The Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Expo showcases the incredible work of our students through peer presentations, a keynote address, and discussions on how to get involved in research—whether through faculty collaborations, independent projects, or research labs. Explore the depth and diversity of research in the College of the Liberal Arts.
- Join us in spring 2027 for the next Undergrad Research Expo.
- Friday, April 17
- 1:00–3:00 p.m.
- Hintz Family Alumni Center
Save the Date
Join us from 1:00–3:00 p.m. on Friday, April 17, 2026, for the second annual Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Expo.
5:00–5:30 p.m. Liberal Arts and AI Keynote Speaker (114 Welch Building)
5:30–5:45 p.m. Q&A (114 Welch Building)
5:45–7:30 p.m.
- Poster Session (Chaiken Family Atrium)
- Info Tables with Liberal Arts Student Services, URFM, and other offices (Chaiken Family Atrium)
6:15–7:30 p.m.
- Verbal and Digital Student Research Presentations (114 Welch Building)
Thank you for joining us to celebrate student research and discover new opportunities to engage in meaningful scholarship!
Featured Speaker
In 2025, Cameryn Allen helped lead the effort to launch the Liberal Arts Undergrad Research Expo—creating a space she wished existed for students like her.
The recent graduate returned to the 2026 expo to share how research, leadership, and mentorship shaped her path beyond Penn State.
2026 Award Winners
Judge's Choice
Abigail Silberman
Psychology; Minor: Kinesiology
“Feasibility of Online Group Cycling Program for People with Aphasia”
- Poster Presentation
The goal of this project is to increase physical activity among individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia. Aphasia is a language disability caused by stroke or other brain injury that results in isolation and reduced quality of life. Aerobic exercise has been shown to improve functioning after stroke in participants without aphasia and is part of stroke rehabilitation guidelines, but survivors continue to have low activity levels and are highly sedentary.
This study aims to conduct a feasibility study of an online cycling program for people with aphasia, measuring language abilities, cognitive abilities, perceived stress, and overall quality of life.
Best in Humanities
Gianna Martinelli
Spanish and International Politics
“Social Consequences of Individualism in 19th Century Spain: an Analysis with Respect to Doña Perfecta (1876) and Marianela (1878), two Novels by Benito Pérez Galdós”
- Verbal Presentation
This undergraduate honors thesis, written in Spanish, investigates the themes of individuality and conformity in three of Benito Pérez Galdós’ novels from nineteenth century Spain: Doña Perfecta (1876), Nazarín (1895), and Marianela (1878). The research focuses specifically on the women in each novel who do not conform to the societal norms of the time, and who are therefore met with tragic ends.
This thesis argues that Galdós uses the style of realism to invite readers to explore why society scapegoats individuals who do not conform to societal standards — functioning as a form of subtle resistance. The thesis honors adviser is Juan Udaondo Alegre.
Best Verbal Presentation
Kaitlyn Romig
Rand Alkhunaizi: Psychology and Sociology | Kaitlyn Romig: History (Major) and English (Minor)
“Binding, Brewing, & Becoming: Women’s Material Agency in Ancient Rome”
- Verbal Presentation
Roman curses, such as the Curse of Acte, reveal an essential perspective into the lives of women in history and the materiality of female agency. Because women in Ancient Rome occupied a legally and socially constrained position, their avenues for self‑advocacy often operated outside formal institutions and instead emerged through alternative, material practices.
This project examines how written curses, inscribed tablets, and other ritual objects functioned as tools through which women articulated grievances, sought justice, and asserted influence within a patriarchal society. In addition, this project considers the intertwined realms of poisons, medicine, and herbal “magic” as parallel mediums through which women navigated power and vulnerability — including knowledge of healing herbs, fertility aids, abortifacients, and toxic substances that circulated through informal female networks. Examining these materials alongside curse tablets traces a broader spectrum of female agency expressed through the manipulation of the physical world.
Best in Languages
Madison Gillner
Linguistics and Physics; Minor: Mathematics
“Negation, Veridicality, and the Licensing of Anymore: An Acceptability Judgment Study”
- Poster Presentation
Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) such as anything and anymore require a particular, often negative, context for acceptability. Their distribution has been explained in terms of veridicality, which characterizes a sentence’s ability to entail truth or falsity. NPIs are licensed by antiveridical contexts (e.g., negation) and nonveridical contexts (e.g., conditionals, questions), but not veridical contexts.
This analysis is intended to capture NPI distribution broadly, but does not extend straightforwardly to English time-adverbial anymore. Some English dialects allow anymore in veridical contexts, as in “I eat too much junk food anymore.” Our study compared the distributions of anything and anymore through an acceptability judgment study. Participants rated sentences with both NPIs in different contexts. We found that anything was rated similarly acceptable in anti- and nonveridical contexts, while anymore was less acceptable in nonveridical contexts — suggesting a distinctive regional polarity pattern.
