This summer in the Roberts Lab, we investigated the role of the protein APC, which is the most frequently mutated gene in colon cancer. APC is crucial in the Wg/Wnt pathway, regulating cell fate decisions and proliferation, and also targets the protein Beta-Catenin for destruction -- although its exact role in this complex remains unknown. Using Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies), we explored whether the binding sites for Beta-Catenin on APC are functionally redundant with those on Axin, another protein in the destruction complex.  We also tested whether APC's Beta-Catenin binding sites are interchangeable with binding sites from other proteins, including TCF, Alpha-Catenin, and Axin. These investigations aimed to elucidate whether APC primarily functions to recruit Beta-Catenin into the destruction complex or if it serves a more intricate role in this critical cellular process. We tested our hypotheses using transgenic fruit fly lines (generated by the Roberts Lab) crossed into mutant backgrounds to assess the functionality of these proteins in Wg/Wnt regulation. This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program and the Eyler Fund.

Project Mentor:  Professor David Roberts, Department of Biology

Artificial intelligence is opening new ways for facilitating physics research, particularly by reviving older methods for simulating and analyzing the energy behavior of physical systems. Even simple physical systems can give rise to a vast number of possible behaviors, making it difficult to search through all possibilities efficiently. To address this, we used qualitative reasoning—drawing on Qualitative Process Theory (QPT)—to model physical processes using symbolic rules and logical relationships. We modernized these algorithms in Python and developed an envisioning engine, testing it on modeling water flow between containers to demonstrate its ability to capture key qualitative behaviors without relying on numerical data. These initial outcomes show that qualitative modeling can uncover how small-scale systems behave over time. Once we have a fully functioning envisioning engine, we will model and simulate a three-level atomic system to identify conditions under which particle populations shift, providing an interpretable envisionment for experimental validation. This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Willie Wilson, Department of Computer Science

Thioethers, molecules containing two carbon–sulfur bonds, have applications in organic synthesis, biochemistry, and materials chemistry. The Tasker lab recently discovered a new way of making these products in good yield using thiophenol, an organoiodine catalyst, and an alkene reagent. This summer, we focused on creating new thioether derivatives and gathering experimental evidence to support our proposed mechanism of product formation. During this process, we were able to understand that water was integral in converting our  precatalyst into its active form allowing the reaction to be catalyzed. Overall, we synthesized more than 20 different thioether examples, highlighting the wide scope of this reaction. This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program and the National Science Foundation.

Project Mentor:  Professor Sarah Tasker, Department of Chemistry

One of the fundamental human needs is to belong, but when it is challenged by factors such as individual differences or the social environment, experiences of rejection can profoundly shape people’s thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Previous studies carried out by Prof. Knowles have highlighted the role of socially symbolic objects in group membership, the heightened rejection sensitivity often seen in neurodiverse populations, and people’s tendency to shift their identities in response to social rejection, all of which present important directions for future research. This summer, we built upon this research by contributing to projects centered on the experiences of belonging and rejection, including socially significant objects, social identity shifting, rejection sensitivity in neurodiversity, and individual responses to social threat. Tasks included analyzing and compiling data, reviewing literature, building a dot probe task, and conducting research on the online platform Prolific.  We carried out a study on social identity shifting and another on rejection sensitivity among the neurodivergent individuals, both of which yielded significant results consistent with predictions.  This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Megan Knowles, Department of Psychology

Our research presentation will focus on our summer's findings, investigating the future of Lancaster's agricultural landscape via results from our interviewees. We will use quotes and snippets from our interviews this summer to hypothesize what the future of agriculture will look like in Lancaster, and broader geographically, going into the next 10-20 years. We will also share and comment on general themes that presented themselves over the course of our research, including impacts from technology, the Amish, and climate changes. This project was supported by funding from the Mellon Foundation.

Project Mentor:  Professor Eric Hirsch, Department of Earth and Environment

The FDA designates modified risk tobacco products (MRTPs) as safer alternatives to cigarettes. Only those products are labeled thusly, so smokers may be unaware of how to reduce their exposure to harm. We conducted a mixed-methods study of thirteen adult (21+) smokers. Recruitment was conducted online and via flyers. Participants were eligible if they smoked 5+ cigarettes daily as their primary form of tobacco use, were not pregnant or trying to quit smoking. Smoking status was confirmed via CO and urine samples. Using random assignment and daily text messages, we explored how including MRTP with framed cigarette warnings affects smoking behavior. We also interviewed participants about their thoughts of and trust in relative risk tobacco images. Effectively communicating MRTPs on cigarette labels may reduce public health consequences of smoking. This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Hollie Tripp, Department of Government and Public Health Program

Half-sandwich ruthenium complexes have important catalytic applications, in numerous organic reactions. Thanks to the modular nature of these compounds, their properties can be easily tuned by varying their ligands. Electrochemical investigations of these catalysts are a critical tool to improve our understanding of the electronic structure of these complexes, as these studies can provide a roadmap for further refinement of the properties of these complexes through introduction of different substituents on their ligands. 

