Gideon Appiah, Arthur Lobowitz

This research models career path disparities experienced by Black/African American professionals, focusing on the factors contributing to underrepresentation in leadership and high-level positions. Built using a dataset of over 28,000 records, the model incorporates historical disadvantages stemming from segregation, and government policies, recognizing their enduring impact on. It also accounts for ongoing biases and discrimination in hiring, promotion, and workplace culture, as well as the influence of limited access to mentorship and professional networks. Furthermore, the model considers the role of education and its effect on professional preparedness. By examining these interconnected factors, the research aims to quantify their relative contributions to career path disparities and identify potential leverage points for intervention. The goal is to develop a robust, data-driven model that can inform strategies for promoting equitable career progression for Black/African American professionals.

Paul Wiedemeier, Kim Tolson

Many public university museums continue to operate with smaller budgets as their respective legislatures attempt to reduce overall state spending.  In response, resilient museum curators explore novel approaches to provide museum patrons with exhibits that are innovative, interesting, and interactive.  As such, the need to create inexpensive exhibits is crucial to a museum’s long-term ability to fulfill their stated mission.

In this presentation, the design for a low-cost interactive museum exhibit that employs near-field communication (i.e., NFC) technology and open-source software is introduced.  The materials one must acquire and the general steps necessary to build such an exhibit are discussed.  We will show that our current NFC museum exhibit is interactive, but future planned improvements will increase user engagement.

Once constructed, our exhibit functions like a Museum in a Box (i.e., MiaB) but differs in three significant ways.  First, our exhibit costs roughly 84% less than a MiaB.  Second, our exhibit uses NFC technology and open-source software to play video and audio files, as well as display image files, whereas a MiaB can only play digital audio files.  Last, the storage capacity of our exhibit is eight times greater than a MiaB.

Joshua Udo, Emmanuel Oppong

This research investigates the strength of passwords across several popular email services, including Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, and others, focusing on password entropy as a key metric. Password entropy measures the randomness and unpredictability of a password, directly correlating with its resistance to cracking attempts. This study analyzes the minimum password requirements enforced by each service and evaluates how well these requirements contribute to the creation of strong, secure passwords. We examined these policies to determine their effectiveness in promoting user security. Our analysis revealed that some services maintain weaker password policies, potentially leaving users vulnerable to various attack vectors, particularly when multi-factor authentication is not enabled. We also explored the relationship between password length, character sets, and overall entropy. The research aims to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of current password policies implemented by these email providers, offering insights and recommendations for improvements to enhance user security and mitigate the risk of unauthorized access.

Prasanthi Sreekumari, Sumnima Rai

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots into various digital interactions has reshaped human-technology engagement, enhancing efficiency and user experiences. However, these advancements present significant privacy challenges, particularly concerning data ownership, transparency, and security. This study examines how AI chatbots collect, store, and process user inputs for model training, raising concerns about user consent, data control, and potential exploitation. By analyzing real-world data privacy incidents and existing regulatory gaps, the research underscores the risks associated with AI-driven platforms. Furthermore, the study explores privacy-preserving technologies, including federated learning and differential privacy, as potential solutions to mitigate these risks. The findings highlight the necessity for robust data protection policies and ethical AI practices to ensure user privacy and security.

Haeyeon Yang

Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) can be used to analyze chemical elements based on atomic emission from materials when they are irradiated highly energetic laser pulses. LIBS has been used to detect hazardous materials, analyze various elements in food, and elemental analysis for missions to the Moon, Mars, and future explorations of other planets. This is because LIBS is a powerful tool as it is a non-invasive, remote, rapid, and versatile method. In this presentation, we discuss the spectroscopic analysis of various light sources as well as our initial development towards the analysis of light emission from various targets when they are irradiated by nanosecond laser pulses.

Jannatul Ferdousi, Bitisha Banet, Pedro Derosa

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are versatile 2D materials with tunable electronic properties, making them ideal for applications in optoelectronics, sensing, and energy devices. This study focuses on the semiconductor-to-metal transition in W1-xTaₓS₂ and W1-XTaₓSe₂ monolayers, achieved by substituting tungsten (W) atoms with tantalum (Ta) atoms. Using density functional theory (DFT) in the QuantumATK framework, the effect on the slab’s electronic properties of Ta concentration and the relative position of the substituted atoms was systematically analyzed. The results reveal a semiconductor-to-metal transition in both systems, completed at approximately 12% Ta concentration. Localized electronic effects, influenced by the spatial arrangement of Ta atoms, significantly affect the band structure, and particularly the bandgap.

It is observed that the bandgap of W1-xTaₓSe₂ tends to have smaller than W1-xTaₓS₂. Differences in bandgap type (direct vs. indirect) are also observed depending on the dopant distribution. By comparing the two systems, this study highlights the critical role of chalcogen identity and dopant configuration in modulating electronic properties. These findings provide a framework for designing TMD materials with tailored functionalities for advanced technological applications. The insights gained enhances the understanding of how compositional and structural variations influence the semiconductor-to-metal transition in TMD-based heterostructures.

David Kordahl, Emma Foster

The acoustical response of a beer bottle can be quantitatively described using the damped driven oscillator model. This model is a well-established part of the physics curriculum, and applying it to pressure variations from the beer bottle’s fundamental resonance can teach us valuable lessons about Green’s functions and Fourier methods. Normalized amplitudes and phase measurements from the bottle’s response to pure tones confirm that the damped driven oscillator model fits microphone measurements quite well. Playing chirp signals across the bottle’s fundamental resonance frequency allows oscillator parameters to be extracted in just a few seconds. When two microphones are used, with one measuring the bottle’s response and the other measuring the sonic background, the convolution of these coherent signals allows us to reconstruct the magnitude and the phase of the damped driven oscillator model’s frequency-domain Green’s function. This provides a simple yet realistic example for understanding some of the basic physics of spectroscopy.