Abstracts

Abstract
Reproductive anthropologists navigate complex politics and landscapes, requiring creative methods to capture a dynamic field and amplify affected voices. My research investigates egg donors' experiences within the fertility industry as they navigate consent, privacy, and access to care. As more people turn toward the fertility clinic to build families, the landscape of egg donation is also expanding. Despite thousands of women donating annually, there is a critical lack of unbiased resources available to donors. In most other medical settings, patients have access to clear procedure guidelines, resources, or handbooks to help them navigate their medical care experiences. Egg donors, however, primarily get information directly from donor agencies and clinics who have a financial interest in their decision to donate. This is a conflict of interest in need of remedy. As part of my commitment to the egg donor community and in the effort to resolve significant gaps in donor education, I am facilitating the co-creation of The Egg Donor Handbook, a collaborative guide for egg donors that offers advice and tools to empower donors during the donation process. Through the co-production and sharing of knowledge, my work seeks to break down the walls that have historically separated researchers and participants, instead celebrating the creativity that emerges from connection. Handbooks as a genre and method offer an opportunity to bridge the divide between academic and public writing while providing a practical output that directly benefits participant populations. My presentation will highlight community-centric methodologies and writing for participants as key components of anthropological research.

Bio
Ashley is a graduate student in Purdue University's Anthropology Department. Her research focuses on third party reproducition and assisted reproductive technologies, particularly egg donation. She is interested in anonymity and privacy within gamete donation and how the rights of donors and donor conceived people align and conflict. She draws from methods and theories of medical, feminist, and applied anthropology; STS; and community-centered practice. She is committed to public engagement and writing for participant communities in addition to academic-focused outputs. Ashley conducted her undergraduate studies at Rice University, earning a BA in Anthropology and a BS in Environmental Science.

Abstract

Scholars in engineering education, engineering studies, and other related fields have studied and critiqued patterns in the role of—predominantly Euro- and US-centric—engineering training and practice as powerful vehicles of world-making (and destroying) (Dvorak, 2025; Khalili, 2018; Mitra et al., 2023). At the same time, extant literature in engineering professional development fluctuates between a focus on improving student retention and challenging the interwoven educational systems of meritocracy and technocracy that undergird institutional agendas of STEM workforce development (Bluestein et al., 2022; McGowan & Bell, 2020).

In an attempt to bridge these disparate bodies of scholarship, I plan to conduct a narrative inquiry study of the relationships between institutional narratives of the ideal engineer and the individual engineer’s lived experiences. I will use narrative inquiry to make space for knowledges beyond the technical and use contemporary narrative inquiry theorizing to address research as ontology, mirroring the world-building role of engineering perhaps as an ontology (Hendry et al., 2018). To critically inform the narrative interviewing, analysis, and writing processes, I will draw from Foucault’s theorizing of disciplinary power and more contemporary literature on bureaucracies and technologies of empire.

Bio
Kelsey Biscocho is a PhD candidate in science communication in the Agricultural Science Education and Communication department. She has a background in mechanical engineering and is interested in the ways engineers negotiate their professional roles and identities with dominant narratives of US engineering. Kelsey has also conducted research involving public engagement and interdisciplinarity in responsible innovation. She is co-advised by Dr. Linda Pfeiffer (ASEC) and Dr. Jake Burdick (Curriculum Studies).  

Abstract

Contemporary institutions often invoke “scientific objectivity” as a neutral standard for truth, yet in practice this ideal frequently functions as an epistemic hierarchy—legitimizing certain forms of knowledge while marginalizing others. Drawing on theories of epistemic injustice, this paper argues that the problem is not science itself, but the cultural elevation of domain-specific scientific methods into a total account of reality. All scientific knowledge is produced through human perception, language, inference, and interpretation; however, only some inferential practices are granted legitimacy, while embodied knowledge, intuition, and lived experience are dismissed as merely “subjective.”

