Poster Session 1

Our group mainly focuses on Landmines detection conducted by automated robots. Our team is all over the world working with Italy, Ukraine, and Jordan. At F&M, our primary focus is obstacle detection using iPhone lidar, tripwire detection using a camera, and detection of landmines by a metal detector. The final goal is to allow the robot to be able to run fully automated, safely finding underground explosive items and inform the operators as explosive items are being detected. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Fronefield Crawford, Department of Physics and Astronomy

This empirical study investigates how communicative behavior changes when an interaction is conducted through a video/virtual interface such as Zoom. It turns out that professors and students gesture frequently in zoom class meetings. Over the summer we explored the nature of those gestures. Using the coding software ELAN, we devised an original annotation template and used it to analyze Zoom classroom recordings obtained from four F&M professors, noting semantic relation, bodily location, movement style, and positioning in the zoom window of all gestures performed. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, our preliminary findings indicated that the majority of all gestures, including semantically relevant ones, were not centrally located in the zoom window. Rather, they were either partially on the screen or moving between on and offscreen. To determine the impact of these ‘partial gestures’, we are now conducting a follow-up investigation of the learning effects of partially visible gestures. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Elena Cuffari, Department of Psychology

Argynnis idalia, commonly known as the regal fritillary, is a large butterfly native to North America. The Blair Lab, in collaboration with ZooAmerica in Hershey and the Fort Indiantown Gap National Guard Training Center, are working to conserve the last remaining Regal Fritillary populations on the East Coast through captive rearing. The focus of this project was to develop methods for the molecular detection of the Nosema microsporidian, a Lepidopteran pathogen that can potentially cause increased mortality during captive rearing. After several rounds of PCR optimization, our results were inconclusive. Future studies will require the use of a validated positive DNA sample for Nosema to ensure that the negative results seen in our study accurately reflect the absence of infection in our Argynnis samples. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Jaime Blair, Department of Biology

Historically, soil erosion from agricultural landscapes triggered substantial legacy sediment deposition in regional valley bottoms in slack-water ponds behind milldams. As these now defunct milldams are increasingly being removed, large volumes of legacy sediments are released, resulting in high sediment and nutrient loads in downstream waters. Recognizing this causal relationship, PADEP is now requiring that floodplain wetland restorations occur simultaneously with low-head dam removals to mitigate sediment erosion and improve aquatic ecosystems and water quality. This past summer our research compared sediment characteristics at the restored wetland at Big Spring Run (BSR) with sediments from a natural, ten-thousand-year-old valley bottom wetland at Great Marsh. We found evidence of substantial organic matter accumulation at BSR, which we are comparing with values from Great Marsh soils. Also, we are studying soil structures and compositions to understand how restored wetlands evolve over time, and how resilient restored landscapes are compared with natural ecosystems. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program and the Richard King Mellon Foundation via Chesapeake Watershed Initiative.

Project Mentors: Professors Dorothy Merritts and Robert Walter, Department of Earth and Environment

Cu2−xS are copper deficient particles from which the surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) (which is resonance we get in some metals when electrons get excited by light and they jump back and forth between vacancies on the valence band. Thus Plasmonic particles absorb light in a different way than other metals) were observed to be quenched during the initial Cu2−xS/Cu2−xTe core/shell stage of anion exchange when few Te ions have replaced S ions. LSPR then returns as Cu2−xTe progresses into the nanorod. Rearrangement of atoms within the core accounts for this behavior, illustrating the complexity emergent from anion exchange. Understanding of mechanisms where the plasmonic behavior can be altered is important because the NIR plasmons enable opportunities in photothermal ablation therapy, where irradiation of the nanoparticles can kill nearby cancerous tissue. In addition to that, this behavior has contributed to theoretical and experimental advances in photonics, as well as providing a crucial bridge from fundamental science to applications. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Kate Plass, Department of Chemistry

NANOGrav Student Teams of Astrophysics ResearcherS (NANOStars) is a research and education program where students analyze and inspect real pulsar search and timing data from radio telescopes. These data are being used to detect low-frequency gravitational waves via their effects on pulsar signals: a gravitational wave signal that is present can be revealed over a long time baseline. As part of this effort, NANOStars students analyze some of the search data collected by these telescopes to look for new, rapidly-spinning pulsars in our Galaxy that might be present in the data. NANOStars students work in small teams with a student team leader who is responsible for educating and training the team members on pulsar astronomy basics, research methods, and presentation skills. NANOStars team members and leaders meet weekly to discuss progress on their various research activities and plan longer-term data analysis tasks. Students also present talks during monthly telecons with other NANOGrav institutions. No prior experience is required; anyone with an interest is welcome to join NANOStars and participate in this work. This project was supported by funding by the National Science Foundation Physics Frontiers Center Grant

