NRT Program Trainee Wins 2025 M&M Student Award for her Research!

Trainee Alejandra Coronel-Zegarra attended the Microscopy & Microanalysis Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah (July 27–31, 2025), where she presented her PhD research on coral skeletons. A graduate of the NRT program, she collaborated with the Chemistry Department, applying data science and analytics to support her project.

Her research focuses on how Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) affects the skeletal mineralization of Montastraea cavernosa corals.To handle the vast and complex hyperspectral datasets from Raman and FTIR spectroscopies, Alejandra applied data science techniques that made the data interpretable while preserving key spectral variances.

By integrating data science into her research, Alejandra was not only able to streamline analysis, uncover nuanced mineralization patterns, and produce interpretable results from highly complex datasets—demonstrating how analytics can be a powerful asset in modern chemical and environmental research, but was selected as one of the few awardees from a pool of over 200 proceedings earning her a 2025 M&M Student Award!   We are very proud of our NRT trainee's accomplishment!  

She has also been recognize by the College of Science - News