Clean Sweep: Honors College Students Take Top Three Places in Poster Competition

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Posted on March 11, 2024

Thomas Becnel

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A trio of Honors College students from the University of South Alabama recently swept a competition for research posters at the Alabama Academy of Science Conference.

Dev Mehta, Kaitlyn Riggins and Suhas Patil traveled to Jacksonville, Alabama, and took first, second and third place in a research category for Honors College students throughout the state.

Mehta, a sophomore from Mobile majoring in biomedical sciences, did a poster on medical research: "Patient Safety: Orthotic Thermoplastics Demonstrate a Similar Contamination Potential to Bacillus Bacteria Recovered from Thermoplastic Radiation Therapy Masks.” His older brother, Raj, was a member of the Honors College at South, and gave him advice on undergraduate research.

“This is my third conference and the first time I’ve placed,” Mehta said. “I’ve been doing research since I was a sophomore in high school.”

Riggins, a senior from Eclectic, Alabama, majoring in communications, did her poster on “The Prevalence and Effect of Misinformation about Birth Control on TikTok.” She was still doing her research when she heard about the science conference. She had never presented before.

“I thought, ‘Why not?’” Riggins said. “I needed to get my feet wet. So I went, I presented and I must have done something right, because I got second place.”

Patil, a sophomore from Mobile studying biomedical sciences and philosophy, did his poster on “Investigating the Effect of WNK Lysine Deficient Protein Kinase Inhibition in Breast Cancer.”

For the science conference at Jacksonville State University, he got to meet student researchers from other state colleges.

“I thought it was a pretty cool place to present,” Patil said. “This was my first actual conference.”

Dr. Doug Marshall, dean of the Honors College, enjoyed the winning news from the state competition. Research achievements help build momentum for the Honors College.

“It’s about raising the profile of our program and this institution,” Marshall said. “We like to present opportunities for our students to create a research record. It’s kind of exceptional for undergraduates to have that kind of experience, and it helps them with things like winning scholarships and getting into medical school.”

The Alabama science conference ended on a Thursday night, so all three South winners skipped an awards dinner to make the long drive back to Mobile. They didn’t find out they had won until the next day.

Friends and classmates learned the news from the Honors College newsletter.

“I got a couple of congratulations in my physics class,” Mehta said. “It just got published, so I guess people are still taking a look at it.”

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