model, then figuring out how to interpret the data it produced. I spent time troubleshooting, adjusting assumptions and experimenting with different mathematical frameworks to analyze the results. Through this process, I learned how to approach complex problems iteratively and think more critically about how to translate biological questions into computational frameworks. 

3. Have you presented before?

No, this will be my first time presenting my research at Intersections. I have presented at other research conferences before, so I am looking forward to sharing my work in a new setting and engaging with my peers and the CWRU community. 

4. Why do you believe students should get involved with Intersections?

Intersections is a great opportunity for students to step outside their specific field and learn how to communicate their work to a broader audience. Being able to clearly explain your research to others is an important skill, and Intersections provides a supportive environment to develop that. It's also a chance to see the wide range of research happening across campus and create meaningful connections with students and faculty who share similar interests.

Hana Sato

Third-year student majoring in biochemistry and political science, mentored by Gina Lewin, PhD

1. Tell us about the project you’ll be presenting.

My research is about bacterial interactions in the oral microbiota. Specifically, I am interested in the interactions between the Streptococcus bacterial genus and the bacteria Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (Aa).

Aa is a pathogen that causes an aggressive form of periodontitis (gum disease).

From existing literature, we know that Aa interacts with Streptococcus gordonii through metabolites such as hydrogen peroxide and L-lactate. Moreover, from preliminary experiments, we know that streptococcal fitness generally increases when cocultured in biofilms with Aa; but the extent of fitness increase varies across streptococcal species, and the mechanisms driving these changes are unknown. Hence, in my project we are trying to understand: 1. What is driving the increased streptococcal fitness when in coculture with Aa, and 2. How and why do these interactions vary across the Streptococcus species. 

To answer these questions, we are focusing on the two metabolites: hydrogen peroxide and L-lactate. For my experiments, I have grown Aa and diverse streptococci in coculture and modified the growth medium to understand the impact of the metabolites. Moreover, this semester, I have also used a reflectometric meter to measure quantitatively the amount of metabolite produced by each streptococci.

2. What did you enjoy most about working on this project? What kind of work went into it?

One of my favorite parts of the project is communicating about it. I have always enjoyed making posters, preparing the content that I will talk about along with my poster, and writing reports that summarize my project. I have found a lot of satisfaction in communicating effectively my project through organizing the relevant information and creating visualizations that are easy to understand. 

3. Have you presented before?

This is my third time presenting in Intersections! I presented in summer 2025 and fall 2025.

I have also presented in another conference before!

4. Why do you believe students should get involved with Intersections?

I think that public speaking and presenting complex topics can be a scary and nerve-wracking process. However, it is also a very important skill that translates into any field.

Presenting at Intersections was a great opportunity for me to practice organizing my ideas, breaking down complex topics into more accessible language, and practicing talking about my research to a diverse public. The entire process of presenting my research, including both making the poster and talking through it, have been a very enriching experience to me as it has helped me to feel more comfortable about public speaking.

Madison Kellier

Fourth-year student majoring in psychology and pre-architectural studies, mentored by Yehudis Keller, a graduate student

1. Tell us about the project you’ll be presenting.

I will be presenting a research project focused on Black women’s mental health and the ways systemic, cultural, and social factors shape both mental health outcomes and access to care. My work examines how intersecting identities, particularly race and gender, impact lived experiences with mental health stigma, barriers to treatment, and the availability of culturally responsive care. 

Rather than treating mental health disparities as isolated issues, the project emphasizes how structural inequities in healthcare, education and society more broadly contribute to persistent gaps in support for Black women. Ultimately, my research highlights the importance of intersectionality in understanding mental health and advocates for more inclusive, accessible, and affirming mental health care practices.

2. What did you enjoy most about working on this project? What kind of work went into it?

What I enjoyed most was the process of connecting academic research to real-life experiences. It was meaningful to engage with scholarship that not only analyzes disparities but also centers the voices and realities of Black women navigating mental health systems. A significant amount of work went into reviewing the literature across psychology, public health, and Black feminist thought, identifying recurring themes and synthesizing them into a cohesive narrative. I also spent time organizing findings into clear categories to better understand how different structural factors interact. One of the most rewarding parts was seeing how the research evolved from broad questions into a focused argument that felt both academically grounded and socially relevant.

3. Have you presented before?

This will be my first time presenting at Intersections! I have shared academic work in classroom settings, but this is my first formal research symposium. I’m really looking forward to the experience of presenting in a more public, interdisciplinary space and engaging with feedback from students and faculty across different fields.

4. Why do you believe students should get involved with Intersections?

Students should get involved with Intersections because it creates a rare opportunity to translate complex research into accessible ideas while learning how to communicate across disciplines. It pushes you to think critically about your work in ways that go beyond writing for a class, especially when explaining your research to people outside your field. It is also a supportive environment that encourages intellectual curiosity and collaboration. For many students, it becomes a space to grow in confidence as a researcher and to see how their interests fit into broader academic and social conversations.

