Utopian Ethics: Classical and Modern Views

Hannah Izer, Delina Tesfamichael, and Morgan Twing, under the mentorship of Dr. Joe Herbert, Political Science Professor, set out to address the following questions:

• What Is The Best Philosophical Foundation For Human Rights?
• What purpose does Democratic Socialism serve here in America?
• Is Democratic Socialism a realistic option?
• Are a simple set of laws, as suggested by Raphael Hythloday in Thomas More’s Utopia, enough to ensure a just society?

The students studied relevant texts, including, Thomas Moore’s Utopia, and the ideas of Henry Veatch, St. Thomas Aquinas, Francis Bacon, and Gerard Wegemer.

Some of their conclusions included:

• You can never force people to become virtuous, if you want to have the “perfect society” then you have to force people to be good by punishing them, and that in itself is against human rights.
• You cannot force people to care, which makes the idea of Democratic Socialism difficult.
• Simpler and fewer laws do not ensure a just society
• Need for freedom and more freedom results in a complex system
• Interpretation of laws will always be an issue

So, no easy answers to their questions, but the students learned much about how to go about exploring potential answers.

So, Tell me about your Research.

Three years ago, the undergraduate researchers at Augustana College, across the river, and the undergraduate researchers from St. Ambrose University got together to share what they were working on. Think speed dating, with the focus on “here’s my research in a nutshell.” The idea was for each student to hear about everyone’s projects in a one-on-one encounter using 3 Powerpoint slides to encapsulate the main ideas. As the pictures show, it was engaging and enlightening for everyone!

 

 

Trash=Energy?

Every year consumers create trash, or Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), that will be sent to landfills more than being recycled, reused or turned into bioenergy. MSW’s can be converted into usable fuels through the thermochemical conversion of gasification. Gasification is a fairly new process in which many variables need to be identified, experimentally tested and safely executed for efficiency. Developing a better understanding of the process can be expensive and time consuming.

This week our work was divided into two sections: the literature research review of economic analysis for thermochemical gasification, and further modeling of the process.

Prior to running simulations, we read about prior models of past experiments to understand the reactions occurring within the process and the parameters used to determine how these results can be impacted. For our case, we split the process into an equilibrium zone (zone 1) and a reduction zone (zone 2).

 

Using MATLAB^®, coding for both zones revealed multiple factors that needed correcting. Once that code had been corrected, we began running simulations with various Moisture Content, Equivalence Ratio, and Temperature. Our main concern is determining what factors impact the concentration of the gases CO, H₂, CO₂, CH₄, and N₂. Our next step is to compare these simulations and analyze our results compared to other articles.

A collection of literature on the economic analysis is almost complete. The next phase is finding how others have run their gasification process, comparing their limitations of feasibly creating and funding their experiments and comparing it to our parameters.

Overall, experimental research can be costly and the time to witness results would easily surpass 6 weeks. Using technology to build upon prior understandings of gasification not only gives a faster understanding of the process, but also allows control of multiple variables and correction in shorter time.

Prescription for Anxiety: Dogs!

Animal-Assisted Therapy is a type of therapeutic intervention focused on improving mental, physical, and emotional well-being. A simple, ten minute interaction can have significant effects on an individual’s state of mind in any setting, including hospitals, nursing homes, and mental health facilities. The therapy animals are always accompanied with a handler with specialized expertise with the animal.

This year’s Therapy Dog Researchers (clockwise from back, left): Ellie Gradert, Deann Clark, Emily Nguyen, Dr. Katie Trujillo

This experiment is a continuation of the past year’s project, hypothesizing that therapy dogs will reduce the stress levels of family members of patients undergoing surgery or cardiac procedures. This will be done by measuring pulse, oxygen levels, and self-reporting anxiety levels and pet attitudes and introducing a therapy dog either before (control) or after (experimental) the measurements are taken. Pulse changes are a physiological indication of a person’s stress levels, but can be easily influenced by extrinsic factors. Due to the variability of pulse, self-report measures will also be used to determine changes in anxiety compared to both groups. The STAI reports state and trait anxiety levels, differentiating the anxiety at the current moment (state) and the average anxiety of the participant (trait). The second measure, a pet attitude survey will additionally examine whether general attitude towards pets has any correlation to therapy dog effectiveness in reducing stress levels.

