Digital Commons Network^™

2024-2025 Ecei Annual Report, Cynthia Dicarlo

Early Childhood Education Institute Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Environmental Cues And Emotional Responses, Isbella Cantrell, Ashley Frost, Mark Sanchez

Posters - 2026

The purpose of this study was to better understand if the environment influenced an individual’s emotions by observing horror and non-horror video games and coding the frequency of observed reactions. Former research illustrates that emotional arousal during video games may activate defensive behaviors similar to real-life threats. Three different YouTube streamers were observed playing one horror and two non-horror video games. All three streamers played the same three games. It was expected that all three players would have more frequent reactions to horror games as opposed to non-horror games (H1), that anger reactions would occur more frequently than sympathetic reactions …

Match-A-Fit, Brianna Mendoza, Adan Diaz De Leon, Pedro Jacobo, Juan Marco Saca Dada

Posters - 2026

Welcome to Match-a-Fit! Match-a-Fit is an iOS application that allows the user to create a digital closet by uploading images of their clothing items. With AI, the program can generate outfits based on the digital closet, the time, and the occasion. Match-a-Fit’s purpose is designed to help users who struggle to get ready, run out of time, or can’t decide on an outfit, by easily generating outfit options based on the occasion.

The Role Of Leadership Style In Team And Individual Performance In Collegiate Athletics, Luke Mulkey

Posters - 2026

• Measuring the effectiveness of leadership is important because strong leaders can bring significant contributions to both organizations and individuals

• Previous studies have said that intrinsic motivation of the individual plays a larger role than the leadership style of a coach

• Studies also show that leadership style has an influence on team success and cohesion

• This study aimed to determine the extent to which transformational leadership played a role in team success, measured in win percentage

• This study went further into the individual perception of their coach’s impact on the athlete’s performance compared to the extent …

Effects Of Tubulin-Binding Medications On Microplastic Uptake And Cyotoskeletal Functionality Across Diverse Cell Types, Alejandra D. Favela Santos

Posters - 2026

• Microtubules are composed of of a- and b- tubulin heterodimers, vital for cell structure, shape, and intracellular transport • Microtubules are also useful as they separate chromosomes during cell division • Microplastics (< 5 mm) are considered a health threat and have been found throughout the whole body (1) o In several studies, microplastics have been correlated to higher rates cardiorespiratory issues, endocrine disruption, and cancer (1) • Tubulin-binding medications are widely used as chemotherapeutic agents as they are known for disrupting cell division and targeting tubulin (2,3) o In this study, these medications were used to determine whether microtubules play a role in microplastic uptake § Colchicine typically binds to tubulins and arrests polymerization and growth § Nocodazole disrupts polymerization and prevents spindle formation § Vinblastine inhibits microtubule assembly and disruptions miotic spindle formation.

• The purpose of this study was to determine if different concentrations of tubulin-binding medications affect microplastic uptake o C2C12, RAW 264.7, and MOVAS cell lines were used to evaluate whether these changes are cell type specific 

If microtubule dynamics are disrupted, microplastic uptake can be affect in a concentration-dependent and cell type- specific manner.

Research Showcase Program, St. Mary's University

Program - 2026

No abstract provided.

Maddenlite, Sergio Pena

Presentations - 2026

Problem •“What If” scenarios impossible to test accurately •Commercial games rely on arcade physics •Spreadsheets lack visual engagement

Motivation •Passion for football analytics •Desire to simulate cross-era matchups •Apply math models to real-world sports data

Solution •Python based simulation engine using historical play-by-play data •Simulates outcomes based on probability

A.I.R.E., Laurene Robinson

Presentations - 2026

•Cybersecurity analysts rely on reverse engineering to understand suspicious software. •Ghidra can surface decompiled code, but it does not fully explain function purpose, behavioral meaning, or analyst priority. •When symbols are stripped and context is weak, analysts must still reconstruct intent manually from low-level output. •That process is Time-consuming , complex and , operationally costly

