Journal of Undergraduate Research
Welcome to the Journal of Undergraduate Research. This page contains published research reports resulting from undergraduate mentoring. Reports are published 1 year after the grants are awarded. (e.g. Reports for projects marked 2013 (projects that were funded in February 2013) were published in January 2014.)
Current Issue: Volume 2019, Issue 2019 (2019)
Emotional Inferencing in Children with Language Impairment
Allison Barney and Bonnie Brinton
Building and Improving a Low Cost Holographic Video Monitor
Parker Awerkamp and Daniel Smalley
Archaeometry for the Ancestors: Stable Isotope Analysis of Skeletal Remains from Huarochirí, Perú
Ridge Anderson and Zachary Chase, PhD
Influencing Political Tolerance among Populists in the UK
Stephen Black and Kirk Hawkins
Populism and Emotions
Allison Adams and Kirk Hawkins
Destined to Dominate? Exploring the Link between Prenatal Androgens and Dominance Rank in Rhesus Monkeys
Alexander Baxter and Dr. J. Dee Higley
University and College Counseling Centers: Collegiate Athletes Shifting Changes In Mental Health Risk
Lilly Bautista, Rachelle Clayson, Jared Klundt, and Davey Erekson
Young Guns: Lasting Changes in Communities as a Result of Gun Violence
Louisa Ballif and Eric Gillett
Early Orientalist Sentiments in Dutch Baroque Still Life Paintings: A Study of Harmen Steenwyck
Maika Bahr and Martha Peacock
Changing the Culture of Public Transportation at BYU
Samantha Aramburu and Jamin Rowan
Does Transparency Mobilize Citizens and Decrease Corruption?
Neal Bangerter and Brigham Daniels
Clinical vs Neuropathological Diagnosis in Alzheimer’s Disease Research
Gage Black and John S. K. Kauwe
Morphological variation in Alfaro cultratus across varying stream flow regimes
Kaitlyn Beard Golden and Jerald B. Johnson
Cell Free Single Stranded DNA Concentration in CSF as biomarker to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease
Taylor Avei and Dr. John Kauwe
The Effect of Deep Tissue Heating On Skeletal Muscle PGC1 a Protein Expression During Muscle Atrophy
Kaitlin Abbott and Dr. Allen Percell
Iron Dysregulation induced by Oxidative Stress is Prevented by Curcumin in C2C12 Skeletal Muscle Cells
Jacob Anderson and Dr. Chad Hancock
Primordial Origins of Supermassive Black Holes
William Black and David Neilson
Increasing Cryptographic Security Through Quantum Erasure
Richard Barney and Jean-Françios S. Van Huele
Seeing the World Through Humility-tinted Glasses: Exploring Social Cognitive Explanations for Outcomes of Humility
Chayce Baldwin and Dr. Robert Ridge
Religiosity and Psychological Well-Being: A Correlational Meta-Analysis in North America
Niyeli Herrera, Yerenia Flores, and Timothy Smith
Characters with Disabilities in Newbery Books: Analysis and Trends
Kellie Egan and Tina Dyches
Evaluation of Novel Molten Salt Eutectics and Their Application in Novel Reactor Designs
Kraig Farrar and Matthew Memmott
Passive CubeSat Probes for Affordable, Low-Risk Inspection of Space Vehicles
Josh Cannon and Brian Iverson
Impact of Micro- and Nano-Structured Surfaces on Condensation Heat Transfer Effectiveness
D. Jacob Butterfield and Dr. Brian Iverson
Nabataean Painted Pottery Wares: Core vs. Periphery
Shawn Hall and David Johnson
The Long run Economic Effects of the Dustbowl Migration
Julie Hollenbaugh and Joseph Price
Gaming the Government: How to get government officials to engage with evidence-based reports – Experimental evidence from India, Tanzania, and Peru
James Hodgson and Daniel Nielson
Does The Name “Trumpcare” Mean Anything to You?: How the Colloquial Naming of Healthcare Legislation in the United States Influences Approval
Mandi Eatough and Dr. Jessica Preece
Women vs. Men Who Makes Better Use of Financial Aid?