Therapy dog teams are regularly scheduled to make hospital visits to patient’s rooms, but not always to waiting areas for family and friends of patients currently undergoing surgery or a procedure. The impact of this study will bring light to the effectiveness of a therapy dog interaction with family members in reducing anxiety levels.

Charlie, the Puggle, and his mom, Kristin are helping us with date collection.

During the first two weeks of the 2018 Summer Research Institute, students have been preparing for therapy dog interactions with participants at Genesis East. The research team has been putting together packets, organizing control and experimental groups into sealed, learning how to recruit participants, and learning the step-by-step procedure for participants. We have also gone through the statistical coding and analysis of data that will be needed to see if there is a statistical significance between the experimental and control groups. Recently, we visited Trinity in Rock Island to observe the role of a therapy dog in a hospital setting, learning the abilities and limitations of utilizing therapy dogs. After a recent visit to Genesis East, the preparation has been completed and we collected data from three participants this week. We hope to collect data from 15-20 additional participants before the end of the institute!  ~Emily Nguyen and Dr. Katie Trujillo

 

 

2018 St. Ambrose University Undergraduate Research Institute Hits the Ground Running!

We are one week into the 2018 USRI and it’s already July! We decided to push the usual start date back to accommodate some of the faculty schedules, so this year’s institute will end just as the 2018/19 academic year starts.  Here are this year’s projects:

Faculty: Dr. Joe Hebert, Political Science

In his 1516 masterwork Utopia, Thomas More reports a fictional traveler’s account of a perfect commonwealth. Though sounding like “Good Place,” Utopia means “No Place,” and More, speaking as a citizen and statesman of England, declares many of its purported institutions “absurd.” Holding the Socratic views that the common good of society depends on personal and civic virtue, and that virtue must be freely chosen, More doubts that institutional constraints (which depend upon coercion) can produce a perfect society. Modern political philosophers, rejecting this Socratic understanding of virtue, have deemed themselves more “realistic” about human nature; yet this rejection of virtue and the limits it places on institutional power has led many of them to embrace visions of a seemingly “utopian” society brought about by systems of technological and bureaucratic control. In this project, we will consider More’s Utopia in light of its classical predecessors and modern successors. Students will read, write, and present on common readings while completing a paper on a relevant research question.

Faculty: Dr. Robert Mitchell, Physics and Engineering

This project uses the Expanding Photosphere Method (EPM) to compute the distances to supernovae from the temperature and ejection speed of the supernova debris.  Temperature is calculated from the color photometry, while speed is determined from the Doppler shift in the spectrum.

EPM assumes the supernova is a perfect blackbody radiator, therefore a flux dilution factor must be determined to account for the supernova not being a true blackbody.  Currently, this can be empirically determined only for Type II-P supernovae. In part, this project will test EPM and the existing dilution factor calculations for other types of supernovae.  If new methods for determining dilution factors are needed, we will investigate how to derive them.

If students do not already have prior experience, they will be introduced to MATLAB, the code used for graphing spectra and performing the bulk of the EPM calculations.

Faculty: Dr. Joe Hebert, Political Science

In his 1516 masterwork Utopia, Thomas More reports a fictional traveler’s account of a perfect commonwealth. Though sounding like “Good Place,” Utopia means “No Place,” and More, speaking as a citizen and statesman of England, declares many of its purported institutions “absurd.” Holding the Socratic views that the common good of society depends on personal and civic virtue, and that virtue must be freely chosen, More doubts that institutional constraints (which depend upon coercion) can produce a perfect society. Modern political philosophers, rejecting this Socratic understanding of virtue, have deemed themselves more “realistic” about human nature; yet this rejection of virtue and the limits it places on institutional power has led many of them to embrace visions of a seemingly “utopian” society brought about by systems of technological and bureaucratic control. In this project, we will consider More’s Utopia in light of its classical predecessors and modern successors. Students will read, write, and present on common readings while completing a paper on a relevant research question.

Faculty: Dr. Yunye Shi, Physics and Engineering

Energy use continues to increase as the world population grows and more countries industrialize which brings great interest in alternative energy resources which are cost effective, renewable, and environmentally friendly. Biomass, a carbon neutral resource, is both renewable and produces minimal pollution when used to generate electricity, fuel vehicles, and provide heat for industry.  

