This symposium will showcase the scientific research and education conducted across the Prairie Research Institute and its five scientific surveys. All PRI staff were invited to present their original research as a lightning talk or poster.
February 12, 2026, 9 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
I Hotel & Illinois Conference Center or on Zoom
36 Lightning Talks
5 minutes: 20 slides, 15 seconds each. Ready? Go!
Agenda
9 a.m. — Welcome & Introduction
Lightning Talks
9:15 a.m. — Session 1: That’s Not Where That Goes
| Speaker | Survey | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Kylee Noel | INHS | Double Trouble: How Insecticides and Heat Shape West Nile Virus Risk in Culex pipiens |
| Steve Wilson | ISWS | Welcome to My World: Legionella Occurrence and Issues in Homes on Private Wells |
| Valeria Trivellone | INHS | An Integrative Approach to Plant Pathogen Surveillance in Illinois Natural Ecosystems Through Existing Biodiversity and Zoonosis Monitoring Infrastructure at INHS |
| Hong Lu | ISTC | Turning Plastic Waste Into Treasure: Fuels, Lubricants, and More |
| John Scott | ISTC | Tap Secret: Confessions From Your Kitchen Sink |
| Andres Prada Sepulveda | ISTC | Tracking Micro- and Nanoplastic Particles in Drinking Water Derived From Plastic Piping |
10 a.m. — Break
10:15 a.m. — Session 2: That Is Where That Goes
| Speaker | Survey | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Yaghoob Lasemi | ISGS | Paleokarst Events and Development of Vug, Fracture, and Cavern Porosity Intervals in the Cambrian–Lower Ordovician Knox Succession, Illinois Basin |
| Donna Willette | ISGS | Hydrogen as a Fuel: Subsurface Storage |
| Akhlak Aziz | ISTC | Coupling Advanced Nuclear Reactors (ANR) with Direct Air Capture (DAC) to Achieve Net Negative Emissions |
| Mark Eschbach | ISTC | Plasma Synergy: DC Arc Reactor and Catalyst System for CO2 to CO Conversion |
| Cole Vondersitt | ISGS | Methods of Storage Efficiency Calculations for NEXUS Injection Simulations |
| Dmitriy Mozzherin | INHS | SFBorg: A Biodiversity Informatics Format to Rule Them All |
11 a.m. — Break & Panel Q&A
11:15 a.m. — Session 3: It’s All About the People
| Speaker | Survey | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Jen Mui | INHS | The Traveling Science Center: 20 Years in 5 Minutes |
| Arpita Banerjee | ISWS | Disaster Planning Integration Toolkit for Rural Illinois |
| Elizabeth Watts Malouchos | ISAS | From Magnetometry to Mussels: Collaborations With Descendant Communities |
| Dan Stephens | INHS | Illinois Learn to Hunt: Recruiting New Illinois Hunters |
| Georgia Abrams | ISAS | Why Collections Emergencies Are Everyone’s Problem |
| Eric Walberg | INHS | Stakeholder Beliefs, Attitudes, and Behaviors Toward Wildlife Diseases in Illinois |
Noon – 1 p.m. — Lunch & Panel Q&A
1 – 2:30 p.m. — Poster Session
| Presenter | Survey | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Seth Allgeier | ISAS | Reprocessing and Digitizing the ISAS-IDOT Archive |
| Zohreh Askari | ISGS | Geologic Mapping and Factors Influencing Total Dissolved Solids in The Mount Simon Sandstone of The Illinois Basin |
| Jennie Atkins | ISWS | New and Underused WARM Datasets |
| Riley Balikian | ISGS | Integrating UAV Photogrammetry and Stratigraphic Mapping: Workflow for Basin-Scale Analysis of an Ancient Aeolian Erg |
| Chitra Basyal | INHS | Effects of Microplastic Pollution on Hematological Parameters of Spotted Turtles |
| Salma Bennaye | INHS | Improve Accessibility and Interoperability of One Health Data Using Tableau: The Case of Emerging Plant Diseases |
| Tara Beveroth | INHS | The Road to Understanding Migratory Birds’ Full Annual Cycles at Phillips Tract Bird Banding Station |
| Therin Bradshaw | INHS | Using Autonomous Recording Units (ARUs) to Detect Waterfowl Harvest Opportunity |
| Paula Bryant | ISAS | Over a Decade of Cooperation: Twelve Years of the Cultural Resources Management Plan at the Forest Preserves of Cook County, Illinois |
| Ellie Callahan | ISGS | Field Vulnerability Assessments of Groundwater Contamination Potential at Illinois Nature Preserves |
| Carl Carman | ISGS | Under Pressure: The State of Illinois Carbon Storage |
| David Cousins | ISGS | Integrating Uav Photogrammetry and Stratigraphic Mapping: Workflow for Basin-Scale Analysis of an Ancient Aeolian Erg |
| Isabelle East | INHS | Exploring Water as a Method of Dispersal in Hymenoxys texana |
| Mark Eschbach | ISWS | Water Line: Transforming IWT’s Water Treatment Data Into Actionable Intelligence |
| Julia Freeman | INHS | The Impact of Thrips and Other Insect Visitors on the Reproductive Output of an Endangered Texas Endemic |
| Leslie Gioja | ISTC | Keeping the Lights on Past 2030 |
| Allison Goodwell | ISWS | How Information Flows Through a Model: Understanding Stream Chemistry Dynamics from Sparse Data |
