Graduate Students

Carly Barnhardt, "Hiding in Plain Sight: Misfitting & the Uncanny in Laura Swanson’s Anti-Self-Portraits"

Advisor: Dr. Francesca Sawaya

Panel: Grad 4, Thursday, 10:45 AM, Tidewater

“Hiding in Plain Sight: Misfitting & the Uncanny in Laura Swanson’s Anti-Self-Portrait,” aims to place visual artist Laura Swanson's photography series Anti-Self-Portaits within a broader context of American art photography. While other scholars, including Kristin Lingrid, have discussed the relationship of Swanson’s work as a revision to disability portraiture, in particular the photographs of Diane Arbus, I consider Swanson’s work as part of a larger project of feminist avant-garde self-portraiture photography. I argue that Swanson uses the visual rhetoric of the uncanny to comment on the experience of “misfitting,” a term coined by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson in her essay “Misfits: A Feminist Materialist Disability Concept” (2011) to describe the ways in which “the environment does not sustain the shape and function of the body that enters it.” By placing her small body out of sight of the viewer, Swanson challenges photography’s “enfreakment” of the disabled body and exposes in the viewer a “desire to look longer at something or someone unconventional or unsettling, be it a faceless portrait or a small body.”  Moreover, in emphasizing the absence of her body through by substituting everyday household objects, Swanson produces a series of uncanny images which draw attention to the “misfit” of her environment to her short stature. 

Carly Barnhardt is an MA/PhD student in American Studies. Her interests include feminist disability studies, 21st and 20th century literature, photography and self-portraiture, and psychoanalysis. She recently defended her Master's thesis entitled "Subjecting the Unruly Body: Staring, Surveillance, and the Politics of (In)Visibility." 

Vania Blaiklock, "A Delicate Imbalance: Religious Charter Schools and the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses"

Advisor: Dr. Jamel K. Donnor

Panel: Grad 13, Friday, 9:15 AM, York Room

From 2017 to 2022, the Supreme Court strengthened its First Amendment Free Exercise jurisprudence by deciding that states can provide aid to religious educational institutions through general benefit programs. Six months after the Court’s most recent religious aid case, Carson v. Makin, Oklahoma’s Attorney General stated that he would no longer enforce the nonsectarian provision of the state’s public charter statute because it was unconstitutional under Carson and its progeny. This project examines the legal and policy questions presented by religious charter schools. I will argue that religious charters schools are legally unconstitutional under the Establishment clause of the First Amendment and that the Court’s religious aid jurisprudence does not apply because charter schools are public institutions directly funded by the government that do not include the private choice element present in Carson. Additionally, I will argue that even if Carson did apply, the Court should be hesitant to extend constitutionality to religious charter schools because such schools have a unique ability to protect discrimination in admissions and curriculum via the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment. Thus, this article concludes that religious charter schools, as the next frontier of the Court’s religious aid jurisprudence, will have serious implications for not only the Establishment Clause but also constitutional commitments to equality. 

Vania Blaiklock is fourth year American Studies Ph.D. Candidate at the College of William & Mary. Her research examines the intersections of race, education, and the law. She has previously published work on racial discrimination and religious schools. Vania is currently working on her dissertation which examines the actions and experiences of Black Americans’ quest for literacy as a right of citizenship in the 19th and 20th centuries as evidence for the creation of a 14th Amendment constitutional right to literacy.

Jay Jolles, "Edges of Sound, Edges of Self: Music as Technology of Surveillance" 

Advisor: Dr. Charles McGovern

Panel: Grad 12, Friday, 9:15 AM, James Room

Since its inception, Spotify has been a paradoxical engine of change in the music industry. Once thought the panacea for the industry’s access and cost problems, the platform has disappointingly doubled down on the structures that it initially sought to subvert. Rather than liberating art from market whims and pressures, the algorithmic assemblages that power Spotify have instead worked to finely tune interactive media in a way that both localizes and disperses information about user activity. While this has meant connecting people to particular times, spaces, sounds, and other individuals, it has also resulted in the proliferation of a/the user as a new kind of entity to be bought and sold. As our increasingly networked society continues to erode the perceived boundaries between person and platform, private and public, music and mere data, algorithms have become more than infrastructure for data. Rather, they continually work to engineer the finer aspects of contemporary culture, encompassing sounds, identities, and selves. Drawing on work in media theory, sound studies, and surveillance capitalism, I argue that through the development of Spotify, music has become a tool leveraged to reveal the ways in which the ubiquitous nature of networked platforms and listening have begun to intersect, commodifying not just art but the person who consumes it to an unprecedented degree.

Jay Jolles is a PhD candidate in American Studies at William and Mary. He is an interdisciplinary scholar with interests in a wide range of fields including 20th and 21st century literature and culture, critical theory, comparative media studies, and musicology. Jay’s scholarly work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Los Angeles Review of Books, U.S. Studies Online, and Comparative American Studies. He holds both a BA and an MA in English as well as an MS in Culture, Communication, and Media. 

Tijuana Reeve, "“We Are Not a Museum Piece”: Indigenous Survivance in the Video Game Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)"

Advisor: Dr. Michelle Lelièvre

Panel: Grad 4, Thursday, 10:45 AM, Tidewater

Indigenous peoples are frequently situated in the past, denied participation in the present. When their existence is acknowledged, conversations often stray into discourses of fragmentation, poverty, substance abuse, and blood quantum. This, however, is not what it means to be Indigenous and treating them as such relegates Native experiences into the cracks of history. In 2014, the CITC and E-Line Media released Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna). Created in the style of a 3D puzzle platformer, Never Alone follows Nuna and Fox as they try to save their village from a supernatural blizzard. More than an adventure game, the story imitates the tale of Kunuuksaayuka, a traditional Inupiat story, creating a framed narrative that demonstrates the importance of intergenerational wisdom and oral tradition. This project seeks to understand how through the creation of this video game, Indigenous communities challenge limited interpretations of Indigeneity, offering an alternative Native America that resituates Indigeneity firmly in the present. By curating this digital presence, Indigenous communities break from colonial lines of knowledge production in a manner that honors Indigenous ontologies while connecting to the present in meaningful ways. Never Alone not only elevates the visibility of Indigenous knowledges by building an Indigenous national body of discourse separate from Western literatures— as called for by Craig Womack— but also illustrates that the Inupuiat are capable of existing in the present and do continue to move forward as real life, present-day Natives. 

Tijuana Reeve is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in American Studies. Her research areas include Native American and Indigenous studies, literary studies, and reproductive justice. Her dissertation explores pregnancy loss, grief, and Indigenous modes of kinship.

Adrienne Resha, "Critical Color Theory"

Advisor: Dr. Arthur Knight

Panel: Grad 12, Friday, 9:15 AM, James Room

Race is popularly understood to be visual in US American culture. Despite the fact that race cannot be determined solely through physical features including but not limited to skin tone, it is represented by color words (such as white, Black, and brown) and in color in visual media (such as comics, television, and film). Combining color theory (the body of philosophical, scientific, and artistic thought about how color works) and critical race theory (the body of legal, political, and cultural thought about how race works), this paper argues for critical color theory. Critical color theory has three basic tenets: first, in visual media, race and races are products of social thought and relations and technology; second, visual media enable the racialization of marginalized ethnic and religious groups in different ways at different times; and third, no single character (in fiction) or person (in nonfiction) is wholly representative of the real world racial, ethnic, religious, or other identity-based group(s) they represent. To illustrate, critical color theory is applied in close, critical readings of comic books featuring different versions of the DC character Green Lantern, who has, at different times, been white, Black, and different shades of brown. In these comics, published between 1940 and now, race is a product of social discourse and shifting coloring and printing technologies, which affect and effect the racialization of minoritized groups (such as Arabs and Muslims) in response to real world events (like 9/11 and the Arab Spring).

Adrienne Resha is a recently defended Ph.D. in American Studies at William & Mary. Her research focuses on the representation and racialization of Arabs and Muslims in American popular media. Her dissertation is specifically about Arab and Muslim American superheroes in comic books and on screens. She holds a B.A. from Florida State University and an M.A. from the University of Virginia.

Nathaniel Sutherland, "Queering The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance:  Homosocial Desire and the Meaning of Masculinity"

Advisor: Dr. Charles McGovern

Panel: Grad 5, Thursday, 12:00 PM, York Room

This paper resituates the canonical American western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and James Stewart, bringing to light the film's unintentional but omnipresent queer subtext ; this subtext informs the film’s exploration of an American “crisis of masculinity” during the long 1950s from 1946 to 1964. Given the film’s overt preoccupation with mythmaking and symbolism, the complexity with which the filmmakers treat masculinity speaks to the difficulty the white American mainstream faced when attempting to pin down such a mutable concept. Beginning with a recapitulation of the debates surrounding this masculinity crisis both generally and within the context of the Hollywood western film, this paper will then examine the various structuralist dichotomies the film plays with to demonstrate the film’s position on the period’s shifting definition of masculinity away from traditional hardened stoicism and toward something broader and more inclusive of different perspectives. Drawing on Eve Sedgwick's understanding of homosociality, this paper will explore the ostensibly platonic relationship between John Wayne’s Tom Doniphon and James Stewart’s Ransom Stoddard in the wake of such queer double-protagonist films as Brokeback Mountain, not only adding the film to a queer canon but also using the film’s portrayal of Doniphon’s relationship with Stoddard as a window into broader conversations about masculinity then circulating in the zeitgeist by defining the mark of true masculinity as multitudinous and contradictory.

Nathaniel Sutherland is seeking a PhD in American Studies at the College of William & Mary. He earned an MA in English literature from the University of Virginia, where he wrote a thesis under Rita Felski about the epistemology of celebrity as filtered through the career of American songwriter Bob Dylan’s legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Nathaniel’s research explores the intersections between art and politics through the lenses of the postmodern American novel and existentialist phenomenology. Currently, his work centers on the relationships between Black-and Jewish-American identities in US fiction.

Julia Ashworth, "Shining Light on the Brown Grove Community: Social Media as a Mode of Promoting Solidarity in Protest"

Advisor: Dr. Andrea Wright

Panel: Grad 3, Thursday, 10:45 AM, York Room

As a result of a long history riddled with colonial narratives and anti-Black racism, corporate and state powers have continually silenced many of the marginalized communities that they serve. This research interrogates how solidarities are formed within communities as these external pressures more greatly emphasize internal division based on generational differences. My research centers on the small, historic Black community of Brown Grove located north of Richmond, Virginia, whose members had recently lost their battle to stop the construction of a large Wegmans distribution center. Drawing on theorists who study the spread of information online and the role it can play in promoting activism, this research juxtaposes the national stage with current events in Brown Grove. Some social scientific literature theorizes that successful protest is drawn from the teachings of the older generation. However, an anthropological lens emphasizes the role of younger generations in creating and maintaining successful protest as a result of social media use, in efforts to promote solidarities and change common community narratives. I conclude that despite the complexities present within online activism, Brown Grove’s protest movement has illustrated the power of social media in bringing people together and can set an example for grassroots activism worldwide.

