热点大瓜

[Speaker: Joseph Stefko] Okay, next up is Tahleen Lattimer, the Department of Communications in the College of Arts and Sciences. A Buffalo native Tahleen began learning sign language in 2016, I believe. And you have been signing ever since. And Tahleen loves to read. And by that I mean Tahleen loves to read. Last year alone, she read 80 non-academic books. That is impressive. I think that's the definition of well read. Tahleen, are you ready?

[Speaker: Tahleen Lattimer] I am.

[Speaker: Joseph Stefko] Ready, set, pitch.

[Speaker] Tahleen Lattimer] If you can keep your hand raised, who knows, someone who's had Alzheimer's disease or dementia, you can break the 90 degree rule and look around really quick. I keep my hand raised with you as someone who was a caregiver for over six years. And as we lower our hands, I wanna acknowledge this is an issue that's impacted the majority of the room. Alzheimer's disease and related dementias known as ADRD are terminal and they affect three things, our thinking, functioning, and memory. One in three adults will develop this disease and given the growing aging population, it's expected that those numbers will more than double in the next 20 years. Yet ADRD research lacks diversity. It focuses on mainly white and English speaking populations. That's not representative of everyone in the US and it's certainly not representative of just us here today. One group that's continually overlooked is the Deaf community. Despite hearing loss being one of the highest predictors of developing this disease, and by Deaf, we're talking about capital D Deaf people. They're a unique minority with their own language, culture, and community, and they see their Deafness as part of their identity, not something to be changed. My research looks to bridge this gap by understanding how do we promote equitable aging and end of life care for Deaf populations affected by ADRD. To do this, I went to the community. For over two years, I worked with the Alzheimer's Association, Deaf community organizations and Deaf caregivers to try to understand what barriers face this group. The community shared with me that they did not have a single resource available to them in sign language. They shared that care facilities were not prepared to take care of Deaf patients and that their loved ones were isolated and dying alone. And they shared that they had waited their whole lives to see change, that they were angry, and they were tired. It was really quite simple. Deaf caregivers wanted to be able to learn about ADRD in their own language, care for their loved ones, and be part of this change. So here's what I'm doing. I've started by evaluating top resources to make them more accessible. This includes translating into sign language. I'm providing care guidelines for organizations looking to work with this population and involving Deaf caregivers in this process. And I'm continuing to meet with the community, making sure their voices are heard. If you look at the screen behind me, you'll see the flowers from the Alzheimer's Association walk each color representing something, orange for those supporting the cause, purple for those who have lost someone, yellow for caregivers, and blue for those living with the disease. But the white flower representing the first person cured from Alzheimer's is still missing. We continue to hope for that white flower and that we will see a cure one day. But until then, I continue my research to support the Deaf community as they navigate health in a hearing world. Thank you. (crowd applauding)

[Speaker: Joseph Stefko] So next is Samantha Schwarz from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. And Samantha, your fun facts are perhaps the most wide-ranging of our finalists. You are a Bavarian folk dancer.

[Speaker: Samantha Schwarz] Yep. (chuckling)

[Speaker: Joseph Stefko] You can recite all English and British monarchs in order starting from the year 1066.

[Speaker: Samantha Schwarz] Yep. (chuckling) (audience members chuckling)

[Speaker: Joseph Stefko] And you have met Buddy Valastro, the Cake Boss.

[Speaker: Samantha Schwarz]  Mm-hm, in the flesh. (chuckling) (audience members chuckling)

[Speaker: Joseph Stefko] That is difficult to

compete with. (chuckling) Samantha, are you ready?

[Speaker: Samantha Schwarz]  Yep.

[Speaker: Joseph Stefko] Ready, set, pitch.

[Speaker: Samantha Schwarz] Hi, everyone. I love neuroscience, but looking at my slide,

