Digital Commons Network^™

Four Decades Of Wilderness Work: The Legacy Of The Matthew Hansen Endowment, Daniel Martin

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

This project analyzes and interprets 40 years of projects supported by the Matthew Hansen Endowment (MHE), an endowment within the Wilderness Institute at the University of Montana that provides funding for artistic, scholarly, and community-based work with connection to wilderness. To carry out this project, we examined hundreds of physical and digital documents, including proposals, reports, correspondence, and creative works, to reconstruct the history and evolving impact of the MHE. We also contacted hundreds of past recipients, collaborators, and affiliated organizations to recover missing materials and contextualize existing records.

The culmination of the research is a publicly accessible online exhibit …

Perceptions And Meta Perceptions Of Bison In The West, Riley Comstock

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Effective coexistence between wildlife populations and the people that live with them requires an understanding of how people feel toward the species and their management. Bison occupy a unique place in conservation history and management. Once extirpated across nearly all of their range and only recently introduced to areas outside of large tracts of federal land, they are now a jurisdictionally challenged species, with varying management paradigms across a patchwork of landowners and managers. Recent research has shown how activating different social identities can distort people’s attitudes toward species. Here, I explore whether activating urban and rural identities distorts people’s …

Utility Under Uncertainty: A Critique Of Singer's Disability Replacement Argument, Jillian L. Wynne

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Peter Singer’s preference utilitarian defense of selective infant replacement in cases of severe disability remains one of the most controversial arguments in contemporary bioethics. The core of Singer’s position relies on the claim that replacing a severely disabled infant with a non-disabled infant increases overall preference satisfaction and is therefore morally permissible. In this paper, I argue that Singer’s argument fails to justify this conclusion. Singer’s replacement premise requires a utilitarian calculus that depends on reliable predictions about future preference satisfaction. While some critics maintain that Singer underestimates the quality of life of disabled individuals, I contend that, once this …

Showpony, George T. Ellington

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

The poetry collection Showpony focuses on the real-life experiences of a twenty and thirty-year-old woman —pseudonymously known as Mrs. G — during the 1970s, who is treated by psychiatrist Dr. Robert J. Stoller at UCLA in a desperate attempt to make her normal. Mrs. G struggles with homicidal and suicidal thoughts, psychosis, as well as her homosexuality and transgender identity. Showpony examines the ways in which psychology has pathologized these experiences and the ramifications for patients, particularly those who have been publicly showcased as examples of their conditions used to train future students. The collection critiques the exploitation of patients …

Unraveling Roadless Protections: Implications Of Rescinding The 2001 Roadless Rule For Esa-Listed Species, Blixen B. Hofmann

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

In June of 2025 the Trump Administration proposed to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule: a landmark conservation rule from the Clinton era that prevents roadbuilding and logging on roughly 58 million acres of federal forest and wildlands. The proposed rescission follows orders from President Trump to increase logging and thinning of forests and economic development in the wake of an “energy emergency”. More than 65% of all Forest Service sensitive species are directly or indirectly affected by inventoried roadless areas. For example, 220 species that are listed as threatened, endangered, or proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act rely …

Exploring The Design Of A “Salon-Like” Mathematical Experience In A High School Setting, Grace Simser

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Current practices for teaching math in school are student-centered, but highly orchestrated by teachers. While these models of education are widely accepted, math classrooms do not often afford students the space for rich conceptual play and low-stake interaction with the material. To support these goals, researchers have proposed “salon-like” mathematical spaces, where there are no roles like “teacher” and “student”, and nobody knows the answer to the question being posed. In this study, we are examining how to foster salon-like spaces within traditional schools.

My study took place in a cafeteria of a local high school, during lunch. I was …

Wildlife Use Of Prairie Streams Relative To Beaver Dams And Water, Ethaniel D. Marshall

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Human activities and climate change continue to impact wildlife populations and ecosystem integrity. In Montana’s semi-arid prairie ecosystems, the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) may increase the resistance and resilience of water-limited ecosystems and promote wildlife activity for both aquatic and terrestrial species. However, there is still limited understanding regarding the influence of beaver dams on wildlife use in these semi-arid, prairie ecosystems. Through a camera-trap study, we sought to examine how wildlife use, across taxa, is associated with beaver dams and water availability during the summer on small prairie streams in eastern Montana. We deployed motion-activated cameras that recorded …

A New Framework For Intellectual Property In The Age Of Ai, Mitchell R. Clarkson

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

This paper will argue that the courts’ traditional view of damages inhibits its ability to uphold the principles of intellectual property in the climate of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Language learning models (LLMs), using the practice of scraping, allow large systems to train using the copying of copyright protected work. This harms creative communities in ways that intellectual property laws could help prevent were it not for the courts limited understanding of damages. The courts hold the economic consequentialist view which sees damage as having only two components, the tortfeasor and the victim. I propose the use of a deontological framework …

