Spring 2024 URC Presentations

Mentor: Erin Borbee

“We’ll Meet Again…” is an original theatrical piece devised by an ensemble of 11 actors through guided improvisational rehearsal exercises. It follows the story of 10 estranged High School Seniors grappling with their sense of self whilst reconnecting with each other under the darkness of an eternal eclipse. Performances will coincide with the real world event happening the week of April 8th: when the Great North American Solar Eclipse will be visible in Texas.The project began with drawing thematic inspiration from Greek myths such as: Orpheus and Eurydice, Cupid and Psyche, Sisyphus, Tantalus, and the Moirai, as well as drawing influence from Astrology, Ghost Séances, Tarot, and the larger Magic Realism genre. The final piece will be performed in classrooms and found spaces, relying heavily on structured improv, with an emphasis on realism, contrasted by abstract movement expression and theatrical lighting and sound. The audience will have an assigned role beyond the mere spectator. 

Mentor: Charles Ney

Room 308 | 9:00 am - 10:30 am

"Daisy and Bo: A Forest Big and Small" is an illustrated children's adventure book that immerses readers in the exciting journey of Daisy, a duck, and Bo, a bear. The story unfolds as the duo embarks on a thrilling adventure through the woods, inadvertently getting lost on their way to a friend's house. Along the way, they encounter a diverse array of forest animals, each of whom plays a crucial role in the intricate ecosystem of the forest. Through their interactions with these animals, Daisy and Bo learn valuable lessons about the importance of their environment and the natural cycles that sustain it. As they navigate through the challenges of their journey, Daisy and Bo discover the beauty and complexity of the world around them, ultimately gaining a deeper appreciation for their home and all the organisms that contribute to it. The story of Daisy and Bo is a heartwarming tale that not only entertains but also educates young readers about the wonders of nature and the importance of environmental conservation.

Mentor: Justin Williams

Room 305 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Mexican American communities use a variety of alternative approaches to well-being and healthcare rooted in indigenous knowledge. This study explores how the integration of holistic medicine practices contributes to the overall health and healthcare experiences of Mexican Americans and shapes their diverse approaches to healing. The research employs a literature review study, focusing on holistic Mexican American medicine, particularly through the traditional healers such as curanderos and sobadores. Through a combination of secondary sources and interviews with practitioners in south Texas, this research aims to shed light on the cultural practices these healers employ in their training, spiritual preparation, as well as the techniques they use in the diagnosis and treatment of aliments. Additionally, outcomes of patients or clients who consult traditional healers for remedies. It concludes by comparing western medicine with holistic medicine, exploring factors influencing patients' healthcare choices. Emphasizing the need for ongoing exploration into socio-cultural elements shaping healthcare decisions among Mexican Americans, this research contributes to the evolving discussion about access to healthcare in minority communities. It also highlights opportunities to create a more inclusive healthcare environment while advancing a deeper understanding of the dynamic interconnections between culture, health, and healing within Mexican American communities in Texas.

Mentor: Aimee Villarreal

Room 310 | 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Neuroblastomas are a tumor that mainly affects children under 5. The tumor occurs when neuroblast cells don’t differentiate into mature neurons. Differentiation therapy is specifically used to treat cancers that are caused by defects in the differentiation pathway. These cancer cells can be induced into terminal differentiation and thereby arrest tumor growth. All-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) is a differentiation-inducing agent that has been applied to treat neuroblastomas. However, there is resistance to ATRA treatment in neuroblastomas. The goal of my research project is to investigate the differentiation-inducing activity of ATRA in culture neuroblastoma cells in order to identify ATRA-sensitive neuroblastoma cell lines. For this purpose, I will test neurite outgrowth and cell death in neuroblastoma cells after receiving the ATRA treatment in increasing treatments. The identification of ATRA-sensitive cell lines will help to further investigate the molecular mechanisms that determine the response of neuroblastoma to ATRA treatment in the future.

Mentor: Liquin Du

Room 310 | 3:30pm - 5:00pm

Mexican-born queer Chicana artist, Alma Lopez, is known for her complex digital layering of Mexican, Catholic, and pre-Columbian iconography to create new visions of a decolonized Chicana. Inspired by fellow Chicana artists, Lopez re-imagines the Virgin of Guadalupe to challenge oppressive notions put on the Chicana identity, opening up avenues for sexual and queer liberation. In doing so, her work has become critical to feminist scholarship as she provides a lens for understanding the complexities of the Chicana identity. Despite her contribution to this scholarship, there is a large art historical component that is being missed in terms of understanding how Lopez's iconographic function of the Virgin rebels against her colonial and patriarchal attachments. As a polyvalent sign, the Virgin has been a symbol of nationalism, revolution, social justice, and female empowerment in both Mexican and Chicano/a histories. Despite her multiplicity, she remains anchored within colonial and patriarchal systems of power, stemming from the Spanish conquest, the Catholic church, and its influences on Chicano nationalism. Through an iconographic analysis of the Virgin, I demonstrate how she uses the Virgin to subvert that anchoring in three of her digital works. By placing Lopez’s work in a larger historical context of Spanish conquest, I further her critique of Spanish colonization and its influences on Chicano/a identity. 

Mentor: Erina Duganne 

Room 305 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

The cultural relevancy of TikTok for Generation Z has provided a wealth of easily accessible information and opportunities for social connection. The main type of content that is commonly seen on TikTok is an informational post. In an era of isolation due to the pandemic, mental health stigma, and economic difficulty, young people often use informational posts on TikTok to learn about salient topics, including those about mental illness. Further, trends of self-diagnosis can spread through the dialogue about mental health online. This study aimed to explore this phenomenon by examining how young adults use TikTok and interact with posts about mental health. An online cross-sectional survey on college students (N = 243; 89% Female; 49% Hispanic) assessed how they view and interact with mental health posts on TikTok. Overall, 43% of the participants indicated that they have been diagnosed formally or informally with mental health issues. They also reported their general TikTok activity and the frequency of encounters with mental health posts. Participants reported most often seeing mental health posts on TikTok about neurodivergence, borderline personality disorder, autism, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and they indicated that they often check comments on these posts, but rarely interact or follow the creator. They also indicated that while these posts provide some information about symptoms and resources, they recognize that the creators’ credentials are often unknown. Furthermore, while these posts can lead to participants questioning their own mental health status, they rarely seek out care from a mental health provider. The results from this study reveal trends in TikTok use and how young adults perceive information about mental health issues and disorders online.

Mentor: Krista Howard

Room 310 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

This honors capstone project analyzes the strategic application of Information Technology (IT) to improve the operational effectiveness of the San Marcos Greenbelt Alliance (SMGA), a nonprofit organization committed to environmental conservation. Through a partnership with the SMGA’s Outreach Committee, we identified essential technological upgrades to meet their objectives. Key recommendations to the board include the adoption of Microsoft 365 for nonprofits, the establishment of an Active Directory (AD) for improved network resource management and security, and an overhaul of the current system for accepting donations and maintaining donor relations.  A project management Gantt Chart will be produced to outline a project timeline. The primary aim of this capstone project, in the capacity of an IT consultant, is to guide the San Marcos Greenbelt Alliance through a strategic overhaul of its IT infrastructure. This capstone's objectives include providing fair and complete information, resulting in well-informed decisions, as well as ensuring the migration is organized, transparent, and effectively communicated to the SMGA board and all relevant stakeholders. This initiative is designed to enhance the organization's operational efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, this will serve as an exemplary model for similar nonprofit organizations seeking to innovate their Information Technology infrastructure.

Mentor: Jaymeen Shah

Room 306 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Postpartum Depression, or PPD, is a depressive disorder that affects 1 out of 7 women for four weeks to two years after childbirth. Despite the severity and prevalence of the disorder, there is a lack of awareness within the United States and there has been since PPD was given the first name of “Puerperal Insanity” in the 19th century. Along with this lack of awareness is a lack of historical research. I have traced the awareness of PPD in America beginning with those first ideas about “Puerperal Insanity.” I begin with an overview of the history of ignorance surrounding women’s mental health originating in Ancient Greece. I then look at how the ideals conceived during this history intertwine with the image and presence of PPD in media and popular culture in 19th century America to present. In turn, I looked at the effects of PPD, and women’s turn to alcohol in the late 20th century as well as the push of psychopharmaceuticals on such women by physicians in treatment for PPD. In viewing PPD through a historical view, in conjunction with the feminist movement, and women’s health movement a pattern of misrepresentation, misinformation, and mistreatment is revealed, a pattern that can still be seen today

Mentor: Allison Robinson

Room 306 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Unmarried-mother households have become increasingly common in recent years, with the United States holding the highest rate of single-parent households in the world as of 2019 (Pew Research Center, 2019; Zhou & Taylor, 2022). Given the growing population of unmarried-mother households and the range of challenges they face, it is crucial to identify protective factors that may promote more positive outcomes for their children. Social support has been well documented to buffer maternal stress and improve child social development in dual-parent households; however, less research has studied the role of support on children’s peer competence within unmarried-mother households (Taylor et al., 2015; Qudsi et al., 2023). The present study aims to fill gaps in prior research by conducting a secondary data analysis on the relationship between unmarried mothers’ perceived social support and their children’s peer competence in 5th grade. The present study consists of 160 mother-child dyads from various ethnic backgrounds. Mothers completed the 11-item Relationships with Other People Questionnaire (Marshall & Barnett, 1993) to assess their social support. Children's peer competence was assessed by their 5th-grade teachers using a 10-item Social Skills Rating Scale (Gresham & Elliott, 1990). The present study hypothesizes that children of unmarried mothers with higher perceived social support would have higher ratings of peer competence. Preliminary analyses utilizing a linear regression show that social support is positively correlated with children’s peer competence (r = .171, p = .030). Implications for children’s social development within unmarried-mother households will be discussed, along with study limitations and future research directions.

Mentor: Priscilla Goble

Room 308 | 9:00 am - 10:30 am

The importance of mental health and the dire need for more resources is something that becomes more evident with each passing year. A quick search online reveals that nearly 61% of people in Texas with mental health issues are currently untreated.  Many people lack access to health insurance, creating a barrier to professional help. The concept of this project is to provide an accessible resource through the medium of a mental health activity book. Each activity is thoughtfully created with the backing of empirical data to support each exercise. This resource is meant to provide free supplemental help for anyone on their own mental health journey. There can never be too many mental health tools, and this mental health workbook is meant to open up the conversations around mental health, while providing a space for healing through creativity.

Mentor: Nicole Taylor

Room 310 |3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Lucy Atkinson was a student at Texas State University (then called Southwest Texas State Normal School). She was studying home economics and left behind her notes for Domestic Art 1 which involved learning how to hand-sew, use a sewing machine, drafting and using patterns, and general information about handling textiles. I will be conducting an experimental study utilizing techniques in these notebooks to learn how to hand-sew. I will be able to view the notebook digitally at any point, and will be able to see the artifact in person by appointment with the Archives and Research Center. This will allow me to view samples of her stitches in person as well as the fabrics and threads she used. I will be documenting my work in a notebook just as Lucy Atkinson did. My goals include having the ability to efficiently hand-sew using fundamental stitches and hems, to create/draft a pattern from a small illustration and be able to fit the pattern to my size and be familiar with hand-sewing teaching techniques in 1915. In addition to writing a short explanation of the study, I will be presenting the project by exhibiting the work and progress of my hand stitches and any garments I create. I will discuss the historical relevance of Lucy’s notebooks and what I was able to learn by using her notes as an educational tool for myself, a young woman at the same school almost 110 years later. 