Julia Ashworth is a one-year master's student in the Anthropology Department at William & Mary. Her research interests within the field of sociocultural anthropology include social organization, power relations, and community development. Her master's thesis addresses the formation of solidarities in grassroots activist movements, and in particular, the role of social media in helping to facilitate these solidarities in protest. She holds a B.A in anthropology from William and Mary. 

Caroline Donovan, "Documenting Patterns of Inequity and Harassment in Oceania Archaeology: an Analysis of Quantitative and Qualitative Research"

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Kahn

Panel: Grad 5, Thursday, 12:00 PM, York Room

My research examines ongoing issues of gender disparity in male-dominated academic professions like archaeology. Here, I further investigate results from my undergraduate honors thesis by expanding my dataset to include the lived experiences of archaeologists in the Pacific. My previous study proved that there is a significant gender disparity in archaeological publishing in Oceania. Between 2005-2020, male first authors significantly outnumbered female first authors in Pacific Island archaeology regional journals, international journals, and edited volumes. Out of 1,546 journal articles or edited volume chapters, only 457 articles/chapters (29.56%) were first authored by female archaeologists. My data also indicated that female archaeologists are more commonly pursuing employment outside of academia. For regional Pacific Island journal publications, 47% of male first authors have academic affiliations while only 20% of female first authors have academic affiliations. Similarly, for international journals, 54.8% of male first authors have academic employment affiliations while only 25.4% of female first authors have academic employment affiliations. My goal for my graduate thesis work is to interrogate the potential causes behind the publication and occupational affiliation trends I uncovered in my undergraduate research. To do so, I focus primarily on (1) author submission data for Pacific Island regional journals and international journals; and (2) survey and interview data related to themes of gender equity and harassment in Pacific Island archaeology. 

Caroline Donovan is a one-year M.A. student in Historical Archaeology at William & Mary.  Caroline is expanding her undergraduate work on publication patterns and occupational trends in Oceania archaeology to include themes of sexual harassment and gender inequity.  Caroline’s research interests include gender, gender equity in academia and academic publishing, sexual harassment in fieldwork, and the formation of professional identity and disciplinary culture.

Tomos Evans, "Out of the Dig Site, into the Archive: Reconstructing the Past in Benin City using the Unpublished Records of Archaeologists"

Advisor: Dr. Neil Norman 

Panel: Grad 5, Thursday, 12:00 PM, York Room

Scholars are becoming increasingly interested in drawing upon the unpublished archives of past archaeologists to gain new knowledge of human history. Archaeologists recorded details of the artefacts they uncovered, where these were found, and their associations with other cultural features. As such records are regularly largely descriptive, it’s often up to new generations of researchers to draw from more recent cultural and historical scholarship from a variety of different disciplines to interpret this older material and provide new insights into the past. This paper looks to do just that by drawing upon an interdisciplinary interpretive framework to analyze the unpublished archives of South African archaeologist A. J. H. Goodwin, with supplementary material added from the archive of British archaeologist Patrick Darling. Drawing upon scholarship from archaeology, anthropology, history, art history, religious studies, and literature, the paper seeks to interpret records of Goodwin’s excavation of the famous “Great Wall” of Benin City, Nigeria – a large bank-and-trench structure that is part of a larger network of monumental linear earthworks spanning thousands of miles. Cross-referencing Goodwin’s observation of buried religious artefacts in an old gateway of the earthwork with this more recent scholarship, the paper concludes that the Benin earthworks served a range of intertwined political, economic, and spiritual functions that helped enrich and protect the town from physical and magical harm in pre-colonial times.

Tomos Llywelyn Evans is a 7th year Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at William & Mary. His research focus is on the archaeology and history of West Africa, specifically the nature of monumental earthwork architecture in the region. His doctoral work investigates the chronology, construction, functions, and meanings of Sungbo's Eredo, a 100-mile-long linear bank and trench system in southern Nigeria, argued to be Africa's largest single structure. Tomos holds a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in African Studies from University College London.

Victoria Gum, "Archaeology, Silence, and Reconciliation at the First Baptist Church"

Advisor: Dr. Michael Blakey

Panel: Grad 4, Thursday, 10:45 AM, Tidewater

Recent excavations at the First Baptist Church in Colonial Williamsburg have illuminated significant information about the site, most notably the presence of over 60 burials. However, the First Baptist site also provides an opportunity to literally excavate the history of our own discipline. I examine the history of archaeological research at the First Baptist site since 1956: first to erase the First Baptist community from the museum landscape and, seventy years later, to uncover and memorialize that same history. I discuss physical and symbolic landscapes within the museum and the ways in which Black history was displaced during the creation of Colonial Williamsburg. I then examine the ongoing, community-driven archaeological project which is resituating the site within the visible historical landscape. I suggest that while this project is a good start for community-engaged research, there is still much work to be done towards a truly ethical, reconciliatory archaeology.

Victoria Gum is a first year Ph.D. student in Anthropology at William & Mary. Her research interests include scientific ethics, biocultural approaches to health and human rights, and community-engaged research. Her MA thesis (William & Mary, 2023) focused on the First Baptist Church site at Colonial Williamsburg and the ways in which archaeology has been used both to silence stories of Black communities and, with community collaboration, bringing those stories back into academic discourse.

Diogo Oliveira, "The Maritime Cultural Landscape at Cabaceira Pequena: Reconsidering Maritime Archaeology on the Swahili Coast"

Advisor: Dr. Neil Norman

Panel: GRAD 2, Thursday, 10:45 AM, James Room

In northern Mozambique, archaeological research has contributed to a deeper understanding of the historic maritime connections and their influences on Swahili history and landscape. When considering several aspects of daily practice and the ontological principles of coastal peoples, scholars have argued that traditional views of ‘landscape’ must be seriously reconsidered at the water’s edge. This paper reviews an ongoing debate in the literature surrounding Swahili 'maritimity' and the emergence of maritime cultural landscapes in East Africa. This discussion will help frame the interpretations of recent archaeological evidence in Northern Mozambique while considering the longue duree of maritime practices on the Swahili coast. 

Diogo Oliveira is a Ph.D. student in Anthropology at William & Mary. His dissertation explores the history and archaeology of Mozambique Island, in northern Mozambique. This research addresses several topics in colonial history as well as the emergence of the Swahili coast in Mozambique in the 14th and 15th centuries. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. in anthropology both from GWU. 

Pravin Sharma, "Atomistic Investigation of Ultrafast Demagnetization of Permalloy Films With Varying Laser Fluence"
Advisor: Dr. Gunter Luepke

Poster Session, Friday 3-5 PM, Chesapeake

Permalloy (Ni80Fe20) is one of the soft ferromagnetic materials and promising for applications in spintronic devices with vanishing magnetic anisotropy and a remarkably high permeability with a diminishing coercive field. These properties are used for magnetometers, hard disk drive heads, and all-optical recording devices. For magneto-optic recording devices operating on a nanosecond timescale, the standard demagnetization technique is appropriate, but it is limited by the current speed at which magnetization can be manipulated. Employing ultrafast laser pulses holds immense potential in ferromagnetic permalloy in spin-based memory and storage devices with ultrafast processing speed which include laser-induced opto-magnetism. Here, we employ an atomistic spin dynamics model using a nearest-neighbor Heisenberg Hamiltonian exchange to study computationally the laser-induced magnetization dynamics occurring over various timescales for Permalloy thin films of various thicknesses and varying laser fluences. In addition to the ultrafast dynamics, we have also observed the precession frequency of the magnetization in the Permalloy layer at 0K with varying external magnetic fields. The atomistic simulations of the magnetization dynamics and precession frequency give good agreement with the experimental measurements for similar systems. In particular, our work gives insight into the unification of ultrafast magnetic processes and its control over various timescales which can provide a guide to experiments directed to the future development of nanoscale devices in spintronics.

Pravin Sharma is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Applied Science Department at William & Mary. His research area includes the study of different ferromagnetic heterostructures using Ultrafast Spectroscopic techniques. It allows him to understand the fundamental physics behind the interfacial spin dynamics, exchange bias, and magnetization switching. He uses both experimental and theoretical approaches. This study is important to develop new generation of data storage devices which is Spintronic Devices.

Andriana C. Zourou, "Antimicrobial Peptides in Lipid Membranes with Lysolipids" 

Advisor: Dr. Myriam Cotten

Co-authors: R. Fu, E.P. Goodell

Poster Session, Friday 3-5 PM, Chesapeake

As pathogenic bacteria develop resistance mechanisms to currently available antibiotics, the need to come up with antibacterial treatments that bypass their resistance mechanisms is more urgent than ever before. Studying small antimicrobial proteins, called peptides, in the lipid environments that they are naturally found in allows us to understand their mechanism of action as they permeate membranes of bacterial pathogens. In the Cotten lab at William & Mary we study peptides derived from sea bass, Piscidins, in lipid membranes of compositions that mimic organisms of interest. Specifically, I am interested in membranes containing lysolipids, a type of lipid with a single acyl chain that is often a component of bacterial membranes. Biochemical tests are used to evaluate antimicrobial activity and spectroscopic techniques are used to determine mechanisms of action. Building upon basic biology and physical concepts, I aim to describe the need for innovation in the field of antibiotic development and the illustrate the techniques we employ to contribute to current research. The results of the studies done so far will be presented and future directions will be discussed. 

Andrea Zourou is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in Applied Science. Her research interests are in antimicrobial compounds with pharmaceutical potential, which she studies using biophysical techniques such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. She has a B.S. in Biochemistry and an M.S. in Chemistry from Old Dominion University. She is currently investigating how different pharmaceuticals can be combined to exert improved therapeutic effects. 

Christian D'Orgeix, "Genotype and the Microbiome: How a unique Hybridization Model shapes the Leaf Microbiome"

Advisor: Dr. Joshua Puzey

Panel: Grad 14, Friday, 9:15 AM, Tidewater

Bacteriophages (phages) can insert their genomes into bacterial chromosomes and remove their genomes given cues, making them an exciting tool for genetic engineering. By engineering phages to carry certain genes, we can use them to deliver their genomes, with those genes, to bacteria. However, while mechanisms of phage integration have been studied, mechanisms of phage removal are limited. Thus, this project addresses two questions: 1) How do phage engineering approaches compare in ease of implementation and success rate? and 2) Can a novel phage-like particle be used to regulate gene removal? We are using two different methods to engineer a phage. The first method, Bacteriophage Recombineering of Electroporated DNA (BRED), crosses a phage genome with a gene of interest. The second method, Gibson assembly, builds a genome from scratch and inserts a gene of interest during the assembly process. While BRED is effective in engineering, it is difficult to isolate a desired mutant. Gibson assembly is anticipated to solve this problem. The second part of this project characterizes a novel phage-like particle, dubbed a “phagelet,” that may aid in controlling the removal of genes. Upon discovery, it was found that they may force the removal of a phage genome, but how is unknown. By comparing phagelet genes against others with known functions we have identified a region of proteins that may be responsible for genome removal. Understanding how phagelets excise a genome brings researchers a step closer to controlling phage insertion and removal, and thus gene insertion and removal. 