Feminism, Misdiagnoses Of Women And The Scope Of Medical Negligence Doctrine, Abigail J. Engstrom

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Are the objective standards in medical malpractice law, including reasonableness and professional norms, neutral in a general manner or do they encode gendered assumptions that are disadvantageous to women in the system? Women are 66% more likely to encounter the disparity of misdiagnoses than men. One view point that is demonstrative of this question is that the negligence doctrine supposes courts avoid bias on gender and remain neutral by applying the negligence doctrine and professional norms. Through this view the very disparity of misdiagnoses in women is seen as medical failures instead of structural legal doctrine failures. In Miss Diagnosis: …

Um Ethnobotany Garden: Transcriptions To Sustain A Living Legacy, Hannah Hornyak

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

This capstone project produces a status report for the University of Montana (UM) Ethnobotany Garden to facilitate continuity of care and long-term stewardship. As the garden’s primary caretaker and author of this report prepares to graduate, a significant amount of site-specific and institutional knowledge and management experience is at risk of being lost. The objective of this project is to document operational, cultural, and ecological knowledge in a format that supports future caretakers and garden leadership.

The project uses a knowledge-transfer approach, drawing on personal records and experience, including field notes and observations, alongside existing documentation gathered from UM staff. …

The Gamification Of Investing: Young Investors And The Dopamine Desktop, Calvin Caplis

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

ABSTRACT

While traditional methods of investing remain, such as utilizing established financial advisory services and trading applications, neo-brokerages have gamified their trading platforms. These platforms have become increasingly popular among younger generations. The “gamification of investing” is a phenomenon that involves the integration of game-like features (e.g., haptic feedback, neon colors, confetti) into brokerage applications. This “gamification” has lowered the barriers to entry for investing in capital markets for younger generations but has simultaneously coaxed them into being more risk-tolerant and potentially unaware of the consequences of high-risk investing strategies. This is partly because neo-brokers make it easy to gain …

Corporate Culture And Climate: How National Values Shape Sustainability Strategy In Germany And The United States, Sophia Grace Ericsson

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

A

As a business student focused on the intersection of sustainability and business, there is an urgency in understanding the varying motivations of sustainability in multinational corporations, as their decisions have large ripple effects. This project evaluates and compares the corporate practices of Germany and the United States. These countries have contrasting structures for addressing climate change, social responsibility, and ethical governance. This project examines how cultural values shape the way companies pursue environmental and social responsibility.

The research compares Germany and the United States using a cross-cultural analysis framework, including Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory and Michele Gelfand's cultural …

Artifical Intelligence, Hallucinated Precedent, And The Epistemic Foundations Of Stare Decisis, Kaitlyn C. Madsen

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

This paper will examine whether the emergence of Artificial Intelligence generated “hallucinated” legal cases poses a threat to the legal doctrine of stare decisis and the philosophical foundations of legal authority. While traditional debates regarding precedent have centered on whether courts should follow morally flawed or outdated decisions, recent instances of attorneys citing nonexistent cases generated by Artificial Intelligence establishes an unprecedented problem. Using the 2023 case of Mata v. Avianca, Inc., I will argue that hallucinated precedent is not just an issue of professional misconduct; it destabilizes the epistemic and normative conditions that make legal reasoning legitimate.

Artificial …

Expanding University Of Montana's Contract Management System, Brooke Odenthal

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

The University of Montana is currently losing millions of dollars due to their lack of efficiency and oversight on contracts. There are many contracts that affiliates of the university have signed without authorized oversight. Without the correct oversight, the university ends up signing multiple contracts for the same product. This also leads to members of the university wrongly giving away valuable data and information to companies without properly signing contracts. All of their contracts are scattered across campus, some signed correctly and some not. These documents are stored in various offices, departments, and using a mix of storage systems. This …

Decolonizing Higher Education: How Rebuilding Methodologies Strengthens Tribal Sovereignty And Climate Change Solutions, Abby R. Brown

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

My thesis paper focuses on the many issues that stem from the United States education system and its inherent coloniality which continues to push colonial narratives. In this paper I tackle the many differences between colonized, decolonized, and Indigenous education. The differences in pedagogies and outcomes between these methods of teaching and education assist me in answering the questions of how we will and why we must decolonize education. I focus mainly on Climate Change Studies and STEMM when discussing elementary and postsecondary education. Through many case studies, personal experiences in the education system, peer-reviewed articles, and books written by …

Dissecting Word And Song: Observing The Interplay Between Linguistic Analysis And Ethnomusicology, Dashiell Elliot Schindler

