“I was listening to a bunch of Stevie Wonder and I thought, ‘This man is blind and put out all this music.’ And then next came an Art Tatum song,” he said, and an idea began to form. “That started brewing for the rest of the day.”

Scriven mentioned the idea to his advisor, Nathan Lincoln-Decusatis, Ph.D., who encouraged him and connected Scriven to a grant from the Undergraduate Research Symposium.

“He latched onto it and told me I should expand on it,” said Scriven, a musician himself who had cataracts most of his life, making the subject deeply personal.

Finding Insights

Scriven’s project, titled Innervisions after the Grammy-award winning album from Stevie Wonder, centered on the work and artistry of Wonder, Ray Charles, Art Tatum, and Marcus Roberts. By analyzing their discographies and biographies, Scriven sought to find a throughline illuminating their success and influence.

“They all contributed so heavily to Black culture through music that I felt like it wasn’t a coincidence,” Scriven said.

He began by familiarizing himself with the full repertoire of each artist, looking for patterns, such as how many of them played on the raised black keys of the piano, which are more easily distinguishable.

“Especially with Art Tatum playing jazz, he would play standards in those [flat] keys—which are hard to play in—but it was easier for him to orient himself that way,” Scriven said.

As a part of his research, he visited the D’Agostino Greenberg Music School for the Blind in Manhattan to immerse himself in how visually impaired musicians learn through methods such as braille music notation and ear training.

“Something I talked about in my research is cortical plasticity, which is the potential of our brain to adapt to environments,” Scriven said. “With blind individuals, they’re extracting so much more information from sound. It leads to more of an inclination for perfect pitch and musicality.”

Through his research, Scriven also concluded that the artists’ visual impairments led them to pioneer innovative techniques, such as combining genres, using unusual chord structures, and popularizing cutting-edge technologies like synthesizers and electronic keyboards.

“They wanted to make music that wasn’t for the present—that’s the secret sauce,” said Scriven.

These musicians’ ability to overcome their physical limitations is just as integral to their impact as their unorthodox techniques or musical virtuosity, Scriven said.

“They took it upon themselves to rise above that—to strive for that creative freedom,” he said.

A Personal Connection

Scriven was also personally invested in this project. As a piano player, he faced similar challenges for most of his life due to his cataracts; just after starting college he had surgery to correct them.

“It was very hard for me to learn music through the traditional methods of sheet music,” he said, adding that he learned mostly by ear. “I remember being very frustrated. But if I didn’t have those challenges, I would never have been able to rise above them.”

Scriven presented his project at the Undergraduate Research Symposium earlier this year. He said this initial work led to more questions about the concrete connections between blindness and musicality and inspired him to want to continue research in this area.

Developing a More Affordable Way to Measure Air Quality

Presenting at the symposium’s Earth Day panel was Santiago Plaza, a senior who works as a research assistant for Project FRESH Air, an initiative where Fordham students and faculty visit middle and high schools in the Bronx and New York and install air quality monitors to teach the children about how pollution affects their environment. Unfortunately, those monitors aren’t cheap. The price of the Project FRESH Air monitors ranges from $179 to $259. 

Plaza’s goal was to create sensors that perform similarly, if not better, than the sensors currently on the market—and for a much lower price. He developed a successful prototype that cost about $70 to make (though he stressed that it will require more testing in the future). 

“Being able to have lower-cost monitors will allow us to work with more schools. It’s also really important to have a low-cost means to measure air quality so that people who don’t have as much financial support can take their health and care for their environment into their own hands,” said Plaza, an integrative neuroscience major who plans on applying to graduate or medical school. 

The Role of ‘Magic’ in Early Modern Russian and Ukrainian Societies

Grace Powers, a senior who double majors in sociology and history and minors in Russian, presented her research on the role of “magic” in Russian and Ukrainian societies during the early modern period. Powers defined magic as anything unexplainable. 

“It was a way of understanding the world and to claim agency or knowledge during a time when many people didn’t have any,” she said.  

Notions of magic permeated many parts of life, including healing practices, politics, and warfare.

Some events perceived as “magical” were so powerful that they could lead to riots and the murder of neighbors, said Powers. In 1547, the city of Moscow experienced a devastating fire that killed about 1,700 people. The citizens blamed the fire on the tsar’s grandmother and uncles, claiming that they had caused the destruction by sprinkling blood from a stolen heart over the city. As a result, the people rioted and demanded the execution of the royal family. 

In her research presentation, Powers, who studied primary documents and scholarly articles, argued that magic was a powerful tool and resource during that time period—and has implications for today’s world.  

“This is really important for understanding the culture at that time, which is the basis of culture for many Eastern and Slavic European countries now. Understanding their mindsets better is also important for us in the United States, since we have diplomatic ties with them,” said Powers, who was recently awarded a Fulbright to teach English in Estonia for a year. 

Several members of the Fordham community were also celebrated at the symposium’s awards ceremony. The Faculty Mentor of the Year award was given to Molly Zimmerman, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology, and Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis, associate professor of music. The inaugural Anne L. Geiger Award, awarded to a student whose contributions and research bring together diverse people and perspectives, was given to senior Sophia Maier. The Fordham College Alumni Association Award was given to senior Miguel Sutedjo. 

“It seems like 14 years since we last gathered to celebrate, in person, your amazingness,” Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, told students and faculty mentors in Keating Hall’s first floor auditorium on May 5. “I’m so grateful and happy that we’re here today.”

In his congratulatory remarks to students and faculty, Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, recalled when he was an undergraduate who landed his first research opportunity through a faculty mentor. 

“I really fell in love with the process of discovery and research because someone gave me a chance,” said Jacobs, who has a research background in chemistry and physics. “You’ll look at the world differently because of the experiences you have engaged through research.” 

This year, more than 200 students shared their projects through in-person presentations in Keating Hall classrooms, live Zoom sessions from their homes, and pre-recorded videos available online. Their research spanned many fields, including health sciences and technology, healing and well-being, COVID-19, and anti-racism and social justice. 

Asian Music and Jazz

The symposium kicked off with a live concert performed by Miguel Sutedjo, FCRH ’23, an Indonesian American jazz pianist, and two classmates in Butler Commons. Sutedjo’s project explored how Asian and Asian American musicians blend jazz with Asian sounds to create a unique style of music. 