Project Mentor: Professor Fronefield Crawford, Department of Physics and Astronomy

What might it mean for a human life to matter and how might one come to believe that they matter? These questions animate our mixed design, quantitative/qualitative study of young people, ages 15-21, from a variety of racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds. We suggest that existential mattering might consist in the felt, or phenomenological sense, of one’s intrinsic value. We refer to this manifestation of mattering as either benign or altruistic. In contrast to positive forms of mattering, we also hypothesize a malignant form that we refer to as malevolent or dark mattering. In this form the sense that one matters is awakened and/or sustained by narcissistic attitudes and assumptions, by prejudice directed against outgroups who are assumed to be inferior, and/or by hostile attitudes toward life itself. We are interested in assessing the impact of these forms of mattering on young people’s mental, behavioral, and physical health. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program and the Puff Fund.

Project Mentor: Professor Michael Penn, Department of Psychology

Scleractinian corals are often in symbiosis with algae from the family Symbiodiniaceae. In a process known as “bleaching”, coral cells expel their endosymbiotic algae under rapid temperature rise, and thereby may cause irreversible damage to themselves. It is hypothesized that bleaching results from a difference in thermal adaptation between corals and species of Symbiodiniaceae, and that the symbionts are adapted to a broader and cooler temperature range than the hosts. In silico simulation of structural stability of proteins was employed in this study as a proxy to investigate thermal adaptation. Through homology modeling, we preliminarily identified mobile regions in certain key metabolic enzymes in corals and Symbiodiniaceae, and with molecular dynamics simulation software we generated evidence to test our hypothesis. Our results vary in their support of the hypothesis. Further experimentation is in progress to arrive at a definitive conclusion. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Eyler Fund and the National Science Foundation.

Project Mentor: Professor Peter Fields, Department of Biology

I spent the summer months in Jordan where I studied Arabic in its historical, political, and cultural context thanks to the Marshall Fellowship grant. Attending lectures on diverse topics related to race, gender, economic development, and dialects broadened my understanding of Jordan and its relationship with other countries in the Middle East. The opportunity to explore and experience the Jordanian culture allowed me to discover many similarities between Jordan and Bulgaria (my home country). Starting as a complete novice, I spent ten weeks studying both MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) and the Levantine dialect, and by the end of the program, I was able to have conversations with locals and my host family in Arabic. Participating in an intensive language program with no prior experience with Arabic was empowering and my experience in Jordan will inform my thinking as I aspire to work in a multicultural environment. This project was supported by funding from F&M's John Marshall Fellow Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Meagan Tripp, Department of German, Russian and East Asian Languages

In more than 80% of colon cancer patients, the tumor suppressor adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) is mutated resulting in the inactivation of the beta-catenin destruction complex. In this complex, APC, Axin and GSK3 work together to target beta-catenin for destruction. Wnt signaling inactivates the destruction complex, thereby resulting in beta-catenin accumulation in the nucleus where it promotes expression of genes like cyclin D1 that cause cell proliferation. Though the importance of the complex in development has been well established, the role of APC within the complex is not well understood. Recent research has suggested that beta-catenin may be acting as a bridge between Axin and APC. Based on this data, we hypothesize that Axin and APC may be functionally redundant within the complex in regards to beta-catenin binding. To test this hypothesis, we generated transgenic flies that express mutated APC and Axin at endogenous levels and are currently assessing function. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor David Roberts, Department of Biology

The genetic disorder Down syndrome (DS) is caused by triplication of human chromosome 21 and causes skeletal defects in DS individuals. These skeletal differences include shortened long bones and a higher risk of osteoporosis. Recent studies show a possibility of sex-related differences in skeletal development. The Dp(16)1Yey mouse model was used because mouse chromosome 16 is orthologous to human chromosome 21; interstitial duplication mimics DS. I predict that prenatal femoral growth will be significantly different when sex and genotype are considered because DS males have stronger effects on long bone size and osteoporosis. Embryonic bones, when initial calcification should appear, were stained with Alcian blue for cartilage and Alizarin red for calcium in ossified bone. Imaging was used to measure femur and ossification center length. No significant differences were seen between sex and genotype, possibly due to small sample size or lack of effect at the stages tested. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program and the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Project Mentor: Professor Clara Moore, Department of Biology

