QRDI Council announces winners of research competitions

The Qatar Research, Development, and Innovation Council (QRDI) has announced the results of the 16th edition of the Undergraduate Research Experience Programme (UREP) competition, hosted at the University of Doha for Science and Technology (UDST).This annual competition is aimed at inspiring undergraduate students to advance their research skills and academic careers under the guidance of faculty mentors.The participation involved in this year’s UREP was diverse, with students from five academic institutions in Qatar: Qatar University (QU), the UDST, Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ), Northwestern University in Qatar (NUQ), and Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q).The projects covered a vast majority of subjects ranging from environment and energy, social arts and humanities, biomedical and health, and information and communication technology.A panel of 14 judges evaluated the poster presentations, in addition to three judges for the oral presentations.Projects were assessed based on their significance, research outcomes, student learning experience, and presentation quality.The competition awards are divided into two categories: the poster presentation category and the oral presentation category.This year, Kareem Fanous, Yazan Kaddorah and Aimen Javed, with their mentors Dr Isra Marei, Dr Hong Ding and Prof Christopher Triggle from the WCM-Q, secured first place in the oral presentation category with their project titled *Interaction between Platelets and Endothelial Progenitor Cells: Role in Diabetes-Induced Atherogenesis.In second place, Diala Bushnaq, Raghad Aljindi, Reema al-Emadi, Sara Mohsen, Raghd al-Shamari and Malek Chabbouh, with their mentors Dr Shona Pedersen and Dr Muhammad Chowdhury from the QU, were awarded for their project on *eMindReader: A Deep Learning-Based Decoding System for Recognising Inner Speech in Complete Locked-In Syndrome Patients.Third place went to Nadine Elkholy, Haya al-Rewaily and Shouq al-Musleh with their mentors Professor Othmane Bouhali and Maya Abi Akl from the TAMUQ for their project on *Crystals Study: Positron Emission Tomography Simulations for Pediatric Applications.The competition also recognised the winners of the "Best Representative Image of an Outcome” (BRIO), which celebrates visual communication of scientific concepts and research in Qatar through art.The competition this year received 46 images and amassed more than 1,700 votes from the public and Qatar's scientific and academic communities.The top three BRIO contest winners were Dr Abbirami Sathappan, Dr Muftah El-Naas, and Dr Noor Ali al-Maslamani.