Project Title: Religious Affinities of the Present

Many hold biases and pre-conceived beliefs on “cults” as opposed to foundational Abrahamic religions such as Christianity or Judaism. By recognizing the origins of faiths both young and old, an audience will better understand the changing basis of what makes a belief a “religion”.

Some religious documentaries of note are “Samsara” and “Hail Satan?”. “Samsara” is a non-traditional take on a documentary, focusing on the human experience shared throughout the world. “Hail Satan?” features The Satanic Temple at its core, highlighting how the group structures egalitarianism to help thousands throughout the globe. When pertained to the documentary I intend to create, I will draw inspiration from the artistic visuals of “Samsara” while showcasing the goals of religious organizations as “Hail Satan?” succeeds in doing.

Project Title: Simplifying an Identity

Current usage of the terms BIPOC and People of Color arguably assuage white people’s desire to appear informed and respectful. Some may fear sounding potentially ignorant or out of touch. The vague nature of BIPOC and People of Color remedy that concern, while also making the terms alluring. The current use of these terms raises the questions: Why are the terms BIPOC and POC deemed culturally sensitive? What are the intentions behind terminology used for Black people? Does the use of these terms prioritize white comfort or solidarity?

Project Title: Generating African Wax Textile Patterns using Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networks (DCGANs)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has many applications in fashion, including virtual try-ons, recommendation systems, and apparel recognition. One of the most famous image datasets is Fashion-MNIST; it is used to benchmark machine learning (ML) algorithms that recognize 10 Western fashion apparels (e.g., pants, dress, shoes). Such ML algorithms can be used to recognize and label items on e-commerce web-sites, automatizing the process and speeding up searching operations.

In recent years, generative adversarial networks (GANs) were used to generate art (e.g., painting looking like a Monet) and create photorealistic images (e.g., https://thispersondoesnotexist.com) from large amounts of images. GANs can be applied in textile to, in particular, to generate textile patterns. Instead of using Photoshop or similar software, it is possible to have an AI generating textile patterns.

The architecture of GANs consists of two neural networks. The generator learns the data distribution and generates realistic images. The discriminator aims at discriminating between the real and generated data. DCGANs (Deep Convulational GANs) are extensions of GANs that improve stability in the image generation.

Project Title: Stratification of Success: Do Assigned Readings Benefit or Hinder First-Generation College Students?

This project will focus on the disparities that reading intensive classes may create between students. Specifically, I will look at differences in reading comprehension due to the language used in scholarly articles that are assigned in classes and which lead to discussions that require adequate comprehension. By “success” I mean the ability to keep up with the pace of the class and actively participate in class discussions, thus earning a satisfactory participation grade and acquiring solid comprehension of the course material

Project Title: Determination of Caffeine Content in Pre-Workout Supplements

Caffeine is one of the most used supplements in athletic activities. It is characterized for its stimulating properties such as increasing blood flow and blood pressure. Caffeine is found in several pre-workout supplements. Pre-workouts are dietary supplements designed to be taken prior to physical activity to improve performance. Often, nutrition brands conceal the content of caffeine in their pre-workouts by means of proprietary blends. This practice can potentially mislead customers into purchasing an ineffective product. In this study, the caffeine content of several preworkout supplements is quantitatively determined using HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography) to evaluate the accuracy of reported nutrition facts as well as attempt to discover the caffeine content when it is deliberately concealed. HPLC is a type of chromatography used to identify compounds and their concentrations found in a given sample. This experimental procedure can also be applied to other chemicals found in the supplement such as common ingredients Creatine or L-citrulline, with potential for expanded research. This project is a continuation of my previous research in evaluating commercial products for their qualitative and quantitative chemical properties.

Project Title: Politics, Relationships, & Well-Being

This ongoing study is to examine how perceptions of motivations behind political preferences impact interest in cross-political party close relationships. Throughout the United States, the political divide between parties (particularly Democrats vs. Republicans) and political opinions has been increasing at a rapid rate. A majority of people have negative views of those identifying as the opposing political party (81% from both parties) and many report that the majority of their friendships are now with those who share their political views (67% of Democrats, 57% of Republicans; Foran, 2017).

Project Title: The Impact of the COVID Pandemic and Police Department Budget Funding on Crime

How have different crime categories been impacted by Covid related shutdowns and other restrictions? What additional police budgetary issues Pre-COvid, during Covid, and Post Covid has contributed to these trends. Quarantine during covid certainly drove an increase in mental and psychological illnesses, stress, and disruptions of normal routines which one would expect to impact negatively on overall societal behavior. In the news, we are hearing more about a variety of crimes and the disruption of civil order.

