UB RISE 2025 Award Winners

Distinguished Faculty Award

Justin M. Caithaml, PhD
We All Belong: A Descriptive Analysis of Gender and Sexuality Discourse in Music Education Professional Development #4
College of Science and Society
Music Department

Randy Laist, PhD
Andres Avila, Karen Azucena, Tayshaun Bookal, Brian Figueroa, Andrew Fleming, Zahkiyyah Frazier, Abigail Giron Marroquin, Lena Graham, Lashay Green, Morgan Johnson, Rayhan Khan, Ashton Landowski, Angelina Ledesma, Samantha Ledger, Glenn Manigault, Joseph Martin, Kyara Pereira, Marcella Ramos, Edival Rios, Lily Rodriguez, Kieran Ross, Ceezar Samson, Cheyann Tiffany, Alexander Torrens, Nathaniel Walter, Samantha Wilson
Salvation from the Skies: Convergent Analyses of Flying Saucers in American Cinema and Post-Freudian Psychology #1
College of Science and Society
English Department

David Peterson, EdD
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Educational Programs in the Federal Bureau of Prisons #2
College of Science and Society
Department of Criminal Justice and Human Security

Doctoral Category

1st Place Recognition
Nadine Matondo-Mvula
Breast Cancer Detection with Quanvolutional Neural Networks #19
Advisor: Khaled Elleithy, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

2nd Place Recognition
Natalie R. Savopoulos
Program Coordinators' and Alumni Perceptions: A Qualitative Study of CT Open Choice Program's Mission #18
Advisor: Lauren Francese, EdD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Educatio

3rd Place Recognition
Hepseeba Kode
Attention based Temporal Convolutional Network for Epileptic Seizure Detection #17
Advisor: Khaled Elleithy, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department Computer Science and Engineering

Alumni Award
Abdulrahman Ali Kariri
Astute Support System with Voice Feedback for Visually Impaired and Blind Assistance #15
Advisor: Khaled Elleithy, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department Computer Science and Engineering

Honorable Mention
Abdulaziz Alwehaibi
Mitigating Quantum Decoherence Risk for Scalable Communication #14
Advisor: Khaled Elleithy, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department Engineering & Technology

Master’s Category

1st Place Recognition
Amber Dupont
Causative Factors of Paraeducator Attrition and Retention (PEAR) Rates#37
Advisor: Kerry Jones, EdD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Education

2nd Place Recognition
Anjana Paudel
An Analysis of Innocence Network Organizations #38
Advisor: Cassidy Haigh
College of Science and Society
Department of Criminal Justice and Human Security

3rd Place Recognition
Youssef Hassan
Vision-Based Real-Time Wildfire Detection: Deep Learning Approach #56
Advisors: Ahmed El Sayed, PhD; Navarun Gupta, PhD; Xingguo Xiong, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Alumni Award
Evans Awuah
Molecular Docking and Dynamics Simulations for Identifying Effective Antiviral Inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 #41
Advisor: Peiqiao Wu, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Honorable Mention
Godwin Agyei Owusu
Design and Development of a Lightweight Chassis Frame for a One Passenger Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Vehicle (eVTOL) based on Jetson One #43
Advisor: Junling Hu, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering

Undergraduate Category

1st Place Recognition
Maimouna Traore, Malique Montaque, Millenia Michel, Roeshai Ludd, NaimaDewan
Mpow3R visioN Smart Mirror: Enhancing daily life, one reflection at a time #79
Advisor: Sarosh Patel, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department of Computer Science and Engineering

2nd Place Recognition
Patricia Bermeo, Jordan Berry, Felix Bonilla, Thomas Schoenfelder
3BT SmartAI Home Surveillance System #83
Advisor Ausif Mahmood & Ahmed El Sayed
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Departments of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering

3rd Place Recognition
Huy Huong, Juan Rosario Madina, Alex Armatis, Carlos Lara
Lawnbot: Affordable Autonomous Lawnmower #81
Advisor: Sarosh Patel, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Departments of Computer Science and Engineering

Alumni Award
Ali Hamadeen, Xander Smith, Patrick Augustin, Leland Cruz
HailoUBot: Smart Navigation and Path Sharing #80
Advisor: Ahmed El Sayed, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department of Electrical Engineering

Honorable Mention
Xander Smith, Alexander Granda, Laurence Bimpeh, Abdullah Alsulaim
ParkSense #84
Advisor: Ahmed El Sayed, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department of Electrical Engineering

