Middle Division Collegiate Meeting

Past Meetings of the Middle Tennessee Collegiate Conference

2025

The Tennessee Academy of Science Middle Collegiate Division meeting was held on April 12, 2025 on the campus of Austin Peay State University with awards as follows:

Session 1

First Place - Patrick Rhine, University of Tennessee Southern. Assessing macroinvertebrate biodiversity of degraded stream in Giles County, Tennessee. Patrick Rhine* and Shanna D. Hanes, University of Tennessee Southern, Pulaski, Tennessee.

Second Place - Meagan Porter, Austin Peay State University. Synthetic Filter System Transformations DES to LSST. Meagan Porter*and Allyn Smith, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee.

Third Place – Calleway Schmidt, Austin Peay State University. Solution to a second order oscillatory differential equations resulting from Hooke’s Law. Calleway Schmidt* and Ben Ntatin, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee.

Honorable Mention - Antonio T. Orozco Moody and Ethan Moss, Austin Peay State University. The Decay of Uranium-238 and Euler’s Method. Antonio T. Orozco Moody,* Ethan Moss*, and Ben Ntatin, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee.

Session 2:

First Place - Ben Siens, Belmont University. Measuring Resistivity with Low-cost 3-D Printed Four-point Probe. Ben Siens* and Davon Ferrara, Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee.

Second Place – Rainey E. Oakley, University of Tennessee Southern. Plankton diversity as an indicator of stream health: a correlative study. Rainey E Oakley* and Shanna D. Hanes, University of Tennessee Southern, Pulaski, Tennessee.

Third Place – Li N. Loy, Austin Peay State University. Observation of variability of KR Aur and surrounding stars. Li N. Loy* and Allyn Smith, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee.

Honorable Mention – Kyra Lander and Samantha Mortagua, Austin Peay State University. Modeling carrying capacities in Greek mythology. Kyra Lander*, Samantha Mortagua*, and Ben Ntatin, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee.

2023

The Tennessee Academy of Science Middle Collegiate Division meeting was held on April 15, 2023 on the campus of Volunteer State Community College with awards as follows:

Cell & Molecular Biology/Chemistry

First Place – Ashton D. Cromwell, Leslie Hiatt and Anuradha L. Pathiranage Extraction and Analysis of Compounds Isolated from Chili Peppers. Austin Peay State Univesity, Clarksville, Tennessee.

Second Place - Remah Hatem, Shannon Jeffries, Chris Barton, and Darlene Panvini Developing a protocol for the isolation of lichen DNA for educators to use in DNA barcoding projects. Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee

Third Place - Ji Won Moon. The role of P38 MAP-Kinases in HBCD-induced increases in IL-6 production in human immune cells. Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee.

Engineering & Eng. Technology/Geology and Geography/Mathematics/Computer Science/Physics and Astronomy

First Place – Jacob Neal, Esteban Parra Rodriguez. Using Machine Learning to Convert Pseudo-code to Executable Code in Industr. Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee.

Second Place - Meleah Lanier, Eugenii U.Donev. Numerical exploration of Morpho-inspired nanostructures for tunable structural color. Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee.

Third Place - Rudy Gostowski, Rachel Davies, Michael Obinna-Chukwu, Talaja Taylor, and Amber Williams. Development of a 3D Printable Hypergolic Hybrid Rocket Fuel. Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee.

Cell & Molecular Biology/Chemistry 1st Place Winner

Cell & Molecular Biology/Chemistry 2nd Place Winners

Cell & Molecular Biology/Chemistry 3rd Place Winner

Engineering & Eng. Technology/Geology and Geography/Mathematics/Computer Science/Physics and Astronomy 1st Place Winner

Engineering & Eng. Technology/Geology and Geography/Mathematics/Computer Science/Physics and Astronomy 3rd Place Winners

2018

On April 21st, 2018, Belmont University College of Sciences and Mathematics hosted the annual Middle Tennessee Collegiate Meeting of the Tennessee Academy of Science in the Janet Ayers Academic Center. This event has served as an opportunity for our students to highlight their scholarly work and has fostered collaboration with other local universities.

This year we had 24 students from Belmont University, Columbia State Community College, Tennessee State University, and Tennessee Tech University, present their research as oral presentations in one of four different sessions: 1. Chemistry 2. Cellular and Molecular Biology/Microbiology 3. Health and Medical Sciences 4. Zoology/Ecology/Environmental Sciences.<

All sessions were moderated and judged by faculty volunteers, who awarded 1st, 2nd, 3rd place certificates to the top three presenters in each session.

Following are the winners from each session:

Chemistry: 1st – Christopher Hansen (BU), 2nd – Alekzander Garcia (TSU), 3rd – Avery Daniels (BU).

Cellular and Molecular Biology/Microbiology: 1st – AC Dowd (BU), 2nd – Dana Cornwell (BU), 3rd – Brandi Duke (BU), and Honorable Mention – Haley Hatfield (BU).

Health and Medical Sciences: 1st – Rebecca Derby (BU), 2nd – Elizabeth Sparks (BU), 3rd - Sargoel Rezanejad (BU), and Honorable Mention – Christian Candler (BU).

Zoology/Ecology/Environmental Sciences: 1st – Taryn Anderson (BU), 2nd – States Labrum (CSCC), 3rd – Shaoyun Yang (BU), and Honorable Mention – Terra’lexus Roberts (BU).

Faculty judges: Dr. Lori McGrew (BU Biology), Dr. Steve Murphree (BU Biology), Dr. Danny Biles (BU Math), Dr. Justin Stace (BU Chemistry), Dr. Robert Grammer (BU Biology), Dr. John Niedzwiecki (BU Biology), Dr. Karen Kendall-Fite (Columbia State Community College), and Dr. Radhika Ramjee (Columbia State Community College).

The meeting was coordinated and run by Dr. Duane Hatch, Assistant Professor of Chemistry.

Dr. Nick Ragsdale (Biology) volunteered to order and pick up food for the event.