There are two main conversion routes for biomass utilization – thermochemical conversion and biochemical conversion. The current study will look into the technical and economic feasibility of biogas and biofuel production based on the thermochemical conversion route which includes direct combustion, pyrolysis and gasification. The methodology will then be used for a case study for biomass usage and municipal solid waste (MSW) energy recovery in the quad city area. In utilizing bioenergy, supply challenges (e.g., low energy density and bulky) and processing technology challenges (e.g., unwanted byproduct) are the major barriers that prevent using solid biomass to produce bioenergy. In addition, product market prices, competing product market prices and harvest cost can significantly affect biomass availability and supply cost which are the biggest constraints to widespread use of solid biomass for bioenergy commercialization.  

Techno-economic modeling targets on the bio-products supply chain. The process is evaluated by assessing each component including material growth, material collection, material pretreatment, conversion process, and post-product treatment. There is an essential need for such research to evaluate the sustainability of current technologies and to identify potential future directions for cost effective development of conversion technology for biomass-to-bioenergy supply chains.

Faculty: Dr. Katie Trujillo, Psychology

The main purpose of the current study is to determine whether therapy dogs can reduce the stress levels of family members of surgical or cardiac patients (they share a waiting room at Genesis East) while they are waiting for him/her to be done with their surgery or procedure. If it does, then the therapy dogs could be scheduled to visit waiting rooms in addition to patient rooms.

Secondary purposes include determining if physiological measures of stress are useful in this context. Physiological measures—in this case pulse rate—can indicate the level of a person’s anxiety. The advantage of using pulse rate over self-report measures is that it is quick and easy. However pulse rate can be influenced by factors other than anxiety including the individual’s current level of activity and caffeine consumption. Therefore it’s possible that well-established self-report measures may be more reliable than pulse rate. Self-report measures take longer to complete, so it is useful to explore the value of both types of measures. A final purpose is to determine if general attitudes towards pets play a role in determining how effective therapy dogs are in reducing stress. If attitudes towards pets do play a role in determining how effective therapy dogs are in reducing stress, then some people may benefit more from therapy dog visits than others.

The hypothesis is that immediate family members of patients who are waiting for their loved ones to be done with surgery or a cardiac procedure will experience lowered stress levels as a result of interacting with a therapy dog. We are planning to test our hypothesis experimentally by using one control condition and one experimental condition. The factor that will differ in control and experimental conditions is the point at which the therapy dog interaction occurs. The therapy dogs used in this study will be the ones that are already part of the established therapy dog program at Genesis East.

Faculty: Dr. Jodi Prosise, Physics and Engineering

Description coming soon!!!

 

Research into Upper-Limb Prosthetics

Limb loss has huge implications on a person’s quality of life, especially if it’s the loss of a hand or arm. In the United States, we are fortunate enough to have a wealth of options for hand and arm prosthetics. In other countries, this is not the case. Access to affordable, functional prosthetics is limited in many developing countries – and even if accessibility was improved for amputees living in these regions, the kinds of prosthetics that we offer in the US would not be practical. This is because:

1. They cost too much to manufacture and purchase in regions where families live on small incomes.
2. They are not designed to hold up in humid or sandy climates, and therefore the sockets can hurt the wearer’s skin.

For several years, students in the Undergraduate Summer Research Institution at Saint Ambrose have been working on research related to prosthetics design under engineering professor Dr. Jodi Prosise. A major component of this ongoing research has been to develop a cost-effective prosthetic limb that could be worn in humid climates and manufactured with local materials. The limb had to be durable, lightweight, and breathable.

Previous groups of students have developed prototypes of a prosthetic arm using PVC, wood, and twine for a man in Brazil named Milton. Milton is a quadruple amputee who had to have both of his arms amputated above the elbow after an electrical accident. The most recent two prototypes have been sent to him to test. For this Session of USRI, we have been working on three main goals:

Our main goal has been to recreate the prosthetic limb mentioned above to use as a demonstrative model on campus. We have made the pieces of the arm and are currently assembling it. The arm has an elbow joint and comes with four end-effectors, or replacements for a hand. These include a toothbrush, a pen, a spoon, and a fork. There is also a change-out station that can be nailed to a table so that a wearer with no hands (like Milton) can change out his end-effectors independently. In total, it costs less than $50 to build. Once we have finished assembling the arm, we are going to write an instruction manual for it by combining information from two previous research reports. We plan to add a supplies list and clear step-by-step instructions. Then, we will investigate ways to construct an end effector that can do a basic grabbing motion. This could be mechanical or use a small electrical motor.

