Research Symposium 2021
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THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2021 Online Schedule All Day Download the eBook and Engage with Students on Quip Students, faculty, staff, and community members with a Fairfield NetID are invited to engage with students via Quip, browse projects, and leave comments for students to participate in online dialogues about their research. 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Join Live Faculty-Moderated Zoom Sessions Featuring: Student Research Presentations from: Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies – Public Health Capstones School of Engineering Community Engagement and Independent Projects Students, faculty, staff, and community members with a Fairfield NetID are invited to watch students present their research and engage in faculty-moderated Q&A. Access Morning Sessions 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Live Show Hosted by Patrick Setiadi ’20 Get a behind-the-scenes look at campus life from four student-researchers and their faculty mentors, and special guests. 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. Environmental Sustainability, Social Justice, and Public Health: A Conversation with Melody Serafino ’05 Join Assistant Professor of Physics Robert Nazarian, PhD, and a student panel for a virtual conversation with writer and media relations professional Melody Serafino ’05 2:00 - 4:30 p.m. Join Live Faculty-Moderated Zoom Sessions Featuring Student Research Presentations from: Sigma Xi Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies – Nursing Capstones Students, faculty, staff, and community members with a Fairfield NetID are invited to watch students present their research and engage in faculty-moderated Q&A. Access Afternoon Sessions 4:30 - 5:00 p.m. Performance by Pilobolus Dance Company and Concluding Conversation Celebrate Earth Day with a performance of “Branches” by Pilobolus Dance Company followed by a conversation with Pilobolus, “The Lost Bird Project” artist Todd McGrain, and students as they discuss innovation and the arts. Following the Innovative Research Symposium join the Center for Social Impact Annual Showcase and Celebration of Excellence in Community-Engaged Teaching, Research, and Service Welcome and Appreciation Dear Colleagues, Students, and University Guests: Welcome to the 2021 Innovative Research Symposium at Fairfield University! Innovation is a spark of imagination igniting the pursuit of answers to questions that drive our intellectual curiosity. Fairfield students collaborate with faculty mentors to develop creative research projects that extend from the classroom to the world. Whether examining cells under a microscope or documents in an archive, our student research contributes to the understanding necessary to address today’s pressing societal issues. This year, environmental sustainability, public health, and racial justice came into focus as issues informing much of our academic community’s research. The Innovative Research Symposium showcases the rich diversity of student research from across academic disciplines. Capstone Nursing and Health Studies projects, research by our Sigma Xi students in the natural sciences, mathematics, engineering, and psychology, and community-based and independent projects are featured. We invite you to engage with the exciting scholarly endeavors of nearly 250 undergraduate and graduate students that spotlight the wide range of student-faculty research at the core of Fairfield’s academic mission. Exploring these innovative projects joins us together in reaching for the magis, the more, to advance the common good through the pursuit of knowledge. This year the Innovative Research Symposium is again online in response to our ongoing global context. In doing so, we exhibit our community’s continued capacity to turn challenges into opportunities. We use Quip, Zoom, and the eBook in tandem, a reflection of Fairfield University’s firm grounding in the online environment. We continue to innovate, introducing a Live Show created in the new Media Center, a featured conversation with Melody Serafino ’05, and a screening of Pilobolus’ “Branches” filmed on campus amid Todd McGrain’s “The Lost Bird Project.” We host an entire day committed to the research carried out in our academic community at a time marked by challenge. The 2021 Innovative Research Symposium manifests our resiliency and unrelenting commitment to the pursuit of academic excellence. We do this as a community with bonds even stronger than ever as we forge ahead with hope into the future. We are grateful for the generous support of so many from our Fairfield community who contributed to making this event such a success. We offer our appreciation to the many donors whose gifts enable Fairfield University students to pursue their academic goals and take advantage of opportunities