Digital Commons Network^™

Minority Stress In Children Of Lgbtq+ Parents: Extending Beyond Individual-Level Minority Stress Theories, Anna J. Sanchirico

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

To understand if children of LGBTQ+ parents experience minority stress, this narrative review integrates minority stress theory with empirical research on LGBTQ+ parent families. To this end, I will illustrate the history of LGBTQ+ parent family research, outline emerging frameworks for understanding the impact of minority stress on the family unit, and examine outcomes research on children of LGBTQ+ parents. Researchers have indicated that children of LGBTQ+ parents may experience discrimination due to their familial status; however, little is known about the extent to which children of LGBTQ+ families experience minority stress, or about nuanced protective and risk factors that …

An Exploratory Analysis Of The Role Of Sex In Load Carriage, Rachel E. Perez, Brooke E. Stayner, Dustin R. Slivka

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Axially loaded weight may impose a metabolic demand equivalent to that of fat mass (FM). As males (M) typically have a lower body fat percentage than females (F), differences in the metabolic demand of load carriage may be resolved by accounting for FM in pack loads. PURPOSE: To determine whether normalizing pack load to FM will equalize metabolic cost across sex during load carriage. METHODS: Twenty-eight participants (14M, 23±5 y, 1.81±0.07 m, 78.7±10.0 kg, 12.7±5.4% body fat, VO₂peak 4.18±0.54 L·min^-1; 14F, 22±4 y, 1.68±0.07 m, 63.7±8.1 kg, 22.6±5.2% body fat, VO₂peak 2.76±0.47 L·min^{-1 …}

Sex Differences In Bone Metabolism Biomarkers Due To Prolonged Daily Load Carriage, Josey K. Walker, Alejandro M. Rosales, Walter S. Hailes, Brent C. Ruby, Dustin R. Slivka

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Load carriage transiently stimulates bone metabolism biomarkers, but impact by sex is unclear. Males (M) generally exhibit higher circulating bone metabolism biomarkers than females (F). Sclerostin (SOST) inhibits a key formation pathway. Human procollagen type 1 N-terminal propetide (P1NP) is a formation byproduct. C-Terminal Telopeptide of Type 1 Collagen (CTX1) is a resorption byproduct.

PURPOSE: Investigate sex differences in bone metabolism following 5 days of load carriage.

METHODS:  12M (29±9 y, 54.6±8.2 mL∙kg^-1∙min^-1) and 20F (27±5 y, 43.4±4.9 mL∙kg^-1∙min^-1) completed the protocol. Each day consisted of two 1-hour ascents separated by a …

Democracy. Sovereignty And Tax Competition: The Role Of Tax Sovereignty In Shaping Tax Cooperation, Diane Ring

Florida Tax Review

Virtually all efforts to confront and curb tax competition effectively require some measure of cooperation among nation-states. Regardless of the precise amount and type of competition deemed acceptable, the cooperation question arises. Only for those who would advocate a complete acceptance of all forms of "tax competition" would cooperation seem irrelevant, although even for those pro-competition advocates, some joint advocacy on the part of the "competing" nations has formed an important part of their efforts to maintain competitive practices. Assuming we envision a world in which there is some notable commitment by a number of nations to tackle the problem …

The Narrative Voice And The Fragmented Self In Black Skin White Masks, Emmanuella Abaidoo Kwarteng

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

No abstract provided.

Engaging Older Adults Through Artefact-Driven Approaches For Ai Literacy Development: A Multi Stakeholder For Digital Inclusion, Paula Kelly, Mayank Parmar, Damon Berry, André Almo, Fatima Badmos, Peterson Jean

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes deeply integrated into modern ICT and e-Accessibility services, older adults face a growing "digital divide" often characterised by a lack of awareness regarding how automated AI systems frequently functioning as "black boxes" infiltrate and impact their daily lives. This paper presents a multimodal workshop model designed to foster critical AI literacy among older adults, transitioning them from passive recipients to active stakeholders. Utilising an Action Research framework, the study details the co-creation phase of a three-phase national Age- Friendly AI literacy initiative in Ireland. Central to the methodology is the use of tangible exhibits as …

What Educational Experiences Influence 2nd Level Students To Study Computer Science? - A Longitudinal Phd Study, Miriam Harte

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

Computing is an increasingly vital skill within the modern economy [3], prompting the Irish Department of Education to take action to integrate computing curricula across all stages of formal education. Despite the growing demand for computer scientists, a significant gap exists between the introduction of computing at 2nd level and students’ continuation in computing at Senior Cycle and 3rd Level education. We are aware that factors such as socioeconomic back- ground [2] and even teacher availability affect student engagement in Computer Science (CS) [1]. We intend to investigate the role of educational experiences in shaping 2nd Level students’ decisions to …

