On April 2, College of Arts and Sciences undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students presented their original scholarly and creative works at the 26th Annual Robyn Rafferty Mathias Student Research Conference.  

This year’s program was particularly poignant because Robyn Rafferty Mathias passed away several days before this year’s conference. Mathias, an AU alumna and trustee, generously supported faculty and student research in the College of Arts and Sciences, including the annual conference, which was named in her honor.  

“Robyn never missed this research conference, and sat in on each session and spoke with each student who presented a poster. She was an active and engaged participant, absorbed in the work of our students and faculty. Furthermore, she was a lovely, gracious, and generous woman, and our students and university are forever in her debt,” says Peter Starr, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

The 2016 winners are as follows:  

Best Oral Presentation in the Humanities by a Graduate Student

Alexandra Vranas (MA Spanish and Latin American studies) 
Tomemos la Universidad: Students, Social Change, and the Making of a Popular Myth in Chile 

Best Oral Presentation in the Humanities by an Undergraduate

Eliana Peck (BA philosophy)
Individuals’ Duty to Apologize for Complicity in Structural Wrong  

Best Oral Presentation in the Arts by a Graduate Student

Carolyn Supinka (MA arts management)
The Art of Alterative: Understanding the Relationships between Artists, Space, and Community in Sites of Adaptive Reuse in the United States  

Best Oral Presentation in the Arts by an Undergraduate Student (shared prize)

Genevieve Stegner-Freitag (BA art history)
Engaging Politics: Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Sala dei Nove frescoes and the Decline of Siena 

Katherine Stephenson (BA art history)
Origins of the Image of God 

Best Oral Presentation in the Social Sciences by a Graduate Student

Laura Gibson (PhD history)
Mad Women: How Feminism Changed Women in Adverting 

Best Oral Presentation in the Social Sciences by an Undergraduate Student

Bryna Kramer (undeclared)
Perception of Race on Social Media: A Case Study Through Sports 

Best Performance by an Undergraduate Student

Emmett Patterson (BA women’s, gender, and sexuality studies)
“The Stretcher Came to a Screeching Halt”: Transgender Storytelling as Paramedical Health Education 

Best Oral Presentation in the Natural Sciences by a Graduate Student

Johnathon Cybulski (MS environmental science)
Push-Core Sampling in Micronesia: Using Paleocological Data to Reconstruct Guam’s Coral Reef Community 

Best Oral Presentation in the Natural Sciences by an Undergraduate Student

Jessica Dawson (BS biology)
Therapeutics and Prevention of Dengue Fever 

Best Poster Presentation in the Natural Sciences by an Undergraduate Student

Caitlyn Barrett (BS neuroscience)
The Effects of Cerebellar Neuromodulation on Neural Activation in the Language Networks 

Best Poster Presentation in the Physical Sciences by a Graduate Student

Matthew LeFauve (MS biology)
Impacts of Heavy Metals on Vision and Behavior in Zebrafish (Danio rerio) 

Best Poster Presentation in the Physical Sciences by an Undergraduate Student

Carly LaRoche (PhD behavior, cognition, and neuroscience)
The Role of Ethanol Pre-exposure and Gender Differences in Ethanol-induced Conditioned Place Preference in Zebrafish 

Best Poster Presentation in the Social Sciences by an Undergraduate Student

Diane Kim (MS health promotion management)
Traumatic Loss: Adverse Childhood Experiences, Parental Risk Factors, and Mental Health Diagnosis