Digital Commons Network^™

Synthesis Of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles For The Degradation Of Rhodamine B Dye, Kezia J. Lemke, Leighton D. Stouffer, Elijah J. Murray, Catherine S. Braaten

Research & Creative Achievement Day

Rhodamine B dye is a harmful contaminant in wastewater, so methods were developed to synthesize iron oxide nanoparticles that could catalyze the photodegradation of rhodamine B in water. Iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized through the co-precipitation method and using FeCl2 as a source of Fe2+ ions. The nanoparticles were then characterized through IR spectroscopy and adsorption testing. Finally, a control solution of rhodamine B and an experimental rhodamine B solution with nanoparticles were exposed to UV light in a photo cabinet to analyze the degradation of rhodamine B over time using UV-Vis spectroscopy. IR spectroscopy showed that an iron oxide …

The Evolution Of Accounting: Historical Bookkeeping And Double Entry, Linda N. Moua

Research & Creative Achievement Day

In present-day accounting, technology  has transformed the efficiency and effectiveness of transaction recording.  Microsoft Excel has become a standard tool since its launch in the 1980s and has  quickly replaced handwritten work. This research aims to analyze the origins  of accounting, specifically in bookkeeping and double-entry, and how it has  proven to be the language of business from the beginning. This research will  initially look at stone tablets from the Mesopotamian Era and into the  development of double entry, with how its evolved origins are still similar  and different today. Other than the history of bookkeeping and double entry,  there …

A Feminist Analysis Of Greta Gerwig’S Little Women And Lady Bird, Tamara J. Hughes

Research & Creative Achievement Day

Following recent attention being given to gender values seen within popular culture, more scholars are taking the time to consider the role that films play in communicating these values. Given this attention, this analysis hopes to look at feminist themes within two films written and produced by Greta Gerwig (Little Women and Lady Bird). I propose to use a communication analysis using perspectives of both feminist criticism and fantasy theme analysis to uncover and understand the use of themes throughout the two films. This analysis hopes to gain understanding of the communication methods that Greta Gerwig imposes in her films …

Forgotten Heroes: The Legacy Of World War Ii Nurses, Emma M. Boots, Anna M. Kunau, Rachel B. Smith, Ella G. Stewart

Research & Creative Achievement Day

Our research project honors Gudrun Stenoien. Stenoien was a nurse in the 26th General Hospital Unit of the United States during World War II. During the war, Stenoien, affectionately known as "Goodie," documented her experiences through photographs and letters home. From North Africa to Italy, Goodie served as a Second Lieutenant nurse for the Army from 1942 to 1944. By reading her letters and analyzing documents, we have learned about the legacy Gudrun Stenoien left in her nursing career. Goodie's detailed collection of photographs and letters was generously donated to Winona State University, inspiring research into her journey. Her story …

Analyzing Accessibility Issue Detection Differences Between Wave And Google Lighthouse Using A Controlled Wcag Violation Webpage, Saabiriin M. Abdi

Research & Creative Achievement Day

Automated accessibility evaluation tools, such as WAVE and Google Lighthouse are widely used to assess compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). However, prior studies indicate that these tools often disagree, vary in the success criteria they support, and differ in the type of issues they detect. Because most evaluations were conducted on real websites, where the precise number of accessibility violations is unknown. Without a ground-truth baseline, it is impossible to measure false negatives, false positives, or the accuracy of detection.

This project addresses that gap by creating a controlled HTML webpage containing 40 intentional WCAG 2.1 Level …

Do You Have A Dog?: Investigating How Teacher Self-Disclosures Affect Student Perceptions, Kylie B. Nelson

Research & Creative Achievement Day

One of the most common questions a student might ask a professor is, do you have a dog? Self-disclosures from college professors have become commonplace in a classroom, but as perceptions and norms shift, teacher self-disclosure has yet to be understood in a modern context. The purpose of this study is to understand how teacher self-disclosure affects students’ perceptions. Using a survey research design, this study aims to test associations between appropriate self-disclosure and student satisfaction. Effects of frequency, negativity, and relevance of self-disclosure aim to be correlated with student affect for the class and professor. Results are expected to …

N-Bromosuccinimide Bromination Of 2-Heptene: Determination Of All Allylic Bromide Products, Natalie L. Olsen