Nichole Christensen and Jessica Preece
The Effects of Moral Framing on Environmental Attitudes
Ashlyn Bodily and Darren Hawkins
Testing the Psychometric Properties of Positive Psychology Measures
Olivia Hansen and Jared Warren
The Effects of Helicobacter Pylori on Cognition: A report
Kenric Gordon, Thomas Petersen, and Dawson Hedges
Psychosocial Empowerment Group Creation and Implementation Among Malawi Women
Libby Evans and Benjamin Ogles
A Comparison of Gender Ratio, Military Culture, and Organizational Climate as Determinants of the Sexual Harassment of Women and of Men in Eight Government Organizations
Alex Calder, Bruce Brown, and Robert Ridge
Multiculturalism: The Search of Home Through Roots and Tentacles
Daniela Ferreira and Brian Christensen
Societal Borderlands: Community Art Making as a Means to Turning Borders Into Points of Interaction
Kindia du Plessis Cutler and Daniel Barney, Pd.D.
The Healing Power of Music: Documentary
Maren Cline and Robert Walz
Body Knows, Spirit Dances: Somatic approaches in cross cultural dance exchange
Lauren Evans and Marin Roper
Orchestral Snare Drum Production
Peter Fullmer and Dr. Matthew Coleman
Celebrating Utah County in Multi-Media Recital with Progressive New Music and Photography
Clark Evans and Steven Ricks
Pedagogical Compilation of Arnold Jacob’s Master Classes
Samuel Craven and Steven Call
Japanese Grammar Tool and Database
John A. Dinkel and Steven Moody
The Pygmalion Project
Sophie Determan and Roger Macfarlane
The Birdcage as a Semiological Signifier for Submission in Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Effects of Good Government
Claralyn Burt and Elliott Wise
Using Writer’s Notebooks and Tutoring with Alternative High School Students
Alexis Cramer and Dawan Coombs
Italian politicians and racialized language on social media: The norming effect on racial attitudes and behaviors towards immigrants
Janessa Garrow and Marie Orton
Eye Movements in Second Language Reading of Russian
Hunter Hill; Steven G. Luke, PhD; and Jennifer M. Brown
Lebensborn Mothers: The Women of the Thousand-Year Reich
Zachary Herzog and Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Kelling
Linguistic integration: A comparison of Spanish speakers in Austria and Germany with those in the U.S.
Nicole Gomez Bravo and Laura Smith
We Don’t Need Another Hero: Historiography and the Sophie Digital Library’s Science and Technology collection
Michael Evans and Robert McFarland
Characterization of Mutant Chemokine (C-C) motif Receptor-Like 2 (CCRL2) and its Role in Inflammation and Alzheimer’s Disease
Meganne Ferrel and Dr. John S. K. Kauwe
Genetic Susceptibility to Co-infections Involving Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV): Impact on Immunocompromised Adults
Taylor Brown and Dr. Chantel Sloan
Histone Post-Translational Modifications and Nucleosome Positioning: A New Layer in the Histone Code Hypothesis?
Andrew Earl and Dr. Steven Johnson
CD5 Deficient Mice Exhibit Altered Cognitive Function in Behavioral Studies
Tyler Cox and Dr. Scott Weber
Antenatal exposure to secondhand smoke impacts growth and cardiopulmonary energetics in 4-week-old mice
Kaleb Egbert and Paul Reynolds
Addressing The Global Eutrophication Crisis From the Ground Up: Quantifying Ecosystem Resilience to Nutrient Loading
Rebeccas Frei and Banjamin Abbott
Microbiota Composition Trends Among High Risk ASD Individuals
Hyrum Eddington and John M. Chaston
Calling on Trial: Anticipated Calling Among Law School Students
Bradley Goronson and Jeffery Thompson
Can Stress Management and Personal Wellness Courses Improve Student Resiliency? A Pilot Study
Aimee Schouten and Michael Thomas
Literature Survey to Understand Why Parents Don’t Receive Tdap Vaccine
Analisa Dawson and Janelle Macintosh
Identifying Maternal Healthcare Needs of Pregnant Refugee Women in Utah
Amanda Brower and Dr. Sheri Palmer, RN, DNP, CNE, CTN-A,
A Comparative Study on the Developing Impact of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners in Utah
Lauren Bretzing and Julie Valentine
Whole-Genome Sequencing in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU): Nurses’ Roles in Communicating Test Results to Families
Laura Grenfell and Deborah Himes
Modeling Main Group Metal Alkane Functionalization Reactions in Highly Acidic Carboxylic and Sulfuric Acid Solvents
