Project Title: Extending Model Studies to Guide Cleanup of Clandestine Methamphetamine Labs

Many buildings in the U.S. are condemned after the discovery of clandestine methamphetamine labs (“Clan Labs”). Clan Labs are found in residential dwellings, motels and hotel rooms, garages, barns, automobiles, etc. The decontamination process for the chemical residues varies; it is not known which type of cleaning is the most safe and effective (cleanup and decontamination are costly, also). Dr. Karen R. Caldwell’s project aims to determine the best way to remediate Clan Labs, including understanding the chemical properties and surface reactions that dictate whether a particular cleaning method is effective. My research with Dr. Caldwell this year will continue along the same lines as last year’s research (at least initially). We will continue to use laboratory instrumentation available in Dyson Hall for these studies (UV-VIS spectroscopy, Gas Chromatography). In addition to the “wet” chemistry experiments, we will use computational chemistry in my project.

Project Title: Against the Odds: Retail Investors in the Modern US Options Market

This research project seeks to investigate the hypothesis that the options market within the US stock market is skewed against retail investors, favoring institutional investors and large market players. The central challenge is to determine whether this perceived imbalance exists and, if so, how retail investors can navigate these challenges to achieve profitability in options trading. The study aims to address the growing concerns among retail investors regarding
potential manipulation and unfair practices in the options market that could put them at a disadvantage.

Project Title: The Sustained Health and Economic Benefits of Meditation, Yoga, and Tai Chi: A Longitudinal Study

This proposed study investigates the long-term health and economic benefits of mind-body practices—such as meditation, yoga, and Tai Chi—on mental, cognitive, and linguistic outcomes in aging populations. Previous studies have established short-term cognitive improvements, like enhanced memory and attention, linked to mindfulness and yoga. However, there is a significant gap in understanding their sustained effects over time, as prior research mainly relies on cross-sectional data and lacks robust causal estimation techniques. By using advanced causal inference methods and cost-effectiveness
analysis (CEA) with longitudinal data, this study aims to estimate both long-term health outcomes and potential healthcare savings from regular mind-body practices.

Project Title: Enhancing Robotic Navigation in Complex Environments Using Large Language Models

This project explores the potential of large language models (LLMs) in enhancing robotic navigation in simulated environments. The central challenge is to determine whether LLMs can effectively interpret visual data and provide accurate navigation instructions to a robot navigating through a complex maze. Equipped with a front-facing camera and a point cloud sensor, the robot must reach a designated target, such as a 90-degree corner, by following directives generated by the LLM based on real-time visual inputs. Robotic navigation has long been a significant area of research, with previous studies primarily focusing on sensor-based algorithms and machine learning techniques to enable
autonomous movement in both structured and unstructured environments. While advancements have been made using traditional approaches like simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and deep learning for object detection, integrating LLMs to process visual inputs and generate navigation instructions presents a novel approach. This project
seeks to build on existing work by investigating whether LLMs can overcome the limitations of current methods, particularly in complex, dynamic environments where traditional algorithms may struggle.

Project Title: Animations as Abstraction Helpers for Algorithmic Thinking

This project is seeking to help express the abstract concepts of the Dynamic Programming algorithmic approach through animation. When learning about this subject matter, many students struggle to comprehend its details and inner workings [1,2] due to the limitations of describing this topic’s complexities on slides and/or drawings. This project aims to research whether there will be an improvement in students’ understanding of Dynamic Programming using the animations we’ll
develop. Specifically, the computational problem we’ll be using in our animations will be Coin Change, a very well-known problem used to teach Dynamic Programming. Given an input amount and set of coin denominations, the Coin Change problem finds and returns the smallest number of coins needed to make change out of such amount. We will consider two common Dynamic Programming approaches: top-down and bottom-up.

Project Title: The Rhetoric of Feminist Embodiment in Photojournalism

Tying together the concepts of rhetoric and photojournalism through this research project will be cultivated by examining feminist rhetorics, into which feminist embodiment in embedded. Feminist rhetorics is a practice that recognizes the interplay of gender, communication, and the idea of power; it challenges gender hierarchies in the art of persuasion, with feminist rhetoricians working “to reveal the inequitable distributions of power across groups” (Johnson 39). I will be magnifying these power disparities at the intersection of photography and journalism- working to dissect the cultural traditions, societal normalcies and political landscapes that impact the female photographer experience. Furthermore, feminist embodiment is truly concerned with contextualizing bodies and the experiences of being a female in a physical body. It regards discourses that emphasize the material body itself, bodies and their embodied experiences have rhetorical power, “we are all moving, breathing, thinking, rhetorical bodies” (Johnson 42).