Mentor: Gwendolyn Hustvedt

Room 310 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

Proofs are used to show why and how objective truths exist in math. Relying on formal proofs is largely impractical, and what is considered a proof is more subjective than some mathematicians would claim. Thomas Tymoczko wrote “The Four-Color Problem and Its Philosophical Significance” which lays the groundwork of what are the qualities of a proof, following the first prominent computer-assisted proof. Much of the discussion around computer-assisted proofs are still based on that framework, despite the development of proof-assistant software that functions fundamentally differently than the original proofs that led to the groundwork. Additionally, there are people who suggest different qualities of proofs, particularly with communicating math to students. Inevitably, proof-assisting software will continue to impact how people engage with and learn math. I will be attempting to explore the mathematical learning process, particularly as it relates to developing the problem-solving skills necessary to successfully do math. This will let me understand how using proof-assistant software impacts the learning process for problem solving skills. To this end, this study will use a grounded theory design and employ a preliminary systematic review approach. In doing so, I will share the research about developing math problem-solving skills and create a grounded theory to illustrate the impact computer-assisted software may have.

Mentor: Jonathan Lollar

Room 306 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

In this research project, the role of food related compliments will be studied from the transcription data of a previously aired French cooking show to expand upon an existing conversation analysis study by Golato & Golato (2023). The prior study analyzes around 5 hours of a French cooking show as data. In this previous study, they identified three types of compliments given and received by the two participants were tallied and the resulting numbers were skewed, supporting the notion that self-complimenting behavior by the expert chef which is normally socially sanctioned is acceptable within this context, and even encouraged by the additional phenomenon of second assessment behavior from the amateur chef. For the current study, a different French cooking show will be transcribed and formatted with the Jefferson Transcription System. Lines of dialogue will then be selected if they are found to contain a foodbased compliment. From there, the show will be visually analyzed for body language accompanying the flagged compliments. The several types of compliments will then be tallied and organized in a table format as used in the Golato & Golato (2023) prior study. The compliments will be categorized as elicited, self, or other, and will be analyzed based on certain interactional structures within the cooking show. The statements will be analyzed also, such as judgements given on the speaker's likes and dislikes, and other expressions.

Mentor: Peter Golato

Room 308 | 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Antagonized by an economy that refuses to adjust to their basic needs and a society hell-bent on thwarting their attempts to create a living that is equal parts sustainable and personally fulfilling, an increasing number of undergraduates are moving back into their childhood bedrooms postcollege. In an analysis presented by The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, it was discovered that forty-one percent of new graduates aged twenty-two to twenty-seven are working in fields that don’t even require a college degree. The media often makes light of their inability to penetrate the job market, citing lethargy, vanity, and arrogance as obstacles that keep this demographic from making a ""real living."" Utilizing the musings of poet Sylvia Plath and author J.D Salinger, Adulting Children is a television series that narrows in on two of these post-grads and the truth behind their so-called insufficiencies. Once estranged, the twenty-somethings now find themselves living as pseudo-siblings in a new familial dynamic as they surrender their dreams of lavish penthouses and high-paying jobs to move back in with their Emotional Support Grown-Ups. As they’re met with the realities of adulthood, the main characters must redefine their idea of success and what it means to be an adult. Our protagonists attempt to combat the symptoms of moving home as a recent alumnus and brand-new sibling, such as age regression, dependency, and depression because, after all, kids make the darndest grown-ups.

Mentor:  Jordan Morille

Room 310 | 9:00 am - 10:30 am

Cupriavidas metallidurans is a heavy metal-resistant bacterial species from the Burkholderiaceae family that thrives in heavy metals that would typically be lethally toxic to many other bacterial species. C. metallidurans is a gram-negative bacillus microbe that is motile, does not produce spores, and is a mesophile. In nature, C. metallidurans is a bacterium typically found in industrial environments that breaks down gold ores that are highly toxic to produce harmless gold nuggets. This research is a part of the "fab five" sequencing initiative, which includes designing and testing qPCR primers and probes to evaluate the relative number of five common bacterial populations found in the water system of the International Space Station. This project focuses on the detection of Cuprividas metallidurans in mixed culture, using primers that target a species-specific unique gene associated with C. metallidurans metal resistance. For detection, we plan on testing two PCR based approaches to estimating C. metallidurans populations in mixed culture. These include quantitative PCR (qPCR) and digital PCR (dPCR). Specific things to be tested will include the specificity and detection limits of the primers. 

Mentor: Robert McLean

Panel Chair: Dr. Peter Golato, Department of World Languages and Literatures 

Lara Cohen - FOOD ASSESSMENTS IN A FRENCH COOKING SHOW

Justin Cole Hickerson - ANALYSIS ON THE FUNCTION OF JOWELL BIFACES

Sophia Louise Kottke - SHE’S ALL THAT: THE IMPACT OF ADULT FEMALE DENSITY AND GROUP SIZE ON FEEDING BEHAVIORS IN SPIDER MONKEY (ATELES GEOFFROYI) SUBGROUPS

Room 306 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

The United States has a long history of isolationist tendencies, but that changed after World War II. During the war, the USSR was a tentative ally, but shortly after, the United States government feared the expansion of communism. These tensions were exacerbated by NATO and the Warsaw Pact, as well as the infamous Space Race. Similarly, this fear extended to the People’s Republic of China as well, which was exemplified in the challenges faced by Chinese immigrants throughout continued Chinese exclusion and the difficulties of paper immigration. From 1945 to 1965, the United States attempted to navigate its relations with both of these countries, trying to prevent the spread of communism and the subsequent threat of nuclear war while aiming to restore the power balance in Eurasia. Additionally, the United States strived for “liberal expansionism,” a goal in which the world would be “remade” in the American image in order to garner peace. This idea was further backed by the belief that the United States had an obligation for world leadership and to spread the American way of life. In examining comics that depict relations between the United States, China, and Russia in this time period, the attitudes of the common American can be discovered and the fear-mongering spread during this time is highlighted. Though tensions for the United States with both China and Russia were high, more Chinese immigrants were allowed in for a myriad of reasons, including the Soviet’s strict policies against emigration. This paper seeks to discover the differences between the relations with these countries through the use of newspaper comics. 

Mentor: Sarah Coleman

Room 408 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

In order to even begin speaking about the relation between psychological dissociation and philosophical dissociation we have to first define what dissociation is. And while this should be simple enough, due to its subjective empirical nature, the definition itself becomes difficult to decipher. Simply the experience itself is a separation of the conscious self from the body, identity or any other part of the self that could usually be considered “ours”. It is a “dissociation” of one part of yourself from another. Now these experiences are usually experienced unconsciously throughout our day to day life, but it is only when they induce/are induced by mental disorders that the condition becomes irritable. Ranging from slight annoyances to causing absolute dysfunction in the individual. The cause, and course of treatment for these experiences is debated between the two fields of philosophy and psychology, with slight changes in definition as each individual proposes their theory of how to treat these dysregulations. Of course due to the lack of concrete scientific evidence of these disorders and their experiences as a whole, one can imagine how crossover between the two fields only grows. My reason for studying both of these fields separately is to find concrete testable evidence of the disorder, and then use philosophical hypotheses to potentially aid in the reattachment of individuals back to parts of themselves which have been lost.

Mentor: Randall Osborne

Room 305 |9:00 am - 10:30 am

In a traditional classroom setting teachers are facilitators in students learning and engagement. However, this can often leave some students falling behind in fundamental skill acquisition. We are conducting a pilot research study involving a mastery control climate in a preschool setting to investigate whether there are positive effects in children’s learning, engagement, and on-task behavior. A mastery control climate is an environment where students are essentially in charge of their learning. In this pilot, children will be able spend time at stations varying in difficulty, and through their own innate motivation will spend time at a station where they’re struggling or if they excel will move on to a more difficult station. The study's goal was to show that typically developing children have a strong innate motivation that can be used to help master scissor cutting skills more effectively.   To setup the mastery control climate we had three scissor cutting stations (varying in difficulty) for 4 weeks for 45- minute sessions.,. The children were sent to the stations at random and were instructed to move around to the different stations as they felt necessary. Some general observations noted by the 7 undergraduate students participating in the project were: 

•     We watched the children take charge in their own progression of scissor cutting with little instructor control.   

•     We found that the kids that struggled spent more time at the easier cutting stations, while the more advanced children spent more time at the more difficult stations.   

•     While some of the children struggled, it was fascinating to see how through their own will they stayed at the stations and asked for help until they got better and more confident in their skills.   

These initial observations could help us understand that children can facilitate their own learning and skill acquisition.

Mentor: Jennifer Ahrens

Room 306 |3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Fundamental to the design of endurance sport training programs is the Training Intensity Distribution (TID). TID is the relative amount of exercise spent in each of the three training intensity zones: low, moderate, and high. There has been an increased interest to determine the optimal TID that leads to the most performance improvements while avoiding the risk of over-training and accumulation of injuries. Existing research has already determined models in which TID is commonly organized for endurance athletes. However, there is a need to understand how TID may change as athletes cycle through multiple competition phases, each with unique performance goals. The purpose of this study is to observe and quantify TID of collegiate middle distance runners across multiple competition phases including cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. Monitoring of athletes’ performance variables during each training phase and during the transition between phases are used to assess physiological performance adaptations and quantify the accumulation of stress on the body. 

Mentor: John Farrell

Room 305 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

For this project, we will analyze how to study how students learn differential equations. First, we will analyze what is generally taught in a differential equations course so we can establish the importance of what students are learning and give a sense of what they are learning. We will then establish what Bloom’s Taxonomy is and discuss it to illustrate that students progress through learning subject material. We then discuss factors affecting learning such as mindset, socioeconomic standing, and gender stereotypes. We then analyze how math classes have been historically taught to address these factors that affect learning.

Mentor: Julio Dix

Panel Chair: Jordan Morille, Honors College

Diego Arroyo Aceves - "WE’LL MEET AGAIN…": EXPERIMENTING WITH THEATRICAL NORMS

Casey Prowell - STAGE COMBAT AS STORY

Kaleb Robert Quinn - THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SIRI

Panel Chair: Jordan Morille, Honors College

Mikayla Rae Forge - NEGATIVE SPACE

Collete Grace Hickman - THE FEMININE METAMORPHOSIS

Ana Paula Monterrubio  - HER & HER: AN ORIGINAL ALBUM BY ANA PAULA MONTERRUBIO

Adriana Renee Montoya - RE-MEMBERING EL PASO: HISTORIAS Y GEOGRAFÍAS DE UNA FAMILIA FRONTERIZA

Panel Chair: Dr. Ted Lehr, Department of Computer Science

Ethan Patrick Hindmarsh - ALLY: MITIGATING SOCIAL MEDIA ATTACK VECTORS & BOTS

Abby Louise Michener - DIVING DEEP INTO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: PREPARING FOR REAL-WORLD BUSINESS CHALLENGES

Marcus Duane Block - EMPOWERING CONSERVATION: IT INNOVATIONS FOR THE SAN MARCOS GREENBELT ALLIANCE

Room 308 | 10:30 am - 12:00 pm

“Negative Space" is a work of creative fiction that explores themes of interpersonal relationships, empathy, loneliness, and the expansion of the universe. Through a series of vignettes, the story delves into the protagonist’s feelings of disconnect from her longtime partner, Sunny, and the resulting emptiness she feels as she realizes that they’re growing further and further apart. As their relationship plays out against the backdrop of unavoidable change, the characters experience what can happen when intimacy collides with isolation."