Our second goal has been to learn about EEG waves and brain-computer interfaces. EEG waves are electrical signals that can be picked up from the skin of a person’s head using electrodes. They can be displayed on a screen by an EEG machine, much like an EKG machine displays a heartbeat. There are several different kinds of EEG waves and they fluctuate based on our brain activity. A brain-computer interface, or BCI, is a piece of technology programed with software that picks up EEG waves and uses them as signals to interact with something else. The field of biomedical engineering is wrought with research studies where researchers are trying to use BCIs to decode EEG signals from our brain’s motor cortex and use those brain signals to move a mechanical hand. As for us, we learned how to use a BCI called OpenBCI to see our EEG waves on a computer screen. We attempted to develop a program that would allow us to blink and light up an LED, but we discontinued these efforts for the moment as it required a lot of programming knowledge, and none of us have a strong background in programming.

This brings us to our third goal: learning how to use a muscle sensor to move a 3-D printed hand. During our attempts to program the OpenBCI, we learned the basics of how to program a computer chip called an Arduino. We placed an order for a muscle sensor that runs on this software, and hope to write a program that will use electrical signals released from muscles when they contract (called EMG waves) to a control motor hooked up to a 3-D printed hand. The designs for the hand came from an open-source blueprint online. We would like to be able to use the EMG waves to make the 3-D printed hand open and close a grasp. This is similar to myoelectric prosthetic hands available in the US, that run on muscle sensors.

Unsteady Hyporheic Flow

Our research team is composed of students Andrew Huffman (Mathematics), Sheiny Tjia (Chemistry), and Ethan Zeller (Mechanical Engineering), with advisor is Dr. Stonedahl (Environmental Engineering). The purpose of our research is to study how unsteady water flow moves through sediment, and each student is applying their own skillset towards designing and building the experiment. If you wish to see the day-to-day progress being made on this project, you can read about it on our blog.

 

Design and construction

We have been working on building and designing the flow oscillator for our project. We began by completely disassembling the first try at making the flow oscillator because it leaked. Instead of having to build it again, we were able to find an aquarium store that was willing to put it together for us!  While waiting for the tank to be completed we worked out a method of holding the pressure sensors in the exact same spot every time but also being able to remove when we need to. Our idea consists of an L shaped beam where we were able to bend it to fit perfectly over our glass and have 12” inches hanging down on both sides of the glass. Having this L shape will allow us to secure to the sensor tightly with Velcro. We have also made over flow “gutters” from sheet metal and were able to silicone it to the sides of the tank where the will flow over. With that same sheet metal we designed a three part divider to separate the low head and high head of water. One part is just one long strip of metal 14” inches long, which we glued to the middle of the tank with silicone. We then made other two parts that have bends on the sides of them to allow for more surface area on the glass.  When the glass came back from the Aquarium store we found that the divider made from glass was moved over about half an inch from the 26 inches we asked for.  Fortunately this was 65 cm, so we are switch from 2 inches to 5 cm cubes.  We are now working on designing a new “sand grid maker” (which are 3D boxes we can put sand in to have it keep its shape while we put the sand in initially) that we can 3D print to be able to perfectly set the sand up.

 

When we started working with the pressure sensors we found out that both of the sensors were not reading the same depth all the times. So we created an experiment to have both sensors at the same level and put them in a large bucket. We then taped the ruler to them and recorded the data we found in excel.

 

Arduino Programming

The waterflow through the experiment is controlled with an Arduino device, called a BottleLogger v2.2.0. This device has three sensors: a temperature probe and two pressure transducers. The programs that are run on this device use the readings from these sensors to determine water density, and the length in cm of the column of water above each pressure sensor.  Using this information, we want our programs to accurately control the rise and fall of the water level on the variable side of the tank our experiment is using. The device also collects time-stamped data from the sensors in quick periods, giving us raw data for pressure and temperature.  Programming the Arduino has been a challenge because many libraries written by other programmers, which are challenging to understand and don’t seem to behave as expected.