Bradley Winter

Fourth-year student majoring in finance and business management, mentored by John Paul Stephens, PhD

1. Tell us about the project you’ll be presenting.

Meetings are essential for coordination, and a constant across all disciplines, but often can be ineffective or unengaging. My project focuses on understanding how meeting leaders can effectively intervene to improve engagement, psychological safety, and joint problem solving in high pressure environments. To address this, I conducted a micro-ethnographic study of two different planning meetings on a large construction project; while one meeting involved leaders (construction management) and participants (trade contractors) following a scripted agenda, the other meeting was less formalized, with construction management inviting trade contractors to stand up, share their work and respond to each other in a more open dialogue. I undertook a series of quantitative and qualitative analyses across both meetings through interviews, surveys, and observations of participant interactions. While the research is ongoing, our research showcased leadership behavior, meeting structure, and information-sharing mechanisms as key factors in the creation of work engagement and joint problem solving.

2. What did you enjoy most about working on this project? What kind of work went into it?

I enjoyed diving into a different academic field than what I had traditionally studied. I learned observation techniques, dove further into statistical analysis, and conducted interviews which were all new skills for me that I believe will be valuable in the future. I was fortunate to work with a fantastic mentor, and larger study team, along with meeting leaders who were willing and supportive of the study. Countless hours of observing, analyzing, and coordinating went into this project and I’ve enjoyed my experience. I hope to continue doing this type of work in some fashion in my future career.

3. Why do you believe students should get involved with Intersections?

I believe students should get involved at Intersections because it’s an excellent opportunity to showcase the strides that Case Western [Reserve] is making in the advancement of knowledge and technology. I’ve attended Intersections every year and I’m always amazed at the work students and researchers are doing at our school. Intersections makes me proud to be a Case Western [Reserve] student and I cannot advocate enough that students get involved and hopefully present a project in the future!

Anne Sanchez-Garcia

Fourth-year student majoring in astronomy, mentored by Chris Mihos, PhD 

1. Tell us about the project you’ll be presenting.

I studied globular clusters in six ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) in the Virgo Cluster. UDGs are large, faint galaxies that are comparable in size to the Milky Way, but are much fainter. Their formation history is not well understood, but we can learn more about UDGs by studying their globular clusters, which are gravitationally bound groups of old stars. Since these stars formed early in the galaxy’s history, they act as useful tracers of their host galaxy’s formation and evolution. 

In this project, the main goal was to build a clean sample of globular clusters in these UDGs and compare their properties to those in well-understood galaxies. To achieve this, I worked with imaging data from the Hubble Space Telescope. From the images, I identified light sources that were most likely true clusters by applying a series of selection criteria based on known globular cluster properties. This removed contaminants, such as background galaxies and ensured that the sample was well-refined. A clean sample of candidates was crucial to guarantee that any conclusions drawn from trends in cluster brightness and color distributions would be accurate and not biased by contamination. By comparing these properties, we can see whether globular clusters in UDGs resemble those in typical galaxies or if they show substantial systematic differences. 

2. What did you enjoy most about working on this project? What kind of work went into it?

My favorite part of this project was performing visual inspections of the globular cluster candidates. I had to carefully examine every candidate my code identified by directly looking at images of the galaxies and determining if each candidate matched the expected structural properties of true globular clusters, such as their symmetry, concentration, and light profile. Although this was a repetitive and tedious task, I found it extremely rewarding. One of the main challenges was that these objects appear as only a few pixels wide in the images, which made it difficult at times to confidently distinguish between real globular clusters from background galaxies. Despite the limitation, the process became easier over time and I developed a stronger intuition for identifying and interpreting subtle features in the imaging data. Through this process, I was able to clean up the sample and remove objects that were very unlikely to be clusters. Overall, working directly with the images gave me a much deeper appreciation for the level of detail in astronomical data! 

3. Why do you believe students should get involved with Intersections?

Science communication is very important, and Intersections is the perfect opportunity to practice explaining your research in a clear, accessible way to a broader audience. It encourages you to reflect on your own work and improves your ability to communicate complex ideas to people outside of your field.

Aarush Singh

Fourth-year student majoring in neuroscience, mentored by Nikhil Panicker, PhD

1. Tell us about the project you’ll be presenting.

My project is focused on looking at the innate immune system in microglia during Parkinson's disease pathology focusing on the role of extracellular vesicles in disease propagation.

2. What did you enjoy most about working on this project? What kind of work went into it?

One of my favorite parts of this project was the fact I got to integrate work from my projects in a different lab into a different/new context. The process of creating experiments and ideas in an exploratory system that I had to establish was challenging but extremely rewarding. A lot of troubleshooting and reading papers that used similar ideas went into designing the experimental procedures that I ended up using.

3. Why do you believe students should get involved with Intersections?

I think one of the most exciting parts of research is being able to share the work that you are doing and to learn from the work that others are doing. I think people who are interested in science and learning in general should get involved for that reason itself, to share and to learn.