Scholarship, Engagement, the Arts, Research, Creativity and Humanities Award

About the SEARCH Award

The Scholarship, Engagement, the Arts, Research, Creativity, and Humanities (SEARCH) Award Program supports UTC graduate students and undergraduate students across all disciplines who pursue original scholarship under the supervision of UTC faculty.

SEARCH awardees gain intensive, hands-on experience with writing a research proposal, designing a research project or creative work, and disseminating findings through publication and/or presentation. Most projects commence at the beginning of the fall semester and conclude the following spring or summer.

Information about the 2027 SEARCH Award Cycle will become available in Fall 2026.

Questions? Contact the Office for URaCE.

SEARCH Awardees

2026 SEARCH Awardees

Student(s)	Faculty Mentor	Project Title
Evelyn Bonner	Dr. Pratibha Deepak	Instrumental or Defensive? Mentoring Implications of Motivational Code-Switching among Black Women in Leadership
Amy Brown	Dr. Bret Eschman	Working Memory in Neurodivergent College Students: Examining Group Differences under Cognitive Load
Isabella Charnley	Dr. Bret Eschman Dr. Jill Shelton	Investigating Acute Stress Effects on Working Memory Performance
Ratri Chowdhury	Dr. Reetesh Ranjan	Assessment of Two-Level Simulation Modeling for Turbulent Reacting Flow
Amy Clemmer	Dr. Jose Barbosa	Effects of Lipocalin Expression on Environmental Stress Response in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Anna Craddock	Dr. Keenan Dungey	Stream Monitoring to Improve Laurel Dace Habitat
Drew Crespo	Dr. Joey Shaw	The Vascular Flora of Scott's Gulf Wilderness State Park
Erin Fitzgerald Katelyn Hamilton	Dr. Venkateswara Kode	Coffee Derived Quantum Dots for Polymer Composite Applications
Sergio Reza Hernandez	Dr. Jose Barbosa	Lipocalin Gene Expression of OPB2B and Its Effects on Saccharomyces cerevisiae Response to Stressful Environments
Fatin Ihsan Hredoy	Dr. Reetesh Ranjan	Hybrid Quantum-Classical Simulation of Turbulent Premixed Combustion Using the Linear Eddy Mixing Model
Rahul Kumar	Dr. Reetesh Ranjan	Comprehensive Assessment of One-Temperature, Two-Temperature, and Three Temperature models for Hypersonic Nonequilibrium Flows
Titus Lim	Dr. Trevor Elliott	Modeling and Validation of Paraffin Support Structures for Additively Manufactured Energetic Material
Anna Melby	Dr. Sean Richards	Hazard Assessment of SSRIs in the Upper Tennessee River using Daphnia Magna
Rachael Miller Olivia Ziemer	Dr. Luis Sanchez Diaz	Microplastics-Induced Modulation of Ion Channel Conductivity in DPhPC Lipid Bilayers: Implications for Synaptic Plasticity and Long-Term Potentiation
Het Patel	Dr. Jose Barbosa	Binding Kinetics of Lipocalins for Enhanced Uremic Toxin Removal
Brady Permenter	Dr. Ricardo Wilhelm Dr. Jill Shelton	How Do We Trust AI? Examining Neural Processing in Artificial Intelligence versus Human Agents
Ellie Pugh	Dr. Rich Walker Dr. Steven Symes	Periodically Forever: Examining the Bioaccumulation of Perfluorinated Compounds in Periodical Cicadas
Iqra Sheikh Megan Lewis Gracen Voyles Olivia Adams	Dr. Erin Melhorn	Unlocking Collaboration: Escape Room-Based Interprofessional Education for Students
Itzayana Torres-Martinez	Dr. Loren Hayes	Does homophily in group composition influence spatiotemporal foraging?
Allison Turner	Dr. Jannatul Ferdoush	Identification of the E3 Ubiquitin Ligase of Transcription Factor Taf2 for Future Therapeutic Intervention

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