This asymmetry becomes visible when comparing socially accepted invisible constructs such as dark matter and dark energy with socially delegitimized non-material forms of knowing. Both rely on inference and pattern recognition, yet only one is institutionally authorized. I propose a conceptual mnemonic—Etotal = Emass + Emotion + Efields + Egrav + Edark + Einformation/meaning—not as a calculable physical law, but as a philosophical model that expands the evidentiary imagination beyond measurement alone. The model reframes knowledge as relational, situated, and incomplete in isolation, emphasizing that meaning emerges through the interaction of multiple domains rather than from any single authoritative method. By positioning science as one vital piece of a larger epistemic puzzle, this paper advocates for an expanded understanding of knowledge that preserves scientific rigor while resisting epistemic shame and exclusion.

Bio
Samina Rose is an interdisciplinary scholar and writer whose work examines the intersection of institutional power, epistemic legitimacy, and structural trauma. Drawing from sociology, critical theory, and trauma-informed frameworks, her research explores how systems of expertise—particularly within science, medicine, and bureaucracy—produce hierarchies of credibility and silence dissenting forms of knowledge. She is the author of The Truth Teller: Transforming Our World and Compounded Relational cPTSD: The Truth Teller’s Path, which investigate institutional gaslighting and collective healing. Her current work develops conceptual frameworks on truth-telling, epistemic injustice, and the politics of objectivity in modern institutions.  

Abstract

Drawing from recent ethnographic fieldwork among deathcarers in the American South, this paper explores the significance of culturally-informed and community-centered deathwork. These care frameworks re-orient ideas around death to consider and embody the ways in which death does not mark a fixed cessation of meaning or relationality, maintaining the humanity of the ‘dead’ as individuals and as groups. Dominant beliefs and actions around death are mediated largely through the biomedicalization of care, which structures an imaginary around death that is sterile, individual, and oriented around quantity of life. This approach maintains a positivist framework that can do tangible harm to dying people by offering care that is isolating, devaluing of their wants, and that removes dying people from sustaining community connections. While biomedical and clinical care are key aspects to mediating the process of dying, they cannot account for all of a person’s needs and values in both dying and after, nor do they make room for communities of care otherwise. In conceptualizing and enacting systems of deathcare, it is paramount that both biomedical/ clinical and cultural perspectives be incorporated, particularly in an era where people are increasingly getting priced out of access to both resources and care; where tech advancements like generative A.I. rampage both intellectual and material economies; and where manifestations of structural inequity are impacting people’s lifespan and quality. Thus, this paper shares approaches to how people die and care for the dying in ways that are informed by relational frameworks, considering the intersections between clinical and cultural care.

Bio
Taylor Borgelt is a third-year Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology, with research interests around the intersections of life and death, racialization and racial violence, systemic inequities, critical science and knowledge production, and visuality. She received her bachelor's in biology from Howard University and a master's degree in Anthropology from Purdue. With education and research backgrounds in both biology and anthropology, Taylor uses an anthropological lens to explore how people are conceptualized and managed in death, relative to experiences and enactments of care, focused in the American South. 

Abstract

The ontological category of ʿajāʾib wa gharāʾib in premodern Arabic literature—often translated as the astonishing and the marvelous—describes a worldview governed by the “Law of Possibility” rather than Causation. In thirteenth-century cosmographer al-Qazwīnī’s works, this logic of possibility authorizes the existence of strange creatures; in the twenty-first century, Saad Z. Hossain’s novels Djinn City (2017) and Kundo Wakes Up (2022) mobilize a similar logic to imagine the continued presence and intervention of djinn within a technologically modern world. Reading Hossain’s works through the lens of ʿajāʾib, I argue that his speculative fiction inherits a premodern epistemology that refuses a rigid separation between the scientific and the supernatural. Firstly, I demonstrate how Hossain’s scientific reimagining of djinn echoes the ʿajāʾib tradition’s use of natural-philosophical language to explain marvels. Then, I show how his juxtaposition of technology and magic destabilizes the hegemonic regime of rationality that Federico Campagna terms “Technic.” By foregrounding ʿajāʾib as an analytic framework, I ultimately argue for the centrality of the marvelous, the strange, and the supernatural in theorizing speculative futures.

Bio
Rida Altaf (she/her) is a Fulbright scholar, pursuing her master's in Comparative Literature at Purdue University. Her primary genre of interest is speculative fiction. Currently, she is using Arab cosmographer al-Qazwini's theory of the strange and wondrous to analyze the supernatural elements in Muslim speculative fiction from South Asia and the Middle East. 