Electrolytic Conductivity Investigation

In previous years’ experiments the EC value exiting the system never reached the value entering the system.  We decided to try to find out why.   We are devising an experiment to help understand the system better. Our early hypothesis was that the sand or the aluminum in the system might cause a change in electrolytic conductivity.  So far, however, we found that the diameter of the container had a huge effect on the reading.  What we originally measured in the big bucket, changed when we put it into different container.  So we devised an experiment in which we chose containers with a variety of diameters (some plastic and some glass) and measured the Electrolytic Conductivity of the same liquid in each container.   We found, that the reading was consistent no regardless of the material (glass or plastic) and that after hitting 7cm the diameter no longer interfered with the reading. We also looked at the fraction of the true value and the results showed that the ratio is consistent regardless of EC value of the water.

We also tested small pieces of sheet metal and the metal used to hold the sensors in place in the solution overnight to see if it will affect the EC meter.  Our initial finding is that it did not change the reading on the EC meter. Further testing is needed to make sure the sand will not absorb the salt in the water and change the outcome on the EC meter.

 

The St. Ambrose University 7th Annual Undergraduate Summer Research Institute is off to a Great Start!

On Monday, Jun 12, 2017, we kicked off the 2017 St. Ambrose University Undergraduate Summer Research Institute with orientation and get-to-know you activities. We have some exciting research being done this year.

Here are this year’s projects:

Dr. Susa Stonedahl: Environmental Engineering/Hydrology: Unsteady Flow of Water Through Sediments: Her group will investigate how fluctuating water levels affect the flow of water through sediments. The students will build an apparatus that allows us to vary the flow through a Tóthian system. This could simulate variations due to rainfall, tides, or other natural phenomenon that create variations in flow. They will work with Arduino’s and relatively inexpensive sensors to simulate the flow and monitor our system. They will also model the system in MATLAB coupled with MODFLOW.  They may try to get the model working independently of MODFLOW to improve the computational speed. We will use dyed water and time-lapse images to record the locations of the dye fronts over time. These will be compared with NetLogo simulations of the dye fronts.
Students working with Dr. Stonedahl include:

Ethan Zeller

Andrew Huffman

Sheiny Tjia

Dr. Jodi Prosise: Biomedical Engineering: Upper Limb Prosthetics: Several highly complex upper limb prosthetics have been developed that function much like our own arm and hand and can even be controlled utilizing electrical signals from intact nerves and muscles. However, these prosthetics are highly complex, utilizing intricate electronics and computing sources, and are cost-prohibitive both in initial investment and maintenance. There is a need for a simplified functional upper limb prosthetic that is affordable and, therefore, accessible to the underprivileged. The long-term goal of this project is to develop a simple, affordable upper limb prosthetic that functions similar to our own hand and arm. In order to better understand how humans control their hand movements, in this first phase, students will be studying neural recordings from electro-encephalograms (EEG) of humans reaching to and grasping a set of objects designed to create a large range of joint angles and comparing it to data previously collected in monkeys. The goal is to then create a simplified control algorithm for a electro-mechanical prosthetic that will function much like a normal hand.

Students working with Dr. Prosise include:

Keegan Steele

Kimberly Sloan

Luke Cokel

Dr. Katie Trujillo: Psychology: The Impact of Therapy Dogs on Stress : This is a continuation of last year’s project. The main purpose of the current study is to determine whether therapy dogs can reduce the stress levels of family members of surgical or cardiac patients (they share a waiting room at Genesis East) while they are waiting for him/her to be done with their surgery or procedure. If it does, then the therapy dogs could be scheduled to visit waiting rooms in addition to patient rooms.
Secondary purposes include determining if physiological measures of stress are useful in this context. Physiological measures—in this case pulse rate—can indicate the level of a person’s anxiety. The advantage of using pulse rate over self-report measures is that it is quick and easy. However pulse rate can be influenced by factors other than anxiety including the individual’s current level of activity and caffeine consumption. Therefore it’s possible that well-established self-report measures may be more reliable than pulse rate. Self-report measures take longer to complete, so it is useful to explore the value of both types of measures. A final purpose is to determine if general attitudes towards pets play a role in determining how effective therapy dogs are in reducing stress. If attitudes towards pets do play a role in determining how effective therapy dogs are in reducing stress, then some people may benefit more from therapy dog visits than others.
The hypothesis is that immediate family members of patients who are waiting for their loved ones to be done with surgery or a cardiac procedure will experience lowered stress levels as a result of interacting with a therapy dog.