“I wanted to investigate the music of other great Asian American and Asian jazz musicians in order to understand my positioning within this art form,” Sutedjo said, addressing more than 30 students and faculty members seated in chairs spaced six feet apart.

Transitioning to Adulthood in A Pandemic

In a Keating classroom, several students presented research on community and environmental health. Valeria Venturini, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill who studies anthropology and psychology, analyzed factors that shape the decisions of young American adults who are considering moving out of their childhood homes, especially during the pandemic. She interviewed six Fordham students and found that financial concerns in today’s economy were stronger factors in delaying a move than the pandemic. The young adults were motivated to move out because of independence and the ability to make their own decisions without parental consent, but some students, especially second-generation American males, felt pressured by their families to stay at home or close to home. 

“Not a lot of research is being done about this in the United States,” Venturini said. “The intersection of cultural values, economic status, and mental health in this population of emerging adults should be looked at further.” 

Learning How Rice Adapts

Colleen Cochran, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill who studies economics, environmental studies, and sustainable business, examined the genes of rice—one of the most important crops worldwide—to better understand how the plants might respond to the increasing threat of climate change. Cochran and her co-authors hypothesized that more diverse genes make rice more resilient to environmental change. After analyzing existing data on 230 types of rice that were subjected to drought, they found that the plant’s ability to adapt to different environments was not strong. 

“Rice probably feeds more people in the world than any other crop, so understanding how it [responds to climate change]… is extremely important in global food security,” said Cochran, who served as a 2019 Fordham-New York University research intern and a Udall scholar. 

Cochran was honored by the Fordham College Alumni Association for her dedication to undergraduate research, along with two faculty mentors: Edward Dubrovsky, a biological sciences professor, and Mark Naison, professor of history and African and African American studies. 

Pride: Not Always a Deadly Sin

At the end of the symposium, Rachel Annunziato, Ph.D., associate dean for strategic initiatives, played a video montage with photos of this year’s more than 60 faculty mentors and the ’90s classic “Simply the Best” by Tina Turner playing in the background, while students in Keating Hall’s first floor auditorium cheered and applauded. Finally, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, lauded the mentors and mentees for their tenacity during a difficult year. 

“I know that pride is one of the deadly sins, but in the case of Fordham pride, it’s actually a virtue. And on this day, you have every reason to be very proud,” Father McShane said, addressing his audience live from Zoom. “My heart is filled with gratitude to you for your courage, your desire for knowledge, and all that you have done this year.”  

“Dean Mast and I were determined to celebrate our senior researchers and their extraordinary work this year,” Rachel Annunziato, Ph.D., professor of psychology and associate dean for strategic initiatives at Fordham College at Rose Hill, said in an email. “I am so deeply grateful for this chance to see them and to celebrate all that they have done.”

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, more than 200 FCRH undergraduate students conducted research this semester. The school also saw a record number of travel grant submissions this spring, though the majority of them were suspended due to the pandemic. Research results were published in a commemorative program for the FCRH 13th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium and the 10th volume of the Fordham Undergraduate Research Journal.  

More than 50 people joined the two-hour-long Zoom call, including faculty, donors, graduating seniors, and their labmates and friends. Each student presenter spoke for several minutes about their research, on topics from nonsuicidal self-injury to the relationship between Instagram use and adolescent male body image. 

“At the [in-person] research symposium, I’m going from one place to another,” Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, said during the Zoom session. “[But today] I was able to focus on each talk. I pulled up your abstract. I actually had my 14-year-old with me for a while—she’s very interested in many of your topics, she may follow up with you—so it was just terrific. It just reminds me of the joy of learning, and that’s what we’re all about.” 

‘A Sense of Normalcy During This Weird Time’

Lindsey Register, a communications and environmental studies double major, presented her senior thesis: “Documentaries Making a Difference: Communication Effects of Environmental Film and Television.” She surveyed roughly 90 Rose Hill students via SurveyMonkey and investigated how nature documentaries have impacted their lives. 

Register recalled the first documentary that made an impact on her life: The Cove, an Academy Award-winning film about dolphin-hunting practices in Japan. 

“It was about an issue I had never been presented with in my life,” said Register, who first watched the film in a high school science class. “It was so fascinating to me because these people were out there advocating for an issue that I had never known about … I really liked how a film was able to give me that impact of inspiration and feeling of advocacy.” 

For her senior thesis, Register also created policy recommendations for environmental education. 

“I think governments should be more involved in the funding of documentaries, in the funding of environmental education as a whole,” said Register, who is now searching for jobs that combine her two majors. “There also should be stricter policies in the screening of facts and information that are portrayed in the documentaries.” 

Shubarna Akhter, a psychology and biological sciences double major, also spoke about her senior thesis, “South Asian Mental Health Service Use: Risk and Protective Factors for Young Adults.” While working as a research assistant in the labs of two faculty members, Tiffany Yip, Ph.D., and Lindsay Till Hoyt, Ph.D., Akhter learned that many Asian Americans—especially South Asians—don’t use mental health services as frequently as other racial and ethnic groups. 

To investigate, she recruited and paid 20 students of South Asian heritage to participate in focus groups at Rose Hill and share their personal experiences, with the aid of a fall undergraduate research grant. She analyzed her data and developed risk and protective factors for using mental health services. Finally, she made predictions on how future interventions could promote mental health services among South Asians. 

“As an aspiring psychiatrist, I was able to have these important conversations with South Asian young adults in a professional setting,” said Akhter, who wants to eventually work in the Bronx with minority communities. “I learned what we can do to better improve that field that I want to go into.” 

Unlike past presentations, Akhter had no poster to show. Instead of hearing “Congratulations!” in person, she received congratulatory emojis on Zoom. But the virtual symposium was still a special experience for Akhter and her family. 

“I really felt the energy radiating from everybody, and I felt like everyone was so engaged at hearing about what I had to say,” said Akhter, who presented her project from home in the Bronx, with her parents cheering her on from the sofa across from her. “And just listening to everybody else was inspiring, and it really gave a sense of normalcy during this weird time.”

A Homemade Poster and Yoga

As a gift to the graduating seniors, Annunziato’s nine-year-old twin boys created a “Howl at the Moon” poster and showed it to the students on camera. 

“That’s a bar off of Arthur Ave that my students have told me about for years,” Annunziato explained in an email. “My sons have been very moved by what our seniors especially are going through and surprised even me with this hilarious poster that was meant to be a tribute to senior week.”