The project examines the possibility of unequal temperature adaption between corals and Symbiodinium clades, which could contribute to coral bleaching. Two species of scleractinian corals are being investigated, Acropora millepora and Orbicella faveolata, as both are readily available and have extensive transcriptomic data. The Symbiodiniums being studied are clade B, clade C, and clade D, which provide a variety of heat sensitivities. In order to compare the temperature resistance of the coral and their symbionts, universal enzymes were selected and targeted using kinetic, stability, and structural analyses. The kinetics are examined using recombinant proteins, which are purified using HIS-Select Nickel affinity resin then the purity is determined via SDS-PAGE. The enzyme activities of the recombinantly expressed enzymes are assayed at varying temperatures at intervals of 5°C from 20 to 45°C. The results are analyzed by deriving the apparent Michaelis-Menten constant (Km), the maximal reaction rate, Vmax, which is used to determine the catalytic rate constant (kcat = Vmax / [enzyme]), and the Arrhenius activation energy (Ea), based on the Arrhenius equation (ln k = ln Ao – Ea/RT) where k can be Vmax or kcat. This project was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation.

Project Mentor: Professor Peter Fields, Department of Biology

The global pandemic had a significant impact on European Union member states, forcing the institution to apply its existing and new crisis management tools to protect Europe from an economic and public health crisis. However, the EU emerged from the pandemic criticized by several countries for its handling of the crisis, which our research aims to examine. In order to measure the effectiveness of the EU during the pandemic, we looked at two questions. We first assessed the effectiveness of the EU according to its architects. We measured this by developing six operationalized variables based on the jurisdiction of the EU: economy, foreign policy, justice and home affairs, social policy, cooperation, and research and development. After collecting this data, we plan to compare the data between 2015-2019 and 2020-2022 to answer our second question: was this structure effective during the COVID crisis? This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Stefanie Kasparek, Department of Government

The apatite family is a group of minerals of hexagonal symmetry with a versatile structure that allows for the substitutions of many cations and anions. The incorporation of the thiosulfate ion into apatite was studied to determine how the size of the anion affects its incorporation in apatite, Because it is isoelectronic and structurally similar to the sulfate ion, which is known to substitute for phosphate in apatite, the thiosulfate ion could be expected to behave similarly. The synthesis of the thiosulfate-containing apatites was attempted by using an aqueous ion-combination reaction. The substitution was verified by combustion analysis of sulfur. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Yoder Research Fund.

Project Mentor: Professor Claude Yoder, Department of Chemistry

To determine the impact that specific genes, ASIL1 and ASIL2 have on the abiotic stress response of Arabidopsis thaliana a series of experiments looking at sensitivity to ABA, NaCl, mannitol, and heat shock were conducted over the course of the past year and the results show that the different genes do play various roles in the impact of abiotic stressors on Arabidopsis. However, since the mutants came from various genetic backgrounds, the results from the experiments were not always interpretable. Through the course of this summer, I worked toward creating mutant lines of Arabidopsis using a multiplex CRIPSR/Cas9 assembly. The goal of this was to create ASIL1, ASIL2, and four other related gene mutants that all have the same genetic background. Once the mutants are finalized, this will allow for direct comparison of the mutants to investigate the impact that abiotic stressors have on the development of Arabidopsis. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Pablo Jenik, Department of Biology

In their Summer 2022 Hackman, Idris/Izzy Mansaray, Lauren Proffitt, and Simon Taylor played roles in the preparation of the Gleaners Film Festival, as well as the New Gleaners Film Workshop. The festival focuses on exhibiting and celebrating marginal and non-normative works. As a part of their collaboration with festival Co-Directors, Jeremy Moss and Sonia Misra, the students will continue their involvement in the project in the time leading up to Gleaners Film Festival (September 22-24), as well as during the festival itself. Each student is involved in many ways with the festival, including (but not limited to) curatorial, logistical, and design roles. This group of students also helped to lead the New Gleaners Film Workshop, a 2-week documentary intensive focusing on community engagement in Lancaster. Each student acted as a mentor for the McCaskey Highschoolers attending the workshop as they went through the brainstorming, planning, and production process of creating short documentary films. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program and the Center for Sustained Engagement.