Lily H. Carlson and Daniel H. Ess
Cyclic Peptide Catalyst design
Millicent Campbell and David Michaelis
Heterodinuclear Co-Zr Compound Shows Increased Reactivity in Kumada Coupling
James Coombs and Daniel Ess
Detecting Microcracks in Structures by Electromagnetic Excitation of Acoustic Resonances
Joshua Gregg and Brian Anderson
Making MRI Scans Quieter through Time-Reversal Acoustics and Active Noise Control
Trent Furlong and Brian Anderson
Finding Planets Around Massive Stars
Elisabeth Frischnecht and Denise Stephens
Cancerous Male and Female Gene Expression
Clarissa Farmer and E. Shannon Tass
Cluster Analysis via Random Partition Distributions
Brandon Carter and Dr. David B. Dahl
Impact of a Psychology of Gender Course on Student Attitudes
Charles Dale Flint and Emily Darowski
The Photo Vision: Modern Cliché-Verre
Jacqueline Camacho and Christiane Ramsey
Recording of Marco Borogni’s Vocalise Etudes for Trumpet
Dominik Campora and David Brown
Interpreting Speech Perception in Children with Phonological Deficits: Evidence from Event Related Potentials (ERP)
Camille Nuttall and Kathryn Cabbage
Heterogenity of Private School Effects in Sub-Saharan Africa
Isaac Riley and Donald Baum
Multichannel UBM Conduit for Peripheral Nerve Repair
Elizabeth Mahoney and Alonzo Cook
High Level Gesture Control for UAVs
John Akagi, Brady Moon, Jared Paxton, and Dr. Cammy Peterson
Does Hypochlorous Acid Accelerate the Degradation of Absorbable Sutures
Stephen Pinnock and Anton Bowden
Product Design for Children with Limb Defects
Cecilee Petersen and Richard Fry
Low-Cost Applications of Composite Pressure Vessels in Solid Rocket Motor Design
Riley Meik and Andy George
German Immigrants in Church Records in the State of Kentucky
Deborah Mocke and Roger P. Minert, PhD
Attitudes Toward Economic Reform in Ukraine
Eliza Riley and Celeste Beesley
Bridge-Building: Effects of Humanization in Conflict Resolution
Haley Petersen and Chris Karpowitz
Improving the Bureaucracy: What Leads Government Officials to Use Evidence-Based Reports?
Nick Moffit and Darren Hawkins
How Endorser Gender Affects Candidate Electability
Miranda Hatch, Connor Kreutz, and Jessica Preece
Sex Differences in Ethanol Modulation of Dopamine Release in the Mesolimbic Reward System
Mandy Parsons, Justin Bowman, and Scott Steffensen
Acute ethanol decreases infiltration of macrophages across the blood-brain barrier
James Brundage, Jake Lattin, and Dr. Scott Steffensen
Oxytocin and Social Affiliation: A Study of the Genetic Underpinnings behind Social Behavior in Rhesus Macaques
Ryno Kruger and J. Dee Higley
The Impact of Perceived Support on Multi-cultural and International College Students in Utah
Erin Kaseda and Wendy Birmingham
Uncovering Reasons Behind Attrition: A Micronutrient Program Evaluation for a Global Nonprofit
Elizabeth Pulsipher, Savannah Henshaw, and Dr. Scott Sanders
America's Hope
Cassie Prettyman and Paul Adams
City of Nothing: Architectural Simulation & Las Vegas
Rachel Playstead and Daniel Everett
American College Dance Association Northwest Regional Festival: Presentation of “That Time”
Rachel Kearl, Whitney Ellis, and Graham Brown
A New Turkish Voice: Culture, Politics, and Expression in the Cello Works of Ahmed Adnan Saygun
Max Olivier and Luke Howard
Media Music Composition and Production
Shane Myers and Aaron Merrill
Impact of Lexical Bundles on Chinese L2 Learners’ Oral Proficiency
Corey Ketring and Rachel Yu Liu
Perception of Speech and Song in Religious Music: A Neurological Approach
Dagan Pielstick and Francesca Lawson
Native BYU: Remembering Living Histories
Maren Loveland and Dr. Michael Taylor
Nahida Ruth Lazarus’ “Das jüdische Weib”
Kate Menlove and Dr. Michelle James
Russian For Professional Purposes Russ 399R Academic Internship
Tyler Larsen and Jennifer Bown
Russian for Professional Purposes: An Experiential and Instruction Based Approach to Advanced Competency Within the Russian Language
David Joseph, Dr. Tony Brown, and Dr. Yekaterina Jordan
Using Remote Video Systems to Measure Effectiveness of Small Scale MPAs in Saipipi, Samoa
Calvin Quigley and Dr. Richard Gill
Damselfies of Vanuatu
Madison Lallatin and Seth Bybee
Why does handedness exist in bilaterally symmetrical organisms?
