Student research into antibiotic resistance wins Carnegie Mellon symposium

Meeting of the Minds 2022 is one of the largest research symposia in CMU-Q history

A student research project investigating ways to combat antibiotic resistance won the Best Project and Best Poster awards at the Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) undergraduate research symposium. Meeting of the Minds 2002 took place in person for the first time since 2019. CMU-Q is a Qatar Foundation partner university.

Biological sciences student Niamah Ayisha Nishan won the top honors for her project, “Determination of minimum inhibitory concentration values for common classes of antibiotics, berberine and flavones by the broth microdilution assay.” Nishan’s faculty advisor was Simon Faulkner, assistant teaching professor of chemistry.

Niamah Nishan presents her research to the Meeting of the Minds judges.

Michael Trick, dean of CMU-Q, underscored the importance of research at the university: “At Carnegie Mellon, our mission is to investigate questions that will have a real impact on the world. Each of these student researchers can answer the question, “why does your research matter?” and I think this is a hallmark of Carnegie Mellon’s approach.”

The awards for second and third place both went to Đorđe Popović for his studies into “Alternative splicing and the phenotypes of different breast cancer subtypes,” and “FedTeams: Towards trust-based and resource-aware federated learning.”

Dorde Popovic won second and third place for his research projects.

Special awards were given by Mohammed Abdulaziz Al Nuaimi of the Planning and Statistics Authority, as well as Dr. Munir Tag for Qatar National Research Fund.

Selma Limam Mansar is the senior associate dean for faculty and research and the organizer of Meeting of the Minds 2022. 

“Conducting and presenting research is an integral part of a student’s education at Carnegie Mellon,” she said. “Meeting of the Minds is a chance to showcase CMU-Q student research to our community, the Education City community, as well as business and technical leaders in Qatar. And it is important to note that this showcase is only possible with the amazing engagement and dedication of our faculty, who serve as advisors, mentors and judges.”  ”  

Meeting of the Minds 2022 included nearly four dozen posters, including projects by undergraduate students and CMU-Q researchers. 

Judges for Meeting of the Minds are part of the wider scientific and academic community. This year, the judges represented the following organizations: Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, Equine Veterinary Medical Center, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Planning and Statistics Authority, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, Qatar Foundation Research, Development and Innovation, Qatar National Research Fund, Qatar University, Sidra Medicine, VCUarts Qatar, Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, and World Innovation Summit for Health.

Meeting of the Minds 2022 judges.

Meeting of the Minds is an undergraduate research symposium that originated at the Carnegie Mellon University main campus in 1995.

Meeting of the Minds 2022 winners

Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar Awards

Best Project, 1st place

Best Poster

Determination of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values for common classes of antibiotics, berberine and flavones by the broth microdilution assay (BMA)

Niamah Ayisha Nishan

Faculty advisor: Simon Faulkner

Best Project, 2nd place

Alternative splicing and the phenotypes of different breast cancer subtypes

Đorđe Popović

Faculty Advisor: Ihab Younis

Best Project, 3rd place

FedTeams: Towards trust-based and resource-aware federated learning

Đorđe Popović

Advisors: Khaled Harras and Hend Gedawy

Planning and Statistics Authority Awards

Exploring phenotypic changes in breast cancer cells by MAPK14 minor intron splicing

Lulwa Alhaddad

Faculty Advisor: Ihab Younis

Does imagination reduce false memory?

Waad AlKhenji, Nayla AlMulla, Maryam Fakhroo

Faculty Advisor: Ekaterini Klepousniotou

Combining deep learning and bootstrapped few-shot learning for adaptive out-of-sample crowd counting

Ammar Karkour

Faculty Advisor: Gianni Di Caro

Is the future female? A study on educational attainment and economic development

Nour Mohamed

Faculty Advisor: Agustín Indaco

Sniffing Bluetooth low energy

Gulnaz Serikbay, Yusuf Saquib

Faculty Advisor: Ryan Riley

Qatar National Research Fund Awards

How does the extracellular matrix influence cancer cell behavior

Maryam Aslam

Faculty Advisor: Mohamed Bouaouina

Identification of alternative splicing patterns in diabetic patients

Shahrazad El Natsheh

Faculty Advisor: Ihab Younis

Combining deep learning and bootstrapped few-shot learning for adaptive out-of-sample crowd counting

Ammar Karkour

Faculty Advisor: Gianni Di Caro