Mentor: Benjamin Reed

Room 306 |9:00 am - 10:30 am

Emotional Support Animals have become an important part of many Texas State students’ lives. With the stress of classes, organizations, and life in general, students have been turning to furry friends to help relieve the pressure. According to pettable.com, a website that helps connect eligible individuals with licensed mental health professionals, “Of those with pets, 32% had their pet certified as an emotional support animal (ESA).” Emotional Support Animals can be many different species, but the most popular ones are cats and dogs. Through a video documentary series, three Texas State students share their stories about having their ESA’s at Texas State with them. Their animals have helped them cope with life stresses and feel less alone in the world after moving to college. The students featured in this story utilize their service animals in different ways. One lives with her dog, Louie, in a dorm and also takes him to class and on campus with her. Another brings her dog, Obi, on shopping trips and around San Marcos to help whenever he is needed. The third, a freshman, has a cat, Amor, who tends to stay in her dorm but is always there when she needs her. The documentary series also features a fourth student who is currently in the process of getting an ESA cat to live with her in her sorority house starting in the fall of 2024. These students rely on their emotional support animals to not only assist with their mental struggles, but also to help them have a companion they can always trust will be by their side. 

Mentor: Daniel F. Seed

Room 308 | 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

The documentary delves into the process of creating an online platform as an actor and features testimonials from influencers who have found their ""voice"" on social media. Being a fan of theatre influencers, I became curious about the benefits of sharing your journey online. Pursuing your dreams, although a privilege, can be an extremely isolating experience. Therefore, finding a creative outlet outside of work seemed irresistible. Initially, I aimed to gather insights from actors who have created an encouraging community of artists and followers online. However, I realized that the best way to share how to discover your brand as an actor would be to do so myself and document the process. I have spent the past few months building an online presence from scratch and learning about the algorithm, coming up with creative video ideas, and most importantly, crafting meaningful content to connect with others. I have discovered that building a community around your true self, rather than projecting a false image, is the most effective way to connect with like-minded people. As social media continues to evolve and the boundary between positivity and negativity becomes increasingly blurred, it is crucial to remain focused on your goal of finding a community rather than only seeking success.

Mentor: Lynzy Lab

Room 305 |9:00 am - 10:30 am

As times continue to change, so do the students in the high school education system. But as students are entering a new world surrounded by technology and near-constant stimulation on social media, engagement in the classroom has gone down. English classes have especially taken a hard hit, as many students nowadays struggle to find reading books fruitful. As a future English teacher, I firmly believe reading and teaching a student to appreciate literature are worthwhile endeavors. This capstone project explores different ways to approach teaching students literature in today's classroom and combines that research into a lesson plan of my own making. As my example, I will use Lanny by Max Porter to create a lesson plan I hope to teach one day. This project aims to explore why students are struggling to find value in learning literature and what we can do as future and current educators to help. Forcing students to learn through outdated systems is a disservice to them, and we ought to change the ways we teach to accommodate contemporary students. There are students out there who can learn to love literature, but only if we change the way we teach it.

Mentor: Ivan Marquez

Room 408 |9:00 am - 10:30 am

When many parts of the world issued stay-at-home orders during the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, these orders prevented people from taking part in activities outside of the monotonous home spaces that they were confined to. However, past research has shown the association between participating in self-expanding, (exciting and novel) activities is associated with greater intimacy. Yet, with the lack of opportunity to engage in new activities outside of the home, we sought to find which types of people would be able to self-expand during these times. Having an approach motivation (which is associated with a focus on promotion, as illustrated by past research) is positively associated with self-expansion— people’s likelihood to seek out opportunities that are novel and exciting according to past research. In this research, we sought to further assess the positive association between approach motivation and self-expansion during the stay-at-home orders. As well as to see how these variables influence people’s reports of sexual frequency and affectionate touch, and if so how long do the influences from self-expansion and approach motivation on these relationship factors last during different time points throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mentor: Rhonda Balzarini

Room 306 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

Parents are one of the principal factors in a child’s political socialization. This means that children emulate their parents as role models in their political affiliations, beliefs, and practices. There is a lot of research supporting this, but majoritively about two married-parent households. Does this hold true and at the same rates of transmission in other family structures? The problem to be addressed by this study will be answered through an online survey looking at whether there is a relationship between variations in family structure and parental political socialization. After the data is collected, to analyze how strong or weak the rates of transmission are, an independent t-test will be used. The definition of family has dramatically changed over the past 50 years, from two-parent families to other variations such as LGBTQ+ parents, single parents, and stepparents) and is now often quite complex. Many parents wish to transmit their affiliations to their children, but it is unknown how family structure plays a role in the transmission, or the passing on of ideas, especially after the child has left the home. Most in the field have largely abandoned research on parental socialization, so there is not much readily available information about this phenomenon in parental structures such as stepparents and single parents. With this gap in the literature, there is an inaccurate representation of how political transmission works in the present day in many types of family structures. This study will provide universities with a unique perspective on the impact of parental political socialization to be applied to education and family therapies. 

Mentor: Hyun Yun

Panel Chair: Dr. Maria Czyzewska, Department of Psychology

Shirley Moncerrat Barrera - MEXICAN AMERICAN TRADITIONAL MEDICINE: A PERSPECTIVE ON SOBADORES AND CURANDEROS

Kiana Maryann Valles - THE IMMIGRANT PARADOX AND OBESITY

Janell Guerrero -  MENTAL HEALTH DISPARITIES IN HISPANIC/LATINO COMMUNITIES: THE ROAD TO EQUITY

Room 310 | 9:00 am - 10:30 am

Heavy metal (HM) pollutants are problematic in our increasingly industrialized world due to their toxicity in small concentrations and inability to decompose. While industrial methods of remediation are effective for large spills, chronic and widespread pollutant exposure is not efficiently remediated by such methods, and they can be expensive and damaging to the ecosystem. Alternatively, bioremediation is effective at remediating HM pollution as microbes have diverse biochemistry. Microbes have an array of surface functional groups and extracellular enzymes capable of detoxifying or sequestering pollutants. Furthermore, bioremediation is inexpensive and eco-friendly, with the caveat that potential ecosystemic interactions should be considered with bioremediation candidates. Fungi have relatively diverse biochemistry, even compared to other microbes, making them uniquely effective in bioremediation, a process specifically known as mycoremediation. However, each mycoremediation candidate has different optimal growth conditions and reactivity to different pollutants, which makes it complicated to determine effective native mycoremediation candidates for pollutants of interest. Sadonoski et al. proposed a protocol whereby the pollutant tolerance, measured by growth rate differential, is used to screen for mycoremediation candidates. In this study, this principle was applied to HM pollution, utilizing bismuth due to its lower toxicity relative to other HM pollutants. Per the protocol of Sadonoski et al., growth rate was measured by determining the radial expansion both at the largest and smallest diameters, at various concentrations of bismuth. The preliminary data showed fungi have diminished growth rate when exposed to bismuth and each fungus had consistently different growth rates both during pollution exposure and in controls. The bismuth uptake was determined using energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The data suggests the bismuth concentration does significantly predict growth rate. Although bismuth uptake was not significantly predicted by tolerance, even in well-documented mycoremediation species.

Mentor: Joyce Anderson

Room 308 | 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

This One-Woman show was inspired by the social media challenge game, “Rejection Therapy,” which is defined as a social self help game where the player forces themselves into high stress situations where they are more than likely to be rejected. The purpose of this is that it helps the player to better adapt to rejection/high stress social encounters. As someone who struggles with rejection and embarrassing situations, I wanted to explore this challenge and journal my experiences along the way, to see if I really could become a more confident/secure person. Upon finishing my rejection therapy, I then wrote my fictional one-woman show based on the concept of rejection therapy, and my journals. My Summer With Charles La Fondeu: A One Woman Show, explores a girl who is as insecure as I once was, trying to navigate these tasks given to her by the one and only, Charles La Fondeu, a 10 year old, wise beyond his years who has dedicated his life (and his summer) to helping people become as free spirited as they once were before adulthood and societal pressures. Through my research, I discovered an increase in confidence, and witnessed myself become better adapted to the stresses of rejection. 6 months ago, one of the scariest things I could have done was write and perform in my own one-woman show, but through the work I have been doing I could not be more excited and confident in my efforts. The main conclusion of my efforts is that, putting yourself out there, pays off immensely. My main hope with this One-Woman show is that it inspires people to go outside of their comfort zones, and helps them realize that everything they need to better themselves is already within them.

Mentor: Jordan Morille

Room 305 |9:00 am - 10:30 am

Numerous obstacles that affect a student's mental health, academic achievement, and overall college experience are present. Activities like yoga and meditation could be a good way to improve students' well-being. Recognizing the significance of promoting resilience, this study seeks to explore the relationship between mindfulness and stress. Stress reduction amongst the student population has been recognized by the institution. Yet what methods are effective in achieving these goals? This quantitative study explores the relationship between day-to-day mindfulness interventions and key factors influencing student success, namely stress levels.

Mentor: Millie Cordaro

Room 305 |3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

This project seeks to use counter narratives to examine and highlight the stories, perspectives, and experiences of Latino residents from Victory Gardens, San Marcos, Texas, in regard to green spaces such as parks and walking trails. In doing so, the project will contribute to scholarly and popular understandings of the history of Latin San Marcos and the perspective of Latin residents of the city. Currently popular environmentalist discourse fails to note Latino experiences and or perspectives on the outdoors, an issue that has also largely been mirrored in scholarly literature. Limited detailed recorded history, complex and contested housing policy in adjacent neighborhoods and rapid growth pressures make Victory Gardens, San Marcos, Texas an important case-study through which to examine how Latin residents understand and interact with urban green space. Compensated interviews with participants of self-identified Hispanic descent and a current or previous residency in Victory gardens will be analyzed with the intent of sharing counter life story narratives. These are stories meant to counter dominant narratives and are developed from the bottom up. As the city of San Marcos continues to make infrastructural improvements in its Latin neighborhoods, including expanded park space and walking trails, this study can aid in gaining a better understanding of how Latin residents interpret and experience these changes in their neighborhoods.

Mentor: Eric Sarmiento

Room 310 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

Both nonmelanoma and melanoma skin cancers are a significant public health concern, with significant impacts for the healthcare systems. As these cancers are influenced by sun exposure and UV radiation, this research explores the relationship between skin cancer rates, Medicare costs associated with its treatment, and the impact of climate change. Using a combination of statistical analysis and data visualization techniques, we analyzed trends in skin cancer incidence rates using the Medicare’s Physician & Other Practitioners public dataset over the past decade. We also examined how changing climate conditions, such as increased UV radiation and temperature, may be contributing to the rise in skin cancer cases.