Towards the end of the Zoom call, many of the participants struck a yoga pose and took a group screenshot for Nicole Smina, a student who is training to become a yoga teacher. Smina explained that she is participating in a 14-day yoga challenge, which requires posting photos on social media. In the spirit of her practice, she wanted to post a photo of people doing yoga in a Zoom call. 

“You’re really exposing people who are in sweatpants right now,” one student joked. 

“We are such versatile researchers!” Annunziato added. 

As the event came to a close, Annunziato offered a few last words. 

“You’ve given me joy, you’ve given me laughs, and I feel like we’re still together. So, thank you,” Annunziato said, raising a glass and a toast to everyone on Zoom. “Cheers to our senior FCRH researchers.”

These were among the 161 projects presented at the twelfth annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at Rose Hill on April 10. The symposium was part of Fordham’s first-ever Undergraduate Research Week, which celebrates undergrad research at Rose Hill, Lincoln Center, and the Gabelli School of Business.

Fordham College at Rose Hill

The Rose Hill symposium marked a milestone in Fordham history. Since the University’s first symposium in 2007, students have co-authored more than 100 publications with faculty mentors. More than 150 students are first or second authors on non-Fordham conference presentations. And their research has made its way to conferences across the U.S. and beyond, as far as France, Germany, and Spain.

“This symposium started 12 years ago, and it was pretty small, according to my archival records—about 30 presentations, mostly in the sciences,” said Maura Mast, dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, addressing the students, faculty mentors, administrators, and guests on the second floor of the McGinley Center. “As you can see, we’ve grown quite a bit.”

Through oral presentations and glossy research posters, this year’s symposium showcased the work of more than 300 undergraduate students across disciplines.

“You’ll learn about crystal structures, the effects of pollution, and how cortical vision changes with age,” Dean Mast said. “But you’ll also learn about the relationship between linguistics and music, the fascist aesthetic in Italian films, and how the theme of justice appears in Shakespeare’s plays.” 

Does An Internship Lead to a Post-Graduation Job?

Kirsten Anastasio, FCRH ’19, weighed the value of having a college internship. Her main question: “What is the likelihood of getting hired [after graduation], given that you have internship experience vs. not having internship experience?”

“I was driven to conduct this research because of the inequities that exist in the market for undergraduate internships,” she said. “As many internships are unpaid or even require one to pay for college credit to pursue, there is an incredible barrier to entry for lower-income students.”

To find out, Anastasio and her colleagues created more than 1,400 fake resumes for 2018 graduates applying to summer and fall positions based in New York City. Each resume pair was virtually identical. However, only one had internship experience; the other had campus-related experience.

Every pair was then submitted to the same, real-life job application. In total, Anastasio’s team applied to more than 700 jobs. Then they waited to see which resumes received call-back interviews.

They found that those with internship experience were more likely to receive a call-back than those who didn’t. However, their results also varied by job industry. In the finance sector, resumes with internship experience received call-backs 6.3 percent more than those without. But in the human resources and marketing industries, those numbers were 2.4 and 2.8 percent, respectively.

“Our results, though preliminary, point to the fact that not all industries place a greater value on internship experience than on-campus/extracurricular work,” said Anastasio, who plans on pursuing her Ph.D. in economics. “There are many opportunities to advance oneself personally and professionally while in college.”

Which Skills Lead to Higher Productivity in College Students?

Itunu Ademoyo, FCRH ’19, wanted to pinpoint which skills predict better productivity in the workplace. There are two types of skills: “cold skills,” which involve planning and working memory, or “hot skills,” which involve emotional perception, sympathy, and social connection, she said.

She and her partner Natasha Chaku, GSAS ’20, asked 30 Fordham students to complete online games and a survey, which evaluated their mental skill set. After analyzing the students’ results, Ademoyo found that cold skills, which are linked to academic achievement and success, predicted higher productivity.

She said that these tests could be a handy tool for employers across disciplines.

“[The goal is] being able to help employers figure out what helps employees have a more productive day or what makes them work more effectively,” said Ademoyo, a psychology major and member of the Rose Hill Honors Program who plans on applying to consulting jobs this summer. “So having this series of tasks for them to perform will help employers figure out what makes each employee more productive in a given work setting.”

Powering the Future with Fuel Cells

William Beatrez, FCRH ’19, is helping to develop more efficient fuel cells for cars—cells that are good enough to make renewable energy a viable way of powering vehicles, rather than nonrenewable resources.

Beatrez is a chemistry major whose research focuses on nanotechnology and renewable energy. Through a collaboration between Fordham and the University of Connecticut, he and his team have synthesized a new type of catalyst, he said. Catalysts are microscopic substances that speed up chemical reactions. Normally, they aren’t hollow. But Beatrez and his team decided to do something different.

“We bore a hole in it so that it’s more effective in doing the reactions that it’s supposed to do,” Beatrez said. “It’s more effective because [now]there’s more surface area. Catalysts are all about high-surface areas.”

These catalysts are present in fuel cells. And the faster the catalyst, the more efficient a fuel cell can be.

“Renewable energy is viable,” said Beatrez, who will study catalysts this summer as an intern at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “We just need to get the science right.”

Lauren Beglin, FCRH ’19, delivered one of the 39 oral presentations at the symposium. She spoke about her research with dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical cells—devices that can convert sunlight into chemical energy.

“Think solar panels, but instead of generating electricity, they generate chemical compounds,” said Beglin, an environmental science major and chemistry minor.

These compounds can be used for fuel cells, a type of cell that can cleanly produce electricity, water, and heat. The only problem, said Beglin, is these cells are expensive and difficult to produce on a widespread scale. Her research aims to increase their efficiency.

Just two weeks ago, Beglin’s team made their first batch of devices in the lab. Beglin, a graduating senior, won’t be able to watch her project grow. She recently accepted a teacher-in-residence position with Achievement First Public Charter Schools and will be working toward becoming a high school chemistry teacher. But her team has recruited a student to continue her work.

“I’m looking forward to passing on my project to the next generation,” Beglin said.

Fordham College at Lincoln Center

With 38 presentations filling Platt Court and more than a dozen performers and artists spread out through galleries in Lowenstein, plus a makeshift dance studio downstairs, Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s annual Arts and Research Showcase highlighted student research on a wide variety of topics. Dubbed ARS Nova, the event featured poster presentations on biology, history, chemistry, and psychology as well as choreography, painting, and acting.

