Record number of honors capstone projects hone students' creativity and research skills

At the Honors Capstone poster presentation this week, 14 students — a new record — demonstrated the effort and skill they have poured into their projects for the past year and a half. The high quality of the projects allow for unique research or creative experiences that prepare students for future opportunities in graduate and professional schools, or in their eventual professions.

This is the culminating achievement for undergraduates in the Honors Program, who will march first in Friday’s Commencement ceremony. With the help of faculty advisors, the group tackled a wide variety of topics:

• Kailee Bates: Creating Accessible Literature for Deaf Young Adults  
• Lorelei Verena Becktel: The Cost of Accommodative Burdens: Prevalence & Impact on Deaf and Hard of Hearing Individuals  
• Elizabeth Droubi: The Manifestation of Synesthesia in the Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing, and Sign Language User Population
• Erza Forero-Tarquino: Impacts of Culturally Responsive Social-Emotional Learning Post-COVID-19: An Analysis of How Providing Culturally Responsive SEL Impacts Deaf/Hard of Hearing Students’ Social-Emotional Development During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Jeanelle Darlene Francis: Reimagining Law Enforcement Communication with the Black Deaf Community
• Shealyn Andra Jungé: The LRE Provision of IDEA’s Impact on Deaf Students’ Socio-Emotional Satisfaction in K-12th Grade Education 
• Mara Land: Exploring Student Engagement at Gallaudet: A Video Analysis of Direct ASL Instruction and ASL Interpreter-Facilitated Instruction
• Blessed Mbogo: Association of Psychological Quality of Life Scores and Adverse Experiences in STOP2 Multi-center Clinical Trial
• Katie McClyman: Exploring the Relationship Between Disability and Stress: A Preliminary Study
• Amalia Mihalakakos: Brain Fog: An Adventure
• Cynthia Marie Ortega: Conversations and Educating People about Traumatic Experiences
• Atlas Rideout: The Transgender & Gender-Diverse Interpreter’s Experience   
• Taylor Victor: Preparing to Bridge the Deaf Math Gap: Exploring Preparation Materials for ASL Interpreters in Math Education
• Destiny Zhinin: Translanguaging and Ethnolinguistic Identity: A Case Study of a Hispanic Latine Family

Some research projects come out of students’ personal experiences. Lack of representation led Amalia Mihalakakos to write a children’s mystery chapter book. Another student, Cynthia Ortega, faced the intergenerational trauma from her own family through a highly personal storytelling project “to start conversations about healing.” Ella Stromberg drew on her father’s experience with language deprivation to explore how hearing parents of deaf children can better access education and resources.