Christian D'Orgeix is a second year Master's candidate in the Biology Department at William & Mary. His research areas include plant science, microbiology, and ecology. His thesis examines the relationships between milkweed plant species and their microbiomes. He holds a B.Sc. from the College of William & Mary.

Darren Kirkendall, "What’s the Scoop on the Mycoloop?" 

Advisor: Dr. James Skelton

Panel: Grad 14, Friday, 9:15 AM, Tidewater

Fungi are a little known but important part of aquatic ecosystems. Aquatic fungi are commonly regarded as important decomposers that release nutrients from dead biomass, but a recent hypothesis – the mycoloop – proposes that they may also act as parasites on hard-to-eat algae and help release their nutrients to zooplankton and higher trophic levels. This interaction can form an important energy source during algal blooms when zooplankton may otherwise starve. Most previous work studying the mycoloop has focused on freshwater lakes with some attention paid to marine environments. In this study I determine the effect that the mycoloop has on the abundance and community composition of zooplankton of a large estuary, the Chesapeake Bay. Sampling was conducted over 3 months (June, July, August) in 2023 at 27 sites. I collected samples of zooplankton, environmental DNA, and phytoplankton/fungal sporangia to determine how the zooplankton and fungal communities were related. To confirm that zooplankton were consuming aquatic fungi I assessed their gut contents using eDNA. I determined that the zooplankton and fungal communities varied both spatially and temporally. I found a significant relationship between fungi with the lifestyle “algal parasite” and the abundance of zooplankton. This study improves our understanding of the functional roles of fungi in estuarine systems and supports the importance of the mycoloop hypothesis in the lower food web of the Chesapeake Bay.

[no bio submitted]

Hannah Machiorlete, "Clonal Reproduction Contributes to Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) Population Dynamics" 

*Winner, Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Mentoring, in honor of S. Laurie Sanderson

Advisor: Dr. Harmony Dalgleish

Co-authors: J.R. Puzey, M.D. LaMar

Panel: Grad 14, Friday, 9:15 AM, Tidewater 

Nearly 80% of flowering plants reproduce sexually by seed and asexually through cloning.  Despite this, the majority of plant population models ignore cloning as a form of reproduction, leaving a gap in our understanding of the population dynamics of clonal plants. To address this, we are creating a population model for the clonal plant, common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), that incorporates genetic identity. Spatial position, size, herbivory, flowering, and seed production data were collected from 4 common milkweed populations in Northern Virginia from 2021 to 2023. In total, 1876 milkweed plants' genetic identity was determined using 7 genetic markers (microsatellite loci). Population growth was modeled as the effect of size, herbivory, genetic identity, and site on flowering and pod production, and its variation among clones was quantified. We predict that milkweed clones are intermingled over space, but plants within the same clone produce a similar number of seeds due to shared genetic identity, suggesting that plant population dynamics depend in part on the degree of cloning.

Hannah Machiorlete is a Master's candidate in the Biology Department at the College of William & Mary. She blends field, lab, and modeling approaches to investigate the ecology and evolution of plant reproduction. Her thesis aims to understand the role of clonality, a form of asexual reproduction, in common milkweed population dynamics. 

Jason Dean Robinson, "Engineering and Characterizing Mycobacteriophages for Gene Delivery" 

Advisor: Dr. Margaret Saha

Co-authors: M. Doherty, Z. Riddick, M. Shijo, A. Roman

Panel: Grad 8, Thursday, 1:15 PM, Tidewater 

Bacteriophages (phages) can insert their genomes into bacterial chromosomes and remove their genomes given cues, making them an exciting tool for genetic engineering. By engineering phages to carry certain genes, we can use them to deliver their genomes, with those genes, to bacteria. However, while mechanisms of phage integration have been studied, mechanisms of phage removal are limited. Thus, this project addresses two questions: 1) How do phage engineering approaches compare in ease of implementation and success rate? and 2) Can a novel phage-like particle be used to regulate gene removal? We are using two different methods to engineer a phage. The first method, Bacteriophage Recombineering of Electroporated DNA (BRED), crosses a phage genome with a gene of interest. The second method, Gibson assembly, builds a genome from scratch and inserts a gene of interest during the assembly process. While BRED is effective in engineering, it is difficult to isolate a desired mutant. Gibson assembly is anticipated to solve this problem. The second part of this project characterizes a novel phage-like particle, dubbed a “phagelet,” that may aid in controlling the removal of genes. Upon discovery, it was found that they may force the removal of a phage genome, but how is unknown. By comparing phagelet genes against others with known functions we have identified a region of proteins that may be responsible for genome removal. Understanding how phagelets excise a genome brings researchers a step closer to controlling phage insertion and removal, and thus gene insertion and removal.

Jason Dean Robinson is a second year Master's candidate in the Biology Department at William & Mary. He has interests in bioengineering and its applications for vaccine development and pathogen detection. Currently, his research focuses on engineering mycobacteriophages, viruses that infect mycobacteria, including species related to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. 

Amanda Mitchell, "Photochemistry and Infrared Activated Dynamics of Gas Phase Systems" 

*Winner of the W&M Interdisciplinary Award for Excellence in Research

Advisor: Dr. William McNamara

Panel: Awards Panel, Friday, 10:30 a.m., Tidewater

Toxic metals in drinking water pose a public health hazard around the world. The presence and quantity of toxic metals in drinking water can be determined by changes in the fluorescence of a sensor molecule. This study aimed to develop a fluorescent sensor that can detect multiple metals simultaneously in drinking water. A modified version of fluorescein dye was synthesized and its fluorescence properties were analyzed to learn which metals the probe is selective for. The synthesized fluorescent sensor successfully detects iron (III), palladium (II), aluminum (III), and molybdenum (V). All the metals can be quantified below Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization limits set for drinking water. The fluorescent sensor shows promise for simultaneously and selectively detecting multiple metals in water samples to deem the water safe for consumption. 

Amanda Mitchell is a second year M.S. candidate in the Chemistry Department at William & Mary. Her research field of interest is environmental analytical chemistry, with a focus on protecting human and ecosystem health. Her current project is developing a chemical sensor to detect toxic metals in drinking water. She holds a B.S. in Biochemistry from Georgia Tech and is excited to see where her career in chemistry takes her.

S M Sarwar, "FedAdvocate: Towards Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning Framework to Analysis Mental Health Status With Fine-Tuned LLMs" 

Advisor: Dr. Pradeep Kumar

Poster Session, Friday 3-5 PM, Chesapeake

Integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) into healthcare chatbot applications represents a groundbreaking development in mental health care. These models are trained on vast datasets, which enables chatbots to conduct more natural, context-aware, and informative conversations. However, there is a risk of inadvertently exposing users' sensitive data through training data or predictive outputs, which poses a fundamental challenge for LLMs applications in mental health studies. To address this challenge, we propose a Federated Learning-based model, a decentralized privacy-preserving Machine Learning algorithm, to analyze mental health status by enhancing the privacy-preserving capabilities of LLMs while ensuring privacy for users' sensitive data. Our study analyzes the performance of various LLMs, including GPT-4, GPT-3.5, FLAN-T5, T5, and LLaMa-7b, in predicting various mental health status tasks from text data. As a proposed model, we use T5 and LLaMa-7b to demonstrate the improvement achieved by fine-tuning the base model in the Federated Learning setting while preserving the privacy of users' data. Our goal is to demonstrate the potential of LLMs to provide precise insights into mental health while maintaining data privacy regulations and ethical standards.

S M is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Computer Science department, focusing on the intersection of Federated Learning, Large Language Models, and Human-Computer Interaction to develop secure models for end-users while addressing privacy issues. Prior to this, S M completed his MS in Computer Science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Summer 2023. Moreover, since Summer 2022, he has been serving as the Vice-Chair of the IEEE Corpus Christi Section.

Anna Schmedding, "Transient Faults in Autonomous Vehicle Neural Networks: Resilience Evaluation and Mitigation" 

Advisor: Dr. Evgenia Smirni

Co-authors: P. Schowitz, X. Zhou, Y. Lu, L. Yang, H. Alemzadeh

Panel: Grad 7, Thursday, 1:15 PM, York Room 

Self-driving vehicle technology has become increasingly advanced over the past decade, largely due to the rapid development of deep neural networks (DNNs). When deployed in a safety-critical use case such as autonomous driving, even small deviations from the ideal output can result in catastrophic consequences. In this paper, we evaluate the effects of transient faults (bit-flips in dynamic random access memory (DRAM) on the vehicle) affecting DNNs embedded in an autonomous vehicle framework, called Learning by Cheating (LBC). We estimate the importance of the DNN weights using a modified Taylor criterion and strategically inject faults that can affect the behavior of the vehicle in different road and weather scenarios. Our strategic fault injection can identify corner cases that dramatically affect vehicle safety by causing hazards and collisions. We show that DNN protection mechanisms based on range restriction can mitigate the effects of faults and improve the safety of the vehicle.

Anna Schmedding is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Science department at William & Mary under the supervision of Professor Evgenia Smirni. Her research interests include reliability and performance of neural networks, autonomous vehicles and GPUs.

Avonlea Bowthorpe, "Making Jamaican Ladies: Gender and Power in Jamaican Newspapers, 1760-1800"

Advisor: Dr. Catherine Kelly

Panel: Grad 6, Thursday, 1:15 PM, James Room

This project explores free women as members of Jamaica’s slave society through their presence in newspaper advertisements that circulated in cities like Kingston and Montego Bay between 1760 and 1800. From the early seventeenth century onward, women of European, African, and mixed racial descent were crucial in establishing social and legal norms that enshrined the system of slavery and gave meaning to racial classification and hierarchy in Jamaican society. My purpose in exploring the presence of women in Jamaica’s newspapers is to offer tentative answers to the question of what freedom looked like in practice for the women who upheld slavery as a social system. Previous scholarship on this subject has focused on documents such as wills and plantation registers, which offer valuable insight into moments in time when individual women sat down to take stock of their social, economic, and intimate lives. My study of women’s presence in newspapers builds on this work through the image they capture of how Jamaicans interacted and transacted with one another in daily life. I argue that in placing newspaper advertisements, Jamaican women engaged in a form of sovereignty that reflected the values of the colonial slave society in which they lived. I employ the term sovereignty in my argument to describe how free women combined personal agency, social status, and economic activity to participate and make their way in Jamaica’s slave society. They traded and sold goods and property, exercised their dominance over enslaved people, and created the next generation of Jamaican ladies. 