Mentor: Tahir Ekin

Room 306 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

The Caddo are a broad and diverse group of Native Americans that were known to have populated what is now known as East Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The stone tool technology of the Caddo consisted of arrowheads for the bow and arrow, ground stone celt, chipped axe for trees, and various small handheld tools for cutting bone, wood, scraping hides, and piercing leather. The Jowell bifaces are rare and interesting stone artifacts found only in three archeological sites in East Texas. They are all associated with human burials. The goal of my thesis is to test whether morphological evidence for function can be used to interpret the association of projectile points with the individuals buried at the J. O. and Henry Brown Site (41HS261), The Cecil Farm Site (41AN8), and at the Jowell site (41AN13). Results inform on the potential for Jowell bifaces to represent tools that were used by the deceased and the association of funerary objects with a person’s identity.

Mentor: Heather Smith

Room 308 | 10:30 am - 12:00 pm

The Feminine Metamorphosis is a fiction collection that explores the ways women adapt and change in order to survive. Eight narratives see their female protagonists grapple with challenges such as the pressures of society, the corrosion of girlhood, or the perils of a difficult home-life. The feminine ability to persevere intrigues me, because it never takes the same shape twice. Rather than setting out on an exploration of femininity and masculinity as opposing forces, one good and one evil, I focus instead on the nuances of a shifting female identity. Some metamorphoses are positive, others negative, but all are necessary to the survival of the character in question. No two stories in the collection are exactly the same, in terms of the struggle being dealt with, the shape of the metamorphosis, or the tone these elements are presented with.

Mentor: Benjamin Reed

Room 308 | 9:00 am - 10:30 am

“Tutu Tuesday!” is a children’s animated series following a plus size dancer, Ruby, as she leads her dance team to nationals! Ruby faces the challenges any 10-year-old faces with the help of her two best friends JJ and Auggie, in which they find that together they are unstoppable! With this show, I was researching to see if hypothetically, children are exposed to many different body types, identities and colors in an entertaining way would we grow a more accepting generation of people. Media makes a up a large percentage of how we view ourselves and the world around us. The effects of changing that narrative could be very beneficial in not only children viewing the world around them, but also themselves. For some research components, I conducted a poll asking what current Performing arts students at Texas State would have appreciated to see in the media they were consuming growing up. Through that research I was able to find a lot about what was missing in the media: athletic plus size people, dancers of different gender identities and dancers of all colors. In this piece I was able to write a compelling story with marginalized groups of people, without making the focus of the piece about their marginalized identity.

Mentor: Jordan Morille

Room 310 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

The aspiration for 'Ally' is to redesign societal norms around content sharing and contact networking, replacing prevailing models of compromised privacy with a fresh approach that champions data security and user autonomy, challenging traditional social networks by shifting focus toward genuine interaction and creating a trusted, inclusive and engaging space.

Mentor: Ted Lehr

Room 308 | 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

“Red Maple” is a one act play about a family struggling through grief, the stages of which are personified in each family member. The younger daughter, Charlotte, shows denial as she is the one who has passed. The father, Dakota, is anger; he struggles through upholding a masculine appearance and gets overwhelmed by his emotions, showing them through aggression. The mother, Renee, is bargaining; she blames herself for her family struggles and seeks forgiveness through personal sacrifice. The older sibling, Sidney, is despair; they show heightened emotions but manage not to lose themselves. Finally, the grandmother, Evelyn, is acceptance; she has been deceased for 5 years already and is Charlotte’s guide to the afterlife. The play revolves around the family’s life a few days after Charlotte’s passing. Charlotte is present as a ghost that the audience can see but the family cannot. A staple of the play is the red maple trees the family has planted: one that is 5 years old for Evelyn, and one that is freshly planted for Charlotte. By the end, the living family has come to a new understanding of each other, leading towards healing and coping. Charlotte is touched and leaves with Evelyn to seek peace and rest.

Mentor: Jordan Morille

Room 306 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Fifty-two percent of the two hundred and fifty-four counties in Texas are considered rural. Rural counties are more likely to be in maternal care deserts, or areas with restricted to nonexistent access to OB/GYN care and birthing centers. Rural counties are associated with higher maternal morbidity ratios (MMR). A MMR measures the ratio of women with pregnancy related illnesses per 1,000, and can be an indicator of the quality of healthcare in a county. We set out to test the correlation between rural counties and higher MMRs by using a two tailed Ttest comparing the MMRs of rural and urban counties. There was a significant difference between the rural and urban MMRs. Women in rural counties had higher MMRs, and thus, worse outcomes. An expansion of OB/GYN healthcare to these rural counties is paramount to improving these high MMRs. These can take the form of telemedicine clinics, expanding awareness of risk factors in pregnancy, and improved postpartum care.

Mentor: Kym Fox

Panel Chair: Dr. Jennifer Ahrens, Department of Health and Human Performance

Chelsey Elvira Gonzalez - A CHANGE IN TIMES: TEACHING LITERATURE TO CONTEMPORARY STUDENTS

Abigail Hernandez - EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MINDFULNESS PRACTICES ON STRESS AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS

Ernest Ellis - TEACHING SCISSOR CUTTING TO YOUNG CHILDREN WHILE USING A MASTERY MOTIVATIONAL CLIMATE

Panel Chair: Dr. Jessica Perrotte, Department of Psychology

Maddie Swanson - SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF IN CLINIC AND AT HOME GENETIC TESTING AND THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACTS

Shaheena Lofthus - ACCULTURATION AND SUBSTANCE USE IN SOUTH ASIAN AMERICANS COMPARED TO OTHER ASIAN AMERICAN SUBGROUPS

Charlie Kirkpatrick - ACCESS, ACCOMMODATION, AND INCLUSION POST-COVID-19: A MIXED METHODS STUDY OF DISABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Room 308 | 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

My thesis is a feature-length script for an animated film titled Speedway Drift. Set in the year 2064, star racer Grace Jackson is competing in an international racing tournament where she's partnered up with young newcomer Faye Sōtō in a series of dangerous obstacle courses, all while confronting memories of her emotionally-abusive father. The central focus of the story is father-child relationships—Faye's father demonstrates a supportive and constructive parent figure in their life, contrasting Grace, who feels challenged by her father, the now-deceased celebrity racecar driver Montel Jackson. The story examines the repercussions of emotional abuse, as Grace deals with self-doubt and the overcritical mindset she takes after her father. When Faye becomes her partner, Grace’s contemptuous demeanor towards Faye make the two teammates incompatible. Grace questions Faye’s abilities as a newcomer, but as the tournament progresses, Faye’s confident performance brings top rankings for their team, while Grace falls short and becomes increasingly self-doubtful. It’s established that Grace is shadowed by her media-embellished famous father, Montel Jackson. We learn halfway through the story that she’s haunted by memories of Montel’s abusive coaching. In flashbacks, he uses negative words for reinforcement and criticizes her when she doesn’t get a perfect score. Grace wants to overcome her trauma in order to be a great racer, but doesn’t know how. Once she and Faye connect, Faye reassures Grace’s abilities as a professional racer and it ultimately helps her succeed. The story is important in regards to its exploration of emotional trauma, fatherhood, mental health, media influence, and friendship.

Mentor: Annie Silverstein

Room 305 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

With the rising popularity of social media, the ability to share and view visual content such as photos and videos has become increasingly popular in recent years on apps like Instagram. Users can follow accounts and find content that aligns with their interests, creating a personalized online experience. This study aims to investigate how viewing idealized and sexualized content influences relationship satisfaction. Data were collected from undergraduate students at Texas State University via a survey containing questions about participants’ own Instagram use, their partners’ use, and a validated relationship satisfaction scale. Analysis revealed a correlation between certain online behaviors and relationship satisfaction score, indicating that Instagram use does play a role in the function of modern-day relationships. The results suggest that while Instagram can serve as a tool for maintaining social connections, it also presents challenges that may affect relationship dynamics. This research has the potential to contribute to the understanding of the role of social media in influencing relationship satisfaction. By exploring this correlation, we could identify potential relationship stressors and help others to avoid conflict and maintain healthy and satisfying relationships. These findings could have implications for mental health and social media usage recommendations.

Mentor: Amber Lupo

Room 306 |9:00 am - 10:30 am

Only 7% of young adults, ages 18-30, eat the daily recommended amount of 2-3 cups of vegetables. Along with this, over 60% of this population meets the criteria for at least one mental health diagnosis due to experiencing high levels of depression, anxiety, and stress (Lipson et al., 2022). The majority of college students facing mental health issues today need dietary improvement (Ramón-Arbués et al., 2020), more specifically improvement in vegetable intake. Currently, there are few vegetable intake intervention tools available for use which target individual cognition and health beliefs. My project is an animated educational video that I created and produced, a novel intervention tool, which explains the relationship between carotenoids, an antioxidant in fruits and vegetables, and depression and stress levels. This video is meant to motivate college students to improve their vegetable intake habits with the hope that they will experience a decrease in levels of depression and stress after watching it. Using the Health Belief Model, a psychological theory of health behavior change, the video elaborates on how a lack of vegetables can influence mood and quality of life, how vegetables work to improve stress and depressive symptoms, ways to overcome vegetable intake barriers, and specific strategies to incorporate more vegetables in one’s diet. The goal of the video is to increase motivation in college students to live a better, healthier life by changing their eating habits in practicable ways. This video project will be used in a future study to assess changes in motivation to increase vegetable intake. The long-term implications of this project are to use this video in an intervention study to improve vegetable intake and reduce symptoms of stress and depression in young adults.

Mentor: Kelly Haskard-Zolnierek

Room 408 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

In 2020, the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic fundamentally shifted the academic landscape, leaving a profound impact on college students. While all students contended with issues posed by the pandemic, students with disabilities were disproportionately impacted as opposed to their peers. This mixed-methods exploratory study examined the ways that Covid-19 affected students with disabilities at Texas State University, the university’s response to the pandemic, and students’ beliefs about how Texas State responded to accommodate students before, during, and after the pandemic. Participants included up to 500 university students who self-identify as disabled and who were enrolled at Texas State during the 2020-2021 pandemic. All participants completed an online survey to examine their perceptions about the university academic context before, during, and after the pandemic. Descriptive quantitative and qualitative data will be summarized as part of the findings from the survey. In addition, a sample of voluntary students with disabilities participated in follow-up interviews to provide additional insight into the university landscape. Data collected from this study will expand our understanding of how Covid-19 changed education for students with disabilities. In addition, results will act as a venue to amplify the voices of students with disabilities and to facilitate potential changes for classrooms and educational policies in the future. Findings have important implications for improving the academic landscape at Texas State University and ensuring itis accessible to all students.

