Study on toxin detection in dairy products tops Student Research competition

A concluding presentation about a study on the detection of toxins that have caused serious illnesses in infants and pets turned out to be a winner as eight California State University, Stanislaus students advanced to the systemwide Student Research competition scheduled for  May at CSU Los Angeles.

Rafael Palomino, a senior Chemistry major from Turlock mentored by Chemistry Professor Dr. Scott Russell, won first place in the undergraduate division of the March 6 CSU Stanislaus Student Research Competition over 14 other presentations with his report on the detection of the toxin melamine. The goal of his research is to develop a method to quickly screen dairy products for melamine and other toxin contamination. So far, Palomino noted, the method has shown the ability to quickly detect and identify melamine and its chemical structure from water samples. Melamine contamination has occurred recently in pet food and in infant formula in China. 

Senior English majors Ned Weidner and Simi Dhaliwal, both of Turlock and mentored by Dr. John Wittman of the English Department, teamed up to win the graduate division competition over seven other competitors during the competition with a presentation titled “Assessing Campus Diversity through Students’ Perspectives.”

The qualifying CSU Stanislaus student researchers will match skills with competitors from the other 22 California State University campuses at the May 1-2 CSU Student Research Competition at CSU Los Angeles.

Other top finishers at the CSU Stanislaus competition who qualified for the CSU competition included:
Graduate division: Terese Lunt, a History master's degree student of Waterford, second place for a presentation titled “International Collusion: Peruvian Japanese Interned in the United States During World War II”; and Heather M. Adams, a Psychology student of Mission Hills, third place for her talk titled “Four Signs That He’s Looking For A One Night Stand: Psychological and Physiological Correlates of Sociosexuality.”

Undergraduate division: Jenice Arevalo, a Biology major from Los Angeles, second place for a presentation on marine invertebrates titled “Bacterial-dependent colony formation in Choanoflagellates: Preterospongia species”; and Edgar Garibay and Gurpreet Sihota, Biology majors from Modesto, whose talk called “The Effects of Cigarette Smoke on Apoptotic Process in the Spleen and Thymus of Swiss Webster Mice” took third place honors.

Other faculty mentors who worked with winning student presenters included Biological Sciences Professor Dr. Flora Watson, Dr. Margaret Winter of the English Department, and Dr. Victor Levano of the Psychology Department. Judges included CSU Stanislaus faculty members Dr. Richard Wallace (Anthropology/Geography), Dr. Peggy Hauselt (Anthropology/Geography), Dr. Ellen Bell (Anthropology/Geography), and Dr. Melanie Martin (Computer Science), and UC Merced faculty members Dr. Lilian P. Davilla (Engineering) and Richard Ravalli (Social Sciences Humanities, and Arts).