Category: SRS Round 3 (March 2026)

Building Literacy Through Access: Examining the Impact of a Bilingual School Library on English Vocabulary Development in Nepal (Sarah Margalus)

Remote: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/8/2026 and run for 6 weeks, finishing on 7/17/2026.

Project Description

Illiteracy remains a significant educational challenge in Nepal, where nearly 40% of individuals lack access to literacy opportunities. Educational poverty closely correlates with income poverty, and students attending community schools often have limited access to high-quality instructional resources, particularly in English. English fluency is essential for university admission and employment opportunities in Nepal, yet students from under-resourced schools frequently graduate with limited proficiency. This project examines the impact of developing a bilingual (Nepali–English) school library on English vocabulary acquisition among multilingual learners at a community school in Nepal. The library includes approximately 4,800 books in both Nepali and English, carefully selected to provide comprehensible, engaging texts aligned with students’ interests. Grounded in second language acquisition theory emphasizing meaningful input and literacy-rich environments, the research investigates how access to readable, interest-driven texts supports vocabulary growth among students who are often third- or fourth-language learners. The study contributes to scholarship on literacy access, multilingual education, and the role of school libraries in supporting language development in under-resourced contexts. Student researchers will transcribe handwritten or scanned student writing into accurate digital text, verify transcription accuracy, organize writing samples for analysis, run computer programs to collect and analyze vocabulary data, ensure data integrity, and collaborate with the faculty and lead student researcher to interpret emerging findings. Additional research in education may be required. Tasks may include reading and summarizing scholarly articles.

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Prerequisites

Coursework or experience in education, literacy studies, linguistics, psychology, or related fields is preferred but not required. Attention to detail, strong writing skills, and comfort working with digital documents and data are important.

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 7/17/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Remote

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

Contact Information: Sarah Margalus (email: smargalus@wlu.edu)

Depression and Aesthetic Experience (Angela Sun)

Remote: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/8/2026 and run for 6 weeks, finishing on 7/17/2026.

Project Description

This project will examine the effect of depressive symptoms on our perception, attention, and emotional responses to art and other aesthetic objects. While philosophical aesthetics has a long tradition of analyzing “the aesthetic attitude” and the conditions for proper aesthetic appreciation, and clinical research in psychology and psychiatry has documented depression’s effects on affect and cognition, the overlap remains underexplored. Student researchers will gain expertise on ways that scholars from various disciplines have approached depression and aesthetic experience and provide assistance in synthesizing these findings into a philosophical argument.

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Prerequisites

Students must be rising senior philosophy majors

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 7/17/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Remote

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

Contact Information: Angela Sun (email: asun@wlu.edu)

Florence As It Was (George Bent)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/8/2026 and run for 8 weeks, finishing on 7/31/2026.

Project Description

Florence As It Was combines three-dimensional models of buildings, digitized documents, photogrammetric models of art works, translations of early modern descriptions, and original interpretative essays in an academic, not-for-profit, web-based platform that aims to recreate the Tuscan city as it appeared in the year 1500. Work conducted in 2026 will focus on editing point clouds and using Blender and Cinema4D to manipulate models to reconstruct spaces as they may have appeared in the 15th century.

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Prerequisites

Students should be comfortable learning and using new software programs. Prior knowledge of Blender is a plus, but not required.

Special Comments

Students will need to be flexible with hours, as the IQ Center is heavily used in summer weeks between 9 am and 5 pm.

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 7/31/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 8 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: On campus

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

Contact Information: George Bent (email: bentg@wlu.edu)

Toward a hyper-empirical gravitational wave source localization pipeline (Tom McClain)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/8/2026 and run for 6 weeks, finishing on 7/17/2026.

Project Description

When binary black hole systems produce gravitational waves that are eventually observed at the LIGO-Virgo-Kagra gravitational wave detectors, a key question is: where in the sky did those gravitational waves come from? This question is of particular interest to electromagnetic astronomers, who might like to point their telescopes at the appropriate place to see what else might have been happening at that location when the black holes merged. This summer research project in computational physics aims to build a full data processing pipeline for the rapid localization of gravitational wave sources. While some of this pipeline has been the subject of previous summer research projects, opportunities remain for students interested in database design, fast and accurate signal processing in high noise environments, GPU-accelerated cloud computing, algorithm optimization, and Bayesian inference.

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Prerequisites

PHYS 111, PHYS 112

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 7/17/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 5

Research Location: On campus

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

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

Yeast synthetic lethal screen (Gregg Whitworth)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/8/2026 and run for 10 weeks, finishing on 8/14/2026.

Project Description

We will be conducting a synthetic lethal screen in yeast and using high through-put sequencing to identify interesting SNPs in the mutant population

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Prerequisites

Bench and computational experience

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 8/14/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 10 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: On campus

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

Contact Information: Gregg Whitworth (email: whitworthg@wlu.edu)

Testbed Development for 5G/6G Security Threat Modeling and Experimental Evaluation (Sana Habib)

Hybrid: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/8/2026 and run for 10 weeks, finishing on 8/14/2026.

