Cal State LA scholars set to compete at CSU Student Research Competition in Humboldt

Ten students will represent Cal State LA at the 39th Annual CSU Student Research Competition at Cal Poly Humboldt on April 25 and 26.

The annual event gathers scholars, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, from the 23 California State University campuses in a competition that showcases their research, scholarship, and creative work.

The Cal State LA representatives for this year are Hannah Calistri, Isaac Collins, Samuel Groysman, Arwa Hammad, Marjorie Hunt, Yahan Lin, Isuru Rajapakshe, Alejandro Sanchez, Evelyn Scott, and Drusilla Szakto. (See below for more information on the students and their research.)

The competition is open to currently enrolled graduate and undergraduate students and alumni who received their degrees in 2024 or winter 2025. Presentations should be appropriate to students' disciplines and career goals.

Each university has its own method of choosing their representatives. At Cal State LA, the Student Symposium on Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities held each spring semester essentially serves as the election process. The campus event, which was held Feb. 28 this year, features more than 150 students competing in oral or poster-board presentations.

"I think this is the best thing we do at Cal State LA," said Mitchell Eisen, who has been co-organizing the local event for more than 25 years. "Our undergraduate and master's students are publishing and doing amazing stuff. It's really quite an enormous event."

Eisen, professor of psychology and director of forensic psychology, says organizers seek judges, usually Cal State LA professors, whose fields are not related to the work they have to judge. The judges choose the 15 best oral presentations, with the top 10 moving on to the CSU competition and the next five serving as alternates.

"We have some folks who are on their way to amazing things, who are as strong as any other student in any university," Eisen said. "The competition is like participating in a conference. For most people, this is their first opportunity to give a scientific talk. When they have success, and they're able to add that line to their resume, it gets them going. They want to get more involved in the research, they want to attend other conferences."

The top three finishers of the Cal State LA event-Groysman, Rajapakshe, and Calistri-were presented Phi Kappa Phi Awards by the Gamma Epsilon Chapter, the Cal State LA chapter of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.

At the state competition, students present their research orally before a jury and an audience, but they are expected not to read directly from written summaries. The oral presentations are limited to 10 minutes and are followed by five-minute Q&A sessions with both the jurors and the audience asking questions.

Competitors are allowed to use audiovisual materials and are encouraged to use techniques that promote interaction with the audience.

The competition is divided into 10 disciplinary categories, with separate graduate and undergraduate divisions for each category.

The winners of each category receive $500 and the runners-up $250, with both first- and second-place winners also receiving trophies.

At last year's event at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal State LA's Aundia Dianat (M.S., forensic psychology) won first place in the category of Behavioral, Social Sciences & Public Administration II. Her presentation was titled "The Biasing Nature of Gang Evidence: Inducing Memory Errors for Evidence of Past Criminal Behavior."

More than 200 competitors are expected at Cal Poly Humboldt, which is hosting the event for the first time.

CAL STATE LA COMPETITORS

Behavioral and Social Sciences
Drusilla Szakto (B.A., Psychology), "Examining Eyewitness Decision Making Under Real World Conditions Using the Field Simulation Paradigm"

Humanities and Political Science
Isaac Collins (Master of Social Work), "Black Americans Attitudes and Perceptions of Mental Health Services"

Marjorie Hunt (M.A., History), "The Wild and Unfree: Geographies of Nature and Slavery in Mid-Nineteenth Centry Rio de Janeiro"

Hannah Calistri (M.A., Anthropology), "Preservation and Contamination: Identifying Pesticides on Ethnographic Woven Materials Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence"

Arwa Hammad (B.A., Philosophy, Option in Pre-Law; B.S., Political Science, Option in Pre-Law), "Stretching Democracy: Third Parties and the Necessity of Democratic Elasticity"

Biological and Health Sciences
Yahan Lin (B.S., Biochemistry), "Investigating the Roles of TlyA and FtsZ in Circadian Control of Cell Division in Cyanobacteria"

Engineering and Computer Sciences
Isuru Rajapakshe (M.S., Electrical Engineering), "Spectral Changes in sEEG as a Biomarker for rTMS Efficacy in Major Depressive Disorder"

Alejandro Sanchez (B.S., Mechanical Engineering), "Improving the Performance of Lithium-Ion Batteries at High Temperatures for Space Applications"

Physical Sciences
Samuel Groysman (B.S., Biochemistry), "Sensitive Imaging of Electroactive Species in Plasmonic Eletrochemical Microscopy Enabled by Electrostatic Nanoconfinement"

Evelyn Scott (M.S., Physics), "Protostart Disk Dynamics of Oph IRS 63"

# # #

California State University, Los Angeles is the premier comprehensive public university in the heart of Los Angeles. Cal State LA is ranked number one in the United States for the upward mobility of its students. Cal State LA is dedicated to engagement, service, and the public good, offering nationally recognized programs in science, the arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education, and the humanities. Founded in 1947, the University serves more than 24,000 students and has more than 250,000 distinguished alumni.