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Ethnomusicology is a subfield within cultural ethnography that aims to provide detailed, descriptive analysis on contemporary music culture, applying cross cultural comparison to trace musical lineages and identify sounds significant to a select society. The field serves as an interdisciplinary measure to accurately index musical styles that serve as a cultural marker to the heritage to which they are ascribed. Linguistic analysis aspires to many of the same goals. It is one of the four major disciplines within anthropology, and has its sights focused critically on the examination of language in its spoken form. Linguists apply research methods such as …

How To Adapt To Water Uncertainty : Rainwater Harvesting, Barbara Elizabeth Armstrong

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Climate change has intensified seasonal droughts particularly in Mediterranean climates. For the southern regions of Italy, the small Molisan village of Roccavivara faces increasingly worse water restrictions, with water supplies shut off for up to twelve hours a day during summer.

This project examines whether a community-based rainwater harvesting (RWH) system could offer both practical and social benefits in a town historically shaped by a decades long feud.

Over month and a half, I took measurements for prototypes, conducted interviews into how this community reacted to the climate technology solution of RWH, and finding people who want to implement it. …

An Exploration Of Irish-American Identity Through Music And Oral History, Rylee Kay Houser

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

An Exploration of Irish-American Identity through Music and Oral History

The “Irish Jaunting Car” was described by Kevin Shannon of Butte, Montana as a traditional Irish tune played in the Ceili saloons. For Shannon a Ceili simply meant to play music. For musical historians it is more commonly described as a dance or music session of the home or pubs. Common of many Irish traditional tunes, there is an emphasis on placenames:

From Roscommon to Kildare

From Dublin down to Castle Bar

From there to County Clare

From Cork to Limerick and Athlone

Then home by Mullingar

You can view …

Implications Of Wilderness Management: Buffalo Creek Case Study, Isaiah M. Anderson, Julia Ampe, Anne Rehberger

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

The US Forest Service’s Buffalo Creek Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout Conservation Project is a current case study in the challenges of managing Wilderness according to the 1964 Wilderness Act. This proposed management action involves removing introduced rainbow trout (RBT) from tributaries of the Yellowstone River within the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. The project also aims to introduce Yellowstone cutthroat trout (YCT) to Buffalo Fork Creek, to bolster the YCT population and reduce the effects of hybridization with RBT. Before the project's initiation, a non-profit advocacy organization, Wilderness Watch, sued the US Forest Service over the project’s violations of the Wilderness Act, including the …

250 Years Of Political Assassinations: An Exploratory Look Into Attacks On Political Figures In The United States, Jj Wesley

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Despite the salience of political assassinations in American history and culture, there isn’t a database that focuses on them, and those that do exist often lack detail and focus on broad trends over locations and time. This absence of centralized information has led to the creation of a database on these rare events, which contains political assassinations between 1777 and 2026.  The cases rely heavily on a variety of open-source data, which includes books, newspapers, databases, and other relevant information and documents. This presentation will be an exploratory descriptive analysis that emphasizes a general overview of contextual trends in these …

How Do Individual And Environmental Covariates Impact The Immune Response Of Deer Mice In Western Montana, Rachel A. Throckmorton

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Sin Nombre Virus (SNV) is an exceptional model system for studying wildlife disease because of how simple it is to capture, take samples, and obtain disease status from the primary host. Immune response is an important factor to consider when testing for SNV because it can affect susceptibility of the host as well as transmission of the virus. We examined individual and environmental conditions that may influence immune response and therefore possibly SNV transmission in wild populations. We investigated whether SNV infection status, reproductive status, sex, and season influenced immune response through examining total white blood cell (WBC) counts and …

“The Real Guards Are The Jungle And The Sea”: The History Of Island Prisons As Landscapes Of Fear And Discipline For Migrants, Dissidents, And Others, From Devil’S Island To The Contemporary United States, Iliana Capozzoli

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

By the 1850s, France established the infamous “Devil’s Island” penal colony in tropical French Guiana, an isolating place of punishment described as “the dry guillotine,” where the commandant would declare, “the real guards here are the jungle and the sea.” Upon being "freed," convicts were required to stay and work to build the "colony." Decades later, France would later send Vietnamese and Algerian political dissidents to the prison, which remained open until 1938. The threat of being sentenced to offshore detention has endured. Refugees crossing the Mediterranean are kept by the European Union on island sites, while Australia has received …

The Potential Role Of Soil Depth And Land Management History In Rangeland Soil Seed Bank Community Dynamics., Owen K. Palsic, Akasha Faist, Madeline Mayorga

