Now in its 34th year, Ohio Wesleyan's Summer Scholarship and Research Program equips students to address complex issues by working side-by-side with accomplished mentors at OWU and other universities nationwide. At the Symposium, part of OWU's Fall Connection Conference on September 24, 2026, students will showcase their work and share why it matters.
- Board 1: Understanding Disability Representation: Public Perceptions of Political Elites With Food Allergies or Chronic Illnesses
Students: Caroline O'Malley and Hailey Harris
Faculty Mentor: Franchesca Nestor (Department of Politics & Government)
- Board 2: Impact of Video Games and Brain Stimulation on Working Memory
Students: Ranjan Sharma, Maddie Ebbert, Ryuka Okada, and Mannat Sikand
Faculty Mentor: Kira Bailey (Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Program)
- Board 3: Invasive Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) Populations and Their Effects on Understory Plant Species Composition in a Temperate Forest
Student: Ella Neuenschwander
Faculty Mentor: Laurel Anderson (Department of Biological Sciences)
- Board 4: LGBTQ+ Family Microaggressions and Its Impact on Emerging Adults With LGBTQ+ Parents Mental Health Symptoms
Student: Hayley Read
Faculty Mentor: Krystal Cashen (Department of Psychology)
- Board 5: Modeling Swimming Bacteria Using Stokes Equation
Student: Marcus Bode
Faculty Mentor: Hanliang Guo (Department of Mathematics & Computer Science)
- Board 6: Cell Penetrating Peptides and Membrane Interactions—A Look Into the Glycine Receptor's M3-M4 Loop
Students: El Healey, Mattison Hyland, and Aiden Walz
Faculty Mentor: Kayce Tomcho (Department of Chemistry)
- Board 7: Sol'Ex & Star'Ex: 3D Printed Spectrographs
Students: Shelby Matt and Maddi Pittsenbarger
Faculty Mentor: Kyle Pellegrin (Department of Physics & Astronomy)
- Board 8: Salinization Trends in the Delaware Run Watershed, Ohio: Anthropogenic and Environmental Factors
Students: Ariana Njoroge and Payton Hodges
Faculty Mentor: Carolina Barbosa (Department of Environment & Sustainability)
- Board 9: Testing Duration of Norms Messaging Effectiveness for Behavior Change: Evidence From Field Experiment
Students: Rukevwe Diohwo and Jacob Blubaugh
Faculty Mentor: Benjamin Douglas (Department of Psychology)
- Board 10: Gender Roles and Nutrition: Themes in Tradwife Media
Students: Esther Fosu and Kennedy Elfers
Faculty Mentor: Elizabeth Nix (Department of Health & Human Kinetics)
- Board 11: Empirical Evaluation of Quantum Machine Learning: Classical vs. Quantum Neural Networks and Random Forests for Regression
Student: Ryan Schwirian
Faculty Mentor: Mehwish Abbasi (Department of Mathematics & Computer Science)
- Board 12: Designing Inquiry With Primary Sources: Micro-Inquiry Professional Development as a Scaffold for Teachers' Inquiry Design Capacity
Students: Addie Beck and Scarlett Loevenguth
Faculty Mentor: Sarah Kaka (Department of Education)
- Board 13: Spatio-Temporal Analysis of the Old Woman Creek Watershed, OH
Student: Samuel Baer
Faculty Mentor: Carolina Barbosa (Department of Environment & Sustainability)
- Board 14: New Mechanisms for Generative Textile Weaving
Student: Josiah Montgomery
Faculty Mentor: Craig Jackson (Department of Mathematics & Computer Science)
- Board 15: Exploring Resilience in Preservice Teachers
Student: Ryleigh Jones
Faculty Mentor: Michele Nobel (Department of Education)
- Board 16: Differences in Tree Carbon Sequestration in Temperate and Ecotonal Forests
Student: Alex Bzdafka
Faculty Mentor: Laurel Anderson (Department of Biological Sciences)
- Board 17: Investigating the Effects of Variable Adolescent Stress on Adult Expression of the Gabaa α3 Subunit in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex
Student: Jayson Dyer
Faculty Mentor: Chelsea Vadnie (Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Program)
- Board 18: Investigating the Effects of Variable Adolescent Stress on Adult Sociability & Diurnal Rhythms
Student: Hayley Browning
Faculty Mentor: Chelsea Vadnie (Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Program)
- Board 19: Developing a Convolutional Neural Network to Identify Starspots Using Kepler Space Telescope Data
Student: Willow Brown
Faculty Mentors: Robert Harmon and Rachael Roettenbacher (Department of Physics & Astronomy)
- Board 20: British Muslim Chaplaincy: Filling a Need
Students: Colby Sprague and Jaime Riechmann
Faculty Mentor: Susan Gunasti (Department of Philosophy & Religion)
- Board 21: The Proportion of Carbon Storage in Sugar Maples at the Kraus and Bohannan Preserves and Ohio Wesleyan Battlepoint Association