Abstract

My paper “Annie Bot: AI, Robot Sex Dolls, and the Cultural Zeitgeist” examines Sierra Greer’s 2024 science fiction novel Annie Bot. In this novel the titular character Annie, an artificially intelligent sex doll, repeatedly negotiates the circumstances of her existence as it relates to her owner and romantic partner Doug. This paper examines how  identity operates within the novel and argues that Annie Bot reveals how technology destabilizes our ideas of self and personhood. Utilizing both Mel Chen’s concept of “animacy” and Donna Harraway’s cyborg theory, this essay uses close reading of the novel to investigate the intersections of sex, romance, and technology. Combining news articles, reviews, and  blog entries about the advent of erotic AI with feminist based literary theory and the novel’s text allows this paper to explore key literary themes of identity and power. Ultimately, this essay seeks to demonstrate that Annie Bot illuminates not only the social fallout of combining sex and  love with technology but also how neither identity nor power are fixed in our evolving techno-landscape.

Bio
Mary Moore is at her core a lifelong reader and writer. Moore has worn many hats in the literary landscape, from book reviewer to book-seller to student to historian to literary agent intern to instructor of first year writing. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and History from Middlebury College and a Master of Letters in The Book: History and Techniques of Analysis from the University of St Andrews. Moore is currently pursuing a doctorate in Literary History at Ohio University. Moore’s academic interests lie at the intersection of history, literature, and critical disability studies, with a focus on the history and literature of eugenics, reproduction, motherhood, children, and families. 

Abstract

The paper examines Hiromi Kawakami’s Under the Eye of the Big Bird (2025) as a speculative meditation on biopolitics, memory, and posthuman survival. The novel portrays a near-extinct humanity living under inherited scientific systems that regulate reproduction, identity, and population without a visible state or centralized authority. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, the paper analyzes how power functions through the quiet management of life rather than overt coercion. Svetlana Boym’s theory of reflective nostalgia is used to interpret the novel’s melancholy tone and its characters’ muted sense of loss in a world where meaning and historical continuity have thinned. Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman framework helps explain the hybrid, system-shaped identities created through engineered reproduction, while Jacqueline Bhabha’s work on child vulnerability illuminates the fragile position of children within this survival regime. Scientific discussions of rapid evolutionary adaptation by Ary A. Hoffmann and Carla Sgrò further contextualize the novel’s vision of forced biological change. Together, these perspectives reveal a future in which humanity survives biologically but struggles to preserve moral, emotional, and cultural meaning.

Bio
Originally from Kazakhstan, Bayan Konysbekkyzy joined Purdue University’s Ph.D. program in Comparative Literature in Fall 2025. She holds an M.A. in Languages and Cultures (Japanese) from Purdue University, an M.A. in Culturology (World Cultures and Civilizations), and a B.A. in Foreign Philology (Japanese Language and Literature) from Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations and World Languages in Almaty.

Her research examines representations of gender, family, and social norms in modern Japanese literature, particularly in the works of prominent women writers such as Takahashi Takako, Ogawa Yōko, and Murata Sayaka. She has received multiple academic honors, including a fellowship from Warmia-Mazury University in Poland and the Japanese-Language Program for Outstanding Students fellowship from the Kansai International Japanese-Language Institute in Osaka, Japan.

Abstract

My paper, “Sexualized Cyborgs and the Uncanny Double: Objectification and Psychoanalysis in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” examines Philip K. Dick’s 1968 seminal novel within the larger context of postmodern and contemporary science fiction. The novel tasks protagonist Rick Deckard with hunting and “retiring,” or killing, six incredibly humanlike androids illegally living on Earth. Along the way, Deckard develops an intense relationship with Rachael, another android who has vowed to assist him, and his distinction between humanity and artificiality blurs. Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny double and Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory, this paper identifies the destabilized boundaries between the natural and unnatural and the resulting, reciprocated sexual objectification between Deckard and Rachael. Using psychoanalytic and technofeminist frameworks, the paper clarifies twentieth- and twenty-first century fears surrounding advancing humanoid robots. Our contemporary habits of imagining a world in which the apex predator is the android—a mechanical mirror of ourselves—rather than humankind underscore the urgency of understanding both why this fear emerges and what it reveals.

