Gemstone Honors Program

Class of 2012 Teams

AMIRA: Analyzing Movement of Infants at Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Team Thesis
Mentor: John Aloimonos
Librarian: Mr. Glenn Moreton
Members: Eileen Chai, Jillian Chavis, Kevin Chodnicki, Timothy Crisci, Nathan Destler, John Graham, Kesshi Jordan, Richard Landa, Conrad Merkle, Soh Park, Christopher Paxton, Rachita Sood, James Tanner, Brendan Wray.
Team Website
Keywords: autism, diagnosis, infants, movement, passive motion capture

ANTIDOTE: Analyzing New Treatments for Infectious Disease with Obtained Therapeutic Extracts

Team Thesis
Mentor: Dr. Andrea Ottesen
Librarians: Mr. Bob Kackley and Ms. Lily Griner
Members: Noha Eshera, Song Fu, Angela Hou, Liv Johannessen, Rahel Kifle, Nathan King, Eunsol Lee, Ke Ma, Gowri Nadmichettu, Alex Peters, Gregory Polley, Steven Ramiro, Crystal Wang, Mengda Zhang.
Team Website
Keywords: Hepatitis C, drug treatment, Phyllanthus niruri

BALANCE: Bettering Aged Living through Alternative Neural Corrective Exercises

Team Thesis
Mentor: Dr. Jae Kum Shim
Librarian: Ms. Svetla Baykoucheva
Members: Marla Benedek, Jared Lindenberg, Yu Lun, Adina Schwartz, Mengge Shan, Tiancheng Wang, Kobena Waters.
Team Website
Keywords: falls, prevention, elderly, resistance training, strength, balance

BioFUELS: Furthering the Utilization of Energy from Land and Soil

Team Thesis
Mentor: Dr. Gary Felton
Librarians: Ms. Nevenka Zdravkovska
Members: Vishney Ambalavanar, Michael Kang, Felicia Kulp, Theodore Michaels, Alexander Muroyama, Saad Rehman, Olufemi Sokoya, Aalap Trivedi, Kaiyi Xie.
Team Website
Keywords: biofuels, Micanthus x giganteus, land quality, soil, cost benefit analysis

BLAZE: Bettering the Lives of Animals in Zoo Environments

Team Thesis
Mentor: Dr. Kaci Thompson
Librarian: Mr. Timothy Hackman
Members: Logan Anbinder, Amelia Cordell, Gretchen Downey, Kelly Freudenberger, Shabaab Kamal, Thao Khuc, Joshua Lacey, Caitlin Moore, Emmarie Myers, Andrea Schmidt.
Team Website
Keywords: zoos, animals, stress, intervention strategies, environmental enrichment

FACE: Facial Analysis for Communicating Expression

Team Thesis
Mentor: Dr. Rama Chellappa
Librarian: Mr. Jim Miller
Members: Douglas Astler, Harrison Chau, Kailin Hsu, Alvin Hua, Andrew Kannan, Lydia Lei, Melissa Nathanson, Esmaeel Paryavi, Michelle Rosen, Hayato Unno, Carol Wang, Syeda Zaidi, Xuemin Zhang.
Team Website
Keywords: facial recognition, assistive devices, blindness, nonverbal communication

FLIP: File Lending in Proximity

Team Thesis
Mentor: Dr. Jim Purtilo
Librarians: Mr. Stephen Henry and Mr. Jim Miller
Members: Bobak Azarbayejani, Andy Chang, William Franklin, Hugo Hall, James Polivka, Zhuang Shao, Xinyu Weng.
Team Website
Keywords: geolocation, file sharing, internet, proximate networks

FRESH : Fixing Refrigeration Efficiency to Sustain Health

Team Thesis
Mentor: Dr. Sameer Shah
Librarians: Mr. Bob Kackley and Ms. Lily Griner
Members: Matthew Conway, Kelly Daniluk, Jason Felder, Andrew Foo, Amina Goheer, Veena Katikineni, Anthony Mazzella, Young Park, George Peabody, Divya Raghavachari, Sahil Shah, Ravi Vaswani.
Team Website
Keywords: vaccines, distribution, temperature, phase chain material

GREEN JUSTICE: Geared Reassessment of Ecological and Environmental Needs to Justly Utilize Sustainable Techniques in Communities Everywhere

Team Thesis
Mentor: Dr. Alex Chen
Librarian: Dr. Alan Mattlage and Ms. Lara Otis,
Members: Jessica Albrecht, Blair Broser, Brendan George, Caleb Hii, Vy Nguyen, Rachana Patel, Najeff Waseem.
Team Website
Keywords: waste reduction, recycling, Hyattsville, Maryland, program evaluations, attitudes

LEAF: Light Energy in the Agriculture of the Future

Team Thesis
Mentor: Dr. Ray Adomaitis
Librarian: Ms. Nedelina Tchangalova
Members: Thomas Brooks, Sean Collins, Alexander Edgerton, Blaine Ford, Preetha Gautam, Matthew Goldfinger, Ian Hall, Billy Huang, Michael Lanzo, Melissa McGowan, Taylor Myers, Christopher Salata, Andy Zheng.
Team Website
Keywords: solar energy, photovoltaics, concentration, costs, sustainability

LEGS: Ligament Elasticity post Graft Surgery

Team Thesis
Mentor: Dr. Adam Hsieh
Librarians: Mr. Bob Kackley & Ms. Lily Griner
Members: Ayushi Chandramani, Matthew Costales, Benjamin Garbus, Joseph Hartstein, Kelley Heffner, Rupal Jain, Kelly Klein, Alicia McDonnell, Payal Patel, Victoria Stefanelli, Jenny Wang, Joseph Weinberg, Tina Zhang.
Team Website
Keywords: ACL construction, anterior cruciate ligament, grafts, surgery, tension, collagen