2020 Honours Fest Winners

Earlier this month, fifty-five Honours students throughout the Faculty of Science presented their research at the ninth annual Honours Fest, a conference-style poster session that showcases outstanding undergraduate research. Honours Fest is the culmination of two semesters of gruelling research, and an opportunity for students to show what has been occupying their time and brainpower.

Students, staff, faculty and other lovers of science from across the campus and Victoria gathered to learn more about remarkable student projects, ranging in topic from ocean acidification to intermittent fasting.

Thanks to the generosity of Dr. Fritz Boehm, students who place in the top three, as well as the top presenter in each department and school win substantial cash prizes. Students are judged in three areas: scientific thought and creativity, their communication skills in presenting the research, and the quality of the poster and its ability to explain complex research in a logical way.

The winners of the Boehm Family Award of Excellence in Science are:

First Place	Josey LeGallais	Investigating Polyphosphorylation of a Histone Chaperone in Budding Yeast
Second Place	Evan Chen	Pillar[n]arenes: One ring to recognize them all, and in the water bind them
Third Place	Shannon Ogden	Total Roman Domination Edge-Supercritical and Edge-Removal-Supercritical Graphs

And the top presenters for each unit are:

Unit	Award Winner	Poster
Biochemistry & Microbiology	Matt Shorthill	The role of clinical stringent response mutations in antibiotic tolerance and persistent infection
Biology	Seb Gulka	Characterizing the acute damage response of CX3CR1+ cells in the cornea
Chemistry	Ashley Lardner	Detection and quantification of fentanyl in a drug-checking context
Earth & Ocean Sciences	Connor Vanwieren	Characterizing the Triassic/Jurassic boundary through stratigraphy of northern Vancouver Island carbonates
Mathematics & Statistics	Curtis Harvey	The Artin-Springer theorem for Semi-Local Rings
Physics & Astronomy	Tristan Zaborniak	Measuring Telegraph Noise in the D-Wave Quantum Computer