Take A Hit? Take A Hit: Quantifying Cell Death In E-Cigarette Exposed Bronchial Epithelial Cells Following Cards Toxin Treatment, Truman Havrda, Hannah Jiron, Sierra Trevino

Posters - 2026

The rapid rise of e-cigarette use among young adults has created a significant public health challenge, as the popularity of "vaping" has grown faster than our understanding of its long term cellular consequences. Current research indicates that e-cigarette vapor (ECV) induce high levels of oxidative stress and impair the lungs' ability to clear bacterial pathogens. Furthermore, ECV exposure upregulates specific receptors on the surface of airway cells, essentially making it easier for bacteria to adhere to and infect the lungs. While we know that both e-liquids and vapor trigger inflammatory responses and cytotoxicity, there is limited data on how these …

Research Proposal: What Did We Lose When We Stayed Home? Digital Culture And The Erosion Of Social Interaction, Anzio Hall

Posters - 2026

Third spaces serve as casual social environments such as libraries and movie theaters acting as "anchors" for community and social connection. (Melissa et.,al 2024). Nonetheless with the rise of streaming services and personalized experiences, these spaces are increasingly disappearing from everyday life (Fowler, 2026; Van De Vijer, 2017). For Gen Z, a generation that had grown up with technology at their fingertips, raising questions about how they interacting with other and experience relationships (Fisu et al, 2024). This study aims to explore: How does Gen Z describe the experience of third spaces as they connect with others?

Co-Ordination Driven Heteroleptic Self-Assembly Of Naphthalene Diimide And Aromatic Dicarboxylate, Rosanna Jees, Kennedy Kuchta, Joshua Do, Erendra Manandhar

Posters - 2026

Co-ordination driven self-assembly is a powerful tool to construct supramolecular co-ordination complexes (SCCs) with predictable and well-defined molecular structures. Fujita, Stang, Newkome, & others have developed novel methodology to synthesize 2D & 3D Metallo-supramolecular structures, such as triangles, cubes, and octahedrons. These have potential applications for optical materials, sensing, catalysis, light harvesting & emissions due to the structures’ well-defined cavity and easy functionalization at the periphery position of ligands.1–4 SCCs with various functional groups, fluorophores, and chromophores, like crown ethers, carbazoles, fullerenes, and dendrimers, have been reported through self-assembly, yet naphthalene-diimide (NDI)-based macrocycles and cages are limited. This project focuses …

Harvest Scanner, Alexander Murphy

Posters - 2026

In current times, people can find themselves at the whims of markets and may be spending more than they realize or want to on regular, everyday goods. New tools can help users keep track of the goods they are paying for. Harvest Scanner was developed to scan and track local grocery prices from stores using their publicly available website information. It was developed in Python using PyQt5 for GUI. The database is stored as an SQL file with Python using SQLite engine. Users will be able to view local grocery prices in a database interface (GUI). There are many features …

Smell Over Sight: Determining Levels Of Olfactory Gene Expression Between Surface And Subterranean Eurycea Salamanders, Sonia Cerrillo, Iliana Melendez, Naomi Ramirez

Posters - 2026

In the karst aquifers of central Texas, including the Edwards and Trinity systems, organisms live in an environment defined by constant temperatures, total darkness, and scarce food resources. These conditions have driven the evolution of salamanders in the genus Eurycea, particularly those that have adapted to subterranean life. Cave-dwelling species like Eurycea rathbuni exhibit hallmark “blind salamander” traits, including educed eyes, loss of pigmentation, and flattened head morphology. In contrast, surface-dwelling relatives such as Eurycea nana and Eurycea sosorum retain fully developed eyes and pigmentation, while some species like Eurycea latitans display both surface and subterranean forms across different populations.

