Category: SRS Round 2 (January 2025)

CLOSED: Toward a hyper-empirical gravitational wave source localization routine based on the Northstar algorithm (Tom McClain)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/23/2025 and run for 8 weeks, finishing on 8/15/2025.

Project Description

The primary purpose of this research project is to determine if it is possible to build a hyper-empirical gravitational wave source localization routine around the Northstar algorithm I developed some years ago. This routine would use empirical signal modeling techniques similar to those (presumably) used by neural networks to perform source localization very quickly (i.e., on the same time scales as a neural network) while maintaining full control over parameter choices and failure modes (like the traditional approach using numerical templates from general relativity). Depending upon the success or failure of the initial builds, the project may also include testing or refinement of the routine, from small tweaks in program parameters up full runs on realistic data sets using cutting-edge GPUs on Amazon Web Services.

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Prerequisites

The ideal candidate would have completed PHYS 111, PHYS 112, and CS 111, and would have at least a small amount of experience with SciPy or NumPy. But the most important criteria is engagement; interested students should apply regardless of previous experience.

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/23/2025

Estimated End Date: 8/15/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 8 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 3

Research Location: On campus

Contact Information: Tom McClain (email: mcclaint@wlu.edu)

CLOSED: Enslavement at Liberty Hall: Uncovering the Archaeology and Forgotten History of W&L’s Iconic Back Campus (Donald Gaylord)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/9/2025 and run for 6 weeks, finishing on 7/18/2025.

Project Description

During the summer of 2025 Professor Gaylord will continue his research at Liberty Hall, the location of the iconic 18th-century campus of our predecessor institution, Liberty Hall Academy. In the 1970s, Professor John McDaniel and roughly a decade of W&L students excavated here, focusing largely on the academic period of the site’s occupation (1782-1803). Professor Gaylord’s research has shown that after the Liberty Hall Academy House burned down in January 1803, the two subsequent land owners held roughly one hundred African Americans in bondage at Liberty Hall as the labor force for agriculture and light industry over the years between 1803 and the American Civil War. Our work this summer will focus on excavation in the yard spaces around the Foundation at Liberty Hall—Liberty Hall Structure 9—the academy’s Steward’s House/Dining Hall, which later served as the center of enslaved life at Liberty Hall Plantation. Enslaved people lived here, but they also likely operated a forge, cooked and ate, performed washerwoman and seamstress work, and operated one of the earliest African American schoolhouses in the Valley of Virginia. Additionally, we will concentrate on artifact processing and analysis in trying to understand what life was like for the people held in bondage at Liberty Hall. We will excavate while the weather allows, we will process and analyze the sediments and artifacts when the weather keeps us indoors, and we will visit archives in Rockbridge and Augusta County that hold many of the documents related to Liberty Hall.

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Prerequisites

It would be best if they have taken an archaeology class with me, especially Field Methods in Archaeology, but I can get them up to speed in the week of preparation before the AIM Program in Archaeology starts.

Special Comments

They will be better off to take my Field Methods in Archaeology class during spring term, or an individual study with me during winter term, but they will not be required.

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/9/2025

Estimated End Date: 7/18/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: On campus

Contact Information: Donald Gaylord (email: gaylordd@wlu.edu)

CLOSED: Illuminating New Catalytic Transformations (Erin Gray)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/9/2025 and run for 8 weeks, finishing on 8/1/2025.

Project Description

Nitrogen-containing organic molecules have broad applications as pharmaceuticals, materials, and agrochemicals; therefore, the development of new strategies to make and break carbon–nitrogen bonds is essential. Our research aims to design catalytic methods to manipulate carbon–nitrogen bonds, making the preparation of these important products more sustainable, cost effective, and efficient. Students in the Gray Group will gain experience in using synthetic organic chemistry laboratory techniques and instrumentation as they design and conduct experiments, interpret data, and examine the scientific literature.

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Prerequisites

Organic Chemistry I (CHEM 241) is preferred but not required

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/9/2025

Estimated End Date: 8/1/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 8 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 3

Research Location: On campus

Contact Information: Erin Gray (email: egray@wlu.edu)

CLOSED: Literary Constructions of Paradise in the Work of John Milton and Toni Morrison (Genelle Gertz)

Remote: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/2/2025 and run for 8 weeks, finishing on 7/25/2025.

Project Description

This project develops a journal article on the literary construction of paradise in seventeenth-century poet John Milton’s epic, _Paradise Lost_ and Toni Morrison’s 1998 novel, _Paradise_. Little scholarship exists on Morrison’s novel in relation to Milton’ _Paradise Lost_, and this article seeks to address the important revisions Morrison makes to Milton’s founding text. The article takes into account existing scholarship on Milton and Morrison, and considers Morrison’s preface to her novel where she explicitly mentions Milton’s construction of paradise, describing its foundational role to literary tradition while also critiquing it. Concepts of whether paradise is exclusionary, and how as a concept it engages with American history of race, religion and gender portrayed in Morrison’s novel will be central to this article’s scope. Also germane is the conversation and dialogue formed by these two texts together, including the ways in which Morrison’s novel responds to and revises Milton’s epic form.

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Prerequisites

Preferably, students will have taken English 392 Fall 2024: Pride and Paradise. Familiarity with John Milton’s _Paradise Lost_ and Toni Morrison’s _Paradise_ is required.

Special Comments

No travel required.