Project Title: Utilizing Natural Language Processing to Retrieve Legal Information

Legal practice and study have a long history of intense research. It requires an extensive background to be efficiently practiced, as well as the mental fortitude to be able to work in the limited time frames. An article from NBC noted that public defenders, those who represent people who cannot afford to procure an attorney, often have to handle 80 to 100 cases per week. A New York Times investigation documented one lawyer who had to handle 194 cases at once, with some of them risking life in prison. With public defenders being overworked, it makes it near impossible for true justice to be achieved, which is part of the reason why 97% of all criminal cases end in a plea deal or an admission of guilt. While the field of legal tech is a new field without significant research yet, the concept of text analysis is a long-studied area, with numerous publications on natural language processing (NLP) where models can be trained to classify and even generate text based on input text.

Project Title: “He is Our Bard as Well as Yours”: Recovering the Lost Black Involvement in Early American Theatre

The resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement has brought essential focus on Black history and culture. The history of oppression for Black theater practitioners goes back to the early days of American art, but very little is known about it. The erasure of the origin of Black theatrical involvement in early American Theatre not only has led to current suppression of Black Theatre participants, but also leaves education surrounding theater to endure historical inaccuracies.

Project Title: Modeling the Potential Impact of Regulation on Cryptocurrency Prices

First conceptualized in late 2008, followed by its first transaction in January 2009, cryptocurrency has captured the attention of investors and regulators, alike. In recent years, the idea of regulation has come up, and most recently the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve Chair Powell have floated the idea of regulation. In this study, we consider the potential impact regulation might have on cryptocurrency pricing by using intervention analysis. Intervention analysis considers how ‘events’ affect the data in a time series.

Project Title: Subsidized Mass Transit for College Students: A Cost Benefit Analysis

Riding the subway in New York City can be challenging for anyone. This is especially true for those who ride on a near-daily basis to commute to college. New York City has a college student population of 617,655 between the age of 18-24, according to the 2020 US Census Bureau. According to an analysis of the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study: 2016 (NPSAS) by Robert Kelchen, a professor at the University of Tennessee, 84.4% of college students are commuters. Applying this statistic, we address the needs of 521,300 confronting issues of commuter transportation. Many of the members of this group shared lower incomes’ and face high transportation cost, without receiving any assistance for their commuter expenses, either from their financial aid packages or the schools they attend. A student riding the subway both ways 4 days a week for a 14-week semester will have spent $308. Schools may have an opportunity to remedy this. By utilizing programs such as American University’s U-Pass, schools could work with transit agencies to subsidize students’ transportation cost. This would allow students to save on their commute while providing transit agencies with a consistent revenue source. Other organizations and schools have worked to remedy this issue and there is now a exists a variety of solutions to this costly issue.

Project Title: Feminist Film Theory: The Bechdel Test and Its Relevancy

Throughout the history of film, women have been hugely involved. From early “Script Girls” to female filmmakers such as Lois Weber and Alice Guy in the silent film era, women have been making their mark on the film industry since the very beginning. However, there are still major disparages between the genders. From wage gaps to the lack of strong female characters, women are still mistreated within the world of film. In 1985, American Cartoonist, Alison Bechdel created a simple test for media to see if a film even included female characters who exist for reasons other than serving their male counterparts. This test was titled the Bechdel Test. Passing the test is easy, all you need is three simple things. Firstly, the film must include two female characters. Secondly, those female characters must be named. Thirdly, those named female characters must talk to each other about something other than a man. Passing the Bechdel Test does not mean a film has well-represented female characters, it simply means the film is not completely disparaging the role of women within the world of the film. Passing the Bechdel Test is the bare minimum, however, about half of films fail. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, the world’s largest and most exclusive film festival.

Project Title: 6,000 Miles Away from Home: Mapping out My Ukraine

This project is interdisciplinary because we combine photos, narratives, and interviews as collected from personal archives, as well as solicited from volunteers. Given the current destruction of a sovereign, independent country, this project is timely, however horrific the reality is. It starts with personal stories, memories of a country (its places, people, and traditions), and it extends to images of massive exodus. The United Nation has recently reported that this is the largest exodus that Europe has experienced since the end of WWII.