Avonlea Bowthorpe is a second-year PhD student in the History Department at William & Mary. Her research explores women, property, and freedom in the British Atlantic world, particularly the Caribbean. She holds a BA in History from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA, and an MA in History from William & Mary.

Jessica Brabble, "From Enemies to Friends: Prisoner of War Camps in Eastern North Carolina, 1943-1946" 

*Winner of the Honorable Mention, Excellence in Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Advisor: Dr. Melvin P. Ely 

Panel: Grad 1, Thursday, 9:30 AM, York Room

In spring of 1944 in Williamston, North Carolina, locals lined up at the train depot for a strange arrival in their town. America was in the midst of World War II, and thanks to a recent string of successful battles overseas, the train would be bringing in a host of Nazi prisoners from Tennessee. These prisoners were from Rommel’s Afrika Korps, and locals had been warned that they were particularly fearsome, rough, and hostile. When the prisoners arrived, however, locals were surprised that the reality was much different than their expectations. The German and Italian soldiers were young, skinny, and fragile--a far cry from their expectations.  Using newspaper sources and conversations with locals as primary sources, I will explore the day-to-day lives of Axis prisoners of war in North Carolina. I argue that the labor they contributed was integral to both the local economy and to American war efforts. I also argue that the interactions that occurred between POWs and North Carolina locals had a positive, lasting impact on both groups–leading to sympathy to POWs from locals and a desire to keep in contact with the United States from POWs. I will also briefly analyze how the experiences of white Axis POWs compared to those of Japanese Americans forced into internment camps in the West, showing how racist ideologies impacted how these two groups were treated. 

Jessica Brabble is a third year Ph.D. candidate in the History department at William & Mary. Her research areas of interest include the U.S. South, the history of medicine, and agricultural history. Her dissertation addresses connections between the eugenics movement and agricultural public programming in the rural South in the early twentieth century. She holds a B.A. from North Carolina Wesleyan College and an M.A. from Virginia Tech. 

Grace Brooks, "What American Nazis Say about Immigration: The German American Bund and the Rhetoric of Exclusion" 

Advisor: Dr. Hiroshi Kitamura

Panel: Grad 1, Thursday, 9:30 AM, York Room 

Flying swastikas littered the landscape of the United States during the 1930s. The emblem of Hitler’s murderous regime hung beside the American flag and images of George Washington at Madison Square Gardens with an audience of twenty thousand, wrapped up in patriotic zeal, watching. Less than a month before the Nazi machine of war invaded Poland, unleashing terror on the European nation, nineteen-year-old Helen Vooros delivered the stiff-arm salute of the monstrous regime within the walls of the American Capital Building. Impersonations of Nazi Storm Troopers marched through American streets. Many of these fascist-inspired actions, conveniently absent from popular memory, were caused by the German American Bund, the largest pro-Nazi group in America during the decade. The Bund was composed mainly of naturalized American citizens who sought the exclusion of others from their adopted country by blending Americanism and National Socialism into an ideology of exclusion. This paper aims to evaluate the neglected immigrant aspect of this American Nazi group and the rhetoric they employed to prevent others, especially Jewish refugees, from entering the United States. To answer how this organization understood its foreign identity, even while preventing others from coming to the United States, we will examine the group’s publication, congressional hearings, and personal narratives. Researching the Bund’s views is vital because their philosophies of exclusion still influence contemporary discourses. 

Grace Brooks is a first-year master’s student in history at W&M. Her research interests include international relations during the interwar era, with an emphasis on Anglo-American relations, the impact of film on foreign affairs, and historical memory. Her master’s thesis explores American Fascist movements during the 1930s. 

Thalia Chrysanthis, "News of Romantic Women: Coverage of Female-Assigned Soldiers During the Civil War" 

Advisor: Dr. Hannah Rosen

Panel: Grad 6, Thursday, 1:15 PM, James Room

The U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) remains the United States’ deadliest war. Most who served in the two armies were men assigned that gender at birth, but this was not true of a minority of soldiers, estimated from several hundred to over a thousand. My work examines the newspaper coverage of women and other female-assigned soldiers who served in uniform as men during the war. This newspaper coverage was widespread in the Union and Confederacy, with news stories sharing a variety of narrative arcs, tropes, and themes. These narratives indicate much about how people in the Union and Confederacy reacted to these soldiers in an era when gender roles characterized military service as a male arena and located women primarily in the home. I assess Union and Confederate newspapers that wrote about female-assigned soldiers, building on earlier work that identified the romantic “Female Warrior Bold” literary narrative as the primary theme of news coverage. I show that within that general theme there were more specific arcs that the news popularized, with major common tropes including that of the Clever Colonel, the Soldier-turned-nurse, the Soldier-turned-wife, and the Veteran. These narratives, which shifted over the war years, expressed a tension between the wartime ideal of patriotism and the social ideal of domestic womanhood. Newspapers tried to resolve this cultural tension for their readers by using narrative arcs and tropes to explain these soldiers to readers and resolve the discomfort of their presence through expected, repeated resolutions.

Thalia Chrysanthis is a fourth year, History PhD candidate at William & Mary. She has an M.A. from W&M, and a B.A. from the University of Michigan, where she earned the Stephen J. Tonsor History of Ideas Award for her undergraduate thesis on the Ninth Amendment in the Supreme Court’s birth control cases of the ‘60s and ‘70s. She is interested in legal history, histories of women and gender/s, and their intersections at moments of social/cultural change in U.S. history. Thalia is currently working on her dissertation, which examines women and other female-assigned soldiers of the U.S. Civil War

Sidney McCall, "Rivers in the Sky, Roads Underground: Environmental Resistance on the Underground Railroad"

Advisor: Dr. Jody Allen

Panel: Grad 3, Thursday, 10:45 AM, York Room

Within the fields and terrains concerning the Euro-Atlantic World and its various Black slaveways and freedom struggles, few geographies encompass the tangled roots and routes of environmental racism and resistance more intimately than the Underground Railroad. Black fugitives and freedom seekers manifested a knowledge way that historian Deidre Cooper Owens refers to as fugitive logic that involves “a form of thinking that is rooted in observation, methodology, and mobility of the environment but also, those who control and manipulate including humans and members of the animal kingdom.” Recovering the relationship between environment, race, and resistance allows for a deepened understanding of how enslaved people and fugitives alike saw themselves and imagined freedom in spaces of unfreedom. This research seeks to review and reimagine the Underground Railroad as an ecological space of mapped memory and historical continuity for Black fugitives seeking freedom across the Atlantic, specifically in the lands and waterways of the United States. By exploring slave narratives, nature writings, geographical surveys, abolition sketches, runaway ads, oral transcripts, and communal sites, these fugitive ways transform into ecological spaces of mapped memory and historical continuity. Environmental resistance forces the scholarship to root itself in the everyday struggles, logics, and freedom-making ways of those who sought freedom across the Atlantic and turned their eyes to the North Star. 

Sidney Rose McCall is second year Ph.D. student in the History Department here at William & Mary. Their areas of interest include slavery, environmental racism and fugitive logic, childhood, gender, and the Long Civil Rights Movement. Their current research involves recovering fugitive and freedom-making ways utilized by enslaved Africans and their diaspora descendants ranging from ancestral knowledge to the Underground Railroad. Sidney Rose also serves as an Academic Committee member of the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, Inc. 

Jenny Merriman, "Colonial News, German Words: How Translated News Stoked the Anxieties of German Settlers in Early America" 

*Winner, GSAB Award for Excellence in Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Advisor: Dr. Nicholas Popper

Panel: Awards Panel, Friday, 10:30 AM, Tidewater

In the mid-eighteenth century, the American colonies were marked by war, ethnic conflict, and religious upheaval. In Pennsylvania, the upending of the social fabric manifested in vehement clashes between Germans and British-descended settlers. Prior explanations for German political engagement have generally relied on atemporal social and cultural factors grounded in Old World traditions. Less explored is the role of knowledge circulation in understanding why and when Germans decided to join the political fray. Although largely forgotten in the historiography of early America, Christoph Saur’s Pensylvanische Berichte (1739-1777) was the most successful German-language newspaper in the colonies prior to the Revolution. In his newspaper, Saur translated paragraphs taken from English-language sources, thus exercising significant influence in how German readers interpreted global events. By comparing paragraphs from English-language newspapers with the translated ones in Saur’s newspaper, I show how the German reading experience curated by Saur (through paragraph arrangement, hidden commentaries, and word choice) was marked by eschatological dread and political anxiety. I argue that the editorial prerogative exercised by Saur offers the most compelling explanation for the timing of and immediate motivations underlying social unravelling in the eighteenth century—an explanation that pinpoints newspaper editors as knowledge creators as well as knowledge disseminators, and one which centers language (rather than ethnicity and culture) as the driver of conflict in early America.

Jenny Merriman is a second-year Ph.D. student in the History Department at William & Mary. Her research focuses on Germans in the early modern Atlantic World.  Eschewing a landlocked view of German history, she is interested in print culture and how knowledges were exchanged between the New World and early modern Germany.

Micaela Miralles Bianconi, "The Invasions Before the Invasion: The British Empire and South America, 1750s-1780s"
Advisor: Dr. Fabricio Prado
Panel: Grad 6, Thursday, 1:15 PM, James Room

The inquiries about the presence of the British Empire in the Spanish colonies of South America during the eighteenth century have not been extensively explored by part of British imperial and Latin American historiographies. Whether or not the Britons were trying to establish formal colonies or informal commercial ties in the southernmost ports of the Americas -Buenos Aires and Montevideo- during this time did not receive significant attention When looking at expeditions, military attacks, and projects to win over specific parts of the world, the answers about the nature and essence of the empire on the ground usually do not match the theory. This presentation explores the second half of the eighteenth century and discusses the British Empire's attitudes toward South America and the South Atlantic. The goal is to show that there were political and economic motivations and ideas to create a South Atlantic empire during this transitional period. It analyzes three plans or attempts of expeditions to Rio de la Plata and the South Atlantic Ocean that occurred during the second half of the eighteenth century before the British invasions of Buenos Aires and Montevideo occurred in 1806 and 1807. First, it analyzes an attack on Colonia del Sacramento and Rio de la Plata organized and led by a combined effort between the British and the Portuguese empires in 1762 and 1763. Next, it examines the French and British endeavors to establish colonial settlements in the Malvinas archipelago in 1764 and 1765. Finally, it analyzes the later aborted plan to attack Rio de la Plata from India.

Mica Miralles Bianconi is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at William and Mary. Her research explores the entanglement of the British and Iberian empires in South America, particularly in Rio de la Plata. She holds a BA from UNR (Argentina), an MA in History from Villanova University, and an MA in History from William and Mary. 