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Rangelands provide critical ecosystem services for societies across the globe, yet land use changes, climate change, and invasive species are causing large-scale rangeland degradation. To maintain effective rangeland ecosystem function, it is critical we understand the comprehensive ecological dynamics of these systems. One crucial ecological variable that is often overlooked is the soil seed bank, which is otherwise defined as the community of germinable seeds stored in the soil of a given system. Many ecological studies and models leave out soil seed bank communities, despite their undeniable importance in rangeland ecosystems, and instead only consider the aboveground vegetation community. In …

Section 9 Of The Endangered Species Act (Esa): History Of Harm, Maxwell Lee Hirrill

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Since its passage, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has held the unofficial title of the strongest law for environmental protections. This Act, passed in 1973, contains powerful language, with one word standing out among them all: "take" found in section 9. Section 16 U.S.C. § 1532(19) defines take as "to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or attempt to engage in any such conduct." The definition of harm has been interpreted in different ways over the years, with some interpretations granting it more power and others limiting it. A particular point of contention within the …

Late-Time Miri Imaging Of Sn 2011ja Reveals High Cold Dust Mass, Aiden G. Agostinelli, Benjamin C. Radmore

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Using new JWST MIRI images, we constrain the mass of dust around SN 2011ja long after explosion. SN 2011ja is a Type IIP core-collapse supernova (CCSN) in galaxy NGC 4945. The SN is difficult to identify in the MIRI images, so we apply an alignment routine which matches bright stars between MIRI and Spitzer images to locate the correct point source. Dust masses for SN 2011ja have previously been estimated at 105, 486, 637, 857, 881, 1007, and 1332 days post-explosion. These new MIRI images were taken at day 4241. We perform PSF photometry and fit analytical dust models to …

Head Contact Incidence Study, Shane O. Jefferson, Hunter Naugle

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Due to the physical nature of the sport of hockey, head contacts are a common occurrence in games and practice alike. Youth athletes that are exposed to repeated head contact may be at risk for both acute conditions as well as neurological health conditions as they age. The purpose of this study was to identify head contacts and examine patterns and trends seen in those contacts in a population of 9–12-year-old youth hockey athletes during both game and practice. While checking is not allowed at these age groups, the physical aspect of hockey, still generates head contact exposures at a …

Documenting Supportive Communication Strategies In Prom Administration For Persons With Aphasia, Tyra Kucinski

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Documenting Supportive Communication Strategies in PROM Administration for Persons With Aphasia

Tyra Kucinski, Allison Marr, Emilia Waters

Introduction: Aphasia is an acquired language disorder that impairs speaking, listening, writing, and/or reading, with intelligence remaining intact. Aphasia also disrupts mental health, quality of life, and communicative participation. Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) are standardized questionnaires that allow patients to reflect on their functional health status, providing insight into how persons with aphasia (PWAs) perceive their condition and/or the treatment they are receiving. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) frequently provide a number of supportive communication strategies to ensure accuracy of patient responses on PROMs …

Microfluidics For Live Imaging Of C. Elegans Germline Stem Cells, Camille K. Spencer

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Live imaging of the C. elegans germline in situ enables direct observation of dynamic developmental processes as they occur, which has particular relevance in the study of protein expression and germline stem cell dynamics.

Traditional methods of immobilization are often physiologically taxing on C. elegans. Chemical immobilization via paralytics often compromise worm viability, disrupting the cellular processes we aim to study by sickening them, inducing stress responses. Starvation in particular is a significant limitation as stress signaling is known to directly inhibit GSC division rapidly upon food cessation.

In the Voronina lab, we set out to develop two microfluidics based …

Inclusion And Responses Of Microbial Communities In Ecological Restoration, Simon C. Bickel

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Ecological restoration aims to restore degraded ecosystems to the condition they would have been in had degradation not occurred. A critical component of ecosystems is microbial communities, which regulate ecosystem functions such as respiration, nutrient cycling, and decomposition. Unfortunately, microbial communities can be easily overlooked in ecological restoration due to their small size and the need for specialized technical knowledge and equipment to investigate them. I conducted a systematic review of articles published in the journal Restoration Ecology between 1997 and 2022 to assess temporal trends in the frequency of articles on microbial communities and specific taxa. Mycorrhizae fungi were …

Combating Overdose: Production And Analysis Of Fentanyl Specific Antibodies, Elizabeth J. Florian

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Fentanyl overdose deaths are on the rise from both intentional use and accidental exposure. Our work focuses on identifying additional treatment options to Narcan, an opioid receptor antagonist which reverses overdose effects by receptor competition. One alternative method, that has been approved by the FDA, is the development of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). This therapeutic method works by antibodies binding fentanyl in the bloodstream and preventing it from crossing the blood-brain barrier. Our group has begun identifying mAbs by vaccinating mice with a fentanyl hapten (F1) vaccine adjuvanted with a TLR 7/8 agonist. Vaccination leads to the production of antibodies that …