ACRoSS 2025

Our summer programming will begin on Tuesday May 20th with an informal welcome; our first student presenters will go on Tuesday May 27th. The last seminar will be on Tuesday July 22nd. At each weekly meeting, students will present short overviews of their specific summer projects (e.g., question of interest, methods of inquiry, anticipated results or applications, etc.) to an audience of students, faculty, staff, administrators, and prospective students and their families. ACRoSS meetings will be held on Tuesdays from 12:00 PM until 1:30 PM in the Tillotson Room in the Tippie Alumni Center. Lunch is provided each week courtesy of the Office of URSCA.

ACRoSS 2025 Schedule

Tuesday, May 20th

  • Prof. Matt Venesky, Director of URSCA – Welcoming remarks for the Summer 2025 Cohort
  • Tressa Snyder (Dean of the Library), Andrew Miller (Research & Digital Humanities Librarian), and Doug Anderson (Public Service Librarian) – Resources and services for students pursuing research and scholarship

Tuesday, May 27th

  • Meghan Cavender (’28), Isabella Gray (’26), Javier Jones (’26) and Anjila Sedhai (’28) – The Effects of Ammonia Exposure on Neurogenesis in Crayfish [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Lauren French]
  • Ian Oliver (’26) and Akida Nooha (’27) – Hormonal Factors Contributing to Alcohol Drinking in Rats: The Sequel [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Megan Bertholomey]

Tuesday, June 3rd

  • Anne Bowser (’27) and Gasparo Porco (’27) – Tumorgenesis: A Deep Dive into Drug Inhibition and Regulation [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Ivy Garcia]
  • Kyle Ryan (’26) – The P-value is Dead – Long Live the Estimate! [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Chris Normile]

Tuesday, June 10th

  • Ben Keefer (’28), Magnolia Myers (’28), and Naija Walker (’28) – Kinase Code: Discovering Structural and Functional Consequences of Disease Mutations [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Lauren Kueffer]
  • Anna Kohler (’26) – Strategic Islam? Discourse and Framing in Islamist Party Platforms [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Shanna Kirschner]

Tuesday, June 17th

  • Emily Hildreth (’27) – Zombies in Society: Analyzing Cultural Shifts Through Zombie Literature [Faculty Mentor: Prof. John Miller]
  • Patrick Sharp (’26) – Greener Futures: A GIS-Based Update to Meadville’s Shade Tree Inventory [Summer Mentors: Chris Shaffer, Prof. Lauren Paulson, and Alice Sjolander]

Tuesday, June 24th

  • Quentin Hoegerl – The Erosion of Excellence: Diagnosing the Decline of Western Education [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Alexis Hart]
  • Jocelyn Young (’27) – Ceramics Material Data Base, Scanning Electron Microscopy [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Ian Thomas]

Tuesday, July 1st

  • Sam Ault (’26) – Community Health Needs Assessment as Community Based Participatory Research: Getting Serious About Community Based Research [Faculty Mentors: Profs. Becky Dawson and Betsy Getschman]
  • Brooke Biro – Land Access and Farming: Collective Models of Land Ownership [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Adrienne Krone]

Tuesday, July 8th

  • Aldrich Simon (’27) – The Paper Bell: Graphic Noveling Economic Fiction [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Chris Finaret]
  • Niraj Adhikari – Energy Burden Calculation for PENELEC Territory in PA [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Ian Carbone]

Tuesday, July 15th

  • Jonah Wells (’26) and Tanner Pilarski (’27) – Spectroscopic Studies of Radiation and Environmental Damage in Mineral Crystals [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Doros Petasis]
  • Triyasree Katta – Using Dictyostelium disocideum as a Model for the Innate Immune System: Further Exploration of the Role of StatC Protein in Chemotaxis and Phagocytosis [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Margaret Nelson]

Tuesday, July 22nd

  • Chezka Therese Quinola (’27) – Breaking Barriers in Sports: A Functional Redesign of the Pool Triangle [Faculty Mentor: Prof. Douglas Luman]
  • Liam Shields (’27), Riley Pegher (’26), Kisanet Tekle (’28) – Overlap of invasive round gobies (Neogobius melanostomus) and native fishes within the invasion zone of LeBoeuf and French Creeks [Summer Mentors: Profs. Casey Bradshaw-Wilson and Kelly Pearce; Mark Kirk]