arising from collaboration with our outstanding faculty. A special note of appreciation is extended to each faculty mentor who devoted their time and energy to our students. We deeply appreciate our Zoom session faculty moderators. This year, we offer particular gratitude to our faculty mentors in the Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies. Special recognition also goes to Kimberly Baer, Tasha Mehne, Kathy Nantz, Jay Rozgonyi, Debbie Whalley, Allison Wade, Casey Timmeny, Jasmine Blennau, Rob Bove, Nicolette Massaro, Jill Smith-Carpenter, Kraig Steffen, Robert Nazarian, Kim Doughty, Kathy Saracino, Rose Iannino- Renz, Melissa Quan, Nicole Marino, Dayna Cavanaugh, Kathleen Freis, David Schmidt, Pilobolus, Todd McGrain, and Carey Weber, and all those who assisted in making this event possible. We also pause to remember Curtis Ebdon. Most especially, we thank the students who inspire us every day with their joy for learning. Congratulations to our student presenters and faculty mentors! Thank you for joining us on this day of academic celebration. Jocelyn M. Boryczka, PhD Associate Vice Provost for Scholarly, Creative, and Community Engagement Fairfield University is proud to host three journals that publish student research and creative products: Current Issue — Apollon Digital Journal (apollonejournal.org) Self-Achievement through Nursing Art: A creative space for nurses | Fairfield University The Undergraduate Journal of Global Citizenship | Fairfield University Sigma Xi Association of Cognitive Reappraisal and Depression in Individuals with High or Low Socioeconomic Status Ema Taglic, Erin Curtis Faculty Mentor: Prof. Michael Andreychik https://fairfield.quip.com/BHAtA0xoDjdm/Replication-of- Troy-et-al-2017-Association-of-Cognitive-Reappraisal- and-Depression-in-Individuals-with-High-or-Low- Socioeconomic-Status Technical Abstract: This project is a replication study as part of our supervised research course with Dr. Michael Andreychik. Participants will be recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turks (N=150) for the completion of our direct replication of Troy et al. (2017). We conduct this project as part of the Collaborative Replications and Education Project (CREP), an initiative that involves undergraduates in replications of recent high-impact studies in psychology. We will replicate a study by Troy et al. (2017) investigating the effects of socioeconomic status on the interplay between cognitive reappraisal ability (CRA) and psychological health. Because socioeconomic status deeply impacts the amount of control someone may have over their circumstances, the authors suggested that emotion regulation (or CRA) would be more beneficial for those in a lower socioeconomic status. To test this, the researchers asked a sample of adults to complete online questionnaire measures of socioeconomic status, cognitive reappraisal ability, life stress, and depression. The authors found that CRA/effective emotion regulation strategies were beneficial in particular to participants with low socioeconomic status. Background Studies for the Polarized Target Experiment with CLAS12 Brenna Petrelli Faculty Mentor: Prof. Angela Biselli https://fairfield.quip.com/5MiiAoYrZiBA/Background- Studies-for-the-Polarized-Target-Experiment-with- CLAS12 Technical Abstract: Jefferson Laboratory is a particle physics facility in Virginia equipped with an underground electron accelerator and the CEBAF large acceptance spectrometer (CLAS12). Electrons are accelerated and scattered against targets to measure a variety of processes using the CLAS12 detector to study the structure of nucleons. A set of experiments using a polarized target is planned to run in 2022. The background of Moller electrons (electrons of the target that are knocked off the atom) is particularly high for these experiments due to the increased density of the target which overwhelms the drift chambers, impeding the measurement of good events. Furthermore the polarized target requires the beam to be rastered, causing an additional increase of Moller rates in the drift chambers. We use a C++ program developed at Jefferson Lab called GEMC to simulate the experimental conditions with the polarized target and rastered beam. After benchmarking the rates with the standard beamline, we performed various simulations with shield modifications to lower the high Moller electron rates. Our studies led to our best final design, the "Elmo" shield, which showed reduced occupancy levels from 6.5% (results from CLAS12 shield FTOFF) to 3%. This shield was designed based on the available space in the chamber and the available materials convenient for construction. Based on our simulations, the lab is currently procuring the materials for the construction of the shield for the upcoming experiments. This research helped us study the detector's performance for specific physics processes and ultimately will support major