Lidar Mirror Detection Model For Autonomous Robotics, Sofiia Sarana

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

LiDAR sensors are widely used in autonomous robots and vehicles for mapping, navigation, and obstacle avoidance. Because mapping is a foundational capability in nearly all robotic systems, it must be both accurate and reliable. However, LiDAR frequently fails in environments containing mirrors or highly reflective surfaces, where distorted returns corrupt maps and generate false obstacles. Current solutions typically rely on additional sensors and computationally expensive sensor-fusion pipelines, which is costly and difficult to scale for compact robots with limited onboard resources. This paper presents a machine-learning–based LiDAR mirror detection model that identifies reflective surfaces directly from LiDAR data, reducing the …

When Irl Is Not An Option: Social Media Bans And The Exclusion Of Autistic Youth, Melanie Gruben, Ashley Sheil, Anne Ryan Duffy, Jacob Camillleri, Michelle O'Keeffe, Hazel Murray

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

After the roll-out of the social media ban in Australia in 2025, policy makers are considering psychosocial benefits and logistical implications. However, the needs of autistic people, who may rely more on the Internet for social connection earlier in life, should be taken into account. This white paper proposes a responsibility to support alternative means of social connection for autistic young people where bans are considered, as IRL (in real life) socialising is not always accessible.

A Human-Centred View Of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships Operations Using The Shell Model, Natasya Habibah, Paul Hegarty, Breda Kenny

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

The concept of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) has existed for decades and is advancing rapidly as a result of developments in artificial intelligence. Despite these technological advancements, human involvement remains essential to ensure safety and reliability. This study applies the Software, Hardware, Environment, and Liveware (SHELL) model to develop a human-centric framework for examining the integration of human elements with intelligent and automated technologies in MASS. The framework considers software, with particular attention to regulatory aspects; hardware, including general system and sub-system architecture; environmental factors, including both natural and artificial, as well as dynamic and static elements; and liveware, …

Comparative Time Series Forecasting Of Pedestrian Footfall In Dublin City Centre, Mercy Koech

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

Research on urban populations has turned out to be a significant field of study for a long duration.Forecasting pedestrian footfall is important for urban management,retail planning,crime analysis and evaluating the influence of public gatherings.With the rise of smart cities and the proliferation of sensor technologies there now exists a rich supply of data that offers unprecedented insight into the behaviour of pedestrain traffic.This study undertakes a comprehensive analysis of timeseries forecasting methods to predict pedestrian footfall trends in Dublin City Centre a key urban area with diverse spatial characteristics and high foot traffic variability.Using data collected via PYRO-BOX Counters sensors …

Selfhealth: Continuous Semantic Intelligence For Privacy-Aware Lifelogging, Allie Tran

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

Lifelogging — the continuous digital recording of everyday experience through wearable cameras and sensors — has long promised benefits for memory augmentation, health monitoring, and lifestyle analysis. However, current systems follow a capture–store–retrieve model that delays analysis until after data collection, limiting their practical usefulness and creating significant privacy risks through prolonged retention of sensitive raw data. This paper argues that lifelogging should instead analyse data at the moment of capture, enabling timely, context-sensitive support and safer handling of personal information through privacy-by-design. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach through SelfHealth, an early prototype system built on a custom …

Letter From Editors, Andrea C. Heaney, Elizabeth Darnell

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

Letter from editors of 2026 Women+ Early Career Research Symposium

Libération Educative À Travers La Poésie Africaine Francophone: Les Contributions Pédagogiques De David Diop Et De Léopold Sédar Senghor, Stanley Ugochukwu Dibiah

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

Cet article met en avant l'impact transformateur de la poésie africaine francophone dans la reconstruction de l'éducation postcoloniale et l'encouragement d'un changement sociétal durable. Suite à la période coloniale, la poésie en Afrique francophone est apparue non seulement comme une expression artistique, mais aussi comme un outil puissant pour redécouvrir l'identité, la langue et l'histoire. Bien que les aspects culturels et politiques de la littérature postcoloniale aient attiré une attention académique significative, son utilisation dans l'éducation reste encore insuffisamment exploitée. Cette recherche examine comment les œuvres poétiques de David Diop et de Léopold Sédar Senghor peuvent être employées comme des …

Textbook Spending Poster Results, Hunt Library

ERAU Open Education Week

No abstract provided.