Project Title: Navigating Silence – Deafness and the Lack of Resources in the School and Workforce

After completing courses in Language and Linguistics, and Discrimination, and a year of ASL courses, I recognized the historical and ongoing challenges faced by individuals with disabilities, particularly those who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). While significant strides have been made in integrating DHH individuals into society, public and private schools often lag behind specialized institutions. Cultural invisibility and deafness have led to discrimination and negligence in both academic and professional settings. A 2016 article by Renee Punch highlighted that the Americans With Disabilities Act improved conditions for DHH employees, yet perceived high costs of accommodations like sign language interpreting discourage some employers from hiring DHH workers. The National Deaf Center reported in 2014 that 48% of deaf individuals were employed compared to 72% of hearing individuals, largely due to workplace discrimination and negligence.

Project Title: Improving Computer Science Education by Practicing Inclusion for Neurodiversity

This study aims to test the efficacy of immersive learning courseware in teaching data structures. The primary objective is to determine whether immersive learning courseware can improve learning outcomes compared to traditional instructional methods. To assess whether immersive learning can enhance educational outcomes in computer science students, results from one section of CS 241 that uses immersive learning will be compared to those from a section that does not. The experimental group will be provided with VR headsets and will interact in an environment featuring 3D objects. To measure the effectiveness of this approach, students from both sections will take a pretest at the beginning of the course, before any instruction on the topic, and a post-test at the end of the semester. An ANOVA test will be conducted at the semester’s end to determine if there is a statistically significant difference in the results between the two groups. The results from both sections will reveal the depth of understanding of the topic. This experiment will provide insights into the efficacy of immersive learning in computer science courseware.

Project Title: Evolution of Variation in Wrist (Scaphocentralunate) Morphology Across Bats

Evolutionary transformations in the bodies of bats have enabled them the highly coveted ability of flight. One of bats’ most dramatic changes has been that their arms and hands became wings, where the fingers elongated, webbing stretched between them, and the joints reoriented so that the wing could fold and flap to produce lift. As different bat species evolved, the subtleties of their wing anatomy may have become specialized for complex ecologies, such as landing or feeding in different aerial environments. One of the most important, but least-studied, parts of the wing is the wrist, which is a collection of at least eight small bones bound together by ligaments that connects the hand (a major part of the bat wing) to the rest of the arm skeleton. Currently, there is no comprehensive study on how the structure of the wrist varies across bat species and whether its anatomy is related to their ecology. We propose an interspecific comparative study of at least twenty-one bat wrists (one from each family in Chiroptera) to better understand how differences in skeletal morphology relate to ecology, the mechanics of flight, speciation, and evolutionary history.

Project Title: Extension of Interreligious and Intrareligious Dialogue of Christians, Muslims, and Jews Amidst the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Religious diversity was all around me growing up in New York City. Through elementary, middle, and high school, and now, university, I have made connections and forged friendships with individuals from various religious backgrounds, whether they are Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. When Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel responded with their military in Gaza and the West Bank, many Americans who had cultivated interfaith dialogue with fellow Americans of different faiths now felt pressured to choose a side or remain silent to avoid conflict. In turn, it caused an end to interreligious dialogue in some relationships. For myself, being a native New Yorker, it is upsetting to see how this conflict has divided my friends, peers, and other New Yorkers.

For this research project, I will contribute to Dr. Judith Pajo’s research project about interfaith dialogues in local communities while developing my research interest in this area. Over the academic year, I will gather participants, conduct semi-structured interviews, and organize and analyze qualitative data from the ethnographic interviews. Whether the interviews are face-to-face or virtual, the videos or voice recordings will be turned into word-for-word transcripts to analyze the textual data for content and structure.

The challenge I seek to explore is how the Israel-Palestine conflict has influenced local communities involved in interfaith dialogue to respond. Do participants in interreligious dialogue want or have the motivation to repair broken relations through their perspectives? Can faith in their religion help them compromise for peace? My goal is to find as many participants as possible to gather rich ethnographic data. Through conducting these interviews on my own and with the other IRB-certified students who are contributing to Dr. Pajo’s research, we will be reaching individuals of different diverse backgrounds while sharing their experiences and perspectives of the world around them. As a team, we will be multiplying our ethnographic data and indirectly affecting society by having our interviewees better understand the strengths of religious differences.

Project Title: From Pixels to Patterns – Generative AI’s Impact on Fashion and the Runway

This research project will familiarize students with advances related to generative AI and fashion, and equip them with skills in research and programming for the development of AI solutions. Generative AI models such as GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) and Stable Diffusion will be studied and used. AI models consist of two parts: a generator and discriminator. The generator creates new images and the discriminator tries to identify if they are real images from a dataset or generated. AI models such as Stable Diffusion produces realistic images based on text and image prompts by refining randomized initialized noise through multiple timesteps. Stable Diffusion is able to do this because it is trained on a large amount of text-paired images.