In Unrequited Research, Student Finds a Calling

For senior Katrina Arutunyan, who was participating in the ARS Nova undergraduate research fair at Fordham College at Lincoln Center on April 11, her research didn’t pan out as she had hoped. Arutunyan, an art history major, was examining the Round City of Baghdad, which was built in the 8th century and resembles a spoked wheel with the caliph’s palace at the center surrounded by a swath of empty space.

“I was interested in the fact that there was such a concentration of power surrounded by vast empty space. The plan reminded me of an astrolabe, which is an astronomical instrument,” said Arutunyan. “The fact that the caliph Al-Mansur, who established the city, was very into astronomy and into geometry, led me to believe that maybe there was some cosmological symbolism going on in the design.”

Arutunyan interns at the Islamic Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She worked her contacts and they helped her find additional sources. She tapped into the Aga Khan Documentation Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she connected with expert resource librarians. She eventually concluded that the design had more to do with defense purposes than the stars, even though she found that the caliph had consulted several astronomers before building the city.

“When I first read that, I got really excited, because I thought I was about to get proven right, but really, the astronomers were more for what were called electional horoscopes, which basically calculates the best day for you to do something with a big event, like the establishment of the city,” she said.

She continued to dig, and found similar designs in the Firuzabad Plain of Iran, in a city called Gur. There too, defense was the central design component.

With funding coming in from the Fordham Undergraduate Research Grant, Arutunyan said she felt she “wasted Fordham’s money.” But her adviser, Maria Ruvoldt, Ph.D., chair and associate professor of art history, told her that it was quite the opposite.

“My adviser basically told me this happens all the time, especially in art history and especially with cases of something that is so old that we barely have any documentation on,” she said.

Arutunyan said the experience has only whet her appetite to find work in museum administration.

“I definitely went into this research with a holistic point of view because, I was kind of grasping at the air, trying to find non-concrete things and making them into something concrete,” she said. “But in the end, I found there are other areas of art history that I’m really really obsessed with and though I probably don’t see myself going into research, I definitely want to work in museums.”

Through Theater, Student Meets Grandfather He Never Knew

Senior James Kenna took a familial approach to his project, titled Italian Rose. The theatre major’s research combined a solo show and an educational workshop. The project sprung from a need he saw as a teaching artist in public schools that are cutting back on the arts.  

“As artists, the impetus is on us to keep arts education going and provide the next generation of artists with the tools that they need,” he said.

The show, which is about his grandfather Harry, who he never knew, was created through a series of interviews with family members. He traveled back to his high school alma mater in central New Jersey to perform the piece, offer a workshop, and show students how it was created.

“I demonstrate that this is a creative process, then I get into the assembly, and show them tools that I actually used in my process of writing the show,” he said. “I’m showing students that the creative cycle doesn’t have to be as endless and as impossible as it seems. Then I give them really concrete strategies if they want to write a play or do a movie, but also writing their own papers.”

Even with concrete strategies in place, Kenna said the project took some unexpected turns. In interviews with his Italian American family, he began to get the sense that some family had dealings with the mafia.

“I think it was probably the brother figure, the older brother is the one who was involved,” Kenna said of his great uncle. “He left New Jersey at some point to go to Arizona. It happened all very fast. There’s a lot of questions about why that happened. Harry stayed home.”

In the play, he plays all the characters, including the grandfather he never met, and whom family members say he looks like. He also plays his great Aunt Rose, who provided him with the richest material.  

“In our interview, she had a moment where she paused and it got emotional for her,” he said. “She got up and found some journals where she had written down memories.”  

The two poured over the journals and black and white photos as his aunt reminisced.

“She’s an amazing person. It was therapeutic. I never met my grandfather. And I’ve heard so much about him. So, it’s interesting, now I feel like I know him.”

Making a Magazine

When junior Emma Childs was in high school, she created a magazine called Childs Play. At Fordham, she honed her publishing skills by majoring in new media and digital design. That, plus a Fordham Research Grant, allowed her to realize her high school dreams in print and online with a website.

“The grant enabled me to print, commission photographers and models, set up the website, and allocate funds for sets and production,” said Childs.   

Childs said the focus of the magazine is for “female identifying individuals,” and takes on meaty subjects with titles like, “Conversations on Privilege.”

“We discussed how privilege plays into their lives, whether it’s with race, social media, women’s health, menstrual health, and then whether they’re privileged or a victim of the systematic oppression,” she said.

Childs called herself a one-person team, so she had to create deadlines and make sure they were met.

“It required me to stay on top of things, and it was a healthy pressure for me,” she said. “So, it is online too, but with print, I had got through a lengthy process of checking and double checking. A friend who is training to be an editor looked it over as well.”

She said that she was very happy to be able to use whichever media she finds best to address a subject.

“I personally always want text, because a big part of how I process things is through reading, but sometimes a photo or video is all you need,” she said.

Gabelli School of Business

On the same day as the Rose Hill symposium, the Gabelli School of Business hosted its eighth undergraduate business research conference, where students shared their original findings.

Does Market Competition Lead to Accounting Fraud?  

John Lichtmann, a senior at the Gabelli School of Business, wanted to know if market competition could predict a company’s likeliness to commit fraud.

“If there’s too much competition, perhaps that’ll incentivize fraud. Since there’s such a small market and a lot of people fighting over that market, it seems harder for someone to get better because you’re kinda stuck where you are. And so the only way to pretend that you’re better than someone is to commit fraud,” said Lichtmann, who studies accounting at Fordham. “Some managers feel they need to do that in order to make their investors or customers happy.”

To find out, he conducted statistical analyses on financial data for several firms between 1991 and 2011. He measured multiple factors: the size of firms, profit margin measures, complex codes. Based on his research, he thought there would be no correlation between marketing competition and the probability of fraud. But ultimately, he found that competition helps mitigate fraud.

“The higher competition you have, the fewer fraud results,” said Lichtmann, who will intern at KPMG this summer and return to Fordham in the fall for his master’s degree in public accounting. “The mere presence of competition seems to have a healthy effect on preventing companies from committing fraud, given that everyone is monitoring each other.”

“I’d go the place that I last remembered it was, but sometimes the bin was there, and other times it was moved,” said Goncharova, a recent graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill.