Mentor: Alyson Collins

Room 306 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) take part in the social organization system fission-fusion. The structure is coined as this due to the way in which individuals separate from and join smaller subgroups called “parties” within a larger community encompassing a specified home range. This social organization developed likely as the result of feeding competition within groups or parties, and now operates as a mechanism to avoid such behavior. It is utilized by various primates despite vast genetic differences. For example, the social structure can be seen in both chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and spider monkeys.  This study focuses on a community living in the rainforest of northeastern Costa Rica at Camaquiri Conservation Initiative in Pococi, Limon. Over twelve days, data was collected using scan sampling and interval recording. Collection periods focused on party size, behavior, and composition of subgroups. This research aimed to better characterize the impact of adult female spider monkeys on subgroup feeding behavior dynamics. Preliminary findings suggest that higher densities of adult females within subgroups leads to reduced affiliative interactions, shorter party engagement durations, and increased competitiveness among individuals. This work marks some of the initial findings of the Camaquiri spider monkey community’s social organization and composition.

Mentor: Jill Pruetz

Room 408 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Roles held by women and men in Colonial America were clearly defined by their religious and social structures, especially in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. When any individual strayed from their prescribed role, it opened that individual to ridicule, shame, and, in the case of Salem Village, witchcraft. In 1692, Salem Village erupted with accusations of witchcraft on members of their community, leading to the death of twenty-five innocent people and at least one hundred individuals incarcerated by the end of trials in 1693. While the trials only lasted one year and a few months, this historical event has forever stained America’s history. Once the trials concluded and the town regained a clear vision of the events that had taken place, immense shame fell over the Salem Village community. This resulted in coverups by governmental officials and an understanding of a “do not ask, do not tell policy” among residents for a large part of the town’s history. While some individuals tried to ignore the events that took place in Salem, others continued to seek justice and answers for these victims to ensure that history would not forget them. Due to the continual curiosity that is sparked by this event, many individuals have flocked to Salem to figure out the mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials, especially in the mid-twentieth century. Allowing for Salem, Massachusetts, to become this mecca of witchcraft and the occult. As well as this new type of tourism known as Dark Tourism. Salem has embraced this type of tourism, especially as it has continued to grow. This growth in dark tourism surrounding the Salem Witch Trials raises questions about how this type of tourism is affecting the historical integrity of the event. This project will explore how tourism affects how people view the Salem Witch Trials.

Mentor: Jessica Pliley

Room 310 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

In December 2019, the first case of novel beta-coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was identified. This was the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two other pandemics caused by betacoronaviruses have been previously observed and researched: the SARS pandemic and the MERS pandemic; the OC43 and HKU1 viruses are seasonal beta-coronaviruses and generally cause mild symptoms which present as the “common cold.” Due to the increases in mortality and scale of infection that the COVID-19 pandemic caused compared to the MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV pandemics, determining the morphological characteristics which differentiate SARS-CoV-2 from SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV became essential. The spike (S) protein is an important conserved structural component of coronaviruses; this protein ensures proper binding between the virion and the host cell before the virion can enter the host cell. Two subunits, S1 and S2, compose the structure of the S protein. The S1 subunit of the S protein facilitates the binding of the SARS-CoV-2 virion to the ACE2 receptor in the human host cell; the S2 subunit ensures proper fusion between the viral and host membrane, which allows for the viral contents to enter the host cell. SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins both bind to the same receptor, whereas MERS-CoV binds to the DPP4 receptor and the OC43 and HKU1 viruses bind to the 9-O acetyl sialic acid receptor. The sequence and structure of the spike protein also play a role in immune system evasion: antibodies bind to the spike protein for viral neutralization, preventing entry into the host cell. Mutations that strengthen electrostatic interactions between spike proteins and receptors lead to greater transmissibility for the viral species and strain. While many factors contribute to the increase in transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 compared to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, it is vital to understand the differences between the spike proteins.

Mentor: Kelly Woytek

Panel Chair: Dr. Rhonda Balzarini, Department of Psychology

Madison Moroughan Green - KEEPING THE SPARK ALIVE DURING COVID: HOW SELF-EXPANSION IS SHAPED BY REGULATORY FOCUS AND THE DOWNSTREAM EFFECTS ON SEXUAL FREQUENCY AND AFFECTIONATE TOUCH

Katlyn Mabilia - A WESTERN LENS PROVIDES A WESTERN FRAME: A LITERATURE REVIEW OF HUMAN SEXUALITY ACROSS TIME AND CULTURE

Dustie Stone - THE IMPACT OF NEED FULFILLMENT ON STRESS AND INTERPERSONAL AND RELATIONAL OUTCOMES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

Room 408 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

In psychological research, there has been repeated evidence that a correlation is present between acculturation (i.e., the integration and adaptation a minority group goes through into a dominant culture), and substance use within the Asian American community (Moloney et al., 2008). Researchers also discovered a relationship between one's amount of religiosity (i.e., the degree of commitment and faith an individual has in a religion) and the level of substance use that takes place (Luczak et al., 2014). With Asian Indians making up the largest subgroup within the Asian American category (U.S. Census, 2020), and psychological research lacking on coverage of South Asian Americans, due to forming Asian Americans together into a singular representative group (Inman et al., 2014), this study examined South Asian Americans, and how acculturation and religiosity factors affect their substance use rates in comparison to other Asian American subgroups. To understand the relationship between acculturation, religiosity, and how it affects substance use, this study collected data from a total of 55 South Asians, 142 East Asians, and 118 Southeast Asians. All subjects responded to the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), Cannabis Use Disorder Identification Test-Revised (CUDIT-R), Individualism and Collectivism Scale (IC Scale), PhenX Toolkit for Substance Use (PXT Substance), PhenX Toolkit for Alcohol Use (PXT Alcohol), and Religious Commitment Inventory (RCI). Data collection is complete and data analysis is in process. It is anticipated that the analysis will be completed within the month of March 2024. The data will be interpreted with regression analysis in SPSS to examine the relationship between substance use, acculturation, and Asian American subgroups, with religiosity as a covariate variable. Findings within this research project can aid  in future health research for the South Asian American community, and reveal how they differ to other various Asian subgroups.

Mentor: Jessica Perrotte

Room 408 |9:00 am - 10:30 am

Human sexuality is a topic of interest that is gaining traction as time progresses. Understanding human sexuality remains a challenge because of humanity’s proneness toward ethnocentrism and the generalizability of research findings on the topic. This literature review examines the human sexual experience in context or setting. The literature on this topic published in Psychology and Anthropology databases, popular textbooks, along with the works of Sir Richard Burton and additional contemporary Victorian authors, has been written from a Western perspective which has framed the way we have viewed human sexuality across time and context. This literature review will begin with background information on the existing theories for how human sexuality has been approached in social sciences, provide some insight on the variance of sexual attitudes and behaviors between and within cultures, show changes in human sexuality over time, identify universals which may exist across time and context, and give examples of factors which have controlled and given shape to sexual expression. The focus of this research is to summarize and compare pre-existing literature, often outdated and biased, and call for fresh additional inter-cultural research to be conducted through a more objective lens.

Mentor: Roque Mendez

Panel Chair: Dr. Krista Howard, Department of Psychology

Clara Ann Blankenship - SELF-DIAGNOSIS AND SOCIAL MEDIA: PUT DOWN A FINGER IF YOU’VE QUESTIONED YOUR OWN MENTAL HEALTH STATUS BASED ON INFORMATIONAL TIKTOK POSTS

Fey Jung - SCROLLING FOR SATISFACTION: INVESTIGATING THE INFLUENCE OF INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT PREFERENCES AND ONLINE BEHAVIORS ON RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION

Kai Woods - THE WELLNESS MESS CLUB: THE WELLNESS SPACE IS MAKING YOUNG WOMEN SICK. HERE’S HOW WE FIX IT

Room 308 | 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

Music is present in all aspects of life, but it tends to take a backseat compared to other aspects of media production. As a music student, I have been given access to knowledge about the inner workings of music and have since taken these skills and applied them to the music and sounds that appear in everyday life. From film scores to radio advertisements, music is used to convey emotions of characters, or to elicit an emotional response from the audience, and everything has a purpose. Dig a Little Deeper is an eight-episode podcast series that explores how music is integrated in media today. I tell the history of various types of media that all have an aspect of music within them, delve into the process of creating the media, analyze specific parts of the music or lyrics, and discuss how these findings can be applied to media produced in the present. Through my podcast, I am distilling the knowledge I have gathered into a medium that can be consumed by a general audience. I take complicated music terms and concepts and give real-life examples of them in action. Each episode tackles a new broad topic, like the appeal of Christmas music or the history of folk-country, and discusses key points in history where musical media has impacted that topic. I also examine recording techniques used when creating the media, and how it impacts the work as a whole. I also include story-telling segments that fully utilize the audio medium, immersing the listener in a scene within the story of that episode through spatial audio techniques. The final product is a series of 20–40-minute episodes, as well as supplemental blog posts that showcase visual aids, additional information about topics from the episode, and full versions of any interviews recorded.

Mentor: Cynthia Gonzales

Panel Chair: Dr. Rebecca Bell-Metereau, Department of English

Shaye Adele Ladzinski - THE ATTRACTION OF WITCHES: HOW DARK TOURISM AFFECTS THE WAY WE PERCEIVE THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS

Alyssa Stanush - WHEN TWENTY-FIVE YEAR OLDS TAKE ALGEBRA ONE: THE SEXUALIZATION OF ADOLESCENT FEMALE CHARACTERS IN TEEN DRAMAS FROM THE 2010S

Courtney Stockman - FAME KILLS: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEDIA AND MURDER

Room 306 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Individuals experience gender uniquely, shaped both by their internal sense of self and external influences from societal institutions such as Education, Family, Religion, Government, and Economy. Gender permeates one's self-perception, societal treatment, and life roles. The textbook definition of an immigrant is a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country, but the motives and consequences of human mobility are shaped by various factors such as customary rules based on gender expectations, ethnicity, race, age, and class. This project explores how a migrant's journey impacts and challenges their traditional views of gender roles/identity from their country of origin. This qualitative project highlights gender patterns/dynamics observed through interviews with migrants in the U.S./Mexico Border, using a Grounded theory to draw conclusions from the data collected with the application of inductive reasoning. The migrants interviewed all came from Central and South America, where Machismo continues to be a cultural default. Machismo can be defined as a social pattern in which the Latino male exhibits a strong or exaggerated sense of manliness. The goal of this project is to provide a new lens on gender that highlights the stringency that machismo culture and the migration process has on gender expression.

Mentor: Claude Bonazzo

Room 310 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

The goal of my study this semester is to analyze a real-world business case, focusing on strategy and competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is an essential factor in business, as it dictates a company’s ability to differentiate themselves and remain profitable. At the end of the semester, scheduled by my instructor, I will conduct a real-world business case analysis with a group, utilizing frameworks such as Porter’s 5 Forces that Shape Average Business Profitability to assess industry attractiveness, the VRIO Model to assess a company’s sustainability, and the Competitive Advantage Pyramid to assess their competitive advantage. My aim is to discover what strategies fit best with the chosen company and analyze how they can use their resources to leverage themselves in the best way possible with their unique strengths. I have spent a majority of my time this semester doing preparatory writing and discussion assignments, analyzing businesses on a smaller scale to prepare for the final project. Through these assignments, I have found that in order for companies to sustain a competitive advantage, they must have resources and capabilities that are rare, difficult to imitate, and can be used to perform activities that bring value to their customer base. Even though I don’t have specific instructions for the project itself, through these weekly preparatory assignments, these main findings will be crucial in my assessment at the end of the semester. Learning about competitive advantage in business is essential in understanding success and sustainability, and my study will continue to reveal insights on how companies can overcome their real-world business challenges and achieve success. 