Sydney Sweat-Montoya, "Inter-Imperial Rivalry and Merchant Connections on the Mosquito Shore, 1778"

Advisor: Dr. Simon Middleton

Panel: Grad 1, Thursday, 9:30 AM, York Room

The Mosquito Shore operated as a borderland characterized by tensions between Spanish, Indigenous, and British aims for authority over the region. By the 1770s, logging settlements on the coast maintained nominal rights for their presence based on international treaties. These settlements were supported by inter-imperial networks facilitated by the production and export of lumber. This work builds on scholarship that advocates for a more capacious and connected Circum-Caribbean and highlights the porous nature of imperial authority and claim making. This project is built around depositions regarding a treaty that Jerimiah Terry, born in colonial Virginia but a Spanish subject, offered to the Mosquito Indians to remove all Englishmen from the shore. The depositions in this case include the testimonies of English-speaking crew members on Terry’s ship, the Atlantis, and English inhabitants of St. Johns. This study highlights the fluid nature of imperial belonging and imperial authority in the latter half of the eighteenth century. By exploring the voyage of the Atlantis, and the crew’s interactions with the Mosquitos, Spaniards, and Englishmen from Bilboa to St. Johns and the commentary from British authorities, the 1780 evacuation of the Shore was far from decided and remained contingent. By framing this article around the voyage of the Atlantis, this project emphasizes the importance of a Caribbean that is inherently inter-imperial and gestures at the opportunity for future work to explore how logging settlements on the Spanish Main were enmeshed in Caribbean networks.

Sydney Sweat-Montoya is a third year PhD candidate in History at William and Mary. He research focuses on commercial networks and commodity histories in the seventeenth and eighteenth century Caribbean. She received her Bachelors degree  from the University of West Georgia, a Masters from Virginia Tech, and a Masters from William and Mary all in History. 

Rebekah Toussaint, "Massive Resistance and the Color of Memory: Racial Histories of Public-School Desegregation in Norfolk, Virginia" 

*Winner, Award for Excellence in Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Advisor: Dr. Adrienne Petty

Panel: Grad 13, Friday, 9:15 AM, York Room

On September 1, 1958, Newsweek magazine published an article, “The Integration Hot Spots,” pinpointing areas across the U.S. where racial integration of schools had begun. Virginia was home to several of those spots, but the state chose to engage in a campaign of Massive Resistance and closed its public schools rather than let children of various races attend school together. Prince Edward County in the central/western part of Virginia, and Charlottesville in the central/north had their own Massive Resistance fights and periods of school closures that lasted several years. Comparatively, the port city of Norfolk experienced a much shorter stint of Massive Resistance school closure that only lasted for several months. The purpose of this research is to question the factors that led to Norfolk's comparatively brief period of Massive Resistance. First, what unique economic and cultural factors helped defeat Massive Resistance in Norfolk and why were they effective? Second, what were the ideologies, and actions of ordinary white parents and students who experienced the era of Massive Resistance and school integration in Norfolk? Much is known about black parents' fight against Massive Resistance in Norfolk, but significantly less about white parent involvement. This research draws on primary sources, including letters, school board meeting notes, and newspapers to address these questions, and concludes that a major reason Norfolk's schools closed so briefly was due to white parent military affiliations, economic and social costs of school closure, not altruism or anti-racism.

Rebekah Toussaint is a second year Ph.D. student in History at William & Mary. Her research interests include intersections of gender and race in nineteenth and early twentieth century social movements, transnational activism, and comparative histories. She holds a B.A. and M.A. from Old Dominion University, and an M.A. from William & Mary. 

Qiong Wu, "Fantasy and Fortune: The Empress of China on the Eyes of Early America"

Advisor: Dr. Brianna Nofil

Panel: Grad 2, Thursday, 10:45 AM, James Room

The Empress of China, the first American ship to sail from the United States to China, has lived through the ages for its symbolized meaning in the United States: in museum exhibitions, in commemorative books, and in presidential speeches. Although it would be interesting to trace the change and continuity of the symbolization of the Empress of China through the ages, it would take an entire monograph.  This essay focuses on the period of ten years before sailing and after sailing (1783-1793) to demonstrate how the Empress of China was formed as a symbol to exemplify the new republic’s economic independence and to advance early American political independence. In this sense, this essay will proceed in two parts. First, it will present the historical facts about the Empress of China. Second, it will show the process of symbolization of the Empress of China economically and politically.

[no bio submitted]

Isabelle Danforth, "Method of Serial Passage for the Study of Transmission Dynamics In a Fish-Virus System" 

Virginia Institute of Marine Science 

Advisor: Dr. Andrew Wargo

Panel: Grad 10, Thursday, 2:30 p.m., York Room

Transmission, a crucial determinant of pathogen fitness, is challenging to study in lab settings, and current methods often fail to predict changes as pathogens circulate in populations. Serial passage experiments (SPEs), an in vivo method involving sequential host-to-host transmission, can improve the accuracy of predictions and provide valuable epidemiological data. Such information would be beneficial for the control of infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV), a problematic pathogen in farmed rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). It remains unclear how transmission may change as IHNV travels through fish populations. In this study, we expanded upon a previously described SPE in rainbow trout to investigate IHNV transmission efficiency. Triplicate groups of 20 donor fish (P0) were challenged with IHNV and cohabitated with 20 recipient fish (P1) for 48 hours. The donor fish were euthanized, and the recipient fish were moved into a tank containing naive fish (P2). This process was repeated for ten rounds. Water samples were taken to validate transmission success via quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Preliminary data reveals a decrease in transmission efficiency by the fourth passage. This may indicate a reduction in fitness due to a bottleneck event, but further work is required to support this hypothesis. Our method can now be applied to larger-scale experiments investigating IHNV evolution under various selective pressures such as vaccination. This information will enable disease managers to respond to emerging epidemics in aquaculture more effectively.

Isabelle Danforth is a first-year MS student in Ecosystem Health at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. She is interested in host-pathogen co-evolution, marine disease ecology, and fish immunology. Her thesis investigates the evolution of virulence in IHNV, a consequential virus impacting the profitability of aquaculture and the health of wild fish populations. She holds a BS in Marine Science from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). 

Robert Behary, "Ryd-Diculous Electron Beam Diagnostics"

Advisor: Dr. Irina Novikova

Co-Authors: E. Mikhailov, S. Aubin, T. Averett, S. Zhang

Panel: Grad 11, Thursday, 3:30 p.m., James Room

Nuclear physics experiments are done by tracking the outcomes of particle collision events. These events are created by bombarding a target with a flowing stream of electrons, referred to as an electron beam. While the target is stationary and well confined, the position and size of the electron beam can vary and must be monitored. Current beam diagnostic methods require physics data collection to stop because monitoring procedures obstruct the beam path. Using atoms in a highly excited energy state, called Rydberg atoms, we are developing a non-invasive diagnostic procedure to detect the electric field produced by an electron beam. Rydberg atoms are detected through measuring the absorption spectra of laser light passing through a cloud of atoms or atomic vapor. The vapor does not perturb the beam path, and properties of the measured absorption spectra are well known. When the electron beam is near the detection region, the spectra will change based on shifts to the Rydberg atom energy levels. These shifts are caused by the electric field produced by the electron beam. In experiment, the electric field created by the electron beam is not the only field present, so work must be done on separating the background fields from the field produced only by the electron beam. This work shows the progress of experimental measurements of the electric field produced by the electron beam. When done properly, this technique will not only be useful for electron beam detection, but other charged particle beams for similar experiments and plasma diagnostics.

Rob Behary is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in the physics department at William & Mary. He works with Rydberg atoms for electric field sensing applications with his advisor Dr. Irina Novikova. He holds a B.S. in physics from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. 

Doyee Byun, "An Outflowing Gas From the Galactic Nucleus of B0254-3327B: Analysis and Comparison With Other Extreme UV Outflows"

Virginia Tech

Advisor: Dr. Nahum Arav

Co-authors: M. Dehghanian, G. Walker, G. Kriss

Panel: Grad 11, Thursday, 3:30 p.m., James Room 

At the center of a galaxy there is a galactic nucleus, which is comprised of a black hole along with matter circling around it. A particularly interesting type of galactic nuclei are quasars, which were bright enough to be confused for stars in our own galaxy when they were first discovered, despite being billions of lightyears away. Quasars are hypothesized to potentially have a vast impact on their host galaxies by ejecting outflowing gases, affecting galaxy evolution and star formation; a process known as active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback. For this project, we have studied one such quasar named QSO B0254-3327B, which was observed with the Hubble Space Telescope, with an outflowing gas at a velocity of  v = −3200 km/s. We present our analysis of the energetics of the outflow, which leads us to conclude that the outflow may be a potential contributor to AGN feedback, as well as a comparison of the outflow’s physical characteristics with those of other quasar outflows.

Doyee Byun is a sixth year Ph.D. candidate in Physics at Virginia Tech. Their research interests include active galactic nuclei and their impact on their surrounding environments via outflowing gases. They are currently focused on quasar absorption outflows found in ultraviolet spectra.

Nicolas DeStefano, "Charged Particle Beam Profiling with Coherent Atomic Magnetometry"

*Winner of the GSAB Award for Excellence in Scholarship in Natural and Computational Sciences

Advisor: Dr. Irina Novikova 

Co-Authors: E. Mikhailov, S. Aubin, T. Averett, A. Camsonne, S. Zhang, A. Ramaswamy, S. Malinovskaya

Panel: Graduate Awards, Friday, 10:30 a.m., Tidewater

We present a non-invasive approach to imaging charged particle beams that generates profiles in 1 (and eventually 3) dimensions by monitoring the electron beam's effect on the quantum state of a surrounding atomic vapor. As the charged particle beam propagates, a magnetic field is generated, and the atoms in the detection medium respond with shifts in their atomic states. Moreover, we can measure this atomic response by observing the polarization of a probe laser. Imaging the components of this laser's polarization via cameras, we successfully map the variations in the electron beam magnetic field and can extrapolate electron beam characteristics, such as its position, width, and current density. We also show the validity of derived electron beam quantities using a Faraday cup and optical transition radiation. This approach to charged particle detection may have a broad range of applications in nuclear, accelerator, and cosmic ray physics as a non-invasive solution to charged particle tracking.

Nicolas DeStefano is a fifth year graduate student candidate for the Ph.D. in physics at William & Mary. His research involves applications of quantum sensors to other areas of physics to measure fundamental quantities, specifically magnetic fields. His current project, the original of a continuing line of similar proposals, paves the way for using atoms as sensors for charged particle beam profiling and plasma characterization. Prior to graduate school, he received a B.S. in physics from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA.

Noah Donald, "Towards a quantum field theory description of nonlocal spacetime defects"

Advisor: Dr. Christopher Carone

Panel: Grad 8, Thursday, 1:15 p.m., Tidewater

At the most fundamental level, physics is described by particles, how they interact with other particles, and how they move from one place to another in spacetime. In quantum field theory, the way in which particles move between points in spacetime is described by a function called the propagator. One method of calculating the propagator when spacetime is discrete was proposed by Steven Johnston, for a single type of particle without interactions, in the framework of causal set theory. Modeling spacetime as discrete points instead of a continuum has been proposed in some formulations of quantum gravity theory. In Johnston’s approach, each spacetime point has the same properties as every other spacetime point. In our investigation, we modify this assumption to allow different types of points, called topological defects, to be intermixed with the standard spacetime points and we model these defects in several different ways. We found that each defect model produces an observable effect on the propagator which can be modeled by an overall rescaling of the defect-free propagator, called a wavefunction renormalization, as well as a shift in the mass of the particle.