Bio
Lauren Fitch is a master’s student at Ohio University researching women and technology in nineteenth-century Gothic and twentieth-century science fiction literatures. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Creative Writing from Purdue University in 2023, and she graduates from Ohio University this May.

Abstract

Artificial intelligence has been a fascination of the Western consciousness for nearly a century. Yet the 21st century has seen a growing reflection on the deeper relationship between humans and cyborgs, particularly between straight men and their female A.I. companions. In the last decade, four science fiction films—Her (2013), Ex-Machina (2014), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and Companion (2025)—have offered unique visions of what this romantic and sexual relationship could look like. Each film is different in its portrayal of the dynamics between the human man and his artificial girlfriend. Real-world development such as the launch of Open AI in 2022, along with the growing violence and legislative attacks on women’s bodies, have informed the evolving portrayal of A.I. women and their autonomy. By situating these four films in conversation with one another, we gain a deeper understanding of the intersectionality between technology, sex, artificial intelligence, and gender dynamics in the 21st century.

Bio
Victoria Valle Remond is a graduate student in the MALAS program at San Diego State University. She graduated from Chico State with a B.A. in Latin American Studies and a minor in Cinema, where she wrote about everything from infant abduction in Latin America to the Sartrean existential humanism in Ingmar Bergman’s films. She has also worked with English learners and their families at various K-8 public schools. Victoria is particularly fascinated with all types of “othering”— from the politicization of the female reproductive system in American body horror to the invisibility of migrant youth in Chicano spaces. Her research (and soul) converges at the intersection of Latin American studies, cinema, public education, and comparative literature.

Abstract

Media is a broad term encompassing the press, radio, cinema, television, and recently online platforms. In online platforms, the audience’s relationship to the media is algorithmically mediated. This creates a ridge between “traditional media” described by Baudrillard in Simulacra and Simulation and “new media” in algorithmically mediated audiovisual platforms such as TikTok and others. I argue that platforms which include algorithmic feeds that mediate interactions between users and media (user-to-user, user-to-media) extend the Baudrillardian concepts of simulacrum and simulation by splitting them into multiple processes. Those processes are multi-threaded simulations that run in parallel at the individual level rather than collectively, and form desire. Pushing the limits of theorizing about simulations in contemporary online platforms one must turn to recent philosophical reasoning on the relationship between humans and technics where one forms the other without any one of them assuming a principal role. The reality of desire, as well as the simulation’s starting point are key concepts for uncovering processes of control in contemporary algorithmic online spaces and by extension digitized society. 

Bio
Loizos is a PhD student and a CLA Dean’s Fellow at the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University, affiliated with the Media, Technology, and Society group. He holds degrees (BSc, MSc) in physics and applied mathematics from the National Technical University of Athens (N.T.U.A.) and an MA in computational social science from the University of Chicago, focusing on sociology. Loizos’ research lies at the intersection of computational social science, digital humanities, platform and critical AI studies, with a particular interest in the intricate relationship between algorithms and society. 

Abstract

Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem guarantees that formal languages will always produce well-formed propositions that can be neither proven nor disproven using the language’s own axiomatic resources. The very statement asserting a given language’s logical consistency is—Gödel’s second theorem adds—one such unprovable proposition. Incompleteness had a profound impact on the course of mid-century mathematics and related mathematical discourses, the then nascent information and computer sciences notably among them. It also had a marked effect on the development of science fiction produced from mid-century to the present. By first demonstrating the varied uses towards which science fiction has engaged Gödel’s incompleteness, this paper elaborates a critical approach to science fiction empowered by the analytic rubric of incompleteness. Enforcing a rupture between a language’s sprawling expressive

horizons and the statements it is equipped to logically access, incompleteness poses a formidable challenge to accounts of science fiction that foreground its world-building faculties; there will always be some amount of world, incompleteness asserts, that slips past language’s grasp—no matter how speculative the language may be. Reading science fiction routed instead through a Gödelian imaginary helps us understand how the genre transforms this seeming limitation on expression into a productive site of formal, ethical, and aesthetic play. Science fiction, I argue through a reading of the 1977 space opera Star Wars, derives its force not from the imagination of other worlds but rather from a poeticisation of the inexorable failure of the concept of world itself.