Erik S. Johnson and Jerald Johnson
Quantifying predictive value of biological data types in machine learning models of cancer outcome
Samantha Jensen and Stephen Piccolo
Revision of the genus Gilia of Utah
Zachariah Jaramillo and Dr. Leigh Johnson
TK1 as a Biomarker of Chemosensitivity and Metastatic Potential in Breast Tumors
Eric Olsen and Kim O'Neill
Effectiveness of Hospital Disinfectants against Clostridium Spores
Bejamin Ogilvie and Richard Robinson
Could TK1 Suppress the Immune System and Promote Tumor Development?
Joshua Keller, Roman Kovtun, and Kim O'Neill
NF κB as a Mediator in Iron Regulation
Erik D. Marchant and Chad Hancock
The Effects of Hyperlipidemia on β-Cells
Andrew Barlow, Trevor Lloyd, Mason Poffenbarger, Austin Ricks, and Dr. Jeffery Tessem
Nrf2 in Protecting Against Valproic Acid-¬‐Induced Oxidative Injury During Cellular Differentiation
Alyssa Palmer and Jason Hansen
Regulation of Trophoblast Invasion by Pyruvate Kinase Isozyme M2 (PKM2): Preemptive to PKM2 Activation Decreases IUGR Symptoms in Mice exposed to Second-Hand Smoke
Juan Mejia and Juan Arroyo, Ph.D.
The effect of Chenopodium quinoa on salinization levels in soil
Angel Mirae Morris, P. Jeff Maughan, Bryan G. Hopkins, and Neil Hansen
Remote Sensing Approaches To Improve Water and Nitrogen Management of Kentucky Bluegrass (Poa Pratensis)
Austin Hopkins and Dr. Neil C. Hansen
Deferred Taxes and Cash Flow Predictability
Kaleb Norwald and Jake Thornock
Measuring Compassion in the Workforce
Haley Kirk and Jeffrey Jenkins
Improving Healthcare Through Interdisciplinary Education
Jonathan Jacobs and Katreena Collette-Merrill, RN, PhD
Transforming health through Precision Medicine: Content analysis of U.S. guidelines related to genetic counseling and testing
Nicole Jackson and Deborah Himes
Inclusion of Women in Computer Science
Naomi Johnson and Dr. Kevin Seppi
Microbes and Metals: Purifying the Water of Lake Titicaca
Sara Ludlow and Dr. Gregory T. Carling
Random Polynomial Interpolation from Known Roots in the Multivariate Case
Catherine Sawyer and Tyler Jarvis
“The Evolution we believe in … is not Darwin’s”: Evolution, Science, and Latter-day Saint Education, 1875-1911
Ian McLaughlin and Dr. Rachel Cope
Prejudice Against Religion in Japan -And its influence on Proselytism Of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints-
Shawna M. Lawlor and Dainan Skeem
The Predictive Validity of a Kindergarten Dynamic Assessment of Language
Veronica White and Douglas Petersen
Pre-service Teacher's Perceptions of Technology Integration in their Future Classrooms
McKenzie Scoffield and Jennifer Wimmer
A Combined Computational/Experimental Approach to Stabilize Proteins with Unnatural Amino Acid Modifications
Joshua Wilkerson and Dr. Thomas Knotts
Muscle Activation via MRI: Comparison of Techniques
Logan Thorneloe and Neal Bangerter
Noise Threshold and Normalization by Contrast Parameter for Atomization during Droplet Impingement
Alexander White and Julie Crockett
Proof-of-Concept Tremor Suppression Sleeve for Essential Tremor Patients
S. Adam Stringham and Dr. Steven K. Clarles
Gas Detection System for Biomass Cookstove Emissions
Jeffery Smith, Cyera Bishop, and Matthew Jones
A Blueprint or Change: How Punk Music in Belfast Affects Activism Today
Hannah Williams and Jacob Hickman
Moral Transformation of Religious Conflict: Believers & Bonfire in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Brinnan Schill and Jacob Hickman