Project Description

This project will develop a controlled experimental testbed for studying security threats in emerging 5G and early-stage 6G network environments. The testbed will simulate key architectural components of next-generation mobile networks, enabling controlled experimentation with attack scenarios such as denial-of-service, signaling storms, misconfiguration events, and routing anomalies. Students will help deploy containerized network components, implement traffic generation and attack modules, and build monitoring and measurement pipelines. The resulting platform will serve as a reproducible research infrastructure to support future publications and external grant proposals in next-generation network security.

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Prerequisites

• Completion of Computer Networks (or equivalent) • Familiarity with Linux command line • Programming experience in Python

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 8/14/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 10 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Hybrid

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

Contact Information: Sana Habib (email: shabib@wlu.edu)

Mission Drift and the Profitability Paradox as Double-Deviation (Gavin Fox)

Remote: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/8/2026 and run for 6 weeks, finishing on 7/17/2026.

Project Description

Prior research has largely examined mission drift in hybrid social enterprises through governance and institutional lenses. However, its breadth of application to services from the standpoint of customer perceptions, attributions, and recovery efforts remains understudied. In this study, mission drift is conceptualized as a form of moral value proposition failure rather than governance failure. Researchers will identify consumers of three types of firms (traditional CSR, legal Benefit Corporations, and BCorp certified) through brand followership on social media. Once identified, researchers will guide prospective respondents to an online scenario-driven research instrument. This is an opportunity for students to train on sales and marketing tactics and leverage these to skills to affect real-world outcomes.

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Prerequisites

No. We will teach them what they need to know in order to succeed.

Special Comments

Faculty will need to spend at least a few hours educating students on sales and marketing techniques to help them drive respondents to the instrument. We will also need to develop a strategy with workers to ensure effective remote work.

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 7/17/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Remote

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

Contact Information: Gavin Fox (email: foxg@wlu.edu)

CS Fundamentals Studio: Interactive Educational Tool for Computer Science Education (Sana Habib)

Hybrid: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/8/2026 and run for 8 weeks, finishing on 7/31/2026.

Project Description

This project will design and develop modular, interactive educational tools to enhance undergraduate computer science instruction. Students will build browser-based simulators for foundational topics such as stacks, queues, recursion, graph traversal, and introductory cybersecurity concepts. The goal is to create visually engaging tools that support active learning and can be directly integrated into classroom instruction. Participants will collaborate on front-end visualization, backend logic, and usability testing. Final deliverables will include deployable web modules, instructor guides, and classroom-ready activities. The tools will be open-source and designed for long-term use in introductory and intermediate CS courses.

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Prerequisites

• Completion of Data Structures (or equivalent) • Proficiency in Python or JavaScript • Familiarity with basic algorithms (stacks, recursion, graphs) • Interest in computer science education or outreach

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 7/31/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 8 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Hybrid

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

Contact Information: Sana Habib (email: shabib@wlu.edu)

Domestic Violence, Policing, and Divorce Courts in China: A Socio-Legal Research Project (Wenqi Yang)

Remote: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/8/2026 and run for 6 weeks, finishing on 7/17/2026.

Project Description

This project examines how courts in China handle divorce cases involving domestic violence and how prior police involvement shapes judicial decision-making. Using a large collection of published court decisions, the project explores how judges evaluate evidence, describe domestic violence, and reference police actions in their rulings. Student researchers will work as manual coders on a selected subset of court decisions. Under close faculty supervision, students will read and code legal texts using a structured coding guide. The work involves identifying whether police were involved before the divorce case, categorizing the type of police action, and noting how judges reason about domestic violence claims. This project is well-suited for students interested in gender studies, law and society, social justice, East Asia, or qualitative research methods. Students will gain hands-on experience with real-world research data and learn how qualitative judgment contributes to empirical social science research.

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Prerequisites

Students should have reading proficiency in Chinese sufficient to understand formal written texts. Prior coursework or research experience in Sociology, Anthropology, Politics, Gender Studies, or related fields are preferred but not required. No prior experience with legal research or coding is required. Training will be provided.

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 7/17/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Remote

Travel Required? No (If “yes”: )

Contact Information: Wenqi Yang (email: wyang@wlu.edu)

Maury River Atlas StoryMaps Project (Mackenzie Brooks)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/8/2026 and run for 8 weeks, finishing on 7/31/2026.

Project Description

This is a collaborative project with Rockbridge Outdoors and the Virginia Canals and Navigations Society to produce a digital story map based on the contents of The Maury River Atlas, a print river guide that provides historical information to paddlers and visitors to the river. This project will involve creating data and digital maps using the ArcGIS platform. There will be some research in Special Collections and Archives to supplement the atlas. There is also interest in interviewing the community collaborators to record their voices and encyclopedic knowledge of the river, with potential to create an audio tour. The ultimate goal is to create a resource for visitors and locals of Rockbridge County to enhance their appreciation of the river’s history.

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Prerequisites

Experience with ArcGIS or other mapping software is preferred. Students will be expected to work with GIS data, audio production, archival material, community partners, and spend time on the river.

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/8/2026

Estimated End Date: 7/31/2026

Estimated Project Duration: 8 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 1

Research Location: On campus

Travel Required? Yes (If “yes”: Travel in Rockbridge County to verify locations on maps. Trip to Lynchburg to interview Canal Society members. )

Contact Information: Mackenzie Brooks (email: brooksm@wlu.edu)