By Joslyn DelSignore / The Jambar
The Honors Pre-Health Research Symposium was held at Sokolov Honors College on Oct. 30, 2025, for undergraduate students to present scientific research and win awards.
In its second year, the symposium allowed students to showcase posters and presentations to family members and Youngstown State University staff. The event also featured a speech from keynote speaker June Yun, associate professor of molecular pharmacology at Northeast Ohio Medical University.
The symposium awarded four students in categories for overall, poster and oral presentations, as well as a category for future impact. In order respectively, winners included junior Cole Burnett, biology BaccMed major, senior Michelle Ott, biology pre-med major, sophomore Pranav Alapati, biology BaccMed major and freshman Arunraj Jeyaprakash, biology BaccMed major.
The event was entirely planned and designed by students. In 2024, BaccMed students Kaitlyn Vail, Crescenzo Scheetz and Luca Ricchiuti proposed the idea to Mollie Hartup, director of the honors college, who gave them the freedom to plan the event.
“It was just a quick casual conversation with Mollie Hartup, and it just kind of turned into something so much more, something real,” Vail said.
The students then worked together in many meetings to find a location, keynote speaker and organize the symposium.
In 2025, BaccMed students Shridhar Narain, Noah Pfeifer and Grace Burchfield joined the planning committee. The symposium has doubled in size since its first year.
Hartup said she feels this event had a positive impact on the students.
“The validation of others seeing their research and sharing how impressive it really was. People like Dr. Yun and faculty members telling these undergraduates what amazing work that they are already doing, and so that, you know, builds self-confidence,” Hartup said.
The idea of the symposium inspired Vail to conduct her own research based on the event. Vail gave an oral presentation at the symposium titled, “Benefits of Research for Pre-Health Undergraduate Students.”
“When I first started as a pre-health student, I was kind of intimidated by the whole research process, and that’s kind of what led to my own research. Trying out different research opportunities and moving into that deciding what I liked and what I didn’t like,” Vail said.
She also said she feels students who engage in research will see potential benefits.
“It could allow students to engage more and see it’s a less intimidating process, and see all the benefits and what they can gain from that and how they can use it to develop in their future career,” Vail said.