Simulating Rewriting Style: Algorithmic Reproduction Of Camus’S Literary Voice In Machine-Generated Texts, Peter Akongfeh Agwu Ph.D

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

Virtual Presentation

Epigenetic Constraint Landscapes And Repair-Mediated Genome Evolution In Human Lineages, Jaymes Mozingo

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Evolutionary change is often framed primarily in terms of mutation and selection, yet this perspective overlooks a prior, testable question: which genetic changes are permitted to persist within the genome at all. This project presents a methods-driven pilot analysis that examines whether epigenetic regulation of DNA repair context constrains the retention of rare genomic variants, leaving a falsifiable signature in population-level data. The study uses de-identified, consented high-coverage Y-chromosome sequencing data and public phylogenies (e.g., FamilyTreeDNA, YFull). An explicit, a priori variant-selection rule is applied to define a class of rare lineage-discordant SNP states arising within a specified downstream phylogenetic …

Land Imaginaries And Rural Realities In The Mountain West, Ande Peersen

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Land is central to the history and mythology of the American West, and yet owning and accessing land is increasingly unattainable for most Americans. Changes in who can own land alter material practices of agriculture or conservation as well as ideas and narratives underlying those material practices, i.e., the land’s imaginary. This research employs a mixed-methods approach to 1) geospatially analyze how the regime of land ownership is changing in two agricultural communities in Montana, and 2) explore associated shifts in rural land imaginaries.

Scholars have researched the effects of land ownership changes in rural logging communities and highly-desirable Western …

Finding My Voice: Patsy Cline's Voice Meets Patsy Rodenburg's Method, Chae Clearwood

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

I am a musician, actress, and woman who has led with my singing voice since I was a child. I have encountered both Patsy Rodenburg and Patsy Cline in my professional career, bringing awareness and growth to my own voice through embodied performance and practice. I am working towards my MFA in Directing in the School of Theatre and Dance and am fortunate enough to encounter opportunities to sing the songs of many women who championed the music industry before me. One who has made repeated encores in my life and career is Patsy Cline. The freedom and power in …

La Satire, Un Outil Pour La Conscience Sociale : Le Rôle Public De La Littérature Aujourd'hui, Arshdeep Kaur

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

No abstract provided.

Reversible O-O Bond Activation And Formation On Dinuclear Cobalt Complexes, Wenting He, Yan Li, Dong Wang

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Dinuclear metal-peroxo species have been proposed as key intermediates in the dioxygen activation pathway for a number of nonheme diiron and dicopper enzymes such as soluble methane monooxygenase (sMMO). A key step in the O activation is the cleavage of the metal-peroxo O-O bond to form higher-valent metal-oxo species. Meanwhile, the reverse O–O bond formation process catalyzed by the Oxygen-Evolving Complex (OEC) in natural Photosystem II is a pivotal step in the conversion of water into molecular oxygen during photosynthesis. In synthetic chemistry, compared to the diiron and dicopper complexes, dicobalt peroxo complexes are relatively less studied. Furthermore, none of …

Lovecraftian Hybrids And Transgender Embodiment, Mari K. Newman

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

     While much of Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s oeuvre has been analyzed by queer theorists for homosexual metaphors within Lovecraft’s monsters, less argued is the subject of his hybrids mirroring transgender embodiment. I posit the rise of transgender identities in the Western mainstream and access to breakthrough gender-affirming care in the United States during Lovecraft’s life lend to a reading of his hybrids as embodying gender queerness. The proposed research is a literature review which draws upon interdisciplinary texts ranging from scholars in the social sciences—such as sociology and anthropology—to the hard sciences such as ecology and health sciences.

In this paper, …

The Enduring Need For Literature: Cognitive Benefits And The Prospect Of Its Disappearance, Imane Labiad

Department of French Studies Graduate Student Association Conference

One would think that defending the usefulness of teaching literature in schools and universities should no longer be a matter of debate. However, with the emergence of new media and technologies such as AI, this discussion resurfaces. This presentation argues that literature will not disappear from educational settings for two main reasons: the scientific evidence demonstrating its impact, and a fictional scenario that warns against its extinction. Numerous empirical studies have shown the wide range of benefits literature has fostered for centuries. One significant finding concerns the persuasive power of fiction reading (Braddock & Dillard, 2016). Research demonstrates that through …

Coordinating Lewis Bases To Ni(Iv) Enhances Reactivity Toward Strong Sp3 C-H Bonds, Collin R. Bryant