That experience is one of the things that inspired Goncharova, who studied economics and environmental studies, to research consumer incentives for recycling unwanted clothing. Donating and repurposing textiles is a critical way that consumers can reduce landfill waste, she said. However, the process must be efficient to create impact.

“The final step of the supply chain is the disposal aspect, and that’s the thing that companies don’t usually think about,” she said. “Recycling bottles and paper comes easy. Everyone knows where to put them. But when it comes to clothes, particularly those from fast fashion brands, it becomes difficult to know what to do with them when you don’t want them anymore.”

According to Hitwise, a consumer insights firm, the fast fashion industry—which includes brands like H&M, Forever 21, and the web-based Boohoo.com—has grown 21 percent over the past three years. But this growth has presented a lot of challenges, particularly for the environment, Goncharova said. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Americans discard about 13 million tons of textiles annually, and only two million tons of those clothes were recycled.

Goncharova believes this can change if consumers and businesses work together to recycle textile materials instead of throwing them out.

“I love sustainability because it allows us to create a self-sustaining supply chain,” she said.

Identifying Motivations for Sustainable Fashion

Through a Fordham-funded research study, Goncharova hoped to identify ways to motivate consumers to recycle their unwanted clothing. She recruited a randomized group of 100 students from the University and conducted a preliminary questionnaire via email that was focused on demographic information, the participants’ shopping habits, and their knowledge of sustainability.

Next, the participants were given eco-friendly plastic bags that were manufactured from 25 percent recycled HD plastic, with three types of options for shipping. They could use shipping labels that were prepaid, and send them to the recycling companies Give Back Box and Schoola; schedule a donation pick-up with the Salvation Army for free; or pay their own shipping to send their clothes to denim recycling companies like Blue Jeans Go Green and Patagonia.

“One of the goals was to see if people would be more inclined to donate clothes if shipping was free or if they received a shipping label for donations in-store at the time of their purchase,” she said.

Along with the donation bags, participants of the study were given a follow-up questionnaire about their reactions to the mailable donation bags and the likelihood that they would use the bags again.

Through the study, Goncharova found that participants given the prepaid labels were most likely to recycle. Results from the questionnaire showed a significant correlation between a participant saying they would recycle clothes if it was as easy as online returns, and if brands themselves offered rewards for recycling. They also showed that prior knowledge of sustainability was not related to the participants’ desire to recycle once they were offered this option.

“A lot of people want to donate their clothes, they just don’t know what to do with them,” she said.

Goncharova stressed that creating opportunities for sustainable fashion should be just as important to companies as it is to consumers.

Some companies are already working to reduce landfill waste. In 2013, H&M launched an in-store recycling initiative, which allows customers to drop off unwanted clothing from any brand. And Madewell, a brand that generates most of its sales from denim, partnered with Blue Jeans Go Green, a denim recycling company. Other companies, like Patagonia, allow customers to trade and repair their brand’s used clothing.

“Businesses have a role in this,” she said. “They can’t just throw their hands up, and say, ‘I’m not a part of that.’  These materials are part of the supply chain and they can still add value to it by putting materials back in.”

A Graphic Novel Delves into A World Without Weapons

In senior Mary Cleary’s first year at Fordham, children of Sandy Hook Elementary School were shot and killed. In her senior year, high schoolers in Parkland, Florida, were gunned down. In the years in between, she said, she began to contemplate what a world without weapons would look like. As a new media and digital design major, she began to think about expressing her thoughts in a graphic novel titled Nath for its lead character.

In Cleary’s imagined world with no weapons, Nath is a college athlete in a street gang. But the author pointed out that just because there are no knives or guns, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a world without violence.

“I was curious how people may adapt to something like that, so I settled on hand-to-hand combat,” she said. “In Nath’s world there’s a lot of emphasis on honor in fighting, and I thought about how in martial arts they focus on protection and not on harming others.”

Set in an urban landscape that combines the density of 20th-century New York with the sprawl of modern Tokyo, Cleary’s novel wrestles with many contemporary issues, such as the need for weapons in the first place. Nath’s cousin tells her that hand-to-hand combat isn’t always fair, that sometimes a stronger person will attack a weaker person.

“So, he proposes weapons do have a purpose and they can be used with an honorable purpose, which is protecting your own life,” she said. It’s a concept that Nash, however, resists.

Her novel, which she hopes to “shop around” after graduation, is part of an ongoing series with Nath continuing to wrestle with issues that are far more American than Japanese.

A Humanist Interpretation of the Conquest of Mexico

Junior Joshua Anthony examined the humanist interpretation of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. He noted that 16th-century scholars from Europe viewed the experiences of the Aztecs through the lens of ancient Greece and Rome.

“They used [their]Renaissance ideas about clashes and conflicts with different cultures as a way to read history,” he said.

He said today there are a variety of methods to examine a particular culture.

“I like to look at narratives and how people think of things,” he said. “My favorite historians of this period can read the Aztec language, look at their writings, and contextualize those.”

He noted that Aztecs were far from a homogeneous culture, but instead represented a variety of cultures and languages, not unlike Europeans.

“Studying the Aztecs showed me how many different sides of the story there are,” he said. “That’s crucial to understanding history and not getting bogged down by your preconceived beliefs.”

The Compatibility of Islam with French Values

As a native of Egypt, senior Mariam Moustafa brought an outsider’s perspective to the issue of Muslims living in France. Her research examined the compatibility of Islam with the values of the French Republic. She began by looking at Muslim-French relations starting with the seventh century and the establishment of the French state and continued on to 1962 and the Algerian War of Independence.

She noted that 18th-century agreements between the church and the French Republic led to modern-day values that separated the church from the state. She said that sometimes the ideals associated with secularization can be radicalized in much the same way the ideals of Islam can be.

“The state should be neutral and not represent any religion, but it gives the right to practice religion,” she said. “But some say, ‘No you can’t practice religion outside the house and once you go out onto the street, take off your [hijab]scarf.’”

Moustafa hopes to move to Paris after graduation and work as an interpreter of language and of culture.

“If we can get the French to understand that different cultures can become compatible, then I want to be a part of that,” she said.

Reimagining Shakespeare and the Dark Lady 

Junior Rachel Jarvis wrote a screenplay that turns notions of Shakespeare’s plays on their head. Riffing on a Virginia Woolf’s essay, “A Room of One’s Own,” which imagined that Shakespeare’s sister had his talent but not his male privilege, Jarvis imagines that Shakespeare’s “Dark Lady” wrote his plays instead.