In the presence of a coordinating solvent like CH3CN, we have found that oxidation of complexes such as (cym)RuCl2(PPh3) results in cymene dissociation and generation of a new product, RuCl2(PPh3)(NCCH3)3 (product A). As chemical synthesis of this complex has been challenging, we instead targeted preparation of [RuCl(PPh3)2(NCCH3)3]+ (Product C), which is generated in the electrochemical oxidation of [(cym)RuCl(PPh3)2]+ in CH3CN. The synthesis and electrochemical properties of various isomers of product C will be presented.  This project was supported by funding from the Snavely Summer Research Award and the ACS Petroleum Research Fund.

Project Mentor:  Davide Lionetti, Professor of Chemistry

Synthesizing light emitting phosphors for efficient lighting solutions enhances our quality of life by reducing our need for energy production. This work focuses on the optical properties and crystal structure of LaAlO3:Eu3+, a compound that produces orange-red light for LEDs. We used single-fuel combustion synthesis to create  Eu3+-doped LaAlO3, and studied its properties using X-ray diffraction, emission spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. We found that the combustion synthesis method recorded in the literature led to the formation of not only LaAlO3:Eu3+, but also of a secondary compound: La2O3:Eu3+. We also found that using an excess of (Al(NO₃)₃ during the combustion, or sintering the sample leads to less La2O3:Eu3+ present in the material. In addition to the two crystalline structures identified, we also observe a less ordered cation site likely associated either with carbon impurities or surface cation sites in the nano-scale phosphors.  This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program and the Shilling Family Endowment. 

Project Mentor:  Ken Krebs, Professor of Physics and Astronomy

The Friedmann–Lemaître equations successfully track the Universe’s expansion history but, in their classical form, omit quantum-field effects. Inflationary cosmology resolves horizon, flatness, and relic problems via a brief epoch of accelerated expansion. Building on this foundation, Peebles and Vilenkin proposed quintessential inflation, where a single scalar field both powers the early-time inflation and later evolves into today’s dark-energy component. Most existing treatments emphasize the inflationary era alone. We present a general framework that modifies the Friedmann dynamics in a slow-roll regime and smoothly connects to late-time quintessence, preserving standard limits (recovering ΛCDM when appropriate) while remaining agnostic about specific potentials. The approach encodes observationally testable links between early- and late-Universe physics and admits families of models consistent with current CMB and supernova constraints. By unifying the two acceleration epochs in one minimal setup, our model yields clear, falsifiable predictions that near-term datasets can probe. This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program.

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

The Indus River Basin supports millions of livelihoods, yet it faces increasing stress from glacial retreat, erratic monsoon cycles, and unsustainable extraction. These environmental pressures are compounded by a securitized lens along with policy and media narratives that frequently prioritize large-scale infrastructural projects over community-driven or nature-based solutions. This project examines sustainable water access in the Indus Basin by integrating scientific research on subsurface water availability with an assessment of local and indigenous water management practices. By situating scientific findings within the adaptive strategies of basin communities and governance, the study highlights how traditional method and community-led distribution practices could offer valuable models for resilience. The collected cases and techniques underscore the need to align policy and science with local knowledge to address both environmental and socio-political dimensions of scarcity. This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Zeshan Ismat, Department of Earth and Environment

Recent interest in studying intramolecular vibrational redistribution (IVR) energy flow in complex molecular scaffolds and how this process differs from vibrational coupling. From evaluating drug binding processes and designing molecular wires are potential applications that can benefit from a better understanding of the energy flow in conjugated and nonconjugated molecular scaffolds. Expanding on previous investigations of energy transfers within aromatic scaffolds by 2D IR spectroscopy, seven new scaffolds were proposed, comprising of 16 novel compounds. Synthetic pathways to these targets will be presented, including organometallic Suzuki cross-coupling, nucleophilic aromatic substitution, and azidation by diazonium salt formation. The present work includes the successful synthesis of 4 (4-Azidophenoxy)benzonitrile (2O), 4-[(4-azido)phenyl]methyl]benzonitrile (2C), and 4′-Azido-2-chloro[1,1′-biphenyl]-4-carbonitrile (1Cl) in 49, 46, and 57% yields, respectively. The products were characterized by IR, 1 H NMR, and 13 C NMR spectroscopy. Scaffolds 2O and 1Cl were sent to our collaborator Prof. Tucker to undergo further 2D-IR studies.  This project was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, and Frederick H. Suydam, PhD, Chemistry Student Research Endowed Fund.