Noah Donald is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in Physics at William & Mary. His research areas include high energy theory, dark matter, and extensions of the standard model. His dissertation addresses physics at the smallest length scales of the universe. He holds a B.S. from The Ohio State University and an M.S from William & Mary.

Kate Evans, "Looking At Electric Charge in the Neutron at Jefferson Lab"

Advisor: Dr. David Armstrong

Panel: Grad 8, Thursday, 1:15 p.m., Tidewater

Within each atom is a nucleus, and within most nuclei are neutrons. These are neutrally charged particles that help stabilize the overall structure of the nuclei and contribute roughly half of the mass of their atoms. Neutrons are essential to holding atoms together, and thus everything we see around us would be impossible without them. However, neutrons are not indivisible, so how do we describe their structure? An important aspect of nucleons (term to collectively refer to protons and neutrons) is their electric form factor. This quantity is used by physicists to encode information about the spatial distribution of the electric charge of a nucleon via a mathematical equation. While the net charge of a neutron is zero, we know that within the neutron there is some distribution of positive and negative charge that can be accessed using its electric form factor. Given how incredibly small neutrons are, how does one hope to access the distribution of charge within them? My talk will discuss how we use modern technology at Jefferson Lab to make measurements of the electric form factor of the neutron, GEn. We use high efficiency detectors to measure scattering rates from polarized electrons hitting a polarized neutron target, and we directly measure an asymmetry in these scattering rates which is proportional to GEn. Defining a model that describes the spatial distribution of electric charge in the neutron is highly important for developing our understanding of how subatomic particles interact with each other and, by extension, of how our universe works.

Kate Evans is a fifth year Ph.D. student in Physics at William & Mary. Her research focuses on the ongoing nuclear physics experiments at Jefferson Laboratory for which she is able to help with simulation design, hardware installation and maintenance, and data analysis. She has a B.S. in Comprehensive Physics and a B.A. in Latin from University of Washington and hopes to complete her Ph.D. by 2026.

Charris Gabaldon, "Reconstructing Quantum Light Profiles"

Advisor: Dr. Eugeniy Mikhailov

Co-Authors: P. Barge; S. Cuozzo; H. Lee; L. Cohen

Panel: Grad 10, Thursday, 2:30 p.m., York Room

Quantum optical fields of low intensity with reduced noise (squeezed light) are of great interest as they are capable of transporting information with increased bandwidth or performing a measurement with a smaller uncertainty. We identify the spatial mode(s), or patterns, which are a fundamental characteristic of such fields providing details of the intensity distribution in relation to the probing source. Spatial modes of high intensity, or classical, optical fields have been studied but as the intensity is lowered so does the signal resolving the spatial modes. We reconstruct the spatial modes of low intensity fields by measuring the variance, or profile, of the noise over a set of structured masks compared to a reference signal. Decomposing the resulting distribution via weighted sums of basis masks under certain conditions allows us to theoretically recover individual modes of the low intensity field. This reconstruction process is currently being generalized to apply to an arbitrary combination of single modes in the pixel basis by decomposing a set of all pixel combination measurements. This analysis of spatial modes and generalization of the mode reconstruction has applications in precision measurements as a useful tool in experiments requiring low intensity light.

Charris Gabaldon is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in the Physics Department at William & Mary. In the experimental quantum optics lab she works on reconstructing characteristics of squeezed light. She holds a B.S. in physics from California State University and a M.S. in physics from William & Mary.

Jarred Loughran, "Wiggling Towards a Fusion Future: Understanding How Plasma Moves Through the Eyes of a LLAMA"

Advisor: Dr. Saskia Mordijck 

Co-Authors: S. Haskey, T. Osborne, J. Hughes, LLAMA Team.

Panel: Grad 7, Thursday, 1:15, p.m., York

Fusion reactors require a high density plasma within the device in order to produce sufficient fusion, but a low density near the edge in order to protect the reactor. One way to achieve this is by operating with an “Edge Pedestal” region where the density of the plasma increases greatly over a short distance. The shape of the density profile can be modeled by considering the balance between ionization, which adds particles to the plasma, and transport, the movement of particles through outward diffusion and inward convection. Our research explores the dependence of particle transport on various factors. One way to explore the relative strengths of diffusion and convection is to modulate the plasma density with puffs of gas from the edge. This method requires knowledge of the ionization rates at a given position, and a new instrument has been installed to measure ionization in the pedestal. This allows us to model the pedestal shapes from best-guess transport strengths with ionization included, compare to experiment, and then optimize our transport model to fit the experimental measurements. Previously these modulation experiments were only reliable in the core where ionization can be neglected, so this represents a new analytical capacity. Recent advancements to the analysis have allowed the propagation of the precise time dependence of the ionization measurement, which has improved the matching of the model to the experiment and led to a better understanding of the transport. These results are promising for validating full core-to-edge models of fusion reactors.

Jarred Loughran is a third year Ph.D. student in the Physics department at W&M. His work focuses on novel measurements of bulk particle transport near the edge of fusion reactors in high-confinement regimes. He has a passion for science communication, and is inspired by the potential of nuclear fusion to help usher in a new era of human progress. 

William Miyahira, "Potential Roughness Suppression in an AC Zeeman Atom Chip Trap"

Advisor: Dr. Seth Aubin

Panel: Grad 9, Thursday, 2:30 p.m., James Room

Since their experimental conception, ultracold atoms have been used to develop the most precise quantum sensors in the world. At these ultracold temperatures (≤1 µK), we can harness the quantum nature of atoms to improve the precision of fundamental physics measurements. One method of trapping and manipulating ultracold atoms is with an atom chip. These devices are small enough to fit in your palm and feature many microfabricated wires which we can send current through to generate a trap for ultracold atoms. While atom chips are great in reducing the experiment size, one of their limitations is trap roughness. This effect occurs when the atom chip wires have manufacturing defects, such as non-uniform edges or uneven metal deposition. These defects result in the trapping potential containing bumps whose sizes mimic the size of the defect, potentially fragmenting the atom cloud and limiting experiments. Suppressing potential roughness is therefore of great interest to the atom chip community, as it would offer improved atom interferometry and strong 1D confinement, for example. We demonstrate the use of a novel method of trapping ultracold atoms via the AC Zeeman effect to reduce the potential roughness plaguing atom chip traps. This scheme uses AC currents (≈20 MHz) in the chip wires to confine the atoms in a spin-dependent trap and has been theoretically shown to suppress potential roughness due to atomic selection rules. Here we present experimental evidence of this suppression using two-wire DC and AC Zeeman traps at the same position and trap frequency.

William Miyahira is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Physics Department at William & Mary, working in the Ultracold Atom lab of Dr. Seth Aubin. His research focuses on developing new atom chips for trapping and manipulating ultracold atoms for precision measurements of inertial forces and fundamental interactions. 

Oscar Moreno Palacios, "Neutrino-Lead Interactions: Towards Accurate Cross-Section Calculations"

Advisor: Dr. Jeff Nelson

Panel: Grad 11, Thursday, 3:30 p.m., James Room

The current understanding of neutrino interactions requires enhancement for upcoming experiments to realize their full sensitivity. This study focuses on neutrino-lead interactions using MINERvA experiment data, aiming to gain insights into interactions with heavy nuclei. MINERvA, designed for studying water, carbon, iron, and lead nuclei interactions, has an electromagnetic calorimeter with thin lead sheets at the rear, having 3.5 times more mass than in previous studies, enhancing statistical richness. The thin sheets enable observing low-energy particles, not achievable with front-side lead. The primary goal is to disentangle initial stage dynamics from final state interactions as particles exit the nucleus, providing insight into various integration processes. Results will refine theoretical models, emphasizing lead's distinct characteristics. Diverging from lighter nuclei studies, this project addresses challenges in data selection, including background subtraction from neutrino-plastic scintillator interactions. This ongoing research explores the simulation status, emphasizing a detailed study isolating processes within the neutrino interaction model.

Oscar Moreno is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Physics at William & Mary, specializing in high-energy physics, particularly focusing on neutrinos. His current research delves into the intricacies of neutrino interactions with various materials, carbon, lead, hydrogen. This work aims to refine existing models by incorporating data on heavier nuclei, thus addressing gaps in our understanding of neutrino behavior.

Ziqi Niu, "Toward bi-chromatic intensity squeezing using double-ladder Four-Wave Mixing in 85Rb"

Advisor: Dr. Irina B. Novikova

Co-Authors: J. Wen, C.Zhang, S.Du

Panel: Grad 9, Thursday, 2:30 p.m., James Room

The quantum mechanical concept of entanglement, where two entities can exhibit interconnected traits despite physical separation has spurred physicists into exploring its potential applications, leading to the rapid emergence of the burgeoning field of quantum information. My research delves into the creation of entangled photons, merely scratching the surface of this vast domain. The concept revolves around the transformation of two independent photons into a pair of entangled counterparts, achievable within an atomic medium through a phenomenon known as Four Wave-Mixing (FWM). To illustrate, envision two children playfully shaking a tree, inadvertently disrupting the slumber of unsuspecting squirrels. Analogously, the perturbation caused by the two uncorrelated incoming fields mirrors the tree's agitation, with both instances showcasing the collaborative influence of the respective agents—children or fields. While squirrels possess adept climbing skills, under precise tree-shaking by the duo, it's conceivable for both squirrels to tumble simultaneously. Similarly, with the optimal modulation of the atomic medium, two correlated photons can be emitted, exemplifying the underlying principle of FWM. Notably, our entangled photons boast distinctive properties, including disparate colors, with one falling within the coveted telecom wavelength range, rendering them ideal for long-distance transmission with minimal loss. Presently, we have achieved the creation of entangled photons and are diligently refining our methods to enhance efficiency further.

Ziqi Niu is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in the Physics Department at College of William & Mary. Their group have a broad interest in quantum optics, especially in quantum metrology and quantum information science realized with wave mixing process in hot atoms. They are currently exploring the generation of entangled photons with distinct wavelengths, a platform that provides computing blocks for long-distance quantum network construction. 

