Keystone Symposium 2025

Live-Stream Link for Room 545A

10:15am – Henrique Chamon
Econometrics for Marijuana Policy Through Border Discontinuity

10:30am – Neha Lenin
Greener Intelligence: Exploring Generative AI’s Hidden Environmental Costs

10:45am – Abby Smith
Soft Robotic Aspirator for Clot Removal via Pneumatic Actuation

11:00am – Derek Dong
Swifties Taking Over the Gridiron: The Financial Gains, Fan Backlash, and Corporate Strategy Behind Taylor Swift and the National Football League

11:15am – Sneha Jos
Simulating a Novel Beam Decelerator: Improving Anion Cooling for Antimatter Gravity Experiments

11:30am – Alaina Minarik
Looked for a Magnet, Found a Potential Qubit

11:45am – Alara Balcisoy
Var mı, yok mu?: Existential Negation Across Aktionsart Classes in Turkish

12:00pm – H. Zeynep Haciguzeller
In Vitro Characterization of DNA-Launched Self-Amplifying RNA and its Controllable Potentially Therapeutic Application

12:15pm – Emily Cady
I Can’t, I Have Rehearsal: An Investigation into Wellness and Production Practices of Boston University Undergraduate Stage Management and Performance Programs

12:30pm – Ethan Chong
Enhancing Student Laboratory Skills with Question-Embedded Technique Videos

12:45pm – Emma Obregón Domínguez
Silencing los subversivos: How Journalists Became Enemies of the State During the Guatemalan Civil War 

1:00-2:00pm Lunch Break

2:00pm – Maggie Borgen
Et Al.: Addressing the Lack of Nuanced Gen Z Mixed-Race Representation in Film

2:15pm – Bella Ramirez
Table for None: A Transmedia Presentation and Recommendation on Collegiate Food Insecurity

2:30pm – Eric Rowan
Life as the Beast-Cyborg: Following the Postmodern and Posthuman Tracks in Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood

2:45pm – Ella Marks
Whose Voices Count? A Discourse Analysis of Gender, Race, and Class Within Condom Distribution during the Boston University Takeover of the Chelsea Public Schools

3:00pm – Xander Weddall
“Death Within the Dead”: A Folkloristic Analysis of Selected Grateful Dead Songs

3:15pm – Amisha Kumar
She Just Wants to Play; the State Says She Can’t: A Trans High School Athlete Navigates New Hampshire’s Sports Ban

3:30pm – Elizabeth Sweitzer
Roots: A Podcast at the Intersection of Identity, Environment, and Politics

3:45pm – Laurence O’Connell
“I Deal With Evil”: Conceptualizing Child Social Work Stressors and Protective Factors through Interviews

4:00pm – Pedro Juan Orduz
Investigating the Viability of Robusta Coffee Agriculture in Colombia

4:15pm – Henry Mandell
Implicit vs. Explicit Data in an Item-Based Collaborative Filtering Model

4:30pm – Katrina Case
Genetic Variant Analysis for Pathogenicity Assessment: Implications for Disease Risk

Live-Stream Link for Room 545B

10:15am – Abigail Skena
Assessing Predation Pressure in a Tribal Fishery Using Optimal Foraging Theory

10:30am – Cindy Zhou
Mirror, mirror on the wall: Separating molecule enantiomers by crystallization on a magnetic surface

10:45am – Jessica Muchiri
The Othering of Africa: Through the Lens of the American Education System

11:00am – Sophia Rosan
Evaluating the Relationship Between Uric Acid and Podocyte Health in Patients with Biopsy-Confirmed Kidney Disease

11:15am – Sevillana Del Ettinger
Predicting Behavioral Problems Through Movement: Three Years of Activity Level Changes in Preschoolers

11:30am – Elena Green
High Throughput Screening and Identification of G Protein Binding Peptides

11:45am – Kamryn Schult
Localized RNA and Protein Changes in Isolated Synapses from Alzheimer’s Disease Brains and the Role of GABRA and m6A

12:00pm – Demian Choi
Sacred Trash: The Disposal, Re-Possession, and Afterlife of Sacred Objects

12:15pm – Tatiana Azouri
Between Notes and Nations: The Political Push and Pull of Music Diplomacy on its Ambassadors

12:30pm – Eliana Ioane
Research Innovation From Public-Private Partnerships: An Examination of the Novartis Sickle Cell Disease Program

12:45pm – Maddie Beery
Stock Buybacks in Science-Based Industries: Innovation Sacrifices for Shareholder Gains?

1:00-2:00pm Lunch Break

2:00pm – Evan Horvath & Zain Jafri
A Low-Cost System for In Vivo Bioluminescence Imaging

2:15pm – Emma Francoeur
There’s No Place Like Home: Manchester-by-the-Sea, the places where movies are made and coastlines are picturesque

2:30pm – Noah Rieber
Accessible Generation of EMS Training Scenarios

2:45pm – TJ Santoro
Films, Dreams, Psychoanalysis: Reinvesting in Psychic Experience

3:00pm – Cameron Downer
Accessibility of Healthcare in Latino/Lusophone Communities in Massachusetts and Florida

3:15pm – Serena Theobald
Drug Diffusion Simulation Modeling for Personalized Medicine

3:30pm – Madison Palmer
Drag Me In (Or Don’t): A Consent Model for Drag Performance

3:45pm – Roni Lakin
“Las dos mitades del mundo americano”: Inventing American Futures in the Speculative Twentieth Century

4:00pm – Kristen Bestavros
The Persuasion Equation: Simulating the Interplay of Personality and Message Factors in Political Polarization

4:15pm – Jessica R. Swanson
Weapons of Mass Distraction: Information Warfare in the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza Wars

