OVC Students SCORE Top Honors: Celebrating Summer Research Success

The Summer Career Opportunities and Research Exploration (SCORE) program teaches OVC’s undergraduate and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) students engaged in research projects how to present their research in clear, everyday language. The program focuses on enhancing students' communication skills so they can share their work with a broad audience throughout their academic and professional careers.

“The SCORE Program serves as a complement to the research summer students are conducting with OVC faculty," says Taylor Scully, Learning Pathways Officer. "The lightning-style presentations at the end of the summer are a fantastic opportunity for students to share their research with the OVC community while gaining feedback on their presentation skills.”

The SCORE program culminated with an oral presentation competition held on two separate dates, July 30th and August 20th, 2024. During this event, students delivered three-minute summaries of their research projects and answered questions from a judging panel made up of faculty and graduate students.

Kudos to all the participants of the SCORE 2024 program for their remarkable research contributions this summer at OVC. A full list of this year’s SCORE presentations is available on OVC’s SharePoint site.

The top presenters of this year’s SCORE competition are:  

DVM Student Category  

Bianca Marini

Advisor: Dr. Terri O’Sullivan

Project: To agree or disagree? Evaluating observer training to validate agreement and reliability

“Participating in the SCORE program helped me develop important skills relevant to my summer research project such as proposal writing and presenting efficiently and succinctly,” says Marini. “I truly enjoyed the variety of workshops across the summer that reinforced concepts essential for research such as networking and abstract writing. SCORE gave me an amazing opportunity to see what a career in the research field would look like and allowed me to spend a summer exploring this possibility that I may not have considered otherwise.”

Celine Said

Advisor: Dr. Xiu Ting Yiew

Project: 2D and 3D Ultrasonographic Estimation of Feline Urinary Bladder Volumes

Victoria Kotevski

Advisor: Dr. Alejandro Merchan Munoz

Project: The Use of Positive Contrast Arthrography for the Diagnosis of Medial Meniscal and Cranial Cruciate Ligament Injuries in the Equine Stifle

Bachelor’s Degree Student Category  

Fatima Askary

Advisor: Dr. Samantha Payne

Project: Inducing Reactivity in Dorsal Root Ganglion in vitro

Gavyn Duffield

Advisor: Dr. Terri O'Sullivan

Project: Hemoglobin Concentration in Piglets When Administered Iron Dextran Using a Needle-Free Device Versus Needle and Syringe

Heemani Bhat

Advisor: Dr. Lauren Grant

Project: Investigating the association between retail food environments and population health outcomes in Canada

Sara Terier

Advisor: Dr. John Barta

Project: Investigating the Diversity and Mitochondrial Genomes of Lankesterella parasites in Wild Avian Species

"Participating in the SCORE program was truly transformative,” says Terier. “It provided valuable hands-on experience and deepened my understanding of what it means to be a researcher. This experience has opened up new potential career pathways in veterinary research that I hadn't previously considered." 

Select SCORE participants got an opportunity to present their work at conferences outside of U of G. Justin Yaniv and Victoria Kotevski presented their research at the Veterinary Scholars Symposium in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 8-10, 2024, while Celine Said and Bianca Marini will present at the Canadian Emerging Veterinary Scholars Summit in Calgary from October 24 to 26, 2024.  

This year’s SCORE presentation judges included Drs. Andia Jones, Alicia Viloria Petit, Shane Bateman, Samantha Payne and graduate students Daxime Gernier, Bianca Garlisi, Alexandra Noble and Luiza Stachewski Zakia.  

The SCORE organizing committee consists of Drs. Courtney Schott, Diego Gomez-Nieto, Jennifer McWhirter, Ian Tobias, Keriann McGoogan, as well as Grace Nichol, Swathy Sethuraman, Shannon Cote and Taylor Scully.