you might be thinking, what do zebras have to do with neuroscience and kids? And I'd answer that question with another question. If you were to hear a stampede of hoof beats, what kind of animal would you expect to see? Probably a horse, right? When making diagnoses of their patients, medical professionals are often taught not to expect a zebra when they hear hoof beats. In other words, they look for a more common answer, like a horse. The zebra is the official mascot of rare disease patients who are often overlooked or misdiagnosed, but did you know that one in 10 Americans is actually a zebra? Tying this back to neuroscience, my research studies rare disorders of the brain that primarily affect children. These disorders arise from genetic mutations, and they cause our brain cells or neurons to lose their communication with each other. Think of our neurons as playing a big game of telephone. When information gets interrupted or misunderstood, then the whole message in the brain is lost. This is essentially what happens in kids like Jordan, and Wyatt, and Finley who have these disease mutations, and it results in them suffering from seizures, developmental delays and movement disorders. In extreme cases, it can even result in death. So in the lab, I grow both healthy and mutant cells in dishes, and I use a fun and super easy technique called cell-attached voltage patch electrophysiology, (audience laughing) which just means that I poke and zap the cells all day. I look at the smallest level of activity between the healthy and mutant cells to see where things are going wrong.  Then I do my experiments all over again with neurons living happily in a mouse brain that have the same mutations as human patients. I stimulate the neurons, I listen to them play telephone, and from this information, I can see how the mutations are impacting brain function at a cellular level. The final part of my thesis is to add drugs and see if they can rescue mutant cell activity, basically to see if I can make them deliver the right message in their telephone game. My research has two main goals. The first is to raise awareness for these rare brain disorders. A lot of time, money, and resources go into treating the horses or more common diseases, but that doesn't mean we should overlook the rare ones, because these patients are suffering, too. Their voices should not get drowned out in a whole sea of cancer cures and heart disease treatments, and it's up to us to make sure their voices are also heard. The second goal is to help identify new treatment options for these kids. A lot of the current market drugs that are prescribed to them aren't that effective because they have more generalized effects. The drugs I'm testing would get to the root of the problem because they directly target the mutated cells. Now, these drugs are still experimental and can't be prescribed to patients yet, but if I can show that they have promise when being tested in the lab, then that's an important first step in getting these kids more viable treatment options, because ultimately, this is who we're doing this all for, kids like AJ, and Maddie, and Katelyn. They are our zebras, and we want to improve their quality of life by having their brains play telephone.

[Speaker: Joseph Stefko] Starting us off will be Samantha Wallace from the Graduate School of Education. In addition to being a doctoral student, Samantha teaches first grade and she is driven by an interest to improve math learning for her students. She's with us today from Alabama, joining us remotely, where it is, no doubt, a little warmer than it is here in Western New York. Samantha, hopefully you can hear us.

[Speaker: Samantha Wallace] Yes, sir, I can.

[Speaker: Joseph Stefko] Wonderful. And we can hear you. So if you are all set, I will invite you to "Ready, Set, Pitch."

[Speaker: Samantha Wallace] If I ask you to solve the fraction problem on the screen, how many of you would be instantly uncomfortable? For many people, fractions are one of those topics that makes you want to run and hide. Yet, research shows that an early understanding of fractions is predictive of success. Not just in the math classroom, but for things like employability, income, even overall wellbeing. Yet, year after year, students in the United States consistently struggle with this challenging topic. One of the most difficult aspects of fractions is the way that they're abstract. They're a symbol made up of two different numbers that represents one amount. To help kids make sense of these abstract quantities, we need to make them more real, more concrete. But fraction tools can be expensive and difficult to use. Wouldn't it be great if we had access to a resource that was free and didn't take up any room on the shelf? We do. We can use our bodies. By using our bodies, such as hand gestures during learning, it actually builds new pathways in your brain. Studies show that using gestures during learning significantly improves retention, problem solving, and conceptual understanding. And these are not complicated motions. If you've ever held your hand like this and said, "Let's half it," congratulations, you've represented a partitioning scheme with your hands. These every day, physical actions are key to helping kids make sense of fractions. But how do we know which gestures are the best ones to use? This is where my work comes in. I videoed fourth and fifth graders is they struggled to solve some really challenging fraction problems. Then I closely analyzed what they did with their hands as they were solving them. What I discovered was incredible. I discovered the students who used a specific kind of gesture, one that showed the size of a fraction as being large or small, those students had higher scores. And actually the more of these gestures that a student made, a higher their score tended to be. By showing the size of the fraction with their bodies, these students took the abstract and made it concrete. These results have the potential to change what fraction instruction looks like. Picture a teacher directly modeling these gestures, a simple yet powerful tool that is free and available for all students. The best part about my results is the potential for equity. I check to see if there were any differences in student groups related to race or gender. There were no significant differences. Gesture-based learning can cross cultures, jump over language barriers, and support the learning of students with disabilities. By using these gestures, teachers can place all students on the path to success. Not just in math, but in life. Thank you. (audience applause)