Student: Hayden Kelner
Faculty Mentor: Laurel Anderson (Department of Biological Sciences)
- Board 22: The Ecological Impacts of Road Salt Runoff in Freshwater Ecosystems
Student: Jenny Koob
Faculty Mentor: Amy Downing (Department of Biological Sciences)
- Board 23: Synthesis of (-)-Drazepinone
Students: Ashton Galiffo, Reagan Fiandt, and Nick Dye
Faculty Mentor: Grant Walby (Department of Chemistry)
- Board 24: Patellar Resurfacing in Total Knee Arthroplasty
Students: Macy Miller and Camryn Brunner
Faculty Mentor: Elizabeth Starns (Department of Health & Human Kinetics)
- Board 25: Lorentz Tests With Storage-Ring Experiments
Student: Grace Smith
Faculty Mentor: Yunhua Ding (Department of Physics & Astronomy)
- Board 26: Root Cap-Specific Gene Editing Using a Tissue-Specific Promoter With CAS9 as a Tool for Dissecting Root Gravitropic Signaling
Students: Abdul Rafay, Lily Vondrell, Ali Jan, and Shannon Barr
Faculty Mentor: Chris Wolverton (Department of Biological Sciences)
- Board 27: Creating a Python Program to Detect Starspots's Position Based on Data Collected by the Kepler Space Telescope
Student: Feng Yuan
Faculty Mentor: Robert Harmon (Department of Physics & Astronomy)
- Board 28: Characterization of a Putative Copper-Containing Nitrite Reductase (NIRK)—A Key Enzyme From the Environmentally-Relevant Group of Microorganisms Known as Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea (AOA)
Student: Haruno Tadokoro
Research Mentor: Chris Francis (Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University)
- Board 29: Comparison of North America's Introduced Wall Lizards to Native Populations
Students: Brooklyn Upp, Brittney Parks, and Tyler Williard
Faculty Mentor: Eric Gangloff (Department of Biological Sciences)
- Board 30: Isolation of Environmental Micro- And Nanoplastics and Laboratory Synthesis of Nanoplastic Particles for Daphnia Pulex Exposure Studies
Student: Bret Becker
Research Mentors: Outi Keinaenen, Hannah Mabie, and Olga Khaybullina (Chemistry Department, University of Alabama at Birmingham)
- Board 31: Investigation of Host Chitinase Effects on Histoplasma Yeast Aggregation
Student: Augustine Lemert
Research Mentor: Chad Rappleye (Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University)
- Board 32: Characterization of a Phosphonoalanine Biosynthetic Pathway From Abyssisolibacter fermentans MCWD3
Student: Doyi Kim
Research Mentor: Kou-San Ju (Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University)
- Board 33: Neuronal Regulation of Ectopic Egg Laying in Feminized C. elegans
Student: Aiden Thom
Research Mentors: Sylvia Lee and Amaresh Chaturbedi (Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University)
- Board 34: External Validation of National Sociodemographic Factors and Food Insecurity Among University Students
Student: Hunter Rhoades
Research Mentors: Carl Lawson and Corey Flynn (Schools of the Health Sciences and the Office of Sustainability in the Health Sciences, University of Pittsburgh)
- Board 35: Polymeric Microneedle Fabrication and Characterization for Transdermal Delivery Applications
Student: Kavyanjali Sidhanta
Research Mentor: Annie Du (College of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Washington State University)
- Board 36: Swab Once, Analyze Twice: A Dual Sequencing Approach for Oral Microbiome Surveillance Across Tobacco Transitions
Student: Ian Sander
Research Mentors: Daniel J. Spakowicz and Brittney Keller-Hamilton (The Center for Tobacco Research and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University)
- Board 37: HSP90 Inhibition Suppresses Tert Nuclear Translocation During Osteogenesis of Human Valve Cells
Student: Andrew Inamdar
Research Mentors: Cynthia St. Hilaire and Rolando Cuevas (Departments of Medicine and Bioengineering; Pittsburgh Heart, Lung, and Blood Vascular Medicine Institute; University of Pittsburgh)
- Board 38: Investigating the Effects of Stress Fiber Loss on Stem Cell Development Through Notch Signaling
Student: Sophia Rohr
Research Mentor: ChangHwan Lee (Department of Biological Sciences, University at Albany SUNY)
- Board 39: Adsorption Kinetics and Mechanistic Modeling of Copper Uptake by Environmental Bacterial Strains From an Urban Watershed
Student: Jordan Lewis
Research Mentor: Sonia Tiquia-Arashiro (Department of Natural Sciences, University of Michigan-Dearborn)
- Board 40: Investigating Metallocofactor Coordination and Active Site in Methylthio-Alkane Reductase Mutants
Student: Eric Sander
Research Mentor: Justin North (Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University)