Bio
Tyler is finishing his fourth year in the English PhD program at the University of Chicago, where he is interested in conceptions of environmental and cosmic totality during the 19th and 20th centuries. After completing his bachelor's degree at the University of Chicago, Tyler obtained a PhD in physics at Yale University and pursued a postdoc in theoretical physics at the Otto von Guericke Universität Magdeburg in Germany. He received a graduate certificate from and served on the steering committee of Yale's Environmental Humanities Initiative and maintains a longstanding interest in probing the porous interface between cultural production and the natural world.

Abstract

This research discusses the use of conditional probability to analyze the potential realism for  reconstruction costs related to conflict in speculative fiction. Conditional probability is the core of current AI.  The definition of AI for this research presentation is “Augmented Intelligence”. Second order logic is undecidable and systems of systems cannot replicate human intelligence. However, “Augmented Intelligence” can in some cases optimize workflows. This research postulates strategies for applying “Augmented Intelligence” algorithms and Building Information Modeling (BIM) to approximately similar existing conflict reconstruction and extrapolating the cost estimation to speculative fiction. This research leverages the open source BIM system Bonsai which augments the open source 3-D Modeling and Animation system Blender. The research investigates possible strategies that utilize modern construction cost estimation techniques and United Nations and World Bank reconstruction cost estimates for current real world conflicts. The speculative fiction domains are derived from the Marvel and DC films. An example is Earth-616 which is the speculative fiction universe of Marvel’s Avengers universe. This research investigates potential uses of “Augmented Intelligence” to apply real world reconstruction material and labor estimates to speculative fiction workflows in alternative universes focused on the Marvel and DC alternative film universes. In the real world, Artificial Intelligence is undecidable because we are “humans”. This raises the question of how to characterize theoretical Artificial Intelligence in alternative universes with magical  properties and metahumans and also wormholes and time travel. This research attempts to use conditional probability to speculatively postulate ethical answers.

Bio
I am 73 years old and retired in February 2025. I have a Masters in Applied Mathematics related to parallel algorithms for reaction-diffusion equations for computer graphics zebra stripes and spots on fur from San Diego State University (1998). I have a B.A. in History (1978) and a B.S. in Mathematics (1983) from Metropolitan State University. My main history focus is history of science. I am a published author in computer graphics with emphasis in human factors for simulation and parallel algorithms in computational science. I also have a human factors focus on disability user interfaces. Examples include voice navigation for accessibility and voice control of math, computer algebra and graphics workflows. I am the volunteer chairman of the board of the Society for Computer Simulation International (SCS). Professional member of the Association for Computing Machinery. I am currently enrolled in the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences (MALAS) program at SDSU. Current MALAS interests are participatory planning in geography, comics and feminist AI (Augmented Intelligence).

Abstract

For four years I worked as a high school teacher in rural eastern Kentucky. My student population was majority white from low-income families. I taught “Intro to Literature” (a dual-credit class in the post-A.P. era) three times, and this paper serves to reflect on those teaching experiences as they intersect both with technology and my “more recent” awareness of how former students were using it. Artificial Intelligence, particularly Chat-GPT, has changed the way students function as students, in largely negative ways. Other books, essays, and scholars have tackled and are continuing to express concerns for these issues. While certainly important future work, this essay asks a different type of questions that I can answer with honest pedagogical reflections and brief interviews with former students. These questions include: In just three years, how did the function of AI use by students in my “Intro to Literature” change? Contextually, how did my own teaching practices change as I began to feel more comfortable in the role of teacher? How did technology, for both personal use and class instruction design, change the way I approached teaching literature? Overall, I regard this essay as a hybrid nonfiction personal narrative and pedagogical criticism. Perhaps I should say a personal pedagogical criticism. I largely failed in many of my lessons because I was naively too ambitious and expectant of a high interest in reading that mirrored my own. In a time where cell phone bans in schools (both organically and legislatively) are expanding, AI use by students and teachers is exponentially increasing, and political/social influences are stripping educational resources, I argue that we need a serious reflection of literature as a form of technology in the classroom, particularly in how this intersects with our teaching and expansive AI capabilities. We need to recognize where we have failed and how we can do better. 