The identity of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady has been a mystery for centuries. The subject of several Shakespeare sonnets, some say she ran a brothel in the Clerkenwell section of London, where Fordham’s new London Centre is undergoing renovations. She has alternately been referred to as Black Luce or Lucy Negro. Jarvis’s screenplay is called “Lady Lucy.”

“You could read Shakespeare at face value, you could read it contextually, or you can think about race relations and about female authorship at the time,” she said. “But since this is 2018, I want to project more of what race relations were back then, but also what race relations are now.”

Toxicity of Weed Killer on the Horseshoe Crabs in Jamaica Bay

Senior Karin Khoder grew up in Brooklyn near Jamaica Bay, an area that she drove by without paying much attention. But her research, which examines the toxicity of a weed killer on the area’s horseshoe crabs, has made her see her neighborhood in a different light.

Monsanto, the agriculture giant, manufactures the weedkiller Roundup. Khoder said the company touts the weed killer’s non-toxic qualities. Indeed, she tested reactions of horseshoe crab larva when in contact with Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, and found it to be relatively harmless. But the inactive ingredient, a detergent called decylamine, caused the larva to become an opaque white color, rather than the greenish-brown they should be. Unfortunately, Monsanto doesn’t make the exact formula available to public, so Khoder does not know the amount of decylamine used.

“I think that corporations should be more transparent in what they’re doing because the only way we can make things safe is to be able to do scientific research,” said. Khoder.

As a Brooklynite, her view of the area has been transformed through her work.

“I never had the opportunity to go to the beach and explore all the wildlife,” she said.

She said the there used to be a landfill nearby and the water came right up to the highway. After the beach was restored, nature returned. “Now, we see all these different horseshoe crabs, snails, and fish.”

Dancing to Your Own Tune

Junior Isabel Mallon’s video series “Talking Bodies” allows dancers to improvise. “As dancers, sometimes we get less of a say,” she said. “When you’re in the room with a choreographer, they have the power.”  Rather than direct their movements, Mallon allows her subjects the freedom express themselves. In voiceovers, the subjects discuss body image, self image, and “how they feel about themselves.”

When Fordham College at Rose Hill established its first Undergraduate Research Symposium 11 years ago, 36 students presented their work. 

Today, the annual event celebrates the research projects of more than 300 undergraduates across disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, natural science, and the arts.

This year’s symposium , held at the McGinley Center on April 11, featured about three dozen oral presentations and more than 100 poster presentations in anthropology, history, classics, chemistry, environmental studies, international political economy, physics, psychology, and more.

Below are some of the highlights of the daylong event.

Using Gene Therapy to Target Primary Brain Tumors

Glioblastoma, which affects 13,000 new patients each year, is one of the most common and progressive form of brain cancers.

“It’s very difficult to treat and not very responsive to traditional treatment because it is hidden in the brain and the cancerous cells become intertwined with normal cells,” said Thomas Christensen, FCRH ’18, a neuroscience major.

Christensen worked with Patricio Meneses, Ph.D., associate professor of biological science, to explore an alternative treatment strategy using gene therapy. Through genetic treatment, researchers would be able to replace abnormal cells with healthier ones. According to Christensen, the genetic material would be transported in target cells in the brain using a DNA molecule packaged within a human papillomavirus (HPV) pseudoviral shell. It then would make a protein that binds to the mutated protein that is present in up to a third of glioblastoma patients.

“We hope that in developing a treatment strategy like this we’ll be better able to treat patients and avoid a lot of the awful side effects that are associated with traditional treatment strategies such as chemotherapy,” said Christensen.

Documenting the Medical Experiences of Burmese Refugees in the U.S.

For her study of a group of refugees—the Karen ethnic community—who settled in the U.S. from Myanmar (Burma) after decades of civil war, senior Natalie Wodniak interviewed 39 members of the group now living in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Amarillo, Texas; and Buffalo, New York. She hoped to learn about their medical experiences in the U.S.

“There are a lot of refugees here and it’s important to be culturally aware and mindful of their experiences and how they’re adjusting to American society,” said Wodniak, who was recently invited to present her findings at the Council on Undergraduate Research’s Posters on the Hill in Washington D.C.

Through her research, Wodniak discovered that the refugees’ system of health care is based on traditional medicines from plants and herbs like betel leaves, which treat ailments like fever. When they arrive in the U.S., however, they are treated with western medicine, she said.

“It can be very confusing to them,” said Wodniak. “They also feel like it’s not a conducive environment to continue practicing their traditions because a lot of [American doctors] don’t understand the benefits [of traditional medicine]. The doctors don’t know that those things can be successful options for treatment.”

Creating A Stable Catalyst for Glucose Sensors

Glucose meters use biological enzymes to catalyze, or speed up, the reactions that are necessary to detect blood glucose levels.  Since they are made of pure platinum, which is expensive and tends to decrease in effectiveness over time and at higher temperatures, diabetic patients often spend thousands of dollars each year to monitor their glucose levels, said Nicole Smina, a sophomore studying chemistry.

Smina worked with Christopher Koenigsmann, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry, to replace biological enzymes with transition metals that included a mixture of platinum, gold, and palladium, which is more stable. She believes adjusting the composition of these catalyst wires can help to reduce costs while providing accurate and effective sensing.

“If we can create a more stable catalyst that performs over a wide temperature range,” said Smina, “then it would help diabetic patients to not have to constantly purchase new glucose sensors.”

Mapping Determinants of Food Security in Nigeria

Using data compiled by the World Bank and a theory inspired by a 2014 study of food security in Malawi, mathematics and economics major Santiago I. Sordo Palacios examined how supplemental, off-farm labor impacted food security for households in Nigeria.

According to the Malawi study, farming households who supplemented their income by working off the farm saw increases in their annual income, which helped them become more food secure. However, this also led to decreases in their own agricultural production in the long run.

“When a member of the household is going into town every day, he or she might be doing that on a longer-term basis in comparison to other supplemental work,” said Sordo Palacios.

Sordo Palacios found that when a family member worked on a household business, such as providing some type of good or service to their neighboring community, it had a positive impact on the household’s food security. These forms of casual labor tended to happen between the planting season and the harvesting seasons, which suggest they require a short-term commitment, he said.