Project Mentor: Professor Edward Fenlon, Department of Chemistry

At what age do children begin to form symbolic, or group-based beliefs? When these beliefs begin to be voiced, are they merely expressive or indicative of something more deeply held? We hypothesize that children aged 6-12 will form group-based beliefs about a novel subject after hearing testimony from their in-group that indicates social costs of deviating from this belief, and in the face of conflicting evidence from an expert. While past work suggests that adults form political beliefs due to partisan motivations (Funkhouser, 2022; Van Bavel & Pereira, 2018), and kids as young as five can form social beliefs from overheard gossip (Tang et al., 2023), only one study to date has demonstrated that kids seem to form socially motivated beliefs (Finiasz et al., in preparation). Generally, our research aims to assess political biases and information processing in children (Ditto et al., 2024; Lagenhoff et al., 2022). This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Joshua Rottman, Department of Psychology

RotationSlicing is a tool for slicing the 3D large scale structure of galaxy distributions in the universe, developed for contribution to Astropy, an open source Python package for Astronomy. As a trial, we used RotationSlicing with the 2025 Data Release 1 of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) galaxies survey, and concluded RotationSlicing would benefit from convenience functions to display galaxy positions in several projections at once. This poster describes our development of those functions. Over the summer, we addressed a range of technical and code-level challenges, including establishing collaborative Git workflows, implementing automated testing with pytest and pytest-mpl, integrating Sphinx for figure-rich documentation, and ensuring cross-platform compatibility with tox. We extended RotationSlicing’s core functionality with new frame and plot classes (HemisphereFrame, AllskyFrame, SkystripAxes), and we created convenience functions (Simple_RotationExplorer, SkyStripExplorer) that interactively change the positions of galaxies on a sky position plot and slice pie plot as parameters change.  This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Elizabeth Praton, Department of Physics and Astronomy

In this article, we use lanternfly honey as a prism to explore the economic and ecological entanglements of living with invasivity among the more-than-human world. As the spotted lanternfly (SLF) spreads across the US, public messaging tends to frame it as an ecological nemesis that demands eradication and strict control measures. Yet the lanternfly’s excretions also can result in a bountiful production of spotted lanternfly honey, which has quickly arisen as a new commercially successful varietal for local beekeepers. By conducting interviews with beekeepers from the Mid-Atlantic region and posting queries on online beekeeping forums, we explored the economic and ecological issues surrounding the honey and beekeepers’ relationality with spotted lanternflies. Broadly, we argue that beekeepers are learning to live with other species amid changing perceptions of insect invasivity, and suggest an openness to experimentation and changing aesthetics as features of a movement towards greater ecological reconciliation, even in uncertain and precarious ecological contexts.  This project was supported by funding from F&M’s Committee on Grants Program and the Bolton Humanities and Social Sciences Student Exploration Endowment. 

Project Mentor: Professor Eve Bratman, Department of Earth and Environment

Recognition of cytosolic nucleic acids is critical for type-I interferon production, which inhibits pathogen replication.. One apical sensor, cGAS, binds to cytosolic DNA and generates cGAMP as secondary messengers that bind directly to STING at the ER. Active STING recruits TBK-1 or IKKε, which phosphorylates interferon regulatory factors to drive the antiviral transcriptome. NLRC3, an NLR family member, negatively regulates this pathway by blocking STING trafficking and TBK-1 activity. TMCC1 was identified to interact with NLRC3 via a yeast-two hybrid screen. In this poster, we demonstrate that TMCC1 interacts with NLRC3 at/near the ER, preventing NLRC3 interactions with STING. TMCC1 also interacts with cGAS but not STING. Recombinant THP-1 cells deficient in TMCC1 secrete significantly less type-I interferon in response to cytosolic DNA. These findings suggest that TMCC1 is a positive regulator of type-I interferon production, possibly via derepressing NLRC3 function and/or via interactions with cGAS. This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program, the Eyler Fund and the National Institute of Health.