Project Mentor: Professor Jeremy Moss, Department of Art, Art History and Film

Traditionally, the reactive attitudes (such as some forms of anger and gratitude) have been understood as responses to others’ success or failure in upholding the communal norms. This project aims to investigate how members of marginalized groups can use reactive attitudes to hold others responsible for establishing norms that are based on misguided and unjust expectations. We focus on the idea of “second-order anger,” described by Maria Lugones as a type of anger in the face of oppressive distortions of one’s identity. Such anger demands respect through a reconsideration of the concepts and attendant social norms that underlie this distortion. While the differences in dominant versus resistant understandings of these background concepts make this anger seem irrational and unintelligible to the oppressors, second-order anger still can provide them with reasons for questioning the concepts informing these ideologies. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Bennett Helm, Department of Philosophy and the Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind Program.

Molybdenum (Mo) is a common element that collects in marine sediments and can be used to trace the past oxic conditions of the ocean. Our research aims to mimic the solid state transformation process of iron sulfides where they are transformed from mackinawite to greigite and then to pyrite, as well as monitor the transition’s effects at varying levels of pH and with different ionic strengths. The iron sulfides were synthesized aqueously with a 2:3 mole ratio of Fe to S and varying levels of pH and concentrations of tetrathiomolybdate. The effects of tetrathiomolybdate in the aqueous phase were monitored by UV-Vis, and ICP. The solid state transformation was conducted via monowave and analyzed by PXRD, Raman, and XPS. The data from these experiments showed that Mo is adsorped onto the synthesized iron sulfides and that increasing temperature is directly related to the process of the solid state transformation. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program and the American Chemical Society.

Project Mentor: Professor Jennifer Morford, Department of Chemistry

Research has shown that children view gestures as a meaningful tool to communicate (Goldin-Meadow, 2003). Furthermore, research has shown that children group individuals based on outward communication such as language or accent (Kinzler et al., 2007). However, it is unknown whether children view gestures as a signal to group individuals. The current study presented children with an individual who spoke with or without gestures, and asked children to identify who that individual was more likely to be friends with: someone else who gestured, or someone who did not gesture. Preliminary analyses suggest that children are more likely to group together individuals who gesture similarly, assuming they are more likely to be friends (p=.004). The tendency to group according to gesture became stronger as children got older. The purpose of this study is to further our understanding of how children utilize communicative actions (gesture) to group people into social categories. This project was supported by F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholars Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Lauren Howard, Department of Psychology

This project considers whether face masks influence social perceptions and connectedness. Participants watched videos of masked and unmasked students introducing themselves and reported how connected they felt to each through multiple surveys. Next, they indicated how well they knew the targets by recalling information about them. Participants also completed individual difference measures and recorded their own introductory videos (masked or unmasked), for exploratory purposes. Participants’ videos were coded for expressiveness. Contrary to our hypotheses, masking did not inhibit social bonding or influence individuals’ perceptions of others. Masking only influenced individuals’ ability to hear and understand the target’s feelings. Additionally, wearing a mask did not influence participants’ expressiveness in their introductions; instead, individual differences predicted their emotional expressiveness. However, we found no significant relationship between the variables, suggesting that one can still deduct emotion and remember the previous interaction they had based on other features not hindered by a mask. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Megan Knowles, Department of Psychology

The potential uses of light as a tool continues to grow as technology advances. Using a spatial light modulator we gained fine control over a laser beam which allowed us to manipulate it in such a way that we were able to produce an image. By refining this process we created an animation solely through the use of a laser beam and optical instruments. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Etienne Gagnon, Department of Physics and Astronomy

Down syndrome (DS) or trisomy 21, is correlated with intellectual and physical congenital defects including skeletal abnormalities that result in shorter bone growth period and lower bone mineral density. Relationship between osteoclasts, apoptosis, and DS mouse models segregated by sex were studied. Embryos were fixed, paraffin-embedded, sectioned and treated to measure the pattern of apoptosis in the hypertrophic zone and along the chondro-osseus junction (COJ) of humeri. The pattern of osteoclasts contributing to the formation of bone tissue was examined through immunohistochemistry with antibody to cathepsin K detection. Apoptosis was universally distributed along COJ and edge of the ossification center among sections indicating the occurrence of angiogenesis. Difference in percent apoptosis between individuals shows no clear pattern concerning DS samples so far. Initial observation noted that osteoclasts in DS mouse samples were reduced compared to euploid. Results may indicate disruptions during prenatal bone formation that influence the post-natal characteristics. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Clara Moore, Department of Biology