4:30pm – Kaylee Sanderson
From Healthcare Education to Practice: Achieving a Therapeutic Alliance Despite Language Discordance

Live-Stream Link for Room 613A

9:15am – Poster Introductions:

• Caroline Perna
• Maya Santow
• Landon Smith
• Hayleigh Tran
• James Rhee

10:15am – Veronica Mckinney
Listening to the Canopy: Bioacoustic Models for Gibbon (Hylobates albibarbis) Call Detection

10:30am – Tanvi Chennuru & Cole Whittington 
Votes & Voices: Using Data Science to Uncover Voter Turnout Disparities

10:45am – Iffany Zou
Campus Closet: A Greenprint for Circular Fashion on Campus

11:00am – Amanda Wu
Exploring Microplastic Contamination in Borneo’s Ecosystems and Orangutan Populations

11:15am – Ava Berger
Mapping Drug Asset Forfeiture Arrests: How Lower-Income Communities Bear the Brunt of a Controversial Law

11:30am – Hannah Martin
Out of Sight, Out of Mind: A Neighborhood Perspective on Encampment Sweeps

11:45am – Sophia Beredo
Finding Home for Nemo: Can Clownfish Protect Their Anemones from Rising Heat?

12:00pm – Liam Fitzpatrick
More Hands to High-Five, More Shoulders to Cry On: Recruiting New Volunteers for a Childhood Grief Camp

12:15pm – Shea Mowry
Photopatterning Life: Multicolor Optogenetic Control of Cellular Patterns

12:30pm – Shandra Back
The Party We’ll Keep Promising: A Venezuelan Family’s Story of Displacement

12:45pm – Owen P. Logan
From Ink to Action: Behind the Scenes of the Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men

1:00-2:00pm Lunch Break

2:00pm – Finn Olson
An Animal Model in Drosophila Melanogaster for Psychedelic Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD)

2:15pm – Avishai Lean
Machine Learning Enabled Power Scheduling

2:30pm – Jacob Stein
The Mathematics of Fairness: Modeling Optimal Decisions under Sortition

2:45pm – Alessandro Iaia Hernández
Tracing the Trigger: U.S. Gun Sales and Rising Homicide Rates in Mexico

3:00pm – Isaac Killilea
The Tangible and Intangible Impacts of Political/Ecological Art on Environmental Justice and Action

3:15pm – Christa Campbell & Maria Saldivar Palacios
Busy Bee Refills: A Hands-On Exploration of Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship

3:30pm – Joseph Teruel
Success Reimagined: A Personal Journey

3:45pm – Ava Gamble
“A Welfare Program for the Wealthy”: The 1949 Federal Housing Act

4:00pm – Stella Tannenbaum
Dissent, Public Scrutiny, and Legitimacy in the Roberts Court

4:15pm – Addison Cummings
Rhett Reports: Unified Platform for BU News

Live-Stream Link for Room 613B

9:15am – Poster Introductions:

• Jacob Brenner
• Daniel Dietrich
• Nora Leonard
• Hope Myers
• Henry Willis

10:15am – David Kotton
Strict and Successful: How Parents Effect College Admissions

10:30am – Smaran Ramidi
The Motives Of Militarizing Infectious Disease Responses: Indonesia, Brazil, And The Covid-19 Pandemic

10:45am – Hannah Connell
Quantifying Restoration Success in the Belize Barrier Reef Using Underwater and Aerial Drone Imagery

11:00am – Indrani Malhotra
Is Climate Finance Worth the Investment? Assessing the Efficacy of Energy-Related Climate Finance

11:15am – Connie Dai
The Roots of Health: Stories of Traditional Medicine Among Immigrants in New York City

11:30am – Torin Harris
The Ambiguous Aesthetics of Accelerationism: Exploring Imagery as a Messaging Tactic in the American Accelerationist Movement

11:45am – Tyler Hart
Supercritical CO2 Turbine Generator

12:00pm – Jessica Vuong
Breaking the Glass Ceiling for First-Generation College Students

12:15pm – Aaron Mamoon
Shaping Masculinity: Exploring the Interplay of Environment and Identity in EMS

12:30pm – James Decker
Two-Port Olfactometer for Targeted Evolution of Mosquito Host Preference to Reduce Attraction to Humans

12:45pm – Sujena Soumyanath 
Choreographing Caste: How Ancient Inequalities Continue to Trouble Indian Classical Dance

1:00-2:00pm Lunch Break

2:00pm – Daniela Leonardo Martinez
The Home Literacy Environment & Phonological Awareness: Parental Shared Reading Practices and Their Role in Bilingual Children’s Literacy Development

2:15pm – Veronica Wertz
Critical Condition: Assessing Barriers and Systemic Gaps in Neonatal and Maternal Sepsis Prevention in Zambia

2:30pm – Reilly H Donohue
Effects of Toxicity on Win Rate in League of Legends and a Prosocial Behavioral System Redesign

2:45pm – Monet Ota
Building Bridges: Food as a Vessel for Culture

3:00pm – Tan Aydemir
Your Home, Their Hope: Engaging the Public in Disaster Recovery

3:15pm – Han Ali Kahvecioğlu
Probing High Frequency Ventilation using Crystal Ribcage

3:30pm – Haley Alvarez-Lauto
Full Circle: Telling My Adoption Story Through Film

3:45pm – Adora Saro
Gatekeeping Medicine: Unpacking the Cost of Applying to Medical School

4:00pm – Carolyn Glasener
Enhancing Chemotherapeutic Effect via Focused Ultrasound (FUS)

4:15pm – Matthew Luponio
M.E.N.T.H.A. – An Aviation-Based Solution to Deficiencies in the Mint Harvesting Process