2026 Stonehill Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) Summer Projects

Ryan Barczak ’27 will work with Sharmishtha Dutta, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, on a project entitled “Analyzing a Novel Movie Knowledge Graph Using Vector Embeddings.” Knowledge graphs (KGs) are special networks that model the world around us using the connectivity between entities. KGs have applications in many domains, including but not limited to, search engines and generative AI assistance. Vector embeddings are sequences of numbers to represent entities in a machine learning algorithm and are learned from the data in a way so that the relationships between the concepts are preserved in numerical form. This project aims to create a knowledge graph dataset from an open-source dataset on movies called MovieLens. There is no publicly available KG on this domain, which marks this as a novel resource contribution to this field. The project will implement and run an existing vector embedding generation algorithm to conduct a qualitative assessment of the dataset and present findings.

Sydney Brooks ’27 will work with Irvin Pan, Associate Professor of Biology on a project entitled “Fine-resolution mapping of regulatory regions in the UL/b’ locus of the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) genome.” Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a common virus that remains in the human body for life and usually stays dormant, but can be activated and cause serious health issues, particularly to a developing fetus when exposed to the virus in the womb. Using molecular and biochemical tools, Sydney will examine a region of the viral genome that may be responsible for turning on and turning off important genes in the viral life cycle. Using a strategy developed by Professors Rosebrock and Pederson and former SURE students, Sydney will use a luciferase reporter system to examine small regions of the genome and measure activation of gene expression. She also hopes to learn more about the possible protein transcription factors that turn on or turn off this activity in these regions. 

Leah Dykas ’27, and Edward McGushin, Professor of Philosophy, will work together on a project titled: “Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (Soviet Union, 1979) and the Art of Living.” Drawing on a variety of sources in contemporary and ancient philosophy, as well as film theory, we will read Tarkovsky’s film as a meditation on how to live meaningfully in tragic times.  While this film has already given rise to a vast field of philosophical interpretations, this project hopes to open new ground in that field by putting it into dialogue with the contemporary revival of interest in philosophy as the ‘art of living’.

Aurora Ferreira ’28 and Avery Findley ’28 will work with Kevin Carriere, Assistant Professor of Psychology, on “Passionate Pain: The Solidarity of Moralized Passion.” Language that frames work as a “calling” or “passion” can lead people to undervalue and underpay that labor, particularly in feminized professions like teaching and nursing. Building on an experimental study from Fall 2025 that found care-oriented language lowered wage judgment, it expands from experimental methods into qualitative research, conducting in-depth interviews with graduate student-workers at regional universities to examine how narratives of care and passion operate within real institutional contexts by shaping experiences of compensation, collective action, and the joining (or not) of a union. Their project also includes rerunning the original experiment with a more diverse, online sample. 

Katherine Giroux ’27 will work with Bronwyn Bleakley, Professor of Biology, on a project entitled “Pheromonal influence of social partners on cooperative antipredator behavior of guppies.” Trinidadian guppies, Poecilia reticulata, cooperate to perform a suite of anti-predator behaviors in response to large fish. How an individual ultimately behaves within a cooperative interaction depends on the efficacy of communication between partners, which reflects both the strength and composition of the signal one partner sends and how responsive the other partner is to that signal. Fish excrete steroid hormones continuously through their gills, and prior work in the lab found that estrogen physiology affects how well social partners cooperate. The “free” form of any steroid hormone, including estrogen, is the most common biologically active form, but it can be modified through the addition of chemical groups. A single study of guppy hormones links free androgens and glucocorticoids to individual anti-predator behavior but work in other fish found that the form of the steroid pheromone changes how strongly it affects a social partner. We propose to investigate whether 17β-estradiol serves as a pheromone for cooperation among females and determine whether modifications alter its effectiveness as a chemical signal. Katherine, a biology major, will use her findings to write a senior thesis and prepare for a career in research.

Gianna Graffeo-Seda ’28 will collaborate with Pamela Lombardi, Associate Professor of Chemistry, on a project entitled “Development of a Diastereoselective Allylic Oxidation Using Simple Amino Acids.” Many molecules of pharmaceutical interest contain stereocenters. Therefore, the development of synthetic methods to efficiently produce small molecules with high stereochemical purity is important. This research builds on previous work in the Lombardi laboratory, where chiral amino acids have been used to install new allylic stereocenters catalyzed by a copper-aluminum complex. We aim to develop a reliable analytical method (gas chromatography or ultra performance convergence chromatography) to assess the stereoselectivity of the oxidation reactions we have previously developed. Additionally, we will continue to optimize the reaction conditions to improve both yield and selectivity, and also investigate the scope of this reaction on new substrates.