Research & Creative Achievement Day

The main goal of this research was to demonstrate the occurrence of allylic rearrangement in the reaction of N-bromosuccinimide (NBS) with 2-heptene. Thus, we aimed to demonstrate using 1H NMR and HPLC that (E)-2-bromo-3-heptene (E-2-3) and (E)-4-bromo-2-heptene (E-4-2) are formed in roughly equal amounts. This is important because several references claim that allylic rearrangement does not occur to a significant extent in this reaction. The reaction was run using 2.1mL (15 mmol) of 2-heptene, 1.84 g of NBS (10 mmol), and 0.008g of benzoyl peroxide (0.03 mmol), in cyclohexane (9.4 mL) under reflux. 1H NMR of the product mixture clearly …

The Living History Project: Documenting Winona State's Legacy, Holly A. Foss, Kenneth Goroztieta, Aubree G. Hansen

Research & Creative Achievement Day

This table will showcase the work of the Living History Project at Winona State University which preserves the history of WSU by documenting the careers of people who have impacted the university for the better.  The table will display three short documentary films produced by students during the Fall 2025 semester, running on a monitor with headphones on a continuous loop. The films feature Tom Sawyer (former football coach), Jo Stejskal (former Dean of Nursing), and Jim Bromeland (former Professor of Political Science).  Alongside the films, the table will include a display of photography from premieres over the past 20 …

Comparing Dissection Vs Literature Data Of Cestodes In Ducks, Sophia B. Cross

Research & Creative Achievement Day

Cestodes are a class of parasites that are often found in vertebrate animals, specifically ducks. Research conducted by Winona State University students showed that cestodes were the most prevalent type of parasites found within ducks. However, outside research provides controversy as to whether this is actually true. Ducks were dissected by Winona State students over the past seven years, and their internal organs were carefully inspected under a light microscope. Ducks were donated by hunters, mostly harvested along the Mississippi River, from Buffalo City, WI to Winona, MN. Parasites were obtained, stored, and labelled from each duck. A dichotomous key …

Impact Of News Sentiment Analysis On The Performance Of Stock Trading Models, Nindl

Research & Creative Achievement Day

This study investigated how news sentiment analysis improves stock price prediction accuracy. Two Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural networks were created using PyTorch, a baseline model without sentiment analysis trained using 22 technical features, and another model with sentiment analysis scores from Alpha Vantage’s sentiment analysis API. The historical data gathered spans from 2018-2025 and it covers a total of seven securities at 20-minute intervals. There are three volatile stocks (Tesla, NVIDIA, AMC), three stable stocks (Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble), and a single S&P 500 index (SPY). The models were run in the same testing environment that …

Manual Tissue Slicer Designed For Ovarian Tissue Cryopreservation, Levon Shukrian, Caleb Anene, Daniel Archer, Derek Works, Jack Durham, Joby Anthony, Jumana Rizk, Maria Mendoza Lopez, Shanice Rerrie

Liberty University Research Week

Fertility preservation techniques such as ovarian tissue cryopreservation and autotransplantation provide important options for patients at risk of primary ovarian insufficiency due to medical treatments or disease. A critical step in this process is the preparation of uniform ovarian cortical slices (0.5–1.5 mm thick) that preserve follicular architecture prior to cryopreservation. However, the discontinuation of the Stadie-Riggs tissue slicer, previously used for fresh tissue slicing, has created a significant gap in both translational research and clinical practice. To address this need, a compact manual ovarian tissue slicer was designed and constructed using biocompatible 316L stainless steel and borosilicate glass. The …

Self-Esteem, Self-Control, And Self-Acceptance As Predictors Of Grit And Resilience, Ava N. Krolnik

Research & Creative Achievement Day

Introduction: The debate between whether grit and resilience are the same thing or different concepts has long been discussed. While they may have different definitions, many claim that they measure the same thing while others claim that they are indeed separate ideas. During this debate, many studies have found that self-control, self-esteem, and self-acceptance are all positively correlated with both grit and resilience. Despite these positive correlations, it is unclear which of these self-factors is the strongest predictor of grit and resilience and if they are the same for both. The current study aims to delve deeper into these connections …

Psychology Internship 2026; Rise Family And Children's Center, Star D. Brown

Research & Creative Achievement Day

This will be a posterboard presentation on a completed internship though Winona State University. The internship was with the RISE program at The Family and Children's Center in Winona. The posterboard will cover curriculum made and lessons taught. The lessons will be there for guests to view and ask questions about. The posterboard will also cover changes brought to the program and the impact those changes had.