Mentor: Harlan Beverly

Room 310 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Within cells, chromosomes are constantly damaged by formation of single- and double-strand breaks in the DNA structure. The most damaging of the two is the double-stranded break (DSB). These breaks happen multiple times a day and are potentially lethal to cells, so cells have two main repair pathways to mitigate permanent damage to the chromosome. These pathways are called nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombination (HR). Assays have been developed previously to measure repair of DSBs by each pathway individually, but none have been able to monitor repair readily by both pathways simultaneously. This study describes the development and testing of a new assay system to simultaneously quantitate repair by the two mechanisms. This accomplishment is important because it will permit investigation of conditions where the DSB will be repaired by either NHEJ or HR. A small circular double-stranded DNA molecule (plasmid pLKL107Y) was characterized in several ways to confirm its structure initially. The plasmid was then digested with a type IIS restriction endonuclease to induce a gap. The newly linearized plasmid was then transformed into yeast cells. Growth of these cells on selective plate media provided evidence that the cells took up the DNA and that repair could occur by both pathways in wildtype cells. Additional genetic assays will be employed to determine whether NHEJ or HR is more common in wildtype versus DNA repair-deficient cells and G1 phase cells versus S/G2 phase cells. Cells defective in either the NHEJ or HR pathways or both pathways will be tested.

Mentor: Kevin Lewis

Room 308 | 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Muse is a short film project I have been developing since January 2023. I will direct a short film I have written about a beginner poet who tests out new material at a coffee shop reading when the person who inspired her work unintentionally stumbles into the audience. I enjoy creating art that is emotionally evocative and gripping just from the premise, which I think is evident in the logline above. This film is All Too Well (short film) meets La La Land mixed in with When Harry Met Sally gone wrong. There are additional influences from Marriage Story (2019), Little Women (2019), The Neighbors Window (2020), Past Lives (2023) and All of Us Strangers (2023). It exists for people drawn to intimate, wistful, and inescapably tragic entertainment. From a more technical point of view, this project is meant to additionally be a study of how choice of film camera, coloring and lighting affect the emotional narrative of the story.  I have been interested in directing and writing my own short films ever since I took Film Production Practices my freshman year. Since then, I also delved into filmmaking in my Dramatic Adaptation course sophomore year and my Tv/Film Acting and Directing for Film courses junior year and my Advanced Film Acting course senior year. I have also worked as an actor on several extracurricular student film and web series projects. 

Mentor: Jordan Morille

Room 308 | 10:30 am - 12:00 pm

"Her & Her" is an original album based on Ana Paula Monterrubio’s observations throughout her years in college. The songs that compose this album were inspired by moments of contemplation; the exploration of emotions, memories and unanswered questions brought about by the ups and downs of becoming independent. Ana Paula wrote these songs as a way of practicing self-honesty—acknowledging all aspects of herself—and enhancing her understanding of her own feelings. By sharing her songs, her objective is to provide relatable music that can generate a sense of comfort, communion, and compassion. Ana Paula’s album is structured in a way that demonstrates the potential for challenges to become opportunities of growth and self-discovery. It features elements from a wide range of styles and genres to emphasize the beautiful diversity within the human experience; moments of hope and clarity, as well as moments of doubt and confusion. In today’s social climate, where it is common for comparison and competition to hinder an individual’s sense of self-worth, self-acceptance and compassion are essential for maintaining a healthy mindset that revolves around gratitude and growth. In Her & Her, Ana Paula reflects on her own journey towards realizing her self-worth. She hopes to remind listeners of their innate worthiness of love and compassion, unaffected by circumstance or perception.

Mentor: Jackson Perrin

Room 308 | 10:30 am - 12:00 pm

In both academic spaces and broader societal contexts, life along the US-Mexico border is often defined by representations of its perceived issues and measured in units of tragedy. While these preconceived notions are by no means a new phenomenon, since the 2016 presidential election, the city of El Paso and its surrounding region in particular has remained an epicenter of political polarization and discussion on the national stage. Perceptions became especially tragedy-oriented following the August 3, 2019 domestic terrorism attack and recent waves of migration that have been labeled as both invasions and humanitarian crises. This has resulted in a popular narrative of the borderlands which is dominated by heavily problem-based thinking as well as misconceptions from those with limited experience in the community itself. Re-membering El Paso seeks to amend this issue, applying multi-media and literary components to create an autoethnography based on interviews with six family members about their experiences living in the El Paso region. Drawing on elements of Chicana feminist theory, the piece presents an alternative to existing narratives about the border shaped by masculine AngloAmerican language, seeking to “re-member” El Paso by attempting to piece together a history that has been broken, fragmented, and in many ways lost to time. The project is a culmination of oral history, mapmaking, photography, and ethno-poetics forming a collage that takes readers on a tour of the borderlands through time and space from the perspective of those who live there, reclaiming the history of the borderland through the power of storytelling.

Mentor: Aimee Villareal

Room 308 | 9:00 am - 10:30 am

The Soulful Sessions podcast series embarks on a journey to dissect the intricate relationship between spirituality and health/wellness. Through four episodes, each dedicated to distinct concepts within this overarching theme, the project aims to foster a comprehensive understanding of these intertwined realms. The primary objectives encompass engaging newcomers, deepening understanding, challenging the informed, and promoting awareness of the holistic nature of well-being. Against the backdrop of a post-pandemic society grappling with preventable diseases and healthcare system challenges, The Soulful Sessions seeks to provide alternative perspectives that transcend conventional approaches. By leveraging diverse perspectives and reaching a broad audience, the project endeavors to stimulate awareness, encourage personal growth, and provoke critical reflections on individual well-being. This endeavor holds significant promise in contributing to the broader discourse on spirituality and health, paving the way for a more integrated understanding of human wellness.

Mentor: Jordan Morille

Room 305 |3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Many fields have begun shifting towards carbon neutrality and carbon sequestering practices in order to curb the negative effects of emissions associated with current practices, however pollution is not the only issue to consider. Ideally, in the near future there will be a shift towards goldilocks housing. Low rise apartments or condos that are built with the ecologically informed needs of the community in mind, that are able to efficiently use solar energy, house multiple families in a much smaller footprint than traditional single-family housing, able to be constructed from timber or recycled materials, and densely populated enough to be serviced by public transportation. The implications of this style of housing are wide ranging and would lead to many benefits, from tighter knit communities to restoration of ecosystems, sequestering carbon, and decreased reliance on cars. As we move towards more ecologically informed practices it is important to reflect on our orientation to our environment, our motivations for this change, and the psychological, and philosophical implications that such a change might have on our society. The purpose of this essay is to analyze and discuss different approaches to ecologically informed architecture in modern society, and to discuss the philosophical and psychological implications associated with a shift towards sustainable living by answering two main questions. What could the manifestation of ecologically informed housing look like in modern society? And what are the potential philosophical and psychological implications of this shift toward ecologically informed architecture?

Mentor: Justin Williams

Panel Chair: Dr. Robert Mclean, Department of Biology

Peyton Abdelbaki - TRACKING SYMBIONT UPTAKE RATES AND IMMUNITY IN A MODEL ANEMONE EXAIPTASIA DIAPHANA

Regan Daly - ASSESSING DETECTION LIMIT OF CUPRIAVIDUS METALLIDURANS PROBE FOR SPECIES IDENTIFICATION IN MIXED CULTURE USING QPCR AND DPCR.

Royce Helfin - EXPLORATION OF MYCOREMEDIATION CANDIDATE SCREENING: BISMUTH TOLERANCE AND UPTAKE BY NATIVE FUNGI

Linda Okoye - DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW METHOD FOR PURIFICATION AND RAPID ANALYSIS OF CIRCULAR PLASMID DNAS FROM YEAST CELLS

Panel Chair: Dr. Carmen Westerberg, Department of Psychology

James Edge - A STUDY OF DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS IN THE WESTERN WORLD

Kelsey Lynn Randall - ARE HUMANS INHERENTLY NEGATIVE NANCYS?

Shreya Vijay - UNVEILING THE MEMORY MASTERY BLUEPRINT: AN INVESTIGATION ON THE IMPACT OF MEMORY RETENTION

Panel Chair: Dr. Carrie Jo Bucklin, Department of Biology

Aaron Emerich - ANALYZING HOW STUDENTS LEARN SUBJECTS SUCH AS DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS

Julie Price - DIFFERENCES IN STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES AND ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS TOWARD SCIENCE BETWEEN SHORT AND LONG-TERM SEMESTERS

Kaitlyn Arianna Warren - PREPARING CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE MIDDLE-SCHOOL STEM EDUCATORS: AN EXAMINATION OF UNDERGRADUATE COURSE SYLLABI

Room 310 | 9:00am - 10:30am

Panel Chair: Dr. Allison Robinson, Department of History

Makayla Rose Buescher - MOTHERHOOD AND MANIA: A HISTORICAL EXPLORATION OF POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION IN AMERICA

Alia Callum - THE VALUE OF SUPPORT: THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL SUPPORT ON CHILD SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN UNMARRIED MOTHER HOUSEHOLDS

Faith Holliman - LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION: EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RURAL TEXAS COUNTIES AND MATERNAL OUTCOMES

Ana Mendizabel - MADE IN MACHISMO: DISCOVERING THE ROLE OF GENDER IN MIGRATION PATTERNS

Room 305 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

With the growing cost of higher education, students opt to take courses over the summer rather than within the traditional academic year (TAY) (i.e., fall & spring semester). Studies have reported differences in student performance, satisfaction, and motivation performance based on class formats (semester length & intensity) (Reece, 2017). Other studies have compared student performance between quarters and semesters in a non-major course and found that student performance increased (Gibbens et al., 2015). The goal of this proposal is to compare the impacts of a microbiology course taught across two different semester lengths on student performance and student’s attitudes and beliefs toward learning science. We collected responses on the Microbiology Concept Inventory (MCI) (Paustian et al., 2017) and Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) (modified from Barbera et al., 2008) from students enrolled in a microbiology course during both summer and spring semesters (all classes taught by the same instructor). We will analyze the assessments using either a Wilcox Signed Rank Test (MCI) or the scoring sheet provided by the CLASS website to compare results by semester type. We anticipate finding a difference in outcomes and attitudes based on semester enrolled. Our findings will be of interest to individuals who are interested in optimizing their experiences in college.