Bio
I am a first year PhD student in English: Literature, Theory, and Culture at Purdue. I have MA degrees in English, Secondary Teaching, and History. I taught high school in eastern Kentucky for four years, doing a combination of English and History classes. I also adjuncted with Shawnee State University, Ashland Community and Technical College, and Marshall University. My research areas include 20th and 21st century American literature, postcolonialism and postmodernism, as well as memory studies and public humanities/histories.

Abstract

This project investigates whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) can counter the erasure of marginalized linguistic and cultural identities. I focus on the Santali (Santal) people of northern Bangladesh. Their language and traditions remain endangered due to years of economic downgrade and absence of higher education. As I visit my native village now, I see that Santali lives have not developed, their people are still bereft of higher education, their language is less spoken and heard. Drawing on my lived experience, growing up in a shared village with Santal families, I situate the work within a hermeneutic framework that connects personal memory, cultural intimacy, and technological possibility. The current state of the Santali language and cultural practices makes me anxious about their extinction in near future. Observing the present wonders performed by AI, I assume that it can help preserve and reanimate ethnic languages and cultures, and thus give back to marginalized people like Santals.

I propose a two-part framework for ethical AI engagement: preservation and giving back.

(1) Preservation: AI systems can be trained on Santali vocabulary, oral histories, songs, myths, and cultural practices to create an ever-expanding, publicly accessible digital archive. Such an archive would help stabilize vulnerable knowledge systems. It would allow scholars, educators, and community members to interact with linguistic data that is currently fragmented or inaccessible.

(2) Giving Back: I mean that the Santal students will take the help of AI to have higher education. I argue that AI facilities must be provided to the Santal communities. They need to be provided with free, localized AI tools that support Santali literacy, bilingual education, translation, and access to global knowledge. AI could function as a community tutor. It could help Santal students learn English and digital skills while strengthening their connection to their own language.

I argue that AI, often criticized for accelerating inequality, can instead operate as a tool of dissent against cultural disappearance. This project links an old problem (the vulnerability of Indigenous languages) with an emergent technological future. I ask how AI might both preserve knowledge, and redistribute education and technological power to the communities whose voices risk being lost.

Bio
My name is Md Mozaffor Hossain. I am an international graduate student from Bangladesh, currently studying PhD in Rhetoric and Composition in the English Department at Ohio University. I completed MA in English in the Summer of 2025 from North Dakota State University (NDSU). Before beginning my graduate study at NDSU, I completed a BA Honors in English and an MA in English Language Teaching from Rajshahi University in Bangladesh. Subsequently, I taught English Literature and Language in various universities of Bangladesh for about 12 years. My research interests include AI and Writing, Composition Pedagogy, Digital Rhetoric, Literary Criticism, and Social Justice. When life strikes me with absurdity, meaninglessness, and deeper visuals of life, I write poems, my kind of poems.

Abstract

Recent research has highlighted the growing potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in supporting language learning, particularly through interactive conversational agents such as chatbots, which have been shown to positively influence learners’ language performance (Wang et al., 2024). This potential may be especially relevant in online language courses, where learners often have fewer opportunities for spontaneous spoken interaction than in face-to-face classrooms (Kawachi et al., 2021).

This presentation reports on an ongoing classroom-based study examining the use of Speakology AI, an AI-driven conversational tool designed to simulate real-time video interactions with language tutors. The tool is being implemented in beginner-level distance online Japanese courses (first- and second-semester) at a public university in the Midwestern United States during the Spring semester. The presentation will outline the instructional design and pedagogical rationale for integrating Speakology AI into the curriculum, as well as share initial classroom observations from the first half of the semester.

Drawing on early student feedback and usage data, the presentation will discuss preliminary insights into learners’ engagement with AI-mediated conversational practice and its perceived affordances and challenges. While data collection is ongoing, these early findings will be used to reflect on the potential benefits and limitations of AI-supported conversation activities in online Japanese and foreign language instruction. The study aims to contribute to pedagogical discussions on the effective integration of AI tools in distance language education and to provide practical considerations for instructors experimenting with AI-enhanced speaking practice.

Bio
Akari is a PhD student in Japanese Linguistics and Pedagogy and an MSEd student in Learning Design and Technology. Her research focuses on computer-assisted and AI-enhanced language learning, with particular emphasis on technology-mediated and automated feedback.