Carlos Pernas, "Probing Nuclear Effects on Neutrino Interactions using Electron-Neutrino TKI in MINERvA"

Advisor: Dr. Michael Kordosky

Co-authors: MINERvA Collaboration

Panel: Grad 9, Thursday, 2:30 p.m., James Room

Neutrinos are some of the least understood elementary particles in the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Previously thought to be massless, experiments in the 1960s-1990s demonstrated that they have non-zero mass, and as a result oscillate between three different states. The nature and rate of these oscillations, as well as the absolute mass of the neutrino states, remain open questions and have sparked a resurgence of interest in precision neutrino measurements. Determination of oscillation parameters may provide answers to grand questions such as explaining the abundance of matter over anti-matter in our universe, and will be the culmination of a global, decades long program of neutrino research and collaboration. The MINERvA experiment is one such collaboration, whose purpose is to measure and characterize neutrino-nucleus cross sections to reduce the systematic uncertainties corresponding to our simulations. These will soon be the largest source of uncertainty as dedicated oscillation experiments become larger and more precise. My research focuses on a novel technique to analyze MINERvA data which bypasses some of the practical complications inherent to neutrino measurements. The technique measures the difference in transverse momenta between outgoing particles from an initial neutrino interaction, known as the transverse kinematic imbalance (TKI). TKI measurements isolate the effects of re-interactions in the nucleus, and by comparing experimental data with model predictions we can improve these models to the level required for complex oscillation measurements.

Carlos is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in the Physics Department at William & Mary. He is a particle physicist studying neutrinos, which are perhaps the most poorly understood component of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. He is a member of two different international neutrino experiment collaborations, MINERvA & DUNE. Both are hosted Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the United States' premier particle physics laboratory and formerly the location of the world's strongest particle accelerator. He received his B.S. in Physics from the University of Florida in 2020. 

Zhen An, "Beliefs and Values Underlying Caregivers’ Decisions about Feeding Meat to Their Infants and Toddlers"

Advisor: Dr. Catherine Forstell

Poster Session, Friday, 3-5 p.m., Chesapeake

Evidence-based dietary guidelines highlight the crucial role of first foods rich in iron and zinc during the complementary feeding period (6-24 months). This is particularly important for breastfed infants because the concentration of these essential nutrients decreases in breast milk after 6 months of lactation. Although red meat such as beef is an excellent source of iron and zinc, caregivers often express concerns about introducing this food to their infants, leading to an increased risk of nutritional deficiencies. Despite the initial reluctance to introduce red meat, this food holds a significant place in American diets, with the majority of adults exhibiting a strong attachment to meat and justifying their consumption of meat using the 4Ns (i.e., eating meat is natural, normal, necessary, and nice). The current study explores how caregivers in the United States make decisions about introducing red meat to their children during the complementary feeding period. Data were collected from 46 parents of 6 to 24-month-old infants through semi-structured interviews. A thematic analysis will be conducted to assess their beliefs and values regarding animal-source foods. The objective of this analysis will be to explore how these beliefs and values intersect with notions about infant development to influence decisions related to complementary feeding. Findings from this study will provide insights to help improve dietary guidelines and policies to prevent nutritional deficiencies in infants as well as an understanding of the factors that motivate meat consumption in families.

Zhen An is a first-year Master's student in the Psychological Sciences Department at William & Mary. Her research areas include disordered eating behaviors and decision-making regarding eating. Her first-year project explores how caregivers make decisions about feeding meat to their infants and toddlers during the complementary feeding period. She holds a BSc in Psychology from University College London.

Ansley Crutchfield, "Self-Regulation of Emotion, Cognition, and Physiology in Parents of Young Children"

Advisor: Dr. Madelyn Labella

Poster Session, Friday, 3-5 p.m., Chesapeake

Self-regulation, also called self-control, describes the process of managing one’s cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses to the environment. Good self-regulatory skills may help parents navigate the challenges of caring for young children. Self-regulation of cognition, also known as executive functioning (EF), is necessary for paying attention, switching between tasks, and overriding automatic responses. Physiological self-regulation includes the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps the body respond to everyday challenges through changes in heart rate. Parasympathetic nervous system activity has been linked to EF and emotion regulation (ER) in children, but little is known about how it relates to other aspects of self-regulation in parents. The current study addresses this question by testing associations among physiological, emotional, and cognitive self-regulation in 205 parents of toddlers. Physiological regulation will be measured at rest and during a parenting-related challenge (i.e., clean-up task). Correlations and multiple regressions will be used to test associations linking physiological regulation with ER and EF. We anticipate that more adaptive physiological regulation during parenting will predict fewer ER problems and better EF performance. If physiological regulation is found to be associated with emotional and cognitive regulation, future interventions may target improving parents’ self-regulation across domains, including using deep breathing to enhance parasympathetic functioning.

Ansley Crutchfield is a first year M.S. student in the department of Psychological Sciences at William & Mary. She has a research interest in the role of self-regulation in parent-child interactions. Specifically, she is interested in the physiological, emotional, and cognitive domains of self-regulation.

Folly Folivi, "Need Frustration and E-cigarette Dependence Among College Students: The Mediating Role of Ruminative Thinking"

*Winner, Award for Excellence in Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Advisor: Dr. Adrian Bravo

Co-authors: AM. Petrey, L. Holt, A. Looby

Panel: Grad 7, Thursday, 1:15 p.m., York Room

The prevalence and dependence of e-cigarettes has increased globally among young adults in recent years. Researchers have identified several risk factors, such as depression, for e-cigarette use and dependence. However, research investigating need frustration of autonomy (i.e., experience of pressure and conflict), competency (i.e., ineffectiveness and helplessness), and relatedness (i.e., social alienation and loneliness) as a predictor of e-cigarette use and dependence is limited. Further, need frustration may relate to more e-cigarette use and dependence via higher ruminative thinking, which is known to relate to both need frustration and tobacco use. The present study tested a path model (i.e., need frustration [autonomy, competency, relatedness] rumination [problem-focused thoughts, counterfactual thinking, repetitive thinking, anticipatory thoughts] e-cigarette use and dependence outcomes) among 914 college students (75.5% female; 60.6% White, non-Hispanic) who endorsed past month e-cigarette use. Within our model, we found no statistically significant associations between need frustration components and e-cigarette use via rumination facets. Regarding e-cigarette dependence, we found two significant associations via problem-focused thoughts rumination (e.g., “I have never been able to distract myself from unwanted thoughts”). Specifically, higher scores on autonomy and competency frustration were associated with higher e-cigarette dependence scores via higher endorsement of problem-focused thoughts. These findings offer suggestions for future intervention research.

Folly Folivi is a first year Masters student in Psychological Sciences at William & Mary. His research interests focus on substance use and mental health disorders, interventions that may decouple (specifically mindfulness) the relation between health risk factors and health outcomes across distinct populations, and neural bases of attention, perception, and emotional processing. He is currently investigating whether secular and religious framings of contemplative practices have different neurological, psychological, and health outcomes. 

Joyce Forster, "Personality and Politics as Predictors of Anti-Vaccination Attitudes"

Advisor: Dr. Xiaowen Xu

Panel: Grad 10, Thursday, 2:30 p.m., York Room

Recent years have seen such an increase in anti-vaccination attitudes that the World Health Organization (2019) has deemed vaccine hesitancy one of the top ten global health threats. Much work thus has been devoted to understanding the processes underlying vaccination attitudes. Some work has focused on the importance of psychological factors underlying vaccination attitudes, such as belief in conspiracy theories and disgust sensitivity (Hornsey et al., 2018; Callaghan et al., 2019). The present study adopts an individual differences approach to examine how personality traits and political ideology may play a role in understanding attitudes toward vaccination. Undergraduate psychology students were recruited and completed measures of personality, political ideology, and vaccination attitudes. We predict that high levels of Conscientiousness, lower levels of Openness to Experience, and more conservative political ideologies will predict higher anti-vaccination attitudes. This work has the potential to contribute to our understanding of the psychological processes behind differences in attitudes toward vaccination and may help inform strategies to decrease anti-vaccination beliefs.

Joy Forster is a first year MS student in Psychology at William & Mary. Her research interests include moral reasoning, social influence, and moralization in politics. Her current research investigates vaccination attitudes, disgust, and personality predictors. She holds a B.A. from UCLA in Psychology.

Molly Goldberg, "Testing a Measure of Inspiration Strategy Use"

Advisor: Dr. Todd Thrash

Poster Session, Friday, 3-5 p.m., Chesapeake

Inspiration is a process whereby a person recognizes an idea of intrinsic value and feels motivated to transmit that value through some creative activity. It has been associated with well-being both in the sense of immediate pleasure and long-term fulfillment. Inspiration is known to be a desirable state to experience in a person’s daily life, yet little is known about if or how individuals can cause their own inspiration states. Theory-driven qualitative research has indicated that there are approximately four different types of strategies: seeking a wide variety of stimuli in the hope that an inspiring stimulus will surface, returning to environments where inspiration was previously found, calming or opening the mind, and preparing the tools or resources necessary to act when inspiration strikes. Additionally, prior measurement development work has indicated a two-factor structure along an active-receptive dimension. The current research involves further developing a measurement of inspiration strategies and testing the model on a sample of William and Mary students. We gathered data on participants personality, well-being, which strategies they use, and how inspired they usually are. Confirmatory factor analysis will provide quantitative evidence for our strategy typology, and modeling will demonstrate personality and well-being correlates while distinguishing the strategies from other variables such as openness or positive affect. Future research will involve longitudinal designs which can determine if strategy use precedes inspiration states.

Molly Goldberg is a second year Master's student in Psychological Sciences at William and Mary. Her research is on aesthetics, well-being, and inspiration, and she is completing a thesis on the strategies people use when they want to feel inspired.

Mutian (Mark) Li, "Interactions between Orexin and Acetylcholine in Cognitive Flexibility"

Advisor: Dr. Josh Burk

Panel: Grad 15, Friday, 12:30 p.m., James Room

In Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), one important function affected is cognitive flexibility, the ability to adjust to different rules according to context. Chemicals released in the brain, such as orexin and acetylcholine (ACh), can affect cognitive flexibility. Orexin and ACh can influence the activity of each other and may interact to affect cognitive flexibility. In the present project, rats will receive drug treatments to manipulate orexin and ACh at different timepoints and test their cognitive flexibility. We will use one drug (VU0453595) to increase ACh output, and another drug (SB-334867) to reduce orexin output. First, rats will be exposed to the first drug. Then, after receiving injections of the second drug, rats will be tested through tasks that require them to follow different rules to get rewarded. For our expected results, animals that receive the first drug should have improved task performance, with higher doses resulting in better performance, and the second drug will impair performance. We also expect that the second drug will block the positive effects of lower dose injections of the first drug. Results from this study will better inform treatment of cognitive flexibility in AD.

Mark Li is a first year Masters student in the Psychology Department at William & Mary. He is interested in animal models of cognition and Alzheimer’s Disease. He is currently investigating the roles of certain brain chemicals, like orexin and acetylcholine, in the flexible expression of behavior and cognition.

