Creighton celebrates University Research Week

Mar 24, 2023

3 min Read

Creighton champions curiosity and ingenuity every day, but University Research Week offers a chance to put it in the spotlight.

This year, Creighton’s University Research Week begins March 27, with student poster and oral presentations on Tuesday, March 28, and Wednesday, March 29, in Omaha. Presentations will be given on April 5 on the Creighton University Health Sciences – Phoenix Campus.

An award luncheon will be held on March 29 in Omaha to honor this year’s University Research Award Winners, David Zhi-Zhou He, MD, PhD, and Maya Khanna, PhD.

Dr. He is being awarded for his presentation, "Cochlear Hair Cells: Why Losing Them Leads to Hearing Loss." In it, he shows how mutations of two genes, Slc7a14 (differentially expressed in IHCs) and Dnm3 (differentially expressed in OHCs), lead to hearing loss in mouse models and humans.

In Dr. Khanna’s presentation, "It’s the word, nerd: Using words to explore memory, attention, spelling, concept representation, and development," she shares her research in cognition that focuses on her favorite topic, words, and highlights her research on word-processing. Khanna shares how word features, such as their meanings, sounds and spelling patterns, influence the way that words are remembered and how people pay attention to words in specific contexts.

More than 225 student abstracts were submitted for University Research Week this year, including presentations from undergraduate, graduate and professional students such as:

Huda Mian, whose undergraduate research has focused on better understanding the workings of the brain
Gavin Latona, who is exploring the neuronal activity that plays an important part in the processes of learning and memory
Sahrai Luna, who is helping NASA develop a 3D printing method to produce less expensive optical lenses for use in telescopes

More than 225 student abstracts were submitted for University Research Week this year.

At Creighton, students can find research opportunities as early as freshman year, with 400+ undergraduate student research presentations at conferences each year. External funding provides a wealth of research opportunities for students who want to move big ideas forward:

Creighton had $31.8 million in external funding in 2021-2022
62% of external funding comes from highly competitive federal awards
$12.7 million of the total federal awards are National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards

See the full event schedule and presentation topics.

University Research Week was originally named St. Albert’s Day in honor of St. Albert Magnus, who was a scientist, philosopher and theologian. During his lifetime, he composed a veritable encyclopedia, which contained scientific treatises on almost every subject. Though the name has changed, the spirit of the event is the same—emphasizing the importance of experimentation and investigation.