Samet, a PhD Candidate at Purdue University, specializes in Learning Design and Technology. With a BA in Japanese Language Education from Turkey and an MA in Japanese Pedagogy from Purdue, his research focuses on using emerging technologies in language learning and personalized learning components.

Abstract

Little attention has been devoted to the Latino population of the U.S. Midwest, likely due to the limited latino population in the area (Sanchez-Muñoz, 2016; Snell, 2016; Pascual y Cabo et al., 2017; Mata, 2023). According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2024), Latinos make up 24.16 percent of the Chicago metropolitan area’s population but only 4.59 percent of Cincinnati’s. Given these vastly different demographic contexts, speakers in the Cincinnati area are likely exposed to significantly less Spanish input and fewer opportunities for English-Spanish code-switching. These differences may influence the linguistic behavior of Latinos in both cities, particularly their frequency, perception, and structural patterns of code-switching.

This project examines potential differences in linguistic variation among heritage speakers of Spanish in bilingual contexts by investigating the role of geography in attitudes and codeswitching frequency among heritage speakers. To examine these differences, complementary instruments are employed: the Bilingual Language Profile, the Bilingual Code-Switching Profile, and sociolinguistic interviews. This research could help shape Heritage Language pedagogical practices, as educators in different geographic contexts may need to adjust their methods for teaching Spanish based on both the geographic area and the attitudes of their students.

Bio
Jaylene Canales is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio and studied a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish at the Ohio State University. Jaylene is currently a master’s student in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Her research focuses on Heritage Speakers of Spanish, the mid-west, and bilingualism/biculturalism.

Abstract

Reading is crucial for student success and involves five core components: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Mastering these skills can be especially challenging for students with disabilities. Assistive technology (AT), ranging from low-tech to high-tech tools, offers promising support for improving reading abilities in this population. This systematic review evaluates the impact of AT on the core reading components, as documented in high-quality research. Studies were assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT), and the literature search spans five databases: Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson), APA PsycInfo, Education Source, ERIC, and the Professional Development Collection. Findings from 30 studies demonstrated that AT is particularly effective in enhancing phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary. Results for fluency and comprehension were mixed, but generally positive. Overall, the evidence supports integrating AT into classroom instruction for students with disabilities. The review also discusses study limitations, practical implications, and recommendations for future research. 

Bio
Bara’ah A. Bsharat is a Ph.D. student and a graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Educational Studies at Purdue University. With a background in occupational therapy and clinical rehabilitation science, her research focuses on special education, assistive technology, and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between educators and rehabilitation professionals. Her work is dedicated to enhancing accessibility through innovative technology and improving educational outcomes for students with diverse needs.

Dr. Smith is a Clinical Associate Professor of Special Education in the Department of Educational Studies in the College of Education at Purdue University. She has 15 years of experience as an educator at the elementary level and 6 years in higher education. Her areas of interest focus on teacher preparation, reading for exceptional learners, creativity/creative self-efficacy for students with disabilities, twice-exceptionality, and developing positive teacher-student-family relationships. Dr. Smith is the Undergraduate Program Director for special education and dual education. In 2024, she won the Charles B. Murphy Undergraduate Teaching Award, which is Purdue’s highest teaching award bestowed upon five faculty each year.

Abstract

Literacy skill is one of the fundamental skills for every student to acquire, including students with significant support needs. Traditionally, literacy has been defined as the ability to decode, encode, and make meanings using written text and symbols. While this framework plays an important role in the classroom, viewing it as the only definition of the literacy by the teachers may potentially marginalize the literacy practice of students with disabilities who do not demonstrate these skills, leading to further marginalization and segregation. Grounded in multiliteracies theory which conceptualizes literacy as multimodal meaning making across linguistic, visual, audio, gestural and spatial modes, the purpose of this qualitative study is to explore teachers’ perceptions of multiliteracies and students with significant support needs as literate learners, and to investigate the ways in which they support multiliteracies development in their classrooms.

Bio
Yilin Shen, M.F.A. is a doctoral student in special education at Purdue University. He holds an M.F.A. in art education from China Academy of Art. He is a visual artist specializing in oil painting, and a teaching artist working with individuals with disabilities both in China and the U.S. His research centers on how individuals with disabilities learn in and through the arts, with interests in community-based instruction, inclusive art education, arts integration, and multimodal literacies.