A.I.R.E. - Ai-Assisted Reverse Engineering, Laurene Robinson

Posters - 2026

Reverse engineering plays a vital role in cybersecurity by helping analysts examine unknown binaries, investigate malware, identify vulnerabilities, and better protect sensitive systems. However, once a program is compiled and stripped, the meaningful names that describe its behavior are lost, leaving behind generic function labels like FUN_00401a30. Analysts must then manually interpret decompiled code, trace call chains, and infer program behavior function by function, which is slow and mentally demanding on large binaries. To address this challenge, this project introduces A.I.R.E., a local Ghidra extension that extracts contextual evidence from stripped functions and uses a locally hosted language model to …

Topshelf, Ayden Jay Soliz

Posters - 2026

With so many great video games releasing each year, it becomes challenging to keep up with the latest. Players find it difficult to maintain an updated list of future games to play, and many existing online trackers have become too complicated to use. TopShelf is designed to be a simple video game backlogging website that will track games for the player. By connecting to an online video game database API, users can add/drop games from their personal list and enable tracking and receive emails for platform releasing. Gamers can leave all the tracking and updates responsibilities to TopShelf

Calculated Self-Presentation: Japan At Twentieth Century American World’S Fairs, Mary Rose Comerford

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

World’s fairs are places of innovation, culture, and technology. They are places where visitors go to be wowed by the innovations of other countries, but do they have a deeper meaning? In this thesis I will argue that world’s fairs serve a purpose beyond the sharing of culture and innovation. They allow national commissions to control the narrative of their country through a careful curation of displays that meet the objectives of their government. Countries’ objectives at world’s fairs change all the time, depending on their position in the world and what serves their best interest. The fairs themselves each …

“Do Not Take Sex Into The Practice”: Lelia Robinson And Her Struggle To Become The First Female Attorney Of Massachusetts, Georgia Grace Peters

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Lelia Robinson was the first woman lawyer in Massachusetts. Although her achievements paved the way for future female litigators, her efforts to partake in the legal profession were complicated. This was because she herself had a complex relationship with her own identity as a woman who wanted to practice law. In her early career and experiences at law school, Robinson publicly disregarded the discrimination she faced and framed her success as a result of her individual merit and capability, viewing herself as an equal to other male attorneys rather than part of a gendered struggle. Her brief to the Court …

The Roots Run Deep, Damian Dominguez

Furman Magazine

Long-term faculty and staff have nurtured Furman's success for generations.

Name Drop, Lillia Callum-Penso

Furman Magazine

Named buildings at Furman go back generations and still have an impact.

A Wealth Of Well-Being, Jake Grove

Furman Magazine

Jose Morales-Martinez '18 gives back to a community that has shown him so much.

On The Hunt For History, Furman University

Furman Magazine

As we celebrate Furman's 200th birthday throughout the year, it's important that the physical history of our university be recognized, especially a history that might be tucked away or simply off the beaten path.

Fact Or Folklore?, Jennifer Jones

Furman Magazine

The Urban Legends of Furman University

Scene And Be Seen, Furman University

Furman Magazine

No abstract provided.

Furman Magazine. Volume 69, Issue 1 - Full Issue, Furman University

Furman Magazine

No abstract provided.

Machine Learning In Fundamental Physics: From Early Universe Signatures To Qcd Evolution, Brandon Stevenson

Physics Theses and Dissertations

In both cosmology and small-x quantum chromodynamics, the relevant theoretical predictions are well-defined but expensive to evaluate repeatedly over broad parameter spaces or large ensembles of simulated data. The central question of this thesis is when machine learning can accelerate those calculations without weakening the reliability of the final physics conclusions. The thesis develops and tests this idea in three settings. First, it studies the Derivative Approximation for Likelihoods (DALI) as a means of diagnosing when Fisher-matrix forecasts cease to be trustworthy in cosmological parameter inference. Second, it investigates graph-based spherical neural networks for estimating primordial non-Gaussianity directly from simulated …