Yosra Kaddura ’27 will collaborate with Marilena Hall, Professor of Chemistry, on the “Selection of RAGE binding peptides using phage display.” The receptor for advanced glycation endproducts (RAGE) is a protein embedded in the cell membranes of the lungs and other tissues. In the normal aging process, proteins in our cells react with sugars (“glyc”) to form advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs), which bind to RAGE and trigger biological pathways inside the cell. AGE-RAGE binding is also associated with diabetes, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s and more. Consequently, studies of the AGE-RAGE interaction may elucidate aspects of these diseases. Phage display can be used to identify glycated peptides that bind to RAGE. Once characterized by chemical methods, these mimics may serve as drugs to block the natural AGEs from binding to RAGE, preventing the disease states. Yosra, a biology major, will apply her findings to a senior thesis and a poster at the American Chemical Society national meeting next spring.

Remonda Mankarios ’27 and Ava Smith ’28 will work with Anwar Mhajne, Associate Professor of Political Science, on a project entitled “Digital Authoritarianism and Gendered False Narratives: Comparative Cases from Egypt and Palestine.” This project examines how authoritarian and illiberal actors use gendered disinformation and disinformation about gender to silence women journalists, activists, and political actors. Students will conduct data collection for two case studies: Egypt, analyzing gendered disinformation in state-owned and state-aligned media, and Palestine, focusing on online attacks against Palestinian women journalists in Gaza since October 7. The project also includes reviewing regional fact-checking sources and updating the literature on digital authoritarianism and gendered online harassment to identify broader patterns of digital repression.

Luis Mayagoitia ’27 will work with John McCoy, Professor of Neuroscience & Psychology, on a project entitled “The Brain’s Default Mode Network.” The Default Mode Network (DMN) is a brain-wide network active during wakeful rest.  During the active wake state (i.e., when attending to an important task), DMN activity is suppressed whilst a task-on associated network is conversely activated. In patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, the normal suppression of DMN activity is impaired, contributing to the cognitive symptoms that characterize this condition. Luis’s project involves experiments designed to better elucidate the DMN, and its putative role in schizophrenia.

Bo Miller ’28 will work with John McCoy, Professor of Neuroscience & Psychology, on a project entitled “Slow-wave Sleep and Alzheimer’s Disease.” Slow EEG oscillations during non-rapid eye movement sleep have been shown to promote memory consolidation, a process whereby recently learned material is transferred to a more stable memory representation. Genetically modified Alzheimer’s mice exhibit reduced depth and continuity of sleep, which mirrors changes seen in human Alzheimer’s disease patients. Therefore, Bo’s project will investigate manipulations aimed at improving slow-wave sleep in Alzheimer’s disease model mice.

Alma Mwangi ’28 will work with Sameera Akella, Assistant Professor of Sociology, on a project entitled: “Healing Across Spectrums: How Colorism, Blackness, and Femmeness Influence Care and Well-Being of Black Women.” In this project, we will conduct a qualitative content analysis of one or more social media platforms. Within the chosen medium, we intend to focus Black women and femme voices sharing their stories of how they care for themselves, which will aid in further understandings of how well-being for Black women is shaped by racialized and gendered experiences. The main goal of our research project is to gain a better understanding of how Black women navigate their personal care journeys in a society consisting of institutions and systems that were not created in consideration of their health and well-being. In this context, we will also highlight the complexities of colorism and femmeness from an intersectional feminist perspective.

Jeremy Novakouski ’27 will work with Francesca Fornasini, Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy, on “Classifying high-energy X-ray sources near the Galactic Plane.” Objects that are energetic enough to emit substantial amounts of high-energy X-ray light are relatively rare in the Universe. Since its launch in 2012, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has discovered new high-energy X-ray sources at an unprecedented rate. The majority of these new sources are likely supermassive black holes in other galaxies, but the physical nature of sources located near the Milky Way Galactic plane is less clear. Many of the sources near the Galactic plane may be the leftover compact remnants of stars, such as black holes or neutron stars, within our own Galaxy. Such sources can provide valuable insights into stellar evolution and further our understanding of the different types of processes that can produce high-energy X-rays. Jeremy will determine the nature of about a dozen unclassified NuSTAR sources near the Galactic plane, almost doubling the sample of NuSTAR sources that were classified by previous summer students. Together, he and Prof. Fornasini will analyze the broadband X-ray spectrum of the sources, search for optical counterparts of the X-ray sources, and compile together all the information we have learned about these sources to classify them. We plan to present the results at an astronomy conference and incorporate them into a publication.

Morgan Peterson ’28 will work with Sam Goree, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, on a project titled “Explainable Hate Speech Detection for the Web.” Hate speech detection systems automatically determine whether text contains hate speech, they are deployed on social media today to assist with content moderation. However, evaluating which of many hate speech detection systems works the best can lead to difficult political and legal issues requiring human audits. She will collect information about existing commercial hate speech detection systems and help prototype a tool to assist with audits of these systems. This tool will create visual explanations of the calculations behind these models’ decisions and allow us to collect qualitative evaluation data to supplement existing performance benchmarks.