Abstract

My research project focuses on what systematic gaps caused the high rates of COVID on the Navajo Nation.  This research project is unique and personal to me as I served as a COVID front-line worker and former tribal leader.  The research project also utilizes three different angles, my COVID front line worker/personal experience, qualitative and quantitative data.  The research I was able to seek and obtain is very detailed and important as I hope it will shed light on the inadequacies of the living conditions of our Navajo people.

From my readings there are many theories and discussions related to this topic.  Such discussions can be based on how Navajo was not given adequate education and opportunity to grow or develop.  Much of what I read about includes discussion on the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 on the Navajo Nation.  These impacts were the results of large standing systemic gaps that left the Navajo unprepared and unprotected for a crisis of this scale.  These systematic gaps placed much of the Navajo People to live in third world living conditions and resulted from historical Federal policies imposed on the Navajo Nation.  Rather than looking at Navajo cultural practices and individual behaviors, much of the research looks at infrastructure inequalities, past underdevelopments, investments and the many complex land jurisdictions.  These factors thus created conditions in which the Navajo Nation was far more challenged in responding to the pandemic than any other place in the United States. 

Bio
Mark Freeland was a Member of the 24th Navajo Nation Council serving from 2019-2023, who represented the 8 Chapters of Crownpoint, Nahodishgish, Tse’Ii’Ahi, Becenti, Lake Valley, White Rock, Huerfano and Nageezi in the New Mexico portion of the Navajo Nation.  Mark’s clans are Tótsohníí/Kinyaa’áanii/Tsénjíkíní and Tsenabahiłnii and is a registered member of Crownpoint Chapter, NM where he resides.  Mark attended and received his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Liberal Arts and Integrative Studies from University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.  He currently is enrolled in the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts & Sciences (MALAS) Program as well as the Elymash Yuuchaap Scholars and Leadership Program at San Diego State University

Mark was proud to serve on the Frontlines during the COVID-19 Pandemic.  He worked to create Public/Private Partnerships along with Tribal Resources to help bring assistance to the Navajo People within his region.  He along with his team worked to bring these resources during the height of the Pandemic when the Navajo Nation was the National Epicenter.  His platform during his tenure on the Navajo Nation Council focused on Basic Infrastructure needs of the Navajo People primarily on water, electricity and bathroom additions.  Mark was also the prime Sponsor of the Navajo Nation’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) totaling $1,070, 289,867.00 that focused on addressing the basic Infrastructure needs of the Navajo People.  Mark remains humble and prays for all Indian People to continue to be safe and guarded by the Creator.  Ah’ee’hee (Thank you).

Abstract

A fully improvised, participatory performance art experience discussing the nature of ancient technology (performance and theatre) as well as modern technology (namely AI) as it relates to learning. Many in academia fear AI as a replacement for thinking, and see students leveraging it mainly for quick answers as opposed to developing new questions to explore together. This experimental performance hopes to model one way to have AI augment and bolster critical thinking and learning: with a scholar and educator at the helm of a live exploratory scene. The talk (Monologue? Dialogue? Q&A Panel? We shall see what emerges) will be an enacted articulation of these topics through a conversation with Claude AI. The audience will likely be asked to participate in the conversation to help steer it. It is not unlike classrooms, discussion sections, and seminars - both a structured science and flowing art - and thus aims to provide a self-aware microcosm for enriching discussion and analysis. References may be made to the intellectual underpinnings and inspiration for this piece: Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed,” Alex Garland’s film “Ex Machina,” and Gordon Pask’s Conversation Theory further developed by Paul Pangaro.

Bio
Evan D. Shulman is an interdisciplinary researcher and artist exploring the intersection of media technology, creativity, consciousness, and sociocultural transformation. Current interests build from systems scientists and cyberneticians Donella Meadows, Paul Pangaro, and Gordon Pask. Evan previously graduated with honors from UCLA where he studied Cognitive Science, Human Complex Systems, and Computing. He is now at SDSU’s Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences (MALAS) interdisciplinary graduate program, bringing with him over a decade of multidisciplinary professional experiences, spanning Google, the Centre for Social Innovation, and various agencies.