FAU Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry

👋 Join us to celebrate our S.U.R.F. Fellows at OURI's Annual Summer Student Showcase & Retreat on Monday, August 10th from 12:30-1:30 PM in the Science Learning Center located in the Schmidt Family Complex! Come celebrate the incredible research achievements of your fellow undergraduate students as they present the research they have conducted over the summer semester. This is a fantastic opportunity to discover cutting-edge research happening right here on campus, network with peers and faculty, and gain inspiration for your own academic journey.

Hey there! My name is Brielle Walter, and I am excited to be working under the mentorship of Dr. Anne L. van Zelst, PhD, CCC-SLP in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders for my 2026 SURF fellowship. I am starting my final year of undergraduate studies, majoring in Linguistics (LLCL), with a particular interest in speech and language acquisition. I would love to continue my studies with FAU’s CSD graduate program. The project I am currently involved in is titled Beyond Practice: Examining the effects of post-practice daytime sleep and quiet rest on speech motor learning. Our hypothesis is that Native English-speaking individuals aged 18 to 25 years old who engage in a three-hour period of daytime sleep or quiet rest after training in perception and production of a Danish vowel contrast will show improvement in perception and production measures from pre-test to post-test, indicating greater speech-motor learning outcomes compared to those who practice in the absence of post-practice sleep or rest. Discrimination and identification will be averaged and compared across pre- and post-test, while production will be measured by F1 and F2 values and the 3D Euclidean distance between the participant and the model targets. We are currently recruiting participants, and I will be presenting preliminary data in the upcoming semesters.

Hello my name is Francis Jeune, a Senior Graphic Design Student at Florida Atlantic University. This summer, I will be working with my SURF mentor and Graphic Design Professor, Mehrdad Sedaghat Baghbani, from FAU’s Department of Visual Arts and Art History on a SURF research project focused on creating and testing culturally responsive metadata using FAU’s art, design, and library collections as case studies. We will examine preservation-aware documentation practices and explore how we may utilize these method for AI development. Our goal is to develop ethical and inclusive approaches to the documentation of visual materials that accurately identify, organize, and describe the cultural knowledge, origins, and context of artworks and designs that will be translated into data for computational systems.

My role is to conduct analyses of cultural and visual artifacts and develop metadata that will be tested to account for authorship, context, origin. Through this research, we hope to contribute to better documentation frameworks that support the development of more inclusive and ethical AI systems that represents a broader range of cultures and perspectives of the world.

Hello Everyone! I am Kanaa Clarke, a Junior conducting my 2026 SURF research in Dr. O. Alejandro Aleuy’s Disease Ecology lab. My SURF project is focused on understanding the prevalence of multiple pathogens in Florida Scrub Jays using Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) as a diagnostic approach. Florida Scrub Jays are an endemic bird species that is threatened due to habitat loss and other anthropogenic factors. It is important to study the presence and distribution of pathogens because large scale outbreaks have occurred in this species in the past, and we do not have a deep understanding of the etiology nor the specific factors leading to these outbreaks. Understanding this can help to prevent, mitigate, and better prepare if these outbreaks happen again. Dr. Aleuy and I are thankful for SURF for funding this project, and we are excited to share our findings in the near future.

Hello, my name is Sarah Roland and I am working alongside Dr. Lucas Perelló researching how the effects of Gender Electoral Quotas differ amongst the Central American region and if this affects women’s perception on democratic participation. Tracking the inclusion rate of women in legislative assemblies from democratization across national, departmental, and institutional levels, these researchers attempt to compare the effects of gender quotas regionally. Not only will this research provide a regional trend in the implementation of gender quotas within a Central American context, but it will also uncover how the effectiveness of gender quotas alter women’s perception of democracy.