Ather M. Rana ’28 will work with Kate M. Harris, Assistant Professor of Health Science & Biochemistry, on a project entitled “Physiological Effects with Mind/Body Integration.” Roughly 1 in 6 U.S. adults in the past year practiced yoga to improve their health, yet how the practice promotes health is an area ripe for research. Many studies have investigated a stress biomarker in human saliva given a yoga practice but results have, generally, proved inconclusive. This is, perhaps, due to the methodology of sample collection and testing. Therefore, we’ve established a novel means of measuring a stress biomarker in the human system using basal tear fluid. Quantitatively, we will answer how yoga practice influences stress levels to contribute to biological research about the practice. We will write a manuscript of our studies to submit for publication in an academic journal to inform other researchers in the field of the new methodology.

Lauren Rose ’27 and Adria Kraja ’28 will work with Nicole Cyr, Professor of Biology, to continue previous research aimed at better understanding how obesity alters the brain. For her project titled “The effect of obesity on synapses,” Neuroscience major Lauren Rose will investigate how obesity alters neuronal synapses which can change communication among brain regions and potentially cause disease. Adria Kraja, Biochemistry Major, will explore “The Effect of GLP-1 Medications on Synapses.” Popular weight-loss GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs including examples like Ozempic® and Wegovy® enter the brain to help suppress appetite. However, their actions in the brain are not fully understood. Adria’s summer research aims to determine how these drugs affect synapses and thus neuronal communication. The results of these studies will be presented at the Northeast Undergraduate/Graduate Research Organization for Neuroscience (NEURON) conference next year.

Abigail Towle ’27 and Grace Saba ’27, will work with Francesca Fornasini, Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy, on “Characterizing X-ray binaries in a low-metallicity galaxy.” The brightest X-ray objects in most galaxies are X-ray binaries, which consist of a star and either a black hole or neutron star, both of which are extremely dense remnants of former stars; the black hole or neutron star in these systems “steal” and accrete material from their stellar binary companions. In the early Universe, X-ray binaries may have played a particularly important role in heating and ionizing the majority of the gas in the Universe, but current predictions vary because we do not how closely the properties of X-ray binaries in the early Universe resemble those of X-ray binaries in the present-day Universe. While we still cannot detect X-ray binaries in the early Universe, we can try to understand their properties by looking at low-metallicity galaxies, which most closely resemble the earliest galaxies in terms of their chemical composition. The goal of this project is to perform a detailed study of the X-ray binaries in a nearby low-metallicity galaxy, which will help inform our understanding of X-ray binaries in the early Universe. Abby will primarily be responsible for analyzing high-energy X-ray observations from the NuSTAR telescope while Grace will primarily be responsible for analyzing the low energy X-ray observations from the XMM-Newton telescope. They will work together with Prof. Fornasini to classify the X-ray binaries, estimate the ratio of black hole to neutron star binaries, and compare them to X-ray binaries in higher-metallicity galaxies.

Jule Vinke ’27 will work with Bronwyn Bleakley, Professor of Biology, on a project entitled “Evolutionary genetics and physiology of cooperation and social responsiveness in guppies.” 
Understanding the evolution of cooperation encompasses two central problems in evolutionary biology: 1) understanding how different traits are integrated into an individual’s whole phenotype, and 2) how genetic, neural, and physiological mechanisms of behavior interact to generate cooperative behavior among unrelated individuals. Guppies, Poecilia reticulata, perform a suite of cooperative behavior in response to predatory threats. Cooperation requires an interaction among partners. How an individual ultimately behaves will reflect, in part, how responsive the focal fish is to their partner, with responsive fish more flexibly altering their behavior. Gene expression, or the degree to which any gene is “turned on,” modulates behavior and will be influenced by interactions with a fish’s social environment gene. Using recently generated gene expression profiles (RNA-Seq data), we will begin to describe the genes that underlie cooperation by looking for differentially expressed genes in responsive and/or cooperative fish compared to unresponsive and/or uncooperative fish, compare gene expression profiles between different groups of fish, and begin to identify which differentially expressed genes may be regulated by estrogen. Jules, a biology major, will use these data to write a senior thesis and prepare for a career in research.

Allison Winters ’28 will collaborate with Marilena Hall, Professor of Chemistry, on the “Selection of S-protein binding peptides using phage display.” For nearly a century, the enzyme ribonuclease A (RNase A) has served as perhaps the most important model system in protein biochemistry. Even when the RNase A backbone is cleaved into two fragments, S-protein and S-peptide, the two separate pieces bind to each other to recreate the functional enzyme, dubbed RNase S. Panning a phage display library against just the S-protein could identify peptides that effectively replace the S-peptide to recreate the enzyme in an unprecedented configuration. Information gleaned from this study may shed light on receptor/hormone and other cellular binding interactions implicated in disease states, leading to the development of pharmacologically relevant therapeutics. Allison, a biochemistry major, will apply her findings to a senior thesis and a poster at the American Chemical Society national meeting next spring.