The Impact Of Social Media On Oral Hygiene, Daniela Guzman, Kamelia Vega

Undergraduate Student Symposium

Social media has become a dominating channel for health communication, influencing how adults accept, interpret, and act on oral health information. This Prisma review examines whether exposure to social media impacts the overall oral hygiene behaviors in adults, specifically focusing on proper oral health practice, consumer behavior, and the type of information being consumed. Guided by a review framework, peer-reviewed studies published across multiple databases were screened for relevance, methodological quality, and alignment with the research question. Eligible studies included randomized controlled trials, cross-sectional analyses , qualitative investigation, and interventional studies designed to examine the relationship between social media use …

Mediterranean Diet Adherence And Bone Density: No Link In University Cross-County Athletes, Auston Hsieh, Sathvi Gandra, Kiana Medina

Undergraduate Student Symposium

Bone stress injuries are common among collegiate cross-country runners, occurring at rates of 28.6 and 16.1 per 100,000 athlete-exposures in women and men, respectively. Adequate, individualized dietary patterns have been shown to reduce bone stress injury risk by supporting bone mineral density (BMD); however, there is a lack of consensus on the most advantageous dietary pattern. The Mediterranean diet (MD) has been associated with improved BMD in general populations; however, its relationship to BMD in collegiate athletes remains unclear. Therefore, this study assessed the association between MD adherence and BMD in university competitive cross-country runners. Nineteen participants (sex, 7 male, …

Parent-Child Relations, Ego Identity Exploration, And Self-Esteem In Emerging Adulthood, Japji Madan, Amala Vadakumcherry, Vivan Majumdar

Undergraduate Student Symposium

Self-esteem has long been a central focus of psychological research, with positive development linked to factors such as academic achievement, peer relationships, and parent-child bonds. Sub-optimal parent-child relationships, however, can negatively impact self-esteem. While prior studies have largely emphasized extrinsic buffers (e.g., peer support) that mitigate these effects, less is known about intrinsic factors that may promote adjustment in the context of sub-optimal parenting. Emerging adulthood, a period characterized by identity exploration, may provide such intrinsic resources. This study examines whether ego identity exploration moderates the relationship between parent-child relationship quality and self-esteem in emerging adults. Participants were 132 emerging …

Determining The Life Cycles Of Gordonia Rubripertincta Phages, Joshua Yue, Aron Balazs, Jenny Cristina Gallardo Arauz, Akshaj Gandra, Yuktha Milukuri, Suhani Ketan Pothiwala

Undergraduate Student Symposium

Antibiotic resistance continues to rise globally, increasingly limiting the effectiveness of conventional antimicrobial treatments and prompting the exploration of alternative therapies. Bacteriophages are viruses that can specifically infect and kill bacteria, and have emerged as a promising solution, particularly for infections resistant to antibiotics. This study is part of the Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program, which aims to isolate, characterize, and catalog bacteriophages for research and potential therapeutic use. We focused on bacteriophages infecting Gordonia rubripertincta, an actinobacterium with growing clinical relevance as an opportunistic pathogen in immunocompromised patients and catheter related infections. …

Synthesis Of Copper-Phenanthroline Complexes: A Solvothermal-Compatible Approach For The Exploration Of Metal Complexes, Yunping Zhoujin, Michael Anim Safo, Navindra Keerthisinghe, Mark D. Smith, Sophya Garashchuk, Hans Conrad Zur Loye

Faculty Publications

Inorganic–organic hybrid materials have been widely investigated for their applications in catalysis, optics, magnetism, and biomedicine. Copper halide complexes are of particular interest due to their structural diversity and physicochemical properties. Conventional crystal growth approaches, such as slow evaporation and hydro(solvo)thermal synthesis, typically require extended reaction times and often favor thermodynamically stable phases. In this study, we prepared ten copper-phenanthroline halide (X = Cl, Br, and I) complexes using both traditional hydrothermal reactions and microwave-assisted hydrothermal methods and obtained [CuI(C₁₂H₈N₂)₂][I₃], [C₁₂H₉N₂][CuI₂]·(H_{2 …}