Project Title: Investigation of Sea Moss and Algae as Antimicrobial Agents

This study explores the potential of incorporating bioactive compounds from seaweed into cosmetic formulations to enhance their antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and UV-protective properties. Seaweed, or algae, has a long history of use in medicine and nutrition due to its rich composition. Previous research has demonstrated the bioactivity of phenolic compounds, pigments, polysaccharides, and other components in algae, particularly in species such as Chondrus crispus (red algae) and Ecklonia cava (brown algae). Understanding the bioactive compounds present in algae is fundamental to this project. The expected outcome of this research is the development of effective, bioactive cosmetic products that leverage the natural properties of seaweed to offer enhanced skin protection and therapeutic benefits. This study not only aims to validate the use of algae in cosmetics but also to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on sustainable and natural ingredients in the cosmetic industry.

Project Title: Beyond the Ballot – How Election Results Impact Feelings Towards Cross-Party Close Others

The political divide within this country has intensified over recent years (Dimock, 2020). An astounding majority of people have reported their friendships are with those who share their own political views. 81% of people hold negative views of the opposing side (Foran, 2017). Although there has been significant research into how individuals view others from opposing parties, (Burrell, 2020) less work has looked at how politics impacts close relationships (particularly when individuals share very different political views). In particular, our proposed study aims to examine how feelings about cross-party close others change as a result of a party candidate winning their election. This work is important, as limited prior research has examined how we maintain close relationships across party lines and specifically how election events may impact those relationships.

Project Title: Safety in Numbers? Quantifying and Qualifying the Societal Outcomes of Chemical Regulations

In the generation where chemical innovation drives progress across industries, the intricate web of safety regulations that were designed to protect society often inequitable outcomes. As of 2018 it was known that 80,000 Americans are exposed to harmful chemicals that have not been adequately tested (NYHealth 2018). This study will examine the impact of chemical safety regulations on various societal groups and investigates the factors influencing the effectiveness of those policies. By illuminating the often overlooked societal dimensions of chemical governance, this study aims to bridge the gaps between policy intent and lived experiences. It has the potential to inform more equitable and effective regulations, ultimately improving public health and safety across diverse communities. This project will be a literature review that will use a mixed-method study combining quantitative analysis of regulatory data, research in depth interviews and comprehensive case studies of specific incidents and policy changes. As a potential outcome these findings could lead to recommendations for more equitable policy implementations, improve risk communication strategies, and a deeper understanding of how scientific evidence translates into effective regulations. In combining sociological analysis with a deeper understanding of chemical safety, this research offers a unique interdisciplinary approach to a critical public health issue.

Project Title: Identifying Expired Medications Using Spectroscopic Techniques

Medications typically incorporate active ingredients or chemicals that, upon interaction with water, oxygen molecules, or exposure to light, undergo changes capable of altering their chemical structures and properties. Such alterations can lead to a loss of efficacy, necessitating the inclusion of expiration dates on medications. Expiration dates printed on medications indicate the latest date the product is known to remain stable, retaining its strength, quality, and purity when stored according to labeled conditions. It’s the final day they vouch for its effectiveness and safety and after the expiration date, there’s no guarantee that the medication will perform as intended. This study involved the analysis of several expired samples of over-the-counter medications alongside new samples using various spectroscopic techniques, including Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy-attenuated total reflection, fluorescence spectroscopy, and UV-Vis spectroscopy, to determine if spectroscopy is an effective way to determine whether or not a medication is expired. All spectroscopic techniques used required minimal sampling preparation. This study hopes to observe differences in the spectra of new and expired medications, showing that spectroscopy is a valid method of identifying expired medications.

Project Title: What Are You Smoking, Man? GC-MS Insights Into Pesticide Content of Student Cannabis

On March 31st, 2021, the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act was passed in New York State. This act legalized adult-use cannabis (also known as marijuana, also known as weed, in common parlance) in New York State, simultaneously creating both a soon-to-be rapidly growing industry for the sale of marijuana in NY, as well as a regulatory body overseeing this industry. As with any burgeoning industry, there have been a few notable problems getting off the ground. At the time of publication, there are currently 112 licensed dispensaries in the state, and 44 in New York City. In competition with NYC’s 44 legal dispensaries are over 2,000 unlicensed ones. Odds are, most NYC marijuana users are buying from unlicensed vendors, and thus vendors that are not under the regulatory purview of the OCM (Office of Cannabis Management), and are not subject to regulations on the concentration of pesticides that is legally allowed in products for sale. Multiple studies have found that even in states like California, where marijuana has been legal for longer than anywhere else in the US, a large proportion of samples tested contained hazardous levels of pesticides, even those purchased legally. It is hypothesized that a non-insignificant proportion of marijuana purchased and used in the greater NYC area by college students likely also contains dangerous levels of pesticides, particularly when purchased from unlicensed dispensaries.