Project Mentor: Professor Beckley Davis, Department of Biology

Molybdenum (Mo) has been used as an important paleoproxy to understand past marine conditions. Because marine conditions have been changing continuously, there are many factors impacting the extent of Mo sequestration in sediments and the potential release of Mo back to the surrounding water. This study aims to better understand how different oceanic conditions affect both FeS transformation mechanics and Mo sequestration by focusing on one variable at a time in a controlled laboratory setting. These controlled conditions are as follows: temperature, pH, Mo concentrations sorbed onto FeS, and aging time of FeS prior to Mo sorption. To achieve this, a comprehensive approach is taken by utilizing XRD and XPS to understand how solid phase transforms; meanwhile UV-VIS and ICP-OES are used to understand different thiomolybdate behaviour in aqueous phase. Results showed variables can overshadow the impacts of other conditions and impact of one condition can be dependent on others. This project was supported by funding from the F&M Hackman Summer Scholars Program and the National Science Foundation.

Project Mentor: Professor Jennifer Morford, Department of Chemistry

Nitrile and azide vibrational reporters are being developed to study the dynamics within biomolecules, using NMR and 2D-IR spectroscopy as the peaks show up in an uncrowded region of the spectra. The synthesis of the 13CN isotopologues of 5-cyano-2’-deoxyuridine (quantitative) and 3’,5’-TBDPS-5-cyano-2’-deoxyuridine (23%) will be presented. Variable temperature IR and 13C NMR spectra were collected in different solvents to hopefully determine the sensitivity of the nitrile reporter and decouple the electrostatic and hydrogen bonding effects. Additional studies will be presented of the synthesis of di-N-butyl(4-([reporter]phenyl)pyridine-2,6-diyl)dicarbamate where the [reporter] group is 13CN (34%), 13C15N (31%), or azido methyl (30%). These pyridines can form a dimer system with 5’-O-DMT-2'-azido-2'-deoxyuridine. Potential vibrational coupling between these reporter groups will be investigated by 2D-IR in collaboration with the Tucker group to find an ideal reporter pair and study RNA structural changes and dynamics such as folding and unfolding. This project was supported by funding from the F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholar Program

Project Mentor: Professor Edward Fenlon, Department of Chemistry

Transfer hydrogenation (TH) is extremely important in fields such as medicine, pharmaceuticals, and chemical synthesis because it allows selective reduction of double bonds. Historically, an unsaturated bond is reduced using hydrogen gas with a metal catalyst such as palladium or platinum. However, this is extremely difficult because using a gas makes it difficult to work with, it is harder to target specific bonds, and the metals are also difficult to work with under high pressure. This study explores the Hantzsch amide for TH on conjugated α,β-unsaturated 2-arylmethylene dimethyl malonates and unsaturated ketones, producing a water-soluble pyridine byproduct for easier isolation.  Multiple unsaturated esters were synthesized via condensation of dimethyl malonate or acetylacetone with benzaldehydes (4-bromo, 1-naphthyl, 4-hydroxy, 4-nitro) using different reactions which includes MTFA, 3Å sieves, and reflux in pet ether/EtOAc. Preliminary TH with Hantzsch amide was attempted on a few compounds, though time constraints limited testing. Future work will determine reaction success and expand applications. This project was supported by funding from the F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Scott Van Arman, Department of Chemistry

Muonium, a bound state of a positive muon and an electron, is a unique system for testing quantum electrodynamics and the Standard Model with high precision. The goal of our project is to calculate the O(⍺^7) energy corrections to muonium in order to improve theoretical predictions for comparison with ongoing experiments. We have worked on calculating the Feynman integrals that correspond to the four-photon exchange muonium Feynman diagrams at threshold. In order to evaluate these integrals, we first grouped together similar Feynman diagram parts. We then reduced them down to thousands of simpler master integrals using integration by parts techniques provided by a computer package on the F&M cluster. With symmetry considerations, we have reduced this number down to approximately 400 integrals that need to be solved. Within the next few months, we plan to evaluate these integrals to obtain a final theoretical value. This project was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation.

Project Mentor: Emeritus Professor Gregory Adkins, Department of Physics and Astronomy

This summer I have been working with Professor Schmidt analyzing spectra of multiple planetary nebulae which are the remnants of the deaths of Sun-like stars. Specifically, I have been looking for the H2S molecule since it is thought to be a primary reservoir of sulfur that could help explain the anomalous sulfur abundances observed in many planetary nebulae. Specifically, sulfur is observed to be less abundant than predicted based on models. A leading theory is that sulfur could be trapped/hidden in molecules, one of them being H2S.The fundamental transition of H2S at 169 GHz was observed in a set planetary nebulae using the ARO 12-m Telescope, and the resultant spectra were processed using the program CLASS. While H2S has been detected in several PNe based on these observations, additional data is required in order to confirm the presence or absence of the molecule in the full set of target sources. This project was supported by funding from the F&M’s Hackman Summer Scholar Program.

Project Mentor: Professor Deborah Schmidt, Department of Physics and Astronomy