RRSP External Awards

Lena Seyfarth is a biology major from Janesville, Wisconsin. She had been working with Dr. Brandon Kim, Dr. Guy Caldwell, and Dr. Kim Caldwell to investigate the interaction of mid-brain dopaminergic neurons and brain endothelial cells during bacterial meningitis. She has co-authored two publications in her work related to Parkinson’s Disease in the Caldwell Lab. Lena is currently pursuing both a B.S. and M.S. in biology through the accelerated master’s program at UA under the direction of Dr. Brandon Kim. After the completion of her degrees in 2025, she plans to pursue a doctorate degree focused on infectious and genetic disease and become a lead investigator at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Outside of research, Lena is a Research Team leader for the Randall Research Scholars Peer Resource Organization, vice president of UA’s chapter of the American Society of Microbiology, and a member of Tri Beta biology honors society.

Michael Zengel is a physics and math major from New Orleans, Louisiana. His first research experience was studying machine learning applications in Density Functional Theory calculations for 3 years of high school in Tulane University’s Physics Department. At the University of Alabama, he works with Dr. Hauser, researching structural and electronic properties of novel Heusler materials. In the summer of 2023, he gained exposure to optical physics, generating terahertz radiation through two-beam excitations in semiconductors, during a DAAD RISE internship at Justus Liebig University in Germany. He plans on becoming a physics professor after pursuing his doctorate in condensed matter physics after graduation in 2025. Outside of research, he is treasurer of the Society of Physics Students, an editor on the Journal of Science and Health at UA, and a lab manager in RRSP.

Aparna Bhooshanan is a computer science major and Chinese minor from Madison, Alabama. She is a Critical Language Scholarship and Boren Scholarship winner and will spend Summer 2024 as well as the 2024-2025 academic year studying in Taiwan. In addition to being a Randall Research Scholar and Witt University Fellow, Aparna is the current President of UA's chapter of the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers. In the past two summers, Aparna has interned at Lockheed Martin as a software engineer and participated in an NSF-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates at the University of North Texas, where she used natural language processing (a field that unites linguistics with machine learning) techniques to measure how China's reputation as a country has changed since the pandemic. She is currently leading a research project alongside UA's Dr. Yanyu Xiong and Dr. Xiang Zhang that employs AI methods to support Chinese heritage language speakers' language acquisition. This year, Aparna was named UA's Outstanding Sophomore. Additionally, she was recognized by the Modern Languages and Classics department for Excellence in Second-Year Chinese. Aparna aims to use her knowledge of Mandarin and natural language processing to contribute to the machine translation field and to develop methods to combat digital misinformation in different countries.

Blake Yuenger is a chemistry major from Murfreesboro, Tennessee pursuing the Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Master of Science via the Accelerated Master's Program. He currently works with Dr. Kevin Shaughnessy of the department of chemical engineering, studying the activation of air stable palladium-acyl complexes for cross-coupling catalysis using labile ligand substitution between TMEDA and SPhos. Previously, he studied fentanyl trace analysis methods using eosin Y, a phosphate buffer, and FT Raman at Middle Tennessee State University, as well as synthesizing new emulsifiers for thermally stable emulsions at Nelson Brothers. He hopes to using the Hollings scholarship to understand how these cross-coupling reactions could simplify various synthetic routes used during industrial synthesis and its environmental impact. Outside of research, he is part of the JOSHUA editorial team and enjoys playing jazz guitar in the Tuscaloosa Big Band. He plans to attain a Ph.D. in chemistry.

Raeed is a mathematics and economics major from Biloxi, MS. He works with Dr. Michael Price and other faculty in the economics department to study the impact of uncertainty on decision-making. Combining economic theory, econometric modeling, and data - both experimental and non-experimental - he studies questions like how uncertainty about future income can impact the decision to donate to charity today, how political uncertainty shapes political contributions to candidates in the House of Representatives or Senate, and how policy can be used to mitigate the impacts of uncertainty. He has spent summers working at Harvard University and the University of Chicago, assisting faculty in the design, implementation, and analysis of experiments that test behavioral economic theory. With the Hollings, he hopes to construct measures of climate uncertainty, learning methods from leading NOAA scientists. In the long run, he plans to understand how climate uncertainty impacts investment in climate-resilient infrastructure today. Outside of research, Raeed is on the Judicial Board in Student Government, an Honors College Ambassador, and a Research Ambassador. He previously received the Randall Research Scholars Rising Star award, given to 1 freshman in the RRS class. He is currently enrolled in the Accelerated Master's Program in Mathematics and will pursue a Ph.D. in Economics after graduation.

Abby Foes is a 2023 graduate from Rockford, Illinois. She graduated from the RRS program with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and mathematics with a minor in global health. While at UA, Abby was a research assistant for Dr. Ayanjeet Ghosh in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, working with infrared spectroscopy to study Alzheimer’s disease tissue samples and the disease’s hallmark protein deposits. During her time with Dr. Ghosh, Abby received the Randall Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award, the H. Pettus Randall Jr. Scholarship, and the Outstanding Chemistry Undergraduate Research Award. She also received the Catherine J. Randall Premier Award and the Hazel Phelps Jones Award in the spring of 2023. Now, Abby is a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of Biostatistics. She is working under Dr. Tanya Garcia in developing statistical methodologies to address censored covariates motivated by the study of Huntington disease.

Nicholas Hayes, Long Valley, NJ, is a senior at the University of Alabama, where he majors in Applied Mathematics and German. He also did an intensive course in Swahili language and culture in Tanzania as a Boren Scholar. An ultramarathoner, he was named the outstanding junior at the University of Alabama on the basis of scholarship, leadership and service. Nick edited an undergraduate science journal, interned at NOAA in fisheries science and has published in academic journals in politics and biology, and also published poetry, and translates between English and Swahili. Nick will do the MSC in Mathematical Science and the MSt in Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics at Oxford.

Originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, UA senior Jackson Foster studies religion and history, with minors in the Blount and Randall Research scholars programs. Jackson has published extensively in early-modern English history—namely, on Tudor criminal law—and the global-critical philosophy of religion, where he uses machine learning to map inclusive futures for the field. He is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Crimson Historical Review, and he spent last year earning his bureaucratic stripes as an intern at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Before the covid-19 pandemic, Jackson was slated to plan and teach a class at the Tuscaloosa Juvenile Detention Center—carceral education and reform being long-standing passions of his. In his free time, Jackson plays tennis, soccer, and cricket, dyes his hair, listens to punk music, and paints. As a Marshall Scholar, he will pursue a master degree in medieval and early modern studies, then another in data science for the digital humanities, at Durham University.