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/2/2025

Estimated End Date: 7/25/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 8 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 3

Research Location: Remote

Contact Information: Genelle Gertz (email: gertzg@wlu.edu)

CLOSED: Examining the Tax Credit-Tax Deduction Tradeoff (Iguehi Rajsky)

Remote: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/16/2025 and run for 8 weeks, finishing on 8/8/2025.

Project Description

This study will examine the relation between the R&D tax credits available for the manufacture of certain products and the donations of these products to nonprofit organizations.

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Prerequisites

Excel and MS Word is required. Knowledge of basic financial accounting rules required. Knowledge of Stata and/or python would be helpful.

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/16/2025

Estimated End Date: 8/8/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 8 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Remote

Contact Information: Iguehi Rajsky (email: irajsky@wlu.edu)

CLOSED: Nonlinear Gaming Skill Demographics (Elizabeth Matthews)

Hybrid: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/16/2025 and run for 10 weeks, finishing on 8/22/2025.

Project Description

Current research in academia uses a linear or binary distinction in participants when categorizing them by their video game skill level. My research has shown this to be an unreliable and non-standardized metric within academia, and next I intend to develop a nonlinear gaming personas categorization to better improve others’ research. You will need to perform user studies and statistical analysis in the programming language R.

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Prerequisites

CSCI 209 completion is required. Prior knowledge of the programming language R or statistical methods recommended but not required.

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/16/2025

Estimated End Date: 8/22/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 10 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Hybrid

Contact Information: Elizabeth Matthews (email: lmatthews@wlu.edu)

CLOSED: Technology, Health and Cognition Lab (Karla Murdock)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/2/2025 and run for 10 weeks, finishing on 8/8/2025.

Project Description

Students will be working on three ongoing programs of research in the THaC Lab using a range of methodologies. The first program utilizes actigraphy to examine associations between daily physical activity and well-being. The second utilizes survey methods and objective measures to examine cognitive and affective processes surrounding the valuation of different emotional states. The third utilizes qualitative data analyses to explore themes in a body of large-scale participatory art installations.

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Prerequisites

Preference will be given to students who have already been trained in the THaC Lab and/or have taken CBSC 250.

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/2/2025

Estimated End Date: 8/8/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 10 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: On campus

Contact Information: Karla Murdock (email: murdockk@wlu.edu)

Genetic diversity in the Greenland stitchwort (Minuartia groenlandica), a critically imperiled alpine plant in the southern Appalachians (Charles Winder)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/9/2025 and run for 10 weeks, finishing on 8/15/2025.

Project Description

The Greenland stitchwort (Minuartia groenlandica) is a rare alpine plant that occurs in the southern Appalachians as a relic of the previous glacial period. Despite dramatic changes to the climate and vegetation of the southeast over the last ten thousand years, populations of this plant have persisted in rocky, exposed sites in the highest elevations of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. It’s important to protect these plants since they represent a unique and irreplaceable record of how plant species have evolved and adapted to past climate change. Using modern molecular genetic techniques, we aim to answer the following questions: 1) How much genetic diversity exists within small and geographically isolated mountaintop populations of M. groenlandica occurring in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee? 2) How much genetic divergence is there among populations of M. groenlandica in the southern Appalachians? 3) What is the evolutionary history of these populations, and what can that tell us about the impacts of past and future climate change on endemic plant species? Students working on this project will gain experience in laboratory techniques such as DNA extraction, PCR amplification, and DNA sequencing. Analysis of DNA sequence data and communication of findings will be required.

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Prerequisites

Genetics Lab experience is preferred, though not required

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/9/2025

Estimated End Date: 8/15/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 10 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: On campus

Contact Information: Charles Winder (email: winderc@wlu.edu)

CLOSED: On These Grounds: Slavery at W&L (Paula Kiser)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/2/2025 and run for 8 weeks, finishing on 7/25/2025.

Project Description

In 2021, W&L joined a multi-institutional project, On These Grounds: Slavery and the University, to develop and test a data model for representing events in the lives of enslaved people at colleges and universities. This project builds on decades of research by faculty, staff, students, and independent researchers on the history of slavery at Washington College, but requires a fresh look at the archival sources to interpret and create a new form of data. Students will transcribe 19th century documents, then create data for the events-based model based on the content in the documents, in order to rebuild the story of those individuals enslaved by Washington College. Attention to detail, ability to work independently, interest in wrestling with complex, upsetting, and incomplete sources are necessary skills.

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Prerequisites

ability to read 19th century handwriting; experience with using primary sources to conduct research

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/2/2025

Estimated End Date: 7/25/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 8 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 1

Research Location: On campus

Contact Information: Paula Kiser (email: kiserp@wlu.edu)

CLOSED: Rebels and Followers: Dissent and Conformity in Russia and the USSR (Anna Brodsky)

Remote: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/2/2025 and run for 10 weeks, finishing on 8/8/2025.

Project Description

The project will explore the works of writers and journalists who conformed to the demands of Soviet ideology and Putin’s nationalist agenda, alongside those who opposed these regimes, often at great personal risk to their safety and lives. Through this analysis, the project aims to shed light on the complex dynamics between individual autonomy and coercive state power.

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Prerequisites

Students need to have a good command of Russian and/or Ukrainian.

Special Comments

Students should have completed at least one course in Russian literature and one in Russian history.

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/2/2025

Estimated End Date: 8/8/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 10 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 3

Research Location: Remote

Contact Information: Anna Brodsky (email: brodskya@wlu.edu)