Exploring Boolean Dependency Mapping For Rust Crates Aimed At Embedded Systems, Hamilton A. Ferris

Research & Creative Achievement Day

Rust Crates are concise, safe ways to abstract compilation units in the Rust programming language. Each crate can be compiled individually, or some may depend on others (i.e. function `bar` may depend on crate `foo`). However, there is no standard way to compile Rust crates in a `no_std` configuration, which targets the compilation at embedded systems. Existing research into this topic mostly focuses on developer opinion. Sharma et al. (2025) discovered that only 68% of developers thought that Rust crate support was sufficient. In addition, 92% of developers surveyed also used C for embedded systems, and 64% of them claimed …

Progress Towards The Synthesis Of Trans-4-Bromo-2-Heptene, Ava L. Dillon

Research & Creative Achievement Day

trans-4-Bromo-2-heptene (1) is a simple compound that, despite two reports to the contrary, has never been synthesized in pure form. Nevertheless, it could be a useful starting material for organic synthesis. The compound presents a significant synthetic challenge due to a propensity to undergo allylic rearrangement to form a mixture of allylic bromides. Therefore, the goal of this research was to synthesize 1 with a multistep synthesis. Step 1 was to produce hept-2-yn-4-ol (2) via a Grignard synthesis by combining butanal and propynyl magnesium bromide with the triple bond acting as a masking group for the alkene. The alcohol was …

The Intersection Of Text And Theory: Drawing Lines Between Derrida, Barthes, Pynchon, And Calvino, Katherine Bechter

Liberty University Research Week

My research synthesizes major theories of Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes to explore Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. These novels consider meaning, reading, translation, and intertextuality from a postmodern perspective, and the theorists posit complementary concepts on these subjects. Using their theories as guideposts, my analysis emerges as an investigation of postmodern tenets in practice. Understanding the way theory functions in these novels invites scholars to access clandestine textual meanings sheltered beneath the surface of playful narrative. In contemporary scholarship, postmodern theorists, such as Barthes and Derrida, certainly …

The Influence Of Pre-War Cruiser Design And Doctrine On The Guadalcanal Campaign, Dawson Baber

Liberty University Research Week

The development of cruisers and their accompanying doctrine played a critical role in the hotly contested night engagements during the Guadalcanal Campaign of the Second World War. Upon entering the war, the US Navy’s doctrine focused on long range, open seas, decisive battles centered on a battleship battleline with cruisers serving as scouts or fleet screens/escorts. However, this research will focus on the Guadalcanal campaign, which saw close range, nighttime, defensive battles fought by vessels not designed for the task and men untrained for that type of combat. While the historiography surrounding the Guadalcanal campaign is vast, there are practically …

Experimental Investigation Of How Smartphone And Social Media Use Change Wellbeing, Emily Davis

Liberty University Research Week

As technology continues to advance, there are rising concerns around young adults’ usage patterns and developing methods to encourage healthy engagement. However, the current literature includes mixed results on the impact of smartphone and social media use on wellbeing making it difficult to determine what healthy usage looks like. This is thought to be due in part to variations in the operationalization of usage and a lack of understanding of their unique mechanisms of change. To address this gap, this study examines more closely the differentiating effects of social media use compared to smartphone use. The study utilized a randomized …

Social Connectedness In The Age Of Ai: Chatbot Use And Loneliness Among University Students, Pamela Mcilrath

Liberty University Research Week

Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are rapidly becoming integrated into everyday life, with recent data indicating that approximately 29% of U.S. adults have used AI in the past year (Google & Ipsos, 2025). While AI tools are often utilized for productivity purposes (e.g., drafting emails, taking meeting minutes, etc.), younger populations are beginning to use them for personal conversations, companionship, and emotional/mental support. Recent research suggests that OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform might be the largest provider of mental health services in the United States of America (Rousmaniere et al., 2025). This development presents a unique opportunity to examine how use of AI …

Influence Of Pathogen Carbon Metabolism On Host Immunity, Bright Danso

Liberty University Research Week

Cryptococcus neoformans is an emerging fungal (yeast) pathogen worldwide that causes cryptococcal meningoencephalitis and also responsible for life-threatening diseases of the lungs and skin. In this study, we assessed the production of host immune signals in response to infection with carbon assimilation mutants of C. neoformans to better understand the relationship between pathogen carbon metabolism and virulence. We focused on experimentally creating mutation in pyruvate kinase (pyk1¿), previously shown to have marked deficiencies in virulence without rapid clearance from the host. Cytokine production was investigated both in vivo and ex vivo using cultured macrophages. We furthermore employed additional carbon utilization …

Reconceptualizing Grief Following The Death Of Abusive Or Toxic Family Members: A Trauma-Informed Theoretical Framework, Janita Daggy

Liberty University Research Week

Grief after losing an abusive, neglectful, or chronically toxic family member is a clinically understudied and commonly invalidated form of grief. Most grief frameworks are built upon attachment and normative constructs of loss, centering feelings of longing, sadness, and wanting to be with the deceased again (Bowlby, 1980; Worden, 2018). When survivors lose someone who has caused them harm through words, emotions, or physical pain, their grief response can include feelings of relief, numbness, guilt, anger, loss of identity, and other complex emotions which do not align with mainstream grief expectations and are often invalidated by cultural norms and family …

Reframing Alpha-Gal Syndrome As A One Health Oral Health Risk: A Theoretical Model For Dental Safety And Policy Reform, Oyebolu Aderinola Akinkugbe, Akuchinyere Titus-Okpanachi, Oluwatosin Marylyn Oduneye

Liberty University Research Week

No abstract provided.

