The 2018 Summit was held Friday, April 13 in Moody Music Hall. Students from all divisions of the College—the humanities and fine arts, the natural sciences and mathematics, and the social sciences—presented their research and creative works as posters and oral presentations.
Please see the URSCA program and abstracts (pdf) for more details.
Award Winners
Following is a list of winners from the 2018 Summit for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (URSCA).
Download list as a printable PDF.
Oral Presentations
Fine Arts and Humanities
1st Place (Dr. Laura Busenlehner Award)
Molly Buffington
Department of History
Faculty mentor: George McClure (History)
“A Faith that Sings: Lutheran Liturgy as a Theological Tool in the Reformation”
2nd Place
Alexia Acebo and Alexandra Mannings
Department of Theatre and Dance
Faculty mentor: Rebecca Salzer (Theatre and Dance)
“Mixed Reality”
3rd Place
Kyle Van Frank
Department of Theatre and Dance
Faculty mentor: Stacy Alley (Theatre and Dance)
“Kidnapped Culture: The Story of Tap Dancing in America”
Natural Sciences and Mathematics
1st Place (Dr. Laura Busenlehner Award)
Courtney Thompson
Department of Chemistry
Faculty mentor: Elizabeth Papish (Chemistry)
“Synthesis and Characterization of Transition Metal Complexes as Redox Mediators for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells”
2nd Place
Nathan Moniz
Department of Biological Sciences
Faculty mentors: Kim Caldwell (Biological Sciences), Guy Caldwell (Biological Sciences)
“Identifying the Intrinsic Modulators of Neuronal Resilience in C. elegans PD Model”
3rd Place
Pedram Maleknia
Department of Biological Sciences
Faculty mentors: Cheng-Yu Li (Biological Sciences), Ryan Early (Biological Sciences)
“Can Rivulus Fish See Through the Müller-Lyer Visual Illusion?”
Social Sciences
1st Place (Tie) (Dr. Laura Busenlehner Award)
John Denton
Department of Modern Languages and Classics
Faculty mentor: Bronwen Lichtenstein (Criminology and Criminal Justice)
Accept of Decline?: Deciding Factors in a Voluntary HIV Testing Program for Probationers and Parolees
1st Place (Tie) (Dr. Laura Busenlehner Award)
Kylie Hopkins
Department of Biological Sciences
Faculty mentor: Bronwen Lichtenstein (Criminology and Criminal Justice)
Is Divorce Fair?: The Gendered Dynamics of Property Disposition
Poster Presentations
Fine Arts and Humanities
1st Place (Dr. Laura Busenlehner Award)
Abigail Furman
Department of English
Faculty mentor: Dilin Liu (English)
“Great, Awesome, Terrific, and Fantastic: Analyzing the Lexical Semantic Change of a Set of Near Synonyms using Corpora”
2nd Place
Alexandra Vance
Department of Modern Languages and Classics
Faculty mentor: Bryan Koronkiewicz (Modern Languages and Classics)
“Pronouns in Code-Switching: Comparing Spanish-English and French-English”
3rd Place
Rachel Cano
New College
Faculty mentor: Marysia Galbraith (Anthropology)
“Where’s Your Dirty Laundry: An Ethnography of a Modern Day Watering Hole”
Natural Sciences and Mathematics
1st Place (Dr. Laura Busenlehner Award)
Clare Ols, Vanessa Marshall, Charles Pitsenberger
Department of Biological Sciences
Faculty mentor: Jeffrey Lozier (Biological Sciences)
“DNA Barcoding as a Tool to Assess Pollinator Diversity in a Fragmented Landscape”
2nd Place
Lauren Cook
Department of Biological Sciences
Faculty mentors: Kim Caldwell (Biological Sciences), Guy Caldwell (Biological Sciences)
“Gene-by-Environmental activation of DAF-7/ TGF-β signaling in response to exposure to anoxious stimulus in a C. elegans model of Parkinson’s Disease”
3rd Place
Blair Morrison
Department of Biological Sciences
Faculty mentor: Ryan Earley (Biological Sciences)
“Green Invaders: Life Stages of the European Green Crab (Carcinus maenas) in Southern Maine”
4th Place
Catherine Owens
Department of Chemistry
Faculty mentors: Silas Blackstock (Chemistry), Ariel Kelley (Chemistry)
“Magnetic Anisotropy of Nitrosoarenes”
Honorable Mentions
Tyler Morgan
Department of Chemistry
Faculty mentor: Silas Blackstock (Chemistry)
“Redox Switching of a Bis(Azobenzene)Amine”
Taylor Perkins
Department of Chemistry
Faculty mentor: Carolyn Cassady (Chemistry)
“Influencing Charge State Distribution of Biological Peptides in Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry Using Chromium (III) Nitrate”
Social Sciences
1st Place (Dr. Laura Busenlehner Award)
Alayna Watson
Department of Psychology
Faculty mentor: Ansley Gilpin (Psychology)
“The developmental relationship of inhibitory control and emotion regulation in preschoolers: A longitudinal study”
2nd Place
Abigail Kappelman
Department of Political Science
Faculty mentor: Jacqueline Morgan (Political Science)
“Cuba’s Response to Zika: How a Socialist Island Nation Avoided The Biggest Disease Outbreak of 2015
3rd Place
Millie Sartain, Anna Chan
Department of Communicative Disorders
Faculty mentors: Angela Barber (Communicative Disorders), Candace Cook (Communicative Disorders)
“What Parents Want: Examining Parental Preference of Intervention for Children with Autism”
4th Place
Tanner Mullenix, Anthony Fant
Departments of Psychology and Biological Sciences
Faculty mentors: Beverly Roskos (Psychology), Qichen Zhao (Psychology)
“Group Creativity and the Incubation Effect”
Honorable Mentions
Kirsten Williams
Department of Psychology
Faculty mentor: Joan Barth (Psychology)
“The Effect of Self-Efficacy on the Career Goals of College and Elementary-Age Students”
Brooke Boyles, Molly Jackson, Sophie Norgaard, Grace Shirah, Bailee Gist
Department of Communicative Disorders
Faculty mentor: Memorie Gosa (Communicative Disorders)
“Reliability and Validity of the IDDSI Flow Test as a Measure of Liquid Consistency”