One of the largest global health concerns today is bacterial resistance to existing antibiotic therapies, underlining the need for new antibiotics. Natural products are one of the main sources of antibacterial compounds, but many classes of natural products remain underexplored. An example of this is ficuseptine, an alkaloid isolated from Ficus septica, a fig tree from Southeast Asia used in folk medicine. Despite fiucseptine’s reported antibacterial activity, it has not been investigated further. This summer, we synthesized ficuseptine and six novel derivatives of ficuseptine in 2-4 steps. The antibacterial activity of the derivatives were tested against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, E.coli and B.subtilis, using a Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) assay. Overall, all derivatives exhibited moderate antibacterial activity against Gram-positive bacteria but were inactive against Gram-negative bacteria, consistent with previous results. Future research will aim to further understand the link between structure and activity in ficuseptine and its derivatives. This project was supported by F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholars Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Sarah Tasker, Department of Chemistry

This study investigated bilingualism and perceptions and usage of inclusive language in Spanish in the United States. Given that Spanish uses grammatical gender, inclusive language seeks to add ways in which Spanish speakers can be gender-neutral and inclusive of non-binary individuals. Prior research has investigated attitudes and usage of inclusive language in Spanish, exploring the difference between acceptance and willingness to use inclusive language (Bonnin & Anibal 2021). Additionally, a study focused on the addition of a gender-neutral pronoun in Swedish and how factors like sexism, age, etc. impacted participants’ perceptions (Gustaffson Sendén et al. 2015). Lastly, a study examined perceptions, use, and familiarity of inclusive language among Spanish speakers, although with only one non-binary participant, suggesting that research on the LGBTQ+ community is scarce (Michnowicz et al. 2021). Thus, this study seeks to investigate perceptions and usage of inclusive language in Spanish among bilinguals in the LGBTQ+ community. This project was supported by F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Jessica Cox, Department of Spanish and Linguistics

This project aims to advance our understanding of our protein of interest (POI) by characterizing its interaction partners in human cells. Immunoprecipitation of FLAG-epitope-tagged constructs of our POI was used to co-precipitate interacting proteins, which were identified with mass spectrometry. We identified a set of putative interactions that cluster into several functional groups (e.g., vesicle trafficking, cell-cycle regulation, ER quality control). Among these, our POI co-precipitates the tailless complex polypeptide 1 (TCP1) chaperonin TRiC/CCT complex, and preliminary data suggest that our POI requires TRiC for proper folding and stability. Another project aim is to determine how disease-associated variants of our POI affect progression through cell cycle. Live-cell imaging of human fibroblasts was used to visualize our POI in cells progressing through the cell cycle. We are currently using this approach to assess the impact of disease-associated variants of our POI. This project was supported by F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholar Program and the National Institute of Health.

Project Mentor: Professor Robert Jinks, Department of Biology

As more and more Asian immigrants come to the United States, modern Buddhism interfacing with a large variety of people. Buddhism has started to become popular in the United States. According to statistics in 2019, there are around 350 Theravada monasteries in the United States. Field research by Salguero in 2019 found how the monasteries influence the nearby community actively through field research (Salguero,2019). The study is composed of three steps: Select the monasteries’ location. Visit the monasteries and interview the monks or the people in the monasteries. Assimilate the research into a larger database of information on Buddhist organizations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. This research draws on questions scholars have asked about the processes of modernization and adaptation of Buddhist communities in North America. It also tests the "two Buddhisms" paradigm, which suggests that there are "parallel congregations" in American Buddhist organizations, each serving different communities with different needs. Asian-American communities, for example, go to temples to keep connected to their ancestral homeland and cultures, serving as community centers, while convert communities are more focused on meditation (Numrich 1999). Other research, however, disputes this neat division and suggests more complex, overlapping realities (Mitchell and Quli). This project was supported by the Khan Fund.

Project Mentor: Professor David McMahan, Department of Religious Studies

The purpose of this study is to explore the possibility of establishing a revised formulation of quantum mechanics, which we call the Space-Time formulation of Quantum Mechanics, and test its validity based on existing results in standard quantum mechanics. In this new formulation, we bring the relativistic perspective of time into standard quantum mechanics by treating time as a dynamical variable instead of a parameter. The results developed based on this new perspective of time show great mathematical consistency with respect to Standard Quantum Mechanics, including the Hamiltonian as the generator of time translation, the propagator, and raising/lowering operators in simple harmonic oscillator problem. Also, the Space-Time formulation can potentially provide easier solutions towards some quantum mechanical problems which is why in future work, the application to the emission and absorption of radiation in the hydrogen atom will be a major test of the approach. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Hackman Summer Scholars Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Calvin Stubbins, Department of Physics and Astronomy