Ashley Plumb

Philip Kindler

Courtney Lorenz

Danielle Smith

Karyn Paisly

Dr. Joe Hebert: Political Science: Political Philosophy and the Transformation of the Polis This project will consider the role of the Greek polis—the concept and the thing—in shaping the conditions of human life; as well as the transformation of the polis in response to both experience and philosophical critique. Through a study of Pierre Manent’s Metamorphoses of the City, we will consider the ancient polis in light of its relation to poetry and philosophy; the development of the city in Roman empire, law, and philosophy; the effects of Christianity and modern philosophy on the advent of the modern state; and key developments in the resulting modern nation-state system. Students will work with Dr. Hebert on a critical analysis of Manent’s claims and analysis of relevant individual research questions utilizing relevant primary and secondary sources.

Students working with Dr. Hebert include:

Hunter Hamstra

Will Cooper

Jonah Silverberg

Presentation Day!

On Friday, July 22, the students involved in the summer research institute presented the results of their research. In all cases, the students reported they had made progress toward understanding the phenomenon they were studying. They also concluded that more research was needed to make more definite conclusions. Although it is exciting when huge break-throughs are made, most scientific research is a series of small steps toward understanding. And most science involves missteps and mistakes before big (or little) discoveries are made. As a faculty mentor, it is rewarding to see undergraduate students immersed in real research, and we are all proud of what our students accomplished! Signing off until next year.

The “Selfie” Effect: The Influence of Social Media Feedback on Stress, Physiology, Mood, and Memory; Alexandra Brown, Ann Froeschle, Bayley Keys, Abigail Landrum , with Dr. Shyam Seetharaman, Dr. Jennifer Whitmer

LOCATING TYPE II-P SUPERNOVAE USING THE EXPANDING PHOTOSPHERE METHOD SHIVANI GANESH & DR. ROBERT MITCHELL

1,4-DIOXANE USING GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY/ MASS SPECTROMETRY AND CYCLIC VOLTAMMETRY PAUL O’CONNER & MACKENZIE CLAWSON, with Dr. Stratton

Permeameter Design & Time-lapse Image Analysis; Caleb Reiter & Nicole Woodall, with Dr. Susa Stonedahl

The Impact of Therapy Dogs on Family Members of Hospital Patients Philip Kindler, Jada Mathison, Payton Janney, Hope Hammitt, with Dr. Trujillo

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The “Selfie” Effect: Social Media Feedback on Stress, Physiology, Mood, and Memory

 

In today’s society, it is not hard to run into someone that has some sort of social media account. Whether it is Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, more and more people are caving into the social phenomenon. With all of the interactions that are happening among users, our research group wondered how this positive and negative feedback that is appearing on a phone or computer screen might be affecting a person’s overall well being. We decided to test our hypothesis stating that “people who receive negative social media feedback will exhibit higher anxiety levels, display poor self-esteem, have impaired memory, increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and cortisol levels” in a very unique way.

The population of our study consisted of 24 participants from the St. Ambrose community ranging from ages 19-63. We chose to use the popular social media site “Instagram” as our platform to induce stress on our participants. Participants were asked to send a selfie of themselves to our email account that they really liked and thought best represent their personality. When they came into the lab, the research assistant would take the participant’s heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels through a saliva sample. Next, there would be a 30 minute delay. During this delay, participants were to complete a personality inventory and read two articles related to selfies. Before the research assistant would leave the room, they would inform the participant that they would be posting their selfie that they submitted to our private Instagram account. We told them that 40 undergraduate St. Ambrose University students would be looking at their photo and “liking” or not liking their photo. In reality, our research team would randomly assign the participant to the high-like group or the low-like group. The high-like group would get 38 likes photo-shopped under their photo and the low-like group would get 2 likes photo-shopped under theirs. No one was actually looking at the photo, and we were personally manipulating the likes. After the 30 minute delay, the assistant would return to the room and visually show the participant their selfie feedback (i.e. the number of likes). We then asked the participant to write a reflection on why they think they received the number of likes that they did. The participant’s heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels were taken a second time. We finished by giving them self-esteem, anxiety, and memory tests to complete.

Though this topic is often overlooked, it is important for people to realize that social media can play a role in a person’s overall well being. Our study is unique in that it is the first experiment (to our knowledge) to manipulate a social media platform such as Instagram. We are looking forward to sharing our results on Friday!

Student Researchers: Alexandra Brown, Ann Froeschle, Bayley Keys, Abigail Landrum

Faculty Mentors: Dr. Shyam Seetharaman, Dr. Jennifer Whitmer