My name is Sebastian S. Hernandez, and I am an environmental engineering undergraduate student at Florida Atlantic University. This summer, I am completing a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) project under the mentorship of Dr. Yalan Liu, who serves as my faculty mentor and oversees the research. Our project examines PFAS, a group of highly persistent chemicals that can remain in the environment for many years and have been associated with harmful effects in humans and wildlife. Specifically, I am measuring PFAS in reclaimed water (treated wastewater that is reused for purposes such as landscape irrigation) and investigating whether repeated irrigation may cause these chemicals to accumulate in soil over time. This research will help clarify the environmental implications of PFAS that may remain in reclaimed water after treatment.

Hi everyone! I’m Sam Merlin, a sophomore majoring in Computer Science. This summer, I’ll be working with Dr. Georgios Sklivanitis at the Florida Atlantic Center for Connected Autonomy and AI in the College of Engineering and Computer Science as part of my SURF project. My research will focus on building an underwater simulation environment and implementing a deep learning-based approach for stereo depth estimation in underwater imagery. The goal is to generate accurate depth maps from stereo camera data despite the challenges of underwater vision, including low visibility, color distortion, scattering, and changing lighting conditions. The project will be evaluated both in simulation using NVIDIA Isaac Sim, and in practice using an underwater robot equipped with a stereo camera. A key objective is to study the sim-to-real gap and understand how well underwater perception algorithms tested in simulation transfer to real-world conditions. I’m excited to contribute to research at the intersection of AI, computer vision, simulation, and underwater robotics.

Hello! My name is Patrick Akins and I am a biology major working in Dr. Carsten Grupstra’s Reef Symbiosis Lab at the FAU Marine Lab. For my 2026 SURF project, I am studying coral reef ecology, coral bleaching, and the role of microbial communities and reef interactions in coral health and recovery.

Our research focuses on how microbial communities, nutrient transfer, and fish-coral interactions within reef ecosystems may support coral health and recovery following bleaching. We are experimentally bleaching corals and studying how microbial interactions and environmental stress affect coral resilience. In addition, our lab investigates cryptic coral lineages, which are genetically distinct coral populations that may respond differently to heat stress and climate change.

Coral reefs are increasingly threatened by ocean warming and environmental change, making it important to better understand the biological interactions that help reefs survive and recover. Through this fellowship, I am excited to gain hands-on experience in marine research while contributing to coral reef conservation and restoration efforts.

Hello everyone! My name is Sofia Aristizabal, and I am a Neuroscience major at Florida Atlantic University. For my 2026 SURF project, I am conducting research under the mentorship of Dr. Laura Fontenas in FAU’s Department of Biological Sciences. My research focuses on oligodendrocytes, the cells responsible for producing myelin in the nervous system, which helps nerve cells send signals efficiently throughout the body. Although oligodendrocytes are typically thought to remain within the Central Nervous System (CNS), recent findings suggest that some may cross into the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) at specialized regions called motor exit points (MEPs). Using zebrafish as a model organism, I study when and why oligodendrocytes leave the CNS, as well as what happens to them after they enter the PNS. My project is part of broader research examining glial development and myelination at the boundary between the CNS and PNS, and through live imaging and microscopy techniques, I hope to better understand how these cells behave during nervous system development and what their movement may reveal about myelin and neurological disease.

Hello everyone! My name is Valentina Campos, and I am conducting my 2026 SURF project in Dr. Simon Piearut’s lab. My project focuses on exploring how the Extracellular Matrix stores and regulates complement component C1q involved in synaptic elimination. Dysregulation of C1q in the brain can contribute to the pathology of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis and Huntington’s through complement-mediated synaptic pruning. Determining how sequestration of C1q by the Extracellular Matrix (ECM) protects synapses from microglia phagocytosis allows a further understanding of the mechanisms that underly neurodegeneration. Our work provides new insights in ECM-C1q interactions through Stereotaxic Injections in mice, Immunohistochemistry, confocal imaging and image analysis. I am very excited for this opportunity to expand my research skills and contribute to our knowledge of neurodegeneration.