Project Title: Enhancing Education for Neurodivergent Students – The Role of Virtual Reality as an Inclusive Practice

This project seeks to explore how Extended Reality (XR) interventions can enhance student learning in classroom environments, with a particular focus on neurodivergent individuals and visual learners. Traditional teaching methods often fail to accommodate the diverse learning styles present in classrooms, especially for students with ADHD, dyslexia, or other neurodivergent conditions. By integrating XR technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), into classroom interventions, this project aims to assess how these tools can improve engagement, comprehension, and retention for all students, while specifically addressing the needs of visual learners and neurodivergent individuals. This project aims to contribute to the growing field of educational technology by demonstrating how immersive tools can create more inclusive and effective learning environments. The insights gained from this research could inform future classroom practices and lead to the development of more accessible educational tools.

Project Title: Chemical Composition of Commercially Available Honey Samples

This research project aims to investigate the chemical composition of different commercial honey samples addressing how environmental factors such as geographical location can influence the chemical composition of honey consumed worldwide. Honey’s composition can vary significantly depending on the flora, bees, soil, climate, and beekeeping practices of its region of origin. This project would apply infrared spectroscopy (IR) and x-ray fluorescence (XRF) to analyze honey samples from diverse geographic locations, comparing locally sourced honey with commercially manufactured products, and determining the presence of any potentially harmful elements not disclosed on packaging. Similar research has been conducted such as this article that also discusses the issue of false marketing with honey companies, however, this research is focused in the Philippines and I wish to work with all commercially available honey samples found in groceries around New York City.

project Title: Enhancing Education for Neurodivergent Students – The Role of Virtual Reality as an Inclusive Practice

The challenge I will be seeking to solve is if we can use virtual reality and improved avatars to help improve learning for students who are neurodivergent. I believe that with the use of a virtual environment that students can manipulate and physically see, they will be able to learn concepts in various topics in a more efficient way. In addition to this, an improved avatar will help the student feel more immersed in the environment and therefore pay more attention to whats occurring in front of them. In this project, it is necessary to understand what extended reality is, along with augmented, virtual, and mixed reality. Augmented reality is a view of the real world with virtual elements. Virtual reality is a fully immersive digital environment. Mixed reality is a view of the real world with digital elements that interact with it. Finally, extended reality is an umbrella term for all three. Another term to know is neurodivergent, which in this case would mean a student that has neurologically atypical patterns than most other students. Also, the term avatar should be known, which is just a character that represents the user in the extended reality. The final term is Universal Design for Learning, which means using various learning methods so that different students can learn the same concept effectively.

Project Title: Identifying Sources of Nutrient Pollution in the Pocantico River

Pleasantville and surrounding areas such as Sleepy Hollow, Ossining, and Mount Pleasant all make up the Pocantico River Watershed. Primarily, the Pocantico River makes up a great deal of the biodiversity for the surrounding areas and is important in many ecological functions. Dr. Rubbo alongside other Pace students have discovered that there are high levels of phosphorus and fecal bacteria within the Pocantico River. Phosphorus by itself is not necessarily harmful, but adding any sort of nutrients into the river will cause an algal bloom, which will kill the local fish populations. While typically a result of runoff, the problem we will be researching is the result of failing septic tanks and systems within the watershed. Specifically, we will be researching whether or not the prevalence of private septic tanks increases the amount of phosphorus into the river. This research will be conducted mainly through water quality testing through streams that lead into the Pocantico River.

Project Title: Comparison of Fecal Bacteria and Private Septic System Concentrations in the Pocantico Watershed

The Pocantico River Watershed (PRW) is home to Pace Universitiy’s Pleasantville campus. As is common with exurban watersheds, the Pocantico Watershed possesses a combination of low-to-high-density development and protected areas. The PRW is significant as it supplies the towns of Ossining, Mount Pleasant, Briarcliff Manor, New Castle, and Sleepy Hollow a variety of ecological services. Previous research conducted in Dr. Rubbo’s lab has discovered concerns with the river’s water quality, primarily related to high concentrations of phosphorus and fecal bacteria. Although phosphorus is a necessary nutrient for plant growth, excessive amounts can result in algal blooms, which may harm and reduce aquatic life. Additionally, humans and pets can become ill due to high levels of fecal bacteria. Faulty wastewater systems are common sources of phosphorus and fecal bacteria in suburban areas; In particular, malfunctioning private septic systems. The purpose of this study is to ascertain whether higher densities of private septic systems within the watershed contribute to higher river levels of fecal bacteria.