| Esra Gulsen | ISWS | Infrastructure Protection Analysis Modeling (IPAM): Risk and Impact to Low Pavement Areas at Five Roadways Near IDOT Dewatering Infrastructure, Metro East, IL |
| Kohen Hernandez | ISWS | Process for Testing and Deploying New Instruments for the Illinois Climate Network |
| Mary Hynes | ISAS | Value Added: The Review and Reorganization Process of ISAS Collection Documentation |
| Matthew Jefferson | ISWS | The Illinois Height Modernization Program: What Does Lidar allow you to see? Vol 3. |
| Owen McMahan | ISTC | Green Beverage Certifications for Illinois Brewers, Distillers, and Vintners |
| Jean Mengelkoch | INHS | Bat Roosts in Illinois Bridges: 2017–2025 |
| Cara Munro | INHS | Quantifying the Effects of Aerial Sampling Frequency on Creel Survey Harvest Estimates |
| Geoff Ower | INHS | GrandSchema: A Peer-To-Peer Collaborative Data Carpentry Tool for Scientific Data Exchange |
| Upasana Pandey | ISGS | Geothermal Research at PRI: Advancing Low-Temperature Geothermal Systems via Field-Scale Demonstrations, Numerical Modeling, and Campus-Scale Applications |
| Anastasia Rahlin | INHS | Point-of-Care Device Comparison and Stopover Habitat Assessment Using Blood Metabolite Monitoring in Migratory Songbirds |
| Alexandra Sanchez | ISGS | Reimaging the Bedrock Topography of the Chicago Region: A Comparison of Past and Present Models |
| Afrah Siddique | ISGS | Correlation Between Depth and Total Dissolved Solids for Mount Simon Sandstone in the Illinois Basin |
| Dale Simpson Jr. | ISAS | Small Collection, Big History: The Making of Lombard’s Oldest Archaeological Site |
| Ellie Snyder | INHS | Unlocking the Potential of Environmental RNA Through Practical Preservation and Low-Cost Extraction from Water Samples |
| Clare Tolmie | ISAS | Over There, Over Here: A World War I Landscape in Northern Illinois |
| Sophia Tuisl | ISWS | Analyzing Sub-Daily Rainfall Variability, Trends, and Extremes in Illinois |
| Weiqing Qu | INHS | Scale-Dependent Patterns and Drivers of Species’ Climate Sensitivity Across the Contiguous United States |
| Vanessa DeShambo | ISTC | Legionella, Biofilms, and Other Bacteria in Premise Plumbing of Homes Using Private Wells |
2:30 p.m. — Session 4: Wind, Rain, & Fire
| Speaker | Survey | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Mike Krellwitz | INHS | Floristics of Illinois Beach |
| Kylee Matousek | ISWS | Effects of Entrainment on Thunderstorm Outflows |
| Paul Romano | ISWS | Complex Morphology of Convection: Radar Climatology and Cell Tracking of Convective Systems Over Chicago and Phoenix |
| Liz Spitzer | ISGS | Why Sand Matters: Understanding a Critical Sediment Supply Challenge |
| Michael Aiuvalasit | ISAS | Recoupling the Long-Term Relationship Between People, Fire, and Prairies |
| Eliah Zaborowski | ISTC | Keepin’ It REEl: Elemental Analysis for Critical Minerals |
3:15 p.m. — Break & Panel Q&A
3:30 p.m. — Session 5: What Is Hidden Can Be Found
| Speaker | Survey | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Teresa Palomares Rodriguez | INHS | Collaboration Across Campus: Use of ISAS’s Portable XRF on Spurlock Collections |
| Auriel Fournier | INHS | Co-Producing King Rail Science: Working Together Across Geographies and Projects |
| Grace Wilken | ISTC | Improving Economic and Environmental Outcomes of Legacy Coal Ash Ponds |
| Robert Paul | ISGS | Extracting Data from Historical Documents with AI-Powered Vision Models |
| Alicia Karrick | ISAS | From Archaic to Mississippian: Evidence for Long-Term Occupations in The American Bottom |
| Rose Arnold | INHS | Identifying Predictors of Detection and Estimating Detection Probabilities of Illinois Blanding’s Turtles |
4:15 p.m. — Break & Panel Q&A
4:30 p.m. — Session 6: Into the Depths
| Speaker | Survey | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Afrah Siddique | ISGS | Influence of Depth, Location, and Geological Features on TDS in Mount Simon Sandstone Formation |
| Nathan Webb | ISGS | Subsurface Energy Resources at ISGS: Delivering Geological Insight for Illinois’ Energy Future |
| Sara Pfannkuche | ISAS | Legacy Collections Still Matter: Revisiting Cahokia |
| John Lambert | ISAS | Automated Detection of Archaeological Sites Using Machine Learning and High-Resolution Aerial Photography |
| Allan Jones | ISWS | Public Education in Hydrogeology Through Digital and Physical Groundwater Models |
| Daniel Abrams | ISWS | A Whirlwind Tour of Defining Available and Sustainable Aquifer Supply: Migration Toward a Living Model Framework |
5:15 p.m. — Final Q&A and Close
Acknowledgments
Committee
- Robin Warne (Chair, OED)
- Anteneh Abiy (ISGS)
- Filza Armadita (ISTC)
- Sarah Baires (ISAS)
- Allison Goodwell (ISWS)
- John Kirchgesner (INHS)
- Sarah Wells (OED)