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

High-valent transition metal-oxo (TM-oxo) species have been ascertained to be key intermediates in the catalytic cycles of various metalloenzymes involved in C-H functionalization. Advances in the structural and mechanistic elucidation of these metalloenzymes have provided new rationale for designing biomimetic and bio-inspired systems that harness high-valent TM-oxo chemistry and in turn provide further insights into the electronic, structural and reactive properties of enzymatic TM-oxo intermediates. However, high-valent oxo complexes of late transition metals are less accessible due to electronic bonding restrictions. Synthetic efforts can be shifted toward developing high-valent late TM-non-oxo systems, which present electronic, structural and reactive properties similar …

From Classroom To Real Life: Chinese Esl Learners And Sex-Related Taboo Language, Yusi Chen, Gage Weston

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Sex-related taboo language (SRTL) is common in everyday English but often absent from English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction due to teacher discomfort, limited training, and perceived inappropriateness (Gale & Fernández, 2016). However, SRTL is important for expressing emotion, building social relationships, and negotiating interpersonal boundaries (Jay, 2009). Without instruction, learners may misinterpret these expressions, causing embarrassment, social challenges, or increased vulnerability in contexts involving consent, discrimination, or safety (Dewaele, 2004). Understanding when and how to use such language is essential but under-addressed in ESL curricula (Kremin, 2017). Limited prior exposure to sex-related language among Chinese ESL learners (Shi …

A Network-Based Fmri Approach To Decoding Second-Language Proficiency In Advanced And Intermediate Speakers, Onila Rasanjala Narayana Mudalige Don

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Individual differences in second-language (L2) proficiency are not always well captured by traditional voxel-wise fMRI analyses. Network-level representations provide a more stable and interpretable framework for characterizing how the brain supports L2 processing, particularly in the presence of substantial inter-individual variability. In this study, we investigated whether large-scale brain networks can differentiate advanced and intermediate L2 speakers, and which network features carry the strongest proficiency-related signal.

Using fMRI data from Spanish–Basque bilinguals performing a semantic animacy judgment task, we applied group-level Principal Component Analysis (PCA) across all participants and both language conditions to identify shared spatial brain networks. Subject-specific component …

There Is No Intonation Rule For Yes-No Questions In Blackfoot, Chance Lockwood

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Cross-linguistically, the intonation of questions differs from the intonation of their declarative counterparts. For example, the intonation of an English question is normally raised at the end of the sentence, while the intonation of a statement is not. Also, in some languages the range of pitch is greater in questions than in statements. However, to my knowledge there are no intonation studies on Blackfoot that focus on questions, only on other elements of intonation, such as pitch movement, stress predictability, and rhythm. Using Praat, a program designed for acoustic speech analysis, I examined the intonation patterns of 19 statement-question pairs …

Adoption Under Constraint: Testing Rodger’S Diffusion Of Innovation Model In Rural Appalachia, Stewart Rebecca Williams

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Rogers Diffusion of Innovation Model is one of the most used frameworks for research in evolutionary archaeology. It assesses how populations adopt innovations and how innovations spread between groups. The model emphasizes social and community communication networks as well as adoption phases that include testing and potentially adapting an innovation to better fit a population's needs.

However, I believe that this model assumes a level of personal and community agency and access that is simply not present in many populations in our post-industrial, globalized world. I use rural Appalachia as a case study for constrained or limited agency due to …

Human Identification Through Forensic Skeletal Analysis: Three Case Reviews, Shelby Feirstein

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Human identification through forensic skeletal analysis: three case reviews

Article Co-authors: Joe Adserias-Garriga*, Shelby Feirstein, Dakota Bell, Hannah Skropits and Dennis C. Dirkmaat (https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owae053)

Establishing a positive identification of human remains found in a forensic setting is often accomplished through DNA, fingerprints, or odontology. However, when these primary identifiers cannot be applied, practitioners can rely on combining points of concordance derived from other identification modalities, such as antemortem trauma, pathology, or unique skeletal morphologies, to build up a case for identification. In order to conduct these comparisons, forensic anthropologists must be well trained and experienced in human skeletal variation and …

Mothering And Mental Health: Exploring Expressive Arts In The Postpartum Period, Beth Loudon

UM Graduate Student Research Conference (GradCon)

Maternal mental health (MMH) conditions are mental health conditions that occur during pregnancy and/or in the year after giving birth (Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance, 2025). These conditions are responsible for 23% of maternal deaths in the United States (Centers for Disease Control, 2025) and affect approximately 1 in 5 women (Fawcett et al., 2019). Unfortunately, while evidence-based treatment exists for many of these conditions, barriers to care exist, including (a) poor screening, (b) childcare limitations, (c) transportation, and (d) monetary constraints, amongst others (Place et al., 2024). Accordingly, traditional talk therapy is often inaccessible for these women, particularly disadvantaging …