“Being able to determine what causes food insecurity can inform what routes policy makers should take to help people become food secure,” said Sordo Palacios.

Examining Acts of Resistance Among Young Muslim Women

With the rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Leya Maloney, a senior majoring in political science and Middle East studies, was curious about how Muslim women protest as a form of resistance in a post-9/11 world.

She conducted in-depth interviews with 15 college students about faith, background, socioeconomic status, and political affiliation. The participants, who were between the ages of 18 and 21, were primarily living on the East Coast of the U.S. and were of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Egyptian, Jordanian, Palestinian, Afghan, and Turkish descent.

She found that the lower the socioeconomic status of the participants, the more likely they were to engage in protest or rallies.

“If their parents come from a country of high-state oppression, these women tend not to engage in overt acts of protest but engage in more passive forms of resistance such as in the classroom or on an individual level in conversations, social media, and the clothing they choose to wear,” said Maloney.

Using French Cinema to Examine Social Exclusion

 For Margaret Fahey, who is studying International Political Economy and French Studies, film can be a reflection of issues facing society. Fahey examined three films, La Haine (1995), Tout ce qui brille (2010) and Dheepan (2015), which all focused on the struggles facing minorities who live within the banlieues, or suburbs of France.

 “The banlieues are similar to America’s inner-city areas. The neighborhoods are often stereotyped and this is reflected by French film,” said Fahey, who was awarded a Fulbright to Marseille, France, where she will be teaching English to high school students next year.

 She compared the issues facing the characters and contrasted them with the policies that existed surrounding immigration.

 “Immigrants are expected to integrate into French society,” said Fahey. “The model doesn’t necessarily embrace cultural differences. Rather, people are often expected to hide their differences in order to fit in. Together, the three films examined weave a cinematic representation of how these expectations affect individuals living in France.”

“At the beginning of the semester, I had the pleasure of meeting with our summer grant recipients,” said Rachel Annunziato, Ph.D., FCRH associate dean for strategic initiatives and associate professor of psychology. “And one of the many things I learned from that group is that students were hoping for an opportunity to hear more about their peers’ projects before the symposium.”

The Dec. 6 event, which was held in Keating Hall, featured short presentations from students studying biology, psychology, physics, integrative neuroscience, international political economy, chemistry, environmental studies and more. In all, there were 16 presentations.

The goal was to build community among student researchers and provide a platform for students to share their progress.

“I’m interested in starting my own research so I decided to come to get some ideas,” said sophomore Sandra Ivanov, a biology major. Sophomore Shubarna Akhter, who sat adjacent to her, nodded in agreement. “It’s good to see what students are getting funded to research,” she said.

Physics student William Charles spoke about the theories he is using to study the low-energy dynamics of quarks and gluons, while biology student Salma Youssef talked about how she is using the DNA of leeches to monitor biodiversity.

“It’s noninvasive so you can monitor biodiversity without putting in any cameras,” she said. “And it’s very cost-effective because all you really need are leeches, and they’re everywhere.”

Sophomore Emily Hargous, whose project sheds light on the seasonal molecular diets of urban coyotes, shared the inspiration behind her research. Since coyotes exhibit behavioral changes in an urban environment, Hargous wanted to know how they adjusted their diets to the presence of humans.

“The coyote diet changes seasonally in response to climate and prey,” she said.

As the event served as a primer to the upcoming 2018 symposium, William Beatrez, a junior majoring in chemistry, said speaking at the event helped him to brush up on his needed presentation skills.

“I’m planning to apply to graduate school for chemistry, and when you’re a Ph.D. student, writing grant proposals, presenting research, and speaking at different engagements are important,” said Beatrez, whose presentation was focused on glucose sensing. “This is exactly what my real-world life is going to be like.”

Psychology student Laura Frank, and biology students Olivia Giannakopoulos and Ian Villagran wanted to know. They took the question a step further by examining how a drey presence, or a squirrel’s nest, can impact how close Eastern Gray squirrels at New York’s Central Park and the Rose Hill campus will allow humans to get to them.

“This fleeing behavior has been studied in many animals, and it depends on a multitude of factors, such as the speed of the prey, where [the squirrel’s]positioned in relation to its refuge, and the environment around it,” said Frank.

The trio was among 327 undergraduates at Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) who presented research at the college’s 10^th Annual Fordham Undergraduate Research Symposium. Held on April 26 at the McGinley Center, the event featured projects from students and their faculty mentors in a variety of disciplines, including classics, history, engineering physics, biology, music, computer science, urban studies, and integrative neuroscience.

“It’s a great example of faculty and students collaborating, innovating, and bringing new knowledge to the world,” said Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of the college.

Olena Nikolayenko, Ph.D., associate professor of political science, and Paul Smith, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry, were recipients of this year’s Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor Awards.

Sparking wonder and curiosity 

In his congratulatory remarks to the undergraduates, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, said he hoped that the symposium would create a “chain reaction” and spark “wonder and curiosity” throughout the students’ academic and professional lives.

“This is how knowledge is created,” he said. “This is how knowledge is shared.”

Undergraduate research supporter Dennis J. Drasco, Esq., FCRH ’70, a leading trial lawyer and member of the House of Delegates, spoke about how his Fordham education taught him to value knowledge and use it to help others.

“Now that I’ve had the opportunity to meet the next generation of brilliant, eager, optimistic young scholars and leaders, I ask you to please follow in that tradition,” he said.

Putting knowledge into action

Drasco’s message of helping others through applied knowledge could be seen in many of the students’ research projects, including engineering physics student Marissa Vaccarelli’s project, “Improving Current Models of Prosthetic Hands Using Three Dimensional Printing.”

Vaccarelli constructed prosthetic hands using the 3-D software tool SolidWorks and 3-D printing techniques to create a more flexible prosthetic hand for amputees or people who were born without limbs. She was able to create movement using a microcontroller board called Arduino Micro, she said.

“For me, this project is tangible because not everyone is lucky enough to have limbs, so 3-D printing is a really great alternative for limbs that are lightweight and durable as well,” said the Clare Boothe Luce scholarship recipient.

“We’re using science and technology to really bring a change in the world, which is inspiring.”