High School Category

1st Place Recognition
Anjali Prabhu
Determining the Clinical Profile of Trauma-Induced Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Experimental Design #109
Advisor: Dr. Helen Pushkarskaya & Avalon Moore, Sarah Reeves
Amity Regional High School

2nd Place Recognition
William Bentley
Comparing the Effectiveness of AlCl3-NaCl and Zeolite ZSM 5 Catalysts in the Pyrolysis of HDPE #115
Advisor: Kirk Shadle
Bridgeport Regional Aquaculture Science and Technology Education Center

3rd Place Recognition
Kacee Tam
Investigating the Level of Creativity and the Association With the Perception of Dissonance in Music in Western High School Students #110
Advisor: Sarah Reeves
Amity Regional High School

Alumni Award
Olivia LaRiccia
The Impact of Combined Bromelain and Papain Hydrogel on Wound Healing Processes Relative to Enhanced Enzyme Extraction Techniques #105
Advisor: Kirk Shadle
Bridgeport Regional Aquaculture Science and Technology Education Center

Honorable Mention
Charlotte Talbot
Evaluation of Potential Application of Cassiospea Xamachana's Nematocysts as a Transdermal Drug Delivery System #106
Advisor: Kirk Shadle
Bridgeport Regional Aquaculture Science and Technology Education Center

Climate Innovation Award

Award Prizes Sponsored by Entrepreneurship Foundation Inc. Founder, Mike Roer ’08

William Bentley
Comparing the Effectiveness of AlCl3-NaCl and Zeolite ZSM 5 Catalysts in the Pyrolysis of HDPE #115
Advisor: Kirk Shadle
Bridgeport Regional Aquaculture Science and Technology Education Center

Jaydee Cruz De Los Santos
Comparison of Satellite vs. Ground-based Data of Ozone Concentrations #114
Advisor: Susan Dougherty
Stamford High School

Ensley Lansford
W.E.T. (Water, Energy, Time) Gardens #112
Advisor: Shannon Hashemi, DBA, CMA
Easton Country Day School

Optimizing Business Profitability Through the Use of Artificial Intelligence Award

Award Prizes Sponsored by Dr. Shannon Hashemi, CMA and Dr. Al Daneshfar, CMA, owners of Tradewinds Shopping Center in Middletown

Dinh Cuong (Ernest) Nguyen
Employee Attrition: Leveraging Machine Learning Explainability to Identify Key Predictors of Turnover #22
Advisor: Dan Tenney, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department of Technology Management

Nikita Prem, Avanthi Booplan, Dimple Patel, Joan Okoji, Maria Dahlstorm, Mohitha Chilakapati, Shiva Datta Reddy Annu
Prompt Engineering an AI Agent for Interpretation of ML Results #57
Advisor: Ali Baker, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
Ernest C. Trefz School of Business

Quantum Computing Applications Awards

Award Prizes Sponsored by Dr. Khaled Elleithy, Dean of the College of Engineering Business and Education

1st Place Recognition
Nadine Matondo-Mvula
Breast Cancer Detection with Quanvolutional Neural Networks #19
Advisor: Khaled Elleithy, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

2nd Place Recognition
Shatha Alhazmi
Live Forensic on Real Quantum Device Using Quantum Gates #20
Advisor: Khaled Elleithy, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department of Computer Science and Engineering

3rd Place Recognition Abdulaziz Alwehaibi
Mitigating Quantum Decoherence Risk for Scalable Communication #14
Advisor: Khaled Elleithy, PhD
College of Engineering, Business, Education
School of Engineering
Department Engineering & Technology

UNIVERSITY OF BRIDGEPORT STUDENT BUSINESS PLAN PITCH COMPETITION

Award Prizes Sponsored by The NorthEast Community Innovation Corp. (NCIC) and Dr. Shannon Hashemi, CMA and Dr. Al Daneshfar, CMA of Tradewinds Shopping Center (Middletown, CT),

1st Place Recognition
Tadiwanshe Prince Mujaya and Patricia Nabayunga - Sweetie

2nd Place Recognition
Cat Aucoin and Nova Staruk - SHARP-EYE

3rd Place Recognition
Riya Regmi - Roam-mate

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Geonna Snyder - MagneTidy
Daniela Nieto, Luiza Macedo and Manuela Macedo - Slick Brush