Mentor: Carrie Jo Bucklin

Panel Chair: Jordan Morille, Honors College

Lyza Mora - EXPLORING THE NEXUS OF SPIRITUALITY AND WELL-BEING: THE SOULFUL SESSIONS PODCAST SERIES

Marina Armendariz - DAISY AND BO: A FOREST BIG AND SMALL

Leslie Marie Hill-King - TUTU TUESDAY! : A CHILDREN’S CARTOON DIVING INTO REPRESENTATION

Randi Nacole Carey  - BRAIN MATTERS: A MENTAL HEALTH WORKBOOK

Panel Chair: Dr. Jennifer Clegg, Department of Psychology

Brenna Gibbons - THE IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMALS

Lyla Grace Keizer - CAROTENOIDS: THE COLORFUL MOOD BOOSTER IN YOUR KITCHEN

Easley Smith - HOW ART CAN HEAL: AN INTRODUCTION TO DRAMA THERAPY

Room 308 | 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

In this project, I am delving into the utilization of stage combat as a means of storytelling in its own right. Fights emerge when verbal communication falls short, and the dynamics within a fight serve as a mode of expression that transcends words—it delves into the realm of emotions, intellect, and occasionally, brutality. My endeavor involves writing, directing, choreographing, and starring in my own short film, which revolves around a fight and the narrative encapsulated within it. Each move within a fight carries a purpose, whether it's to inflict harm, evade, incapacitate, escape, deceive, or convey a multitude of other emotions and intentions. I've taken on this project to expand my expertise and proficiency in stage combat, both as an instructor and a choreographer, while enhancing my capacity for creative expression. Through my experiences as a student and a teaching assistant in stage combat, I've not only learned how to convey stories through this medium but also how to impart this form of storytelling to others. My objective with this project is to assess my growth as a choreographer and actor, while encapsulating a compelling narrative within the confines of a fight scene.

Mentor: Tobie Minor

Room 308 | 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

"The Gospel According to Siri" presents a surrealistic vision of a distant dystopian future where artificial intelligence (AI) has largely supplanted human creativity in the realm of art. Within this narrative, we follow August and Emiliyae, the last remaining human actors, as they prepare for an AI-generated musical adaptation of the Adam and Eve story. As they delve into their roles, chaos ensues when a sinister plot emerges, threatening both the future of art and humanity itself. This innovative script not only explores the intricate dynamics between human creativity and AI but also actively collaborates with AI technology to craft certain parts of the narrative. Through this project, we aim to create a compelling and thought-provoking theatrical experience that serves as an experiment on the coexistence of human and computer-generated creativity. By intertwining AI technology with human storytelling, we seek to delve into fundamental questions about humanity, art, and the convergence of technology and creativity.

Mentor: Jackson Perrin

Room 408 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Emotional memory is remembering an event, a situation, or a person can evoke excitement, anger or grief. Studies have found that individuals are more likely to remember photos or videos that create a negative emotion compared to neutral and positive emotions. SONA participants from Texas State University watched positive, neutral and negative-valanced news clips and be asked to report as many details as they could. We hypothesized that individuals will remember more emotional details and less contextual details from negative valanced news clips.

Mentor: Carmen Westerberg

Room 306 |3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

An injury to the A2 pulley is the most commonly sustained injury among all climbers, especially in recreational indoor boulderers who repetitively perform strenuous movement with limited safety equipment. The A2 pulley is a ligament in the fingers that supports tendons which allow for finger flexion. Within the climbing community, but across other intense and injury-prone sports as well, various warm-up methods have been suggested as a preventative measure against injury. Although this injury is prevalent, many climbers forgo a proper warm-up and instead begin their climbing session by climbing challenging routes that put them at greater risk of injury. The objective of this study is to determine rock climber awareness of the A2 pulley injury and begin to understand if warm-up or other safety practices intended to reduce finger injury risk are regularly performed by rock climbers in commercial climbing gyms. To explore this, a survey was circulated to climbing gyms across Texas that focused on climbing experience, injury history, awareness, and preventative strategies. Data collection is ongoing and will be followed by statistical analyses. Currently, the survey has received over 80 responses. The outcomes of this study may be used to spread awareness of the A2 pulley injury, encourage climbers to include regular warm-ups in their climbing routine, and contribute to the growing body of scientific literature on the climbing community.

Mentor: Anthony Deringer

Room 310 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

The understanding of alkaloids and the physiological actions they exhibit in organisms has been of relevance when applied medicinally to treat various disorders including inflammation, cancer, diabetes, etc. Daffodils produce hundreds of different alkaloids that can be found in the flower’s petals, stem, leaves, and bulb. Daffodil bulbs produce an alkaloid called Narciclasine. Narciclasine is an alkaloid that exhibits anti-cancer actions, more specifically in brain cancer, Astrocytomas. The anti-cancer properties of the Narcissus flower were acknowledged thousands of years ago by Hippokrates of Kos (B.C. 460-370), when he was using narciclasine in the form of narcissus oil to treat uterine tumors. The use of narciclasine as folk medicine has been traced back to thousands of years ago by different geographical regions and ethnic cultures like the shores of Greece, Eastern Asia, North Africa, and more. There is still more to learn about the most efficient methods of extracting and isolating Narciclasine. Utilizing soxhlet extraction alongside chromatographic techniques like thin-layer chromatography and column chromatography, we discovered that chromatography is the methodical approach to extracting and isolating Narciclasine because it allows for clear separation and isolation of compounds in complex solutions. Here, we propose a structured and developed framework of the most efficient way to extract and isolate narciclasine. This study provides a general understanding of the evolution of natural product chemistry.

Mentor: Alexander Kornienko

Room 306 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

Throughout the last two decades, the conversation around genocide and the nature of prolonged policies of death has become more developed. With expanding access to information and an increase in global visibility, the ways in which governments and occupying powers place chokeholds on specific populations have been documented. By looking at primary documents from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the United Nations Development Program, and the International Court of Justice, this article assesses the period of Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip through the 1997 definition of “genocide by attrition” and how that relates to the strategic and continued violence against vital infrastructure through 2005 after the Israeli Disengagement from Gaza, to October 7th, 2023, the first day of the fifth Israeli-Palestinian war. 

Mentor: Elizabeth Bishop

Room 310 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

Crime Pattern Mapping examines the relationship between spatial boundaries and criminal opportunities to understand crime variability. The “edge-effect” examines how low-criminal areas are influenced by crimes from high-criminal areas. Signed spatiotemporal networks are constructed to model crime patterns across the United States. These networks are constructed to measure the trends of a crime type (e.g., homicide, rape, robbery, etc.) between state adjacency and yearly crime rates trending positive (+) and negative (-). We apply a discrete balance-theoretic cluster model to determine and rank the impacts of crime for, and between, each U.S. State from 2012 – 2022. New metrics are introduced to improve data interpretability by separately quantifying the relative strength of each shared State border and identifying the weakest and strongest data predictors for crime. These new metrics are then correlated to various socio-demographic factors to from the U.S. Census to identify any additional trends.

Mentor: Lucas Rusnak

Room 306 |3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

The goal of this project is to create a biomechanical analysis of an athletic population during a running 3- Minute All Out Test (3MT). The 3MT is a widely used maximal test to determine a participant’s critical power, which reflects how long someone can exercise at a certain level of intensity. Knowing an individual’s critical power is important for studies looking to improve or evaluate exercise performance and research groups building profiles on participants. Yet despite the repeated use of this test, to this researcher’s knowledge there has not been an analysis of changes in biomechanics during the test itself. This is likely because the ending numbers of a 3MT are the ones used in calculating critical power. Since this test is used by professionals in multiple settings, being able to compare the data across studies could eventually be valuable. My hope is that by analyzing how the biomechanics of different populations change during the test itself we could identify trends that might eventually help with injury recovery or high-level performance improvements. To achieve that goal, this research is first doing a full analysis of middle-distance Division I Collegiate runners when they performed a running 3MT as an athletic control group. 

Mentor: John Farrell

Panel Chair: Dr. Lucas Rusnak, Department of Mathematics

Faye Castro - EVALUATING THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF PROOF-ASSISTING SOFTWARE ON PROBLEM SOLVING SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Jen Lee Heroman - ASSESSING THE TRIPLE BURDEN: AN ANALYSIS OF THE INTERPLAY OF SKIN CANCER RATES, MEDICARE EXPENDITURES, AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Axel Sanchez Moreno - SPATIOTEMPORAL CRIME MODELING VIA SIGNED BALANCE THEORY

Room 306 |9:00 am - 10:30 am

Drama therapy is a form of art therapy that often goes overlooked and underutilized simply because it is not widely known or understood. The implementation of drama therapy is defined as “the intentional use of drama and/or theater processes to achieve therapeutic goals,” (NADTA).practice, while influential, often goes unnoticed. One reason for this may be a lack of accessible information about the practice. Current academic writings about drama therapy are lengthy, often archaic, and not easily accessible for the average person. This project meets this issue head on with the creation of a simple, informal video essay on drama therapy, its implementations, and how it is currently functioning as a source of catharsis for many who experience it. This video essay also connects viewers to the topic of drama therapy and how it can make a difference in their lives. As part of the video, I will also be addressing one big misconception about drama therapy: the idea that drama means performance. The idea of performance sounds terrifying to most people. I will combat this misconception by explaining that Drama therapy is about achieving catharsis through theatrical means, not performance alone, and at its core is about the journey to bettering a person's mental health. To do this, I will define drama therapy in understandable terms, relate the practice to potential viewers, support the practice with evidence from research studies, and give a call to action just through understanding. Ultimately, the goal of this video essay is to entertain at the forefront and educate throughout. The first step to expanding drama therapy and its efforts to heal is understanding, and that is what this project aims to achieve. 

Mentor: Jennifer Marie Clegg

Room 408 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Teen dramas are a particular television genre defined by a focus on adolescent characters and issues with a primarily younger audience. This is a popular genre increasingly gaining viewership and status in modern pop culture. Despite this prominence, there is little to no academic research addressing this genre. This research project seeks to address critical shortcomings in the field, specifically in how this genre sexualizes adolescent female characters. Data was gathered from the most popular shows of the 2010s including Pretty Little Liars, Riverdale, Gossip Girl and Euphoria. Specifically I focused on scenes and character arcs in which characters either lose their virginities, the first time they have a sexual experience with another person, or experiencing sexual assualt, when one individual initiates sexual contact without the other individual's consent. Once examples were collected, they were analyzed with film analysis techniques like mise en scene to study how showrunners sexualized their characters. From this I studied potential ramifications of these decisions using outside sources from academia and popular culture. Research is ongoing, but current study shows that these shows sexualize their underage characters in extreme ways that could have significant impact on audience members who are often underage themselves.

Mentor: Rebecca Bell-Metereau

Room 408 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

This research project examines the relationship between the media consumption and murder. For purposes of this project, school shootings and serial murder will be focused on. Research will be conducted by pulling information from previous studies, articles, and dissertations, as well as a survey among college students at Texas State University. The research done through analysis of previous findings and the survey will shed light on how the relationship between these types of crimes and the media has an impact on the public. Additionally, this research will help to reveal the issues with this relationship and how we can prevent other issues such as copycat crimes.

Mentor: H. Jaymi Elsass

Room 408 |9:00 am - 10:30 am

For this project, we will be analyzing data taken from the Love in the Time of COVID study (Balzarini et al., 2023) to look at how need fulfillment within a romantic relationship experiencing pandemic-related stress effects the relationship quality, individual life satisfaction, and individual anxiety levels. We will also look at cohabitation during the pandemic and how quarantining with or without a partner changed these outcome variables. Based on previous research, we have made several predictions for our data analysis: 1) Stress is expected to harm relationship quality and life satisfaction and is also expected to worsen the frequency and severity of anxiety. 2) Need fulfillment will protect the relational and interpersonal outcomes from the effects of stress. 3) We anticipate that relatedness, autonomy, and competence (the three components of need fulfillment) will moderate the negative impact of stress on relationship quality, specifically that relatedness will have the largest protective effect. 4) We hypothesize that meeting the three needs will protect an individual's life satisfaction from the harmful effect of stress, with competence and autonomy having a more significant impact. 5) Finally, we predict that fulfilling needs will moderate the impact of stress on an individuals' level of anxiety, such that higher fulfillment of needs will protect an individual from experiencing an increase in frequency and severity of anxiety during stress.