A few rows down, biology students Olivia Ballone, Michael Liberto, Eric Ohlendorf, Ryan Mason, and Hyun Jeong were presenting their research on rapidly mutating diseases. The group said they hoped their project would provide a deeper understanding of the evolution of influenza so that vaccination and other drugs are more effective in combating the virus— especially in the event of a pandemic.

“The reason we chose influenza was because we have an outbreak of it every year,” said Ballone. “It rapidly mutates each year [so]we can’t use the vaccination from last season’s outbreak. We have to keep establishing new prevention methods and understanding how it mutated to stop every single outbreak.”

Another group of students, computer and information sciences majors Luke Johnston and Chris Mallozzi, were concerned with data integrity and wireless network security issues in age of connectivity and hacking. In their research, they exposed security vulnerabilities in WEP, WPA, WPA2-PSK, and WPA2-AES algorithms on routers, they said.

“We’re both interested in how the average person can safeguard their own networks, based on how the average person can hack into networks,” said Mallozzi.

With help from her mentor, Amy Roy, Ph.D., director of the Pediatric Emotion Regulation Lab (PERL) at Fordham, integrative neuroscience major Melissa James said she aimed to expand on current research about emotional regulation.

“If we’re looking to help children who have emotional dysregulation, temper outbursts [or]emotions that are not considered typical, we need to understand what is typical development,” said James.

Using the work of German organist and music theorist Andreas Werckmeister (1645-1706), Melani Shahin, a music and philosophy major, explored how social class and numbers (or “musical secrets”) helped to highlight musicianship and provide clues about why certain music makes people feel a certain way.

Shahin said the symposium challenges student researchers like her to not only explore the world, but also take abstract concepts and make them comprehensible to the average audience.

“Just watching the other presenters on my panel made me think about subjects that I think I know about in a different way,” said Shahin, who gave an oral presentation at the start of the symposium. “It exposed me to different ideas and new ways of thinking.”

The student researchers were looking for a dominance hierarchy, which turned out to be based on a shared-rank structure, Casper said.

“We don’t know if this type of hierarchy might exist in the wild,” she said, “but it’s important because the species is near-threatened. It needs some attention if we are going to be thinking about conservation in the future.”

Casper and Flamio were among several students who took advantage of New York institutions and landmarks to create research presentations for the college’s 9^th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, held on April 13. In all, some 317 undergraduates displayed and presented their original research at the event, held at the McGinley Center on the Rose Hill campus.

That same day, at nearby Faber Hall, students at the Gabelli School of Business held their own research fair. And the next day, at the Lincoln Center campus, some 123 student scholars participated in the Ars Nova Arts and Research Showcase.

The growth and popularity of research and research fairs on campus “is an integral part of the Fordham undergraduate experience,” said Maura Mast, PhD, dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill. “Through action, students take on their own learning.”

One of the Rose Hill symposium’s major supporters, Boniface Zaino, FCRH ’65, shared details of his path to becoming a researcher at Lehman Brothers. Prior to that, he had been working a glamorous job (but with a “mediocre paycheck”) at NBC. When he was offered the Lehman job, he said his immediate thought was “Research? So boring after riding up in an elevator with Harry Belafonte and Tony Bennett!”

“I thought I was going to sit in a library, but in point of fact it turned out to be a great opportunity to expand my knowledge,” Zaino said.

“When you do research, you have to get into this Zen state. You have to clear your mind of all prejudices and prior thoughts, and try to look at things as they are,” he said. “It develops a discipline … and you are accountable to it, because the rest of the world is going to rely on your work.”

New York City waterways were the focus of the student team of Vivek Arora, Jacquelyn Ramos, Joni Horton, and Sig McDonald. The students measured the amounts of coliform bacteria in the Harlem, Hudson, and East rivers.

And integrative neuroscience major Arthur VanSuetendael chose Alzheimer’s disease as his topic. He analyzed “every single study” that was applicable to localizing music memory in the areas of the brain.

“[They’ve] shown that musical memories are preserved better than verbal auditory memories in dementia patients,” said VanSuetendael. His analysis found that the brain’s epicenter of music memory activation—one particular medial frontal region— is a region that still functions even in late-state Alzheimer’s.

“If we understand these cortical regions more, we can use the information to better craft the way we engage those with the disease.”

Faculty mentor awards went to Stephen Holler, PhD, assistant professor of physics, and Orit Avishai, PhD, assistant professor of anthropology.

At the Lincoln Center campus, the wide array of original work that lined the Lowenstein Center’s halls ranged from integrative neuroscience experiments to performance jazz pieces.

George Horihan, a sophomore visual arts major, displayed his three-paneled sketch of a tree flanked by human arms and surrounded by water. The work, “Connections,” depicted the strained relationship between humans and nature.

“As we’ve become more dependent upon technology, we’ve become separated from nature, but there are things that we cannot separate ourselves from completely,” Horihan said. “To me, tree branches look somewhat like [human]veins, and veins themselves look like roots, so I wanted to visually represent those connections.”

Aja Singletary, a senior theater and sociology double major, investigated the relatively uncharted world of autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR, and its growth as a YouTube phenomenon.

ASMR, she said, is a tingling sensation some people feel in response to certain sights or sounds. A calming sensation, ASMR has been described as a feeling “like bubbles of champagne” starting at the base of the skull and descending to the shoulders and through the spine. ASMR can alleviate stress and anxiety, and has even been shown to temporarily relieve depression, Singletary said.

With this in mind, a group of individuals has taken to YouTube to create videos of people tapping objects, flipping pages of books, and doing other “triggering” tasks to induce ASMR in viewers.

What is noteworthy for Singletary is the ability of the “ASMartists” and viewers to use social media to form a close-knit community around an experience that can feel deeply personal.

“I argue that it is a vehicle for cultural sharing,” said Singletary. “The community has found a way to be not only social, but intimate with strangers around the world.”

As part of her research, Singletary is also looking at the gender and racial divides within the ASMR community. Females account for approximately 81 percent of creating these YouTube channels, and the majority are white females, she said.

“This brings up the question of who do we choose to be intimate with, and why,” she said.

Jonathan Crystal, PhD, associate vice president for academic affairs, said that for years, the “discovery of wisdom and transmission of learning” traditionally flowed from faculty to student.

“There’s been a profound shift in Fordham’s culture where now it is understood that undergraduate students—you—are also discovering wisdom,” he said. “And this represents the transmission of learning from you to us.”

–Joanna Mercuri contributed to this article.