Best in Social Sciences
Savannah Morris
International Politics and Spanish
“Gender and Foreign Policy: The Role of Female Foreign Policy Elites in International Conflict”
- Poster Presentation
This thesis examines whether and how the gender composition of foreign policy elites influences a state’s behavior in international conflict. Drawing on feminist political theory and institutional scholarship, the research argues that gender may shape policy preferences, decision-making styles, and approaches to conflict.
The project constructs an original cross-national, time-series dataset combining data from the WhoGov database on the gender composition of foreign policy elites with conflict data from the Correlates of War project. Using quantitative panel analysis, the thesis evaluates whether higher female representation in foreign policy leadership is associated with differences in conflict initiation, participation, or intensity.
People's Choice
Surya Pratap Singh Suryavanshi
Applied Mathematics and Economics
“Regime-Robust Machine Learning for Stock Return Prediction: Integrating Econometric Inference with Modern Predictive Models”
- Poster Presentation
This research investigates whether modern machine learning models can deliver economically meaningful and statistically robust stock return predictions when explicitly accounting for changing market regimes. While machine learning methods often achieve strong in-sample performance, their reliability across different economic conditions — such as expansions, recessions, and high-volatility periods — remains an open challenge in empirical asset pricing.
Using CRSP–Compustat monthly data, this study combines econometric techniques with carefully chosen predictive models to evaluate regime-robust forecasting performance. Market regimes are identified using macroeconomic indicators and volatility-based measures, after which predictive models are trained and evaluated strictly out-of-sample across regimes. The analysis emphasizes interpretability and inference through portfolio sorts, Fama–MacBeth regressions, and economic performance metrics such as Sharpe ratios and turnover.
Honorable Mentions
#1
Deep Patel, John Christian Casale, and Jui Baliga
Deep Patel: Psychology | John Christian Casale: Psychology (Neuroscience Option), Pre-med | Jui Baliga: Psychology, Minor: HDFS
“Second-by-second Hostility Analysis: Father Alcohol Use and Its Influence on Relationship Quality and Transition to Parenting”
- Poster Presentation
Fathers’ heavy drinking has been shown to negatively impact couple relationship quality, specifically through increasing couple conflict. In turn, this can “spillover” into parenting and result in negative child outcomes. However, most studies have relied on self-report measures of couple conflict or global observational measures of couple interactions, limiting knowledge of the specific mechanisms underlying conflict. This study uses continuous, moment-to-moment behavioral coding of couple interactions to examine whether father alcohol use is linked to lower dyadic functioning and relationship quality.
Participants included heavy drinking non-pregnant partners/fathers and low/abstaining mothers who were expecting their first child together (N=184). Couples completed established self-report measures of alcohol problems, relationship satisfaction, and conflict, as well as a recorded 10-minute conflict interaction task.
Hostility was coded at every second of the interaction, yielding 600 discrete, mutually exclusive codes per person on a scale of 1 (none) to 7 (high). We expect that fathers who engage in heavier alcohol use will show more intense and frequent hostile behaviors during couple interactions, which in turn will be associated with lower overall dyadic functioning. By capturing conflict at a second-by-second level, this research moves beyond broad summaries of relationship distress and highlights how alcohol use may shape moment-to-moment interactions between expecting parents.
#40
Sarah Flynn
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
“Rhinestones & Resistance: Bodies, Politics, and Performance in France and the U.S.”
- Verbal Presentation
This project investigates how reproductive justice is embodied, expressed, and constrained within neo-burlesque communities in the United States and France, asking: How do political, commercial, and community pressures shape neo-burlesque activism across U.S. and French reproductive justice contexts?
Using a humanities-based ethnographic method drawing on interviews, performance observation, and reflexive field notes, this study develops a framework distinguishing explicit activism (overt political storytelling), embodied activism (the political meaning of marginalized bodies onstage), and relational activism (backstage care networks and safety practices).
Preliminary analysis shows that U.S. performers frequently engage explicit activism, while French performers more often emphasize embodied activism, citing cultural norms of universalism that discourage naming racial, gendered, or reproductive injustice. Relational activism appears in both contexts through mutual aid, community protection, and collective care. By comparing these dynamics, this study demonstrates that activism in neo-burlesque is not inherent to the form but shaped by national ideology and performers’ everyday negotiations of visibility, safety, and care.
Kathryn Pinto
Film Production and Global and International Studies
“The Eastern Front: Searching for WWI Soldiers During the War in Ukraine”
- Verbal Presentation
Over the summer, this filmmaker traveled to Ukraine to document the search for soldiers from an area of the modern-day Czech Republic who served in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War. As part of a project with the Czech Jesenícko Ethnographic Museum, an international crew traveled to the eastern lines of WWI, which stretched over 1,000 km across Central and Eastern Europe.
What started as a documentary trip about the First World War became a film about the act of doing military history in a country at war, and how an international community of historians and volunteers helps each other preserve the past with the intention that there may be a better future. Through filmmaking, the project asks: What is the legacy of violence on a community’s history? How does it impact their ability to preserve what happened to their region? And what are the challenges and responsibilities that come with filming their experience while living outside of it?