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Every October, at the start of Family Weekend, ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ holds its annual President’s Summer Research Symposium to highlight faculty-advised student work that spans the liberal arts curriculum.

The students make posters detailing features of their work. Some depict the algorithms, graphs, and figures representing two months or more of intensive science experiments. Others show findings from investigations into the humanities and social sciences.

For the symposium, students answer the questions of curious parents, relatives, staff, and faculty perusing the long line of presentations. The event precedes the traditional Sarah and James ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ Day ceremony to honor academic excellence.

This year, more than 200 students presented their projects. Below the slideshow are quick summaries of some of the students' work.

Ava Biasotti ’25. "High-Energy Particle Detected in Antarctic Ice Reveals Galactic Activity Billions of Years Old."

• Student-Faculty Research Grant Fellowship, supported by NASA's NuSTAR Cycle 7 program 
• Advisor: Fe McBride, assistant professor of physics

Biasotti is studying a fast-moving neutrino that was first observed in 2022 by an observatory in Antarctica. These tiny, almost weightless particles are the perfect vehicle to use to locate and study sources of high energy in the universe, which are what originally send them hurtling through space. Neutrinos have no electrical charge, so they can travel through space unimpeded, even passing silently and undetected—and in great quantities—through our bodies. Biasotti has successfully traced her neutrino’s journey back to what is likely a powerful collision of particles around a black hole in a galaxy some two billion light years away. “It’s been traveling a while!” she said. She is the first to do extensive research on this neutrino event, information she plans to publish in a coauthored paper with McBride.

Biasotti said she was drawn to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ for its small physics department, where she knew she had a good chance of doing graduate-level research, particularly with McBride, whose area of expertise matches her area of interest. “I have always been interested in astrophysics, specifically super-massive black holes and the events that happen around them. They are such physical anomalies among our universe. I want to figure out as much as I can about them and their effects on the surrounding universe.”

Mitchell Zell ’25, "Understory species diversity across canopy density and type in a hemiboreal island forest.”

• Kent Island Summer Fellowship, to study forest regeneration and health
• Advisor: Patty Jones, assistant professor of biology 

Zell lived and worked on Kent Island, the home of the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ Scientific Station, where he surveyed the island's forests to study how the diversity of their understories were influenced by the type and diversity of the leafy canopies high above them. From his sampling, Zell developed two major findings: mixed canopies have a higher number of species compared to conifer-dominated canopies; and mixed-light conditions increased the number of understory species, perhaps because the broken canopy creates a mosaic of light and shadow, promoting a mix of light-and shade-tolerant plants.

The experience of being on Kent Island was magical, he said. “I was out in the forest every day alone, noticing things and being so present and observant. Then in the evenings, I was playing games and talking with people, and being very present with them, as well,” he said.

Yaerin Wallenberger ’25, “Mindfulness Intervention for Caregivers of Autism in Rural Environments."

• Glenn and Theresa Gallupe Endowed Fund for Research Education
• Advisor: Kahsi Pedersen, MaineHealth Institute for Research 
  

Wallenberger interned for MaineHealth’s Institute for Research, helping with a study looking at the impacts of mindfulness on the parents of autistic children, particularly those who live in rural Maine.

Caregiving can be stressful, Wallenberger said, and the study was initiated to try to ensure that “this population receives timely mental health care interventions when they need them.”

The study introduced an app called Unwinding Anxiety, which caregivers will use to complete thirty modules of mindfulness training over the course of sixty days. Though the app has been proven useful for people struggling with anxiety and depression,  Wallenberger said, “We are the first to study it for this population.” 

Wallenberger contributed to the effort by creating a screening amendment for participants that tests for autistic traits in caregivers. (She pointed out that autism is sometimes a hereditary condition.) It was important to do this, she explained, because people with autism could experience mindfulness practices differently, finding them potentially less helpful.

“I liked the idea of being in Maine for the summer,” Wallenberger said, discussing why she took advantage of this opportunity. After ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾, she is interested in pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology. “And after doing an internship at a small practice last summer, I was interested in this bigger clinical setting in a hospital.”

Ahmed Albayaty ’25 and Maggie Broaddus ’25, “Synaptic transmitter and hemolymph co-modulation of the pyloric rhythm in crab Cancer borealis”

• Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation Coastal Studies Research Fellowship
• Advisor: Dan Powell, assistant professor of biology and neuroscience 

The two lab partners researched a neural circuit in the Jonah crab to understand how neurons respond to modulators, including those found in hemolymph, the crab's blood. “This neural circuit is an example of a central pattern generator, a type of circuit which is fundamental in rhythmic behavior like breathing, swallowing and so on,” Albayaty said.

Neural circuits are influenced by various circulating hormones and synaptically released modulators, but how these signaling molecules collectively affect neural output is largely unknown.

The two students noted that their research is a building block on the path to understanding how neural circuits can remain flexible in dynamic environments, potentially through the synaptic release of modulators.

Rachel Scruby ’25, “Modern Mythologies, Translating French Cultural Constructions"

• Surdna Foundation Undergraduate Research Fellowship
• Advisors: Katherine Dauge-Roth, associate professor of Romance languages and literatures, and Madeline Bedecarré, assistant professor of French & Francophone studies at Davidson College

As preparation for her senior-year Francophone studies honors project, Scruby did a close reading of Roland Barthes's 1957 book Mythologies, which had a profound impact on France. She then turned her attention to its follow-up, New Mythologies, published in 2007.

“The idea [of the second book] was to capture French culture again,” Scruby said. “A lot of its ideas are relevant and tell us why France is where it is right now.”

Barthes's book, which looked at the French obsessions with red wine, bifteck, and other cultural staples, became a “scathing critique” of the bourgeoisie, Scruby said. But New Mythologies, which was written by various authors, including politically right-leaning ones, didn't land quite as powerfully, and hasn't been translated into English.

As part of her analysis, she did her own translation, a task for which she was prepared after taking a translation course at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾. “Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has said that translation is the most intimate act of reading,” Scruby said, “and that was my mentality throughout this project. You have to think about the implication of every word.”

A psychology and Francophone studies major, she is also interested in social psychology, or how society constructs itself, she said. For her thesis, she is looking at one of the trends she identified in New Mythologies—the belief that France is in decline and losing its economic and cultural significance, particularly compared to the US.