2023 Mathias Student Research Conference

This year, the College of Arts and Sciences hosted its largest-ever Mathias Student Research Conference, with more than 300 participants including students, presenters, judges, moderators, and staff. In all, the conference featured more than 120 panel and poster competitions.
This was the 33rd annual conference, which is funded in part by a generous grant from the late Robyn Rafferty Mathias, AU trustee and alumna. It was also the first year in which the conference was held in person on AU’s campus, after several years of virtual conferences.
With so many participants, panels, and poster competitions, competition was fierce. Read on to learn about the well-deserving winners:
Graduate Student Winners

Christine Bresnahan
A Spatial Thinking Intervention for Young Adults with Dyslexia
Natural Sciences Final Work

Milton Garcia
PocketLegal, Beta 3: Exploring Open-Access API Content & Features to Create a Legal Literacy Dashboard, a rapid deployed Web Application on Heroku.
Physical Sciences Poster

Lauren Huber
Revolutionary Expectations: An Analysis of the Women at Valley Forge Encampment During the American Revolution
Graduate Arts & Humanities Poster

Ben Klosky
Police Apprenticeships: Case Study
Graduate Social Sciences Workshop

Nathan Moore
You Have the Right to Revolt: Anti-Capitalism and Anglo-American Trial Culture
Graduate Arts & Humanities Workshop

Jazelle Pilato
The Impact of SES in Visuospatial Thinking: Neural Correlates and the Impact on Academic Outcomes
Graduate Natural Sciences Poster

Harmain Rafi
SLEAP: Video Analysis for Understanding Animal Behavior
Graduate Natural Sciences Workshop

Katherine Ryan
The Miccosukee Tribe's Path to Federal Recognition
Graduate Arts & Humanities Workshop

Sydney Sachs
Music as a Memory Enhancer: A Music Therapy Web Application for Dementia Patients
Graduate Physical Sciences Workshop

Madeline Tinsley
Appealing to Class Audiences and Mass Audiences: The Cultural Perception of Shakespeare in Hollywood from 1929 to 1953
Graduate Arts & Humanities Final Work

Samantha White
Learning to Choose: dynamic processes underlie decision making in rat medial frontal cortex
Graduate Natural Sciences Poster

Joyce Wong
Validation of a Developmentally Sensitive Measure of Intolerance of Uncertainty in Children: Youth Intolerance of Uncertainty – Parent Report
Graduate Social Sciences Poster
Undergraduate Winners

James Alvarez
"Permeable Road Infrastructure Proposal in the Washington, DC, Navy Yard Area"
Natural Sciences Workshop

Negar Ghasem (Nina) Ardabili
The Effects of Cocaine, on Hippocampal Dependent Memory in a Mouse Model
Undergraduate Physical Sciences Final Work

Sydney Cerveny
Chronic Morphine Impairs Interoceptive Control: Implications for Dysregulated Drug Intake
Undergraduate Natural Sciences Poster

Jake Coasby
Permeable Road Infrastructure Proposal in the Washington, DC, Navy Yard Area
Undergraduate Natural Sciences Workshop

Lia Dolive
Iron Handling in the Tumor Microenvironment
Undergraduate Physical Sciences Poster

TreVaughn Ellis
The Devil worm’s efficient mitochondria; Adaptation of H. Mephisto’s electron transport chain in extreme conditions
Undergraduate Natural Sciences Workshop

Rohin Ghosh
Perspectives of the LAYC Career Academy Students
Undergraduate Social Sciences Final Work

Grennon Gurney
Distribution and scaling of complexity in Conway's Game of Life, and connections to nonequilibrium dynamics
Undergraduate Physical Sciences Workshop

Alexia Hyde
The Effects of HIV (Change that to Cocaine), on Hippocampal Dependent Memory in a Mouse Model
Undergraduate Physical Sciences Final Work

Carly Johnson
Notes Towards a Theory of Ideological Online Boredom
Undergraduate Arts & Humanities Final Work

Alexandra Kauffman
Identification of Denervation Muscle Atrophy Markers in a Mouse Model of Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 3
Undergraduate Natural Sciences Final Work

Timothy Manugian
The Staying Power of the Klan: An Investigation of Groton, Massachusetts
Undergraduate Arts & Humanities Poster

Alan Martinez
Perspectives of the LAYC Career Academy Students
Undergraduate Social Sciences Final Work

Jordyn A. Pettiford
The Effects of HIV (Change that to Cocaine), on Hippocampal Dependent Memory in a Mouse Model
Undergraduate Physical Sciences Final Work

Emma Pilz
Trapped Rats do not Find Restraint Tubes Aversive
Undergraduate Social Sciences Poster

Eli Pine
Decreasing the Surplus Population: Anti-trans* Legislation as Capitalist Political Economy
Undergraduate Social Sciences Workshop

María Victoria Suárez Molina
Perspectives of the LAYC Career Academy Students
Undergraduate Social Sciences Final Work

Ethan Steere
Chronic Morphine Impairs Interoceptive Control: Implications for Dysregulated Drug Intake
Undergraduate Natural Sciences Poster

Ian Whitehouse
Gravitational Wave Detection with Novel Machine Learning Models
Undergraduate Physical Sciences Poster

Anushka Valsan
Chronic Morphine Impairs Interoceptive Control: Implications for Dysregulated Drug Intake
Undergraduate Natural Sciences Poster

Alex Zaky
Trans Grief and Identity Formation
Undergraduate Arts & Humanities Workshop