U.S. Involvement In Romania During World War Ii, Timothy Brophy

Liberty University Research Week

U.S. involvement in Romania during World War II was significant. This involvement began with a U.S. Army Air Forces bombing campaign against the country's oil refineries, which provided approximately 25% of Nazi Germany's oil supply during the war. Initial bombing raids occurred in 1942 and 1943, but it was not until April 4, 1944, that the Fifteenth Air Force (15th AF) launched a sustained bombing campaign against Romania. By August 1944, the American bombing of Romania had successfully crippled Romanian oil production and export to Nazi Germany, paved the way for the Soviets to drive German forces out of Romania, …

M.E. Bradford And American Conservatism, Avery White

Liberty University Research Week

M.E. Bradford was a professor of English at the University of Dallas who contributed significant intellectual work to the American conservative movement in the 1960s-1990s. His training in rhetoric and upbringing in the American South gave him a unique perspective on the founding documents of the United States and major events in American history like the Revolutionary War. Bradford focused on continuity arguing the rights and freedoms American enjoy are really extensions of the traditional rights of Englishmen the colonists enjoyed prior to independence. He analyzes the rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution and finds a …

"The Real War": A Story Of Civil War Camp Life, Rebecca Felton

Liberty University Research Week

As Fred A. Shannon observes, “The drudgery and misery of warfare is the side of which the soldier sees the most, of which he complains in his generation, and which his children promptly forget.” When most people think of the American Civil War, they recall the agonies and ecstasies of battle, envisioning the bombardment of Fort Sumter, the glorious folly of Pickett’s Charge, and the ravages of Sherman’s March to the Sea. What gets left out of the history books is what the common soldier experienced more than anything else: camp life. This study highlights how Union and Confederate soldiers …

Limited Access To Reproductive Health Care And Maternal Health Outcomes In Lynchburg, Virginia, Akuchinyere Titus-Okpanachi, Oyebolu Aderinola Akinkugbe, Wuraola Awosan

Liberty University Research Week

Introduction/Background

In 2022, the Virginia Maternal Mortality Review Team reported an increase in pregnancy-associated deaths, rising from 64 to 67, with a death rate of 70.1 per 100,000 live births, surpassing the U.S. rate of 18.6. Black women experienced a notably high death rate of 50.3, highlighting significant racial disparities, including a much higher infant mortality rate among Black infants compared to White infants. In the Central Virginia Health District, disparities are observed, although data availability is limited by small populations in surrounding counties. Lynchburg has recorded higher rates of late or no prenatal care, low birth weights, and preterm …

Healthcare Access Barriers And Ags Outcomes In Central Virginia: A Qualitative Study, Oluwatosin Marylyn Oduneye

Liberty University Research Week

No abstract provided.

Rolling A Mile In My Wheels, Jaiden Lane

Liberty University Research Week

This thesis project emphasizes the importance of supporting students with disabilities on campus. The hope is that readers and participants will leave the project more educated on disabilities and accommodations. Ideally, all people reading the thesis will feel a burden to continue promoting and contributing to the field of disability research, specifically from a biblical worldview. As a Christian who believes that all people have been created in God's image, the goal when writing this thesis was to ensure that all readers and participants of the research know how loved and valued they are by their Creator.

Music Enhances Theta Brainwave Activity Regardless Of Tuning Frequency, Robert Somerville, Davis Raz, Ersilia Mirabelli, Jettson Yarborough, Luc-Shalom Kouame

Liberty University Research Week

Music has been shown to increase our ability to retain and recall information. This study attempts to expand the scientific knowledge in this area of study and seeks more efficient and effective genres and frequencies of music for increasing memory retention. In a world filled with those seeking knowledge and an ability to retain and use said knowledge to enhance their lives and the world around them, a method of enhancing their ability to do so would be revolutionary. Music is a powerful tool for relaxation, focus, and memory, but what if the way it is tuned is adversely affecting …

Cfd-Based Multi-Objective Optimization Of Airflow Channel Design For Lithium-Ion Battery Thermal Management, Somto Azike

Liberty University Research Week

No abstract provided.