Mentor: Rhonda Balzarini

Room 408 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

This study investigates the impact of In Clinic Genetic Testing (ICGT) and At Home Genetic Testing (AHGT) on individuals' negative emotions, uncertainties, privacy concerns in “Feelings About genomiC Testing Results” (FACToR), as well as “Perceptions of Uncertainties in Genome Sequencing Results” (PUGS). This study also draws on the Uncertainty Management Theory (UMT) to strengthen the hypothesis. The research problem addresses the need to understand how different testing conditions influence these psychological responses.  Using a quantitative approach, the study conducted a survey using questions from both FACToR and PUGS. The hypothesis for this study is that participants receiving ICGT may experience fewer negative emotions and uncertainties, lower privacy concerns, and may perceive fewer uncertainties in their genome sequencing results, compared to those who completed AHGT. These results reflect the differences in professional guidance and support between the two testing methods. The findings align with UMT, which posits that individuals seek information to reduce uncertainty and manage their emotions, highlighting the relevance of professional support in genetic testing. The findings from this study can contribute to our understanding of the psychological and emotional impact of different genetic testing methods, with implications for healthcare providers and policymakers. The results highlight the importance of considering the testing method and supporting mechanisms in place when designing genetic testing programs to optimize emotional outcomes for individuals.

Mentor: Manusheela Pokharel

Panel Chair: Dr. John Farrell, Department of Health and Human Performance

Kayla Ellorimo - OPTIMIZING PERFORMANCE”: AN ANALYSIS OF TRAINING INTENSITY DISTRIBUTION IN COLLEGIATE MIDDLE DISTANCE RUNNERS

Xi Rhodes - ROCK CLIMBER AWARENESS OF THE A2 PULLEY INJURY AND ASSOCIATED SAFETY PRACTICES IN RECREATIONAL INDOOR BOULDERING GYMS

Elisa Schwitzgebel - BIOMECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF RUNNING 3-MINUTE ALL-OUT TEST

Panel Chair: Dr. Erina Duganne, School of Art and Desgin

Samantha Hudd - REVIVING THE RENAISSANCE: EXPLORING COUNTER CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS IN RENAISSANCE PAINTINGS AND RENAISSANCE FAIRE SUBCULTURES

Norma Bickmore - DECOLONIZING CHICANA IDENTITY: ALMA LOPEZ'S ICONOGRAPHIC REBELLION

Sarah Grace Carter - LUCY ATKINSON’S NOTEBOOKS 1915/16 – AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY IN HISTORICAL HAND-SEWING

Panel Chair: Dr. Kelly Woytek, Department of Biology

Taylor Beckford - INVESTIGATING THE DIFFERENTIATION-INDUCING ACTIVITY OF ALL-TRANS-RETINOIC ACID ON NEUROBLASTOMA CELLS.

Sophia Emmanuelle Lee -  A COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF THE SPIKE PROTEIN OF HUMAN CORONAVIRUSES: HOW THE SARS-COV-2 SPIKE PROTEIN CONTRIBUTED TO THE RAPID SPREAD OF COVID-19

Camryn Faye Mikosh - AN IMPROVED ASSAY FOR SIMULTANEOUS MEASUREMENT OF DNA DOUBLE-STRAND BREAK REPAIR BY TWO PATHWAYS

Kennedy Mae Richelieu - THE EXTRACTION AND ISOLATION OF THE CANCER INHIBITING ALKALOID: NARCICLASINE

Panel Chair: Dr. Peter Tschirhart, Honors College

Caitlyn Rose DeCorte - FROSTY RELATIONS IN THE COLD WAR: AMERICAN NEWSPAPER CARTOONS OF THE USSR AND CHINA, 1945- 1965

Emily Havard - THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAMILY STRUCTURE VARIATIONS AND POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION OF CHILDREN

Jamie Dayne Sackett - SLOW DEATH IN THE 21ST CENTURY: GENOCIDE BY ATTRITION IN THE GAZA STRIP

Panel Chair: Jordan Morille, Honors College

Fallon Sylvia Goldsmith - BEHIND THE SCREEN: AN ACTOR’S JOURNEY WITH SOCIAL MEDIA 

Elena Heine - MY SUMMER WITH CHARLES LA FONDEU: A ONE WOMAN SHOW

Hannah Elena Matthews - DIG A LITTLE DEEPER: ANALYZING MUSIC IN MEDIA THROUGH PODCASTING

Panel Chair: Dr. Justin Williams, Department of Philosophy

Manny Hernandez - CAMINANDO EN LA VICTORIA; EXAMINING THE USES AND MEANINGS OF GREEN SPACE IN A LATIN NEIGHBORHOOD IN SAN MARCOS, TEXAS

Ryan Morgan Moynihan - PHILOSOPHICAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ECOLOGICALLY INFORMED ARCHITECTURE

Aidan Urbiola - THE EFFECTS OF COMPOST AMENDMENTS ON THE HYDROLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF CENTRAL TEXAS SOIL

Room 305 |3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Even when applied to relatively small-scale practices, such as public parks or home gardens, compost can have a substantial effect on flood prevention and water conservation due to its ability to improve the water retention of soil (Dolit et al., 2022). However, these efforts are becoming more arduous as climate change tightens its grip on regions like Texas that can be subject to both destructive floods and harsh droughts. This study analyzes the effects of compost amendments on the hydrological properties (including water quality, water retention, and runoff volume) of heavy clay soil and Hill Country soil when sodded with bermudagrass, sloped, and placed in trays. Six trays of soil, each 6’x4’x1’, were built. Three were filled with heavy clay soil and the other three were filled with Hill Country soil. Compost was mixed in with each type of soil (except in the two control trays) and the soil was sodded with bermudagrass. The soil in each tray had a slope of 4%. The trays were set up this way to simulate an area of a residential lawn or park. The trays were regularly irrigated and water quality, water retention, and runoff volume were measured after each irrigation day. We predict that the trays with heavy clay soil and compost will have greater water retention, less runoff volume, and better water quality than the control trays. Furthermore, we predict that the trays with Hill Country soil and compost would show even greater water retention, lesser runoff volume, and better water quality than the trays with black clay soil and compost.

Mentor: Tina Marie Cade and Pratheesh Sudhakaran

Room 305 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

This paper examines the relationship between the duration of residence in the United States and the likelihood of obesity among Hispanic immigrants, specifically among the 1st and 2nd generations. A combination of personal and environmental/contextual factors influence this phenomenon. Personal psychological factors such as stress and decisions in dietary habits play a significant role. Immigrants often consume what is available and adopt a Western -style diet. Environmental factors such as limited access to healthy foods and a lack of physical activity options in low-income neighborhoods can impede immigrants' ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, in Hispanic cultural norms, there are communal gatherings revolving around food, which can influence an individual’s perspective on diet. In the same vein, immigrants often rely on their communities for health information, but this may be lacking. The community is vital in disseminating health information and promoting eating behaviors. However, I address a need for more culturally tailored interventions that target the specific challenges faced by immigrant populations. Possible solutions to reducing the risk of obesity among immigrants include increasing access to affordable healthy foods, promoting physical activity through community programs, and providing culturally sensitive health education. By recognizing the internal and external factors that contribute to obesity among immigrants, we can work towards creating healthier communities for all.

Mentor: Roque Mendez

Room 408 |10:30 am - 12:00 pm

This research paper outlines a streamlined two-day cognitive memory study relating to the recollection of lyrics. Participants (N<200) were tasked with listening, rating, and identifying information about the lyrics shown on the screen that lasted upwards of 45 minutes on the first day. Within 24 hours, they would return to assess the level of memory retention on the contents of the first experiment. The test revolved around the participants’ interaction in relation to musical stimuli while responding to various tasks–such as identifying and defining key aspects of the presented lyrics which may include whether the voice was male or female, if the lyrics were sung, spoken, completely new, etc. Afterwards, essential paperwork was confirmed to be filled out which included a consent form that was read through and signed on the first day, and a survey and post-experiment questionnaire done on the second day. The experiment focuses on finding the intricate relationship between cognitive learning strategies as well as their effects on memory retention and their applicability within educational environments. The investigation utilizes a mixed-method approach in which memory recall is tested with quantitative assessments. Initial findings note that there is a sizable correlation between certain cognitive strategies–active recall, chunking, mind mapping, etc.–and an increase in memory retention. By properly investigating the various cognitive styles and their influence on memory, this study can provide insights into the nature of cognitive learning as well as theoretical and practical insights. 

Mentor: Rebecca Deason

Room 305 |12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

As the American population continues to grow, the number of diverse cultures in the public school system has also continued to swell. However, the teachers of these public schools have expressed that they are having trouble with this increase in diversity and do not feel prepared to teach a class of diverse students (Miller-Dyce & Owusu-Ansah, 2016). This is especially seen in STEM-related classes where teachers are not primed to teach diverse students (Fuller et al., 2021). This shows that there is a concern about how preservice teachers are being trained in their undergraduate years. The aim of the present study is to assess how undergraduate preservice teachers are being trained in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by looking into their course syllabi. Syllabi is analyzed for the courses that an undergraduate student who majors in Middle School Education with a focus on math, science, and a math/science composite must take and ascertain how DEI is included throughout the course. 

Mentor: Cindy Faith Miller

Room 305 |2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

The Wellness Mess Club (WMC) will be a blog and online community centered around wellness created to showcase minority women. The WMC will bring a fresh and fun perspective of self-care and growth for young women of color, and be a place for them to learn, share, network, and be entertained. Within this age of social media, and aesthetics we tend to consume other people’s lives a lot. What comes with this is an unhealthy level of comparison, especially from teenage girls and women in their twenties. Trends like the “clean girl” and the “pilates princess” can be toxic and have caused young women to feel as though they are lacking in areas of their lives. Whether working out consistently or having clear skin, many things in the wellness space are causing harm. There is also a lack of diversity in the wellness industry. Brands like Poosh and Goop cater more towards upper-class white women, which is not something every woman can relate to. I want to represent what it’s like to be a regular girl in her early twenties and develop a community that embraces the struggles of life while encouraging growth. This brand will teach young women to love the good parts of themselves and understand the importance of self-enrichment. The purpose of creating a platform like The Wellness Mess Club is to change the way we view wellness. Similar to how Rihanna changed the beauty industry by creating a wide variety of foundation shades, and how Dove brought attention to the body positivity movement. The Wellness Mess Club will remind young women of color that there is more to life than being perfect. They should enjoy their lives the way they want.

Mentor: Gene Brenek

Panel Chair: Jordan Morille, Honors College

Sydney Cooper - ADULTING CHILDREN: A TELEVISION SERIES ON GROWING UP, GETTING OUT, AND COMING RIGHT BACK

Madeline Helen Miller - MUSE 

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