Adriana Lopez, "Modulation of P2 and N2 ERP Components by Imagined Ingroup vs. Outgroup Contact"

Advisor: Dr. Cheryl Dickter

Poster Session, Friday, 3-5 p.m., Chesapeake

Individuals often exhibit an individuation bias, a tendency to pay more attention to one group than another, when processing information about other people belonging to their racial ingroup. Neuroscience research has revealed differences in brain activity when individuals observe others in pain based on group membership linked to empathy and potentially related to racial prejudice. As per prior research, increased contact with outgroup members raised affective empathy and reduced neural processing bias between ingroup and outgroup. Since the opportunity for direct and positive contact is seldom practicable, the current study aims to determine the effect of imagined contact on empathic processing and neural racial bias. Our sample will comprise 100 Black and White William and Mary undergraduate students. The current study will employ two methods to assess prejudiced attitudes and affective empathy: self-report and physiological measures (EEG). Participants will be asked to write a short story in which they imagine themselves positively interacting with a member of their racial ingroup or outgroup, take surveys on their experience with the outgroup, and perform a categorization task identifying painful and neutral facial expressions while their brainwaves are recorded using EEG. We expect that outgroup prejudice and neural bias will be reduced after imagining a positive interaction with an outgroup member than with an ingroup member. If imagined contact has a reducing effect on neural racial bias, this exercise can be used as a tool to weaken racial prejudice.

Adriana Lopez is a first year M.S. candidate in the Psychological Sciences Department at William & Mary. Her research interests include the social cognitive processes involved in modifying and reducing stereotypes and prejudice, and the underlying neural mechanisms of empathy. She is currently exploring the multifaceted aspects of racial prejudice reduction by incorporating both psychological and neural perspectives.

Alicia Mosher, "The Effects of Trauma on Adolescents' Level of Emotional Intelligence"

Virginia State University

Advisor: Dr. Sade Younger

Panel: Grad 15, Friday 12:30 p.m., James Room

In a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents ages 13 to 17 years old, 62% had been exposed to at least one lifetime traumatic event, and 19% had been exposed to three or more traumatic events (Darnell, D., Flaster, A., et al., 2019). Given these statistics, this study proposes to explore the correlation between adolescents' and young adults’ trauma and their levels of emotional intelligence. The prevalence of traumatic events among U.S. adolescents highlights the need to investigate the potential impact on their emotional intelligence. The purpose of this study is to fill the gap and assess how adolescent and young adult trauma negatively or positively affects their levels of emotional intelligence. This study will utilize a cross-sectional, nonexperimental design. Primary data will be collected from community service boards in central Virginia for this study, utilizing the G-Power Analysis to determine a statistically significant sample population of adolescents and young adults. This study's population sample will be adolescents and young adults aged 12 to 18, attending public or private middle or high schools and actively engaged in services provided by the Central Virginia Community Service Boards. Using a nonprobability sampling, data will be collected electronically utilizing the Adolescents Childhood Experience (ACE) scale and the Emotional Quotient Inventory. The findings from this study will fill a gap in the literature and offer meaningful implications for social work research, social work practice, and social work policy.

Alicia Mosher is a second year masters student in the Social Work Department at Virginia State University. Her research interests include women, children and current mental health issues. Her current research focuses on the effect trauma has on adolescents' emotional intelligence levels. 

Emma Stephenson, "Mother Knows Best? Maternal Interoception Aids Interpretation of Children’s Heart Rate"

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Stevens

Co-authors: M. Schulte, K. Koltermann, M. Labella

Poster Session, Friday, 3-5 p.m., Chesapeake

Interoception is the perception of the body’s internal signals in response to various stimuli. Interoceptive ability allows for the interpretation of physiological needs and regulation in response to hindrances to optimal functioning. Most research examines how interoception aids the interpretation of one's own needs rather than the needs of others. Further, there is a need to develop interoception measures that do not rely on questionnaires to infer ability. The present study uses a novel method to examine how a mother’s interoceptive ability, or maternal interoception, aids interpretations of her child's heart rate (HR). To measure the mother’s objective interoceptive ability, a device attaches to the child’s wrist to record their HR. The child engages in tasks as the mother holds a smartphone that communicates with the device to report perceptions of her child's HR. Mothers also report their subjective interoception of their own internal signals and their child's emotional-behavioral development.  We hypothesize that a mother’s subjective interoception will predict her ability to interpret the intensity and direction of changes in her child’s HR. We also expect that a mother’s perceptions of their child's physiology will relate to their child's emotional-behavioral development. Future research can consider parenting interventions that improve maternal interoception to better understanding of children’s physical and emotional needs. This study will build foundational understanding of how mothers' perceptions of child physiology tie to their ability to perceive themselves.

Emma Stephenson is a second year M.S. student in the Psychological Sciences Department at William & Mary and works alongside Dr. Jennifer Stevens in the CogNeuro Lab. She examines perception of the body's internal signals in response to other internal and external stimuli (i.e., interoception). Her thesis examines cardiac interoception in mother-child dyads, how a mother's ability to perceive her physiology aids and relates to her ability to perceive changes in her child's cardiac state.

Julia Zhou, "Emotional Flexibility in Different-gender Adolescent Friendships Predict Depressive Symptoms and Well-Being"

Advisor: Dr. Janice Zeman

Poster Session, Friday, 3-5 p.m., Chesapeake

Expressive flexibility is the ability to flexibly suppress and/or magnify one’s emotional expressions, according to the demand of situations. This ability is especially important for adolescents, as strong expressive flexibility leads to better friendships and mental health. On the flip side, expressive flexibility can also be improved by communications with friends. However, it is not clear whether same-gender and different-gender friendships can lead to differences in expressive flexibility, even though boys and girls have different patterns when talking about emotions. Consequently, the current study examined the effect of the gender of friends on adolescents’ expressive flexibility and mental health. 321 late-adolescents reported the genders of their best friends and questionnaires to measure their expressive flexibility and mental health. Four categories — men with only friends of one gender, men with friends of two genders, women with only friends of one gender, and women with friends of two genders — were formed. Statistical analyses showed that men with only friends of one gender exhibit significantly lower expressive flexibility, as compared to the other three groups. Additionally, expressive flexibility significantly predicted better mental health for women. These results indicated the potential benefits of having friends of both genders. Additionally, expressive flexibility can help prevent internalizing symptoms.

Julia Zhou is a first-year master’s student in Psychological Sciences at William & Mary. She is interested in how social relationships (friendships, relationship with parents, etc.) can influence individuals’ emotion regulation abilities and strategies. She is also interested in psycholinguistics, such as how might the use of language influence one’s emotional experiences.

Ruth Bekele, "Nonprofit Collaboration Across the Virginia Peninsula" 

Advisor: Dr. Alexandra Joosse

Co-Presenter: Aarushi Desai; Co-author: Malcolm Baytop

Panel: GRAD 13, Friday, 9:15 a.m., York Room

The present study addressed the following research question: How can NetworkPeninsula, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support and advocate for collaboration opportunities between over 150 nonprofits across the Virginia Peninsula, effectively enhance collaboration among its nonprofit members? To answer this question, we utilized Social Network Analysis (SNA) to design a survey and visually map the relationships between nonprofit and public interest organizations affiliated with NetworkPeninsula.  

Results from the SNA survey provided insight into three types of nonprofit collaboration in the past year for over 100 Virginia Peninsula organizations: referral of services, advocacy, and partnerships in services. In the referral of services network, more than 50% of nonprofits referred services at least six times in the past year. In the advocacy and partnerships in services networks, nonprofits with the highest number of collaboration pathways tended to be moderately sized as opposed to the largest, with a strong reputation for collaboration in their service area. Such findings suggest that experience, trust, and strategic partnerships are vital to effective and continued nonprofit collaboration in the Virginia Peninsula region.  

The findings of this study can shape impactful nonprofit grant funding and humanitarian initiatives across the Virginia Peninsula region, underscoring the need for policy initiatives that raise awareness about aligned organizations, increase grant funding for cross-sector collaboration, and promote resource sharing between nonprofits.

Ruth Bekele is a second-year master's candidate in the Public Policy program at the College of William and Mary. Their academic journey has been dedicated to investigating the intersection of public health and public policy. Currently, they are delving into the utilization of Social Network Analysis to enhance collaboration within nonprofit organizations.

Aarushi is a 2nd year accelerated Master’s of Public Policy Student at William & Mary with a special interest in nonprofit management. Her research contributed to exploring nonprofit collaboration across the Virginia Peninsula. She received her B.A. in Public Policy from William & Mary.

Jamie Eiseman, "A New Method for Combatting Transnational Organized Crime: Criticality Calculations and Illicit Finance Flows"

George Washington University

Advisor: Dr. Robert Zirkle

Co-authors: J. Briscoe, G. Goldwyn

Panel: Grad 12, Friday 9:15 a.m., James Room

This research is meant to develop a methodology for disrupting the activities of Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCO) by targeting illicit finance flows, specifically usage of the Emirati gold laundering system. It is meant to support law enforcement agencies in combatting transitional crime because traditional policing methods are not proving sufficient. To form a plan of action we will utilize network mapping and linkage analysis data of an active wildlife trafficking TCO and perform a series of business calculations to identify the entity’s breakeven point and other important financial statistics. Once this is complete, we will create a Criticality, Accessibility, Recoverability, Vulnerability, Effect, and Recognizability (CARVER) matrix of the nodes within the TCO where there is the most financial activity to determine which are the most vulnerable to attack. Using this information we will then utilize Failure Modes, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) software to identify the impact each specific nodal financial failure would have on the organization at a network level and possible chain reactions in other nodes. This will allow us to offer a quantitatively supported policy recommendation to policing agencies combatting this specific TCO. The method could then be replicated for usage in targeting other organizations.

Jamie Eiseman is a second year masters student in the Security Policy Studies program in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. She has double concentration in Transnational and U.S. National Security with a broader interest in foreign policy. Jamie currently works in Foreign Military Sales and completing independent research on the disruption of illicit finance flows to combat international organized crime. She also has a passion for and experience in wargaming and crisis simulations. 

Rosemary Ketron, "Regulatory Reform for Coastal Resilience"

Advisor: Dr. Sarah Stafford

Co-authors: S. Lampe, M. Nwaneri

Poster Session, Friday 3-5 p.m., Chesapeake

Recognizing the impact of sea level rise on coastal communities, the Virginia Sea Grant is working with partner companies to promote both resilience and restoration of the coastal environment. Our project seeks to find workable solutions to incongruencies between the current regulatory system and the needed tools to promote coastal resilience. We consulted regulators, innovative companies, and policymakers to evaluate the current regulatory framework. We analyzed case studies of regulatory reform and existing legislation, and we considered what facets of these reforms could be implemented in Virginia. Virginia should build on its existing experimental protocols and conditional permitting practices to implement a full experimental permit system with extensive monitoring to craft future regulations. Legislative action is likely necessary to give regulators the flexibility they need when encountering new resilience products. The reformed regulatory system should include oversight and transparency, while providing opportunities for knowledge-sharing. Effective communication and collaboration are crucial to reducing the current information gaps and implementing a robust regulatory system that can respond to rapidly changing environmental conditions.

[no bio submitted]