Analyzing a Corpus of President Trump’s Public Statements to Reveal Possible Media Bias
Kevin Zalewski and William Eggington
How to Get the Attention of Government Officials: A Test of the Effectiveness of Social Proof Treatments
Aubriana Wolferts and Darren Hawkins
A Regional Party in Yorkshire?: The Proof is in the Pudding
Elizabeth Whatcott and Dr. Joel Selway
Explaining Variation in Support for Refugees and Recent Immigrants in the United Kingdom
Katy Smith and Joshua Gubler
Do Support Groups for Medical Patients Reduce Risk for Mortality? A Meta-Analytic Review
Connor Workman; Dakota Jake; Daniel Rallison; Timothy Smith, PhD; and Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD
Evaluation of an EEG Task for Detecting Latent Infections
Ryan Weels, Savanah Bishun, and Bruce Brown
The Effects of Caffeine on Visual Attention in Caffeine-naïve Participants
Eva Tveten and Steven Luke
Role of Electrical Synapses in Dopamine Transmission in the Brain
Josh Nelson, Seth Stapley, and Scott Steffensen
Parent Entrance and Adolescent Outcomes using Longitudinal Family Structure Data
Matthew Usevitch and Mikaela Dufur
Remembering “The Good Life”
Colby Sanford and Joseph Ostraff
The Human Condition of Coping
Ryan Shumway and Robert Machoian
Yellowstone National Park: Photography then and Now
Tressa Roberts and Robert Graham
Women of the Grand Tour: Travel, Space, and Representation of Women in Eighteenth-Century Grand Tour Portraiture
Anne Totten and Dr. Martha Peacock
Open-source Consistency Evaluation for Chinese Word Segmentation
Blake Smith and Robert Reynolds
Slam Poetry in Suburban Schools
Madelyn Taylor and Christopher Crowe
Developing and Utilizing the VSFP Database: Atalanta and Girls’ Adventure Fiction
Isaac Robertson and Leslee Thorne-Murphy
The Sophie Mentored Research Project: Red Vienna Sourcebook and The Critically Annotated Collected Works of Elisa von der Recke
Rob McFarland and Michelle S. James
Acoustic Phonetic Analysis of Tol
Micah Wood and Dr. Chris Rogers
Morphological Parsing and Segmentation
Kyle Roth and Deryle Lonsdale
Post-Genocide Rwanda Peacebuilding Efforts: The Perspective of the People
Amerins Tolman and Ben Cook
Combating Obesity Through Gut Microbiome Targeted Bacteriophage Therapy
Gongze Zhao and Dr. Laura Bridgewater
Chemokine Receptor CCBP2-V41A and its Role in Inflammation and Alzheimer’s Disease
Allen Weinert and Scott Weber
Guided Evolution to Expand the Host Range in Phages
Jamison Walker and Sandra Hope
Determining the Role of CD5 in regulatory T Cell Function
Charles Teames and Scott Weber
The Role of Nr4a1 in β-cell Growth and Onset of Type 2 Diabetes
Adam Wynn and Jeffery Tessem, Ph.D.
The Role of Nrf2 In Prevention of Oxidative Stress Caused by Valproic Acid
Madison Wilson and Jason M. Hansen
The Financing of Transportation Firms Using Rail, Truck, Air and Ship to Test Capital Structure Theories
David Wilson and James Brau
Neurosecurity: Comprehending Security Messages
Zachary Vance and Bonnie Anderson
Applying Acoustic Beamforming in Sub-Arrays to Jet Engine Noise
David Van Komen, Kent Gee, and Tracianne Nielson
Identifying Unknown Satellites
Nicholas Van Alfen and Joseph Moody
Magnetron Sputtering for the Production of Stable P-Type ZnO Thin Films
Colter Stewart and Dr. John Colton
Religion, Mental Health, and the Latter-day Saints: A Review of the Literature (1995-2017)
Adrienne Rogers and Daniel K. Judd
History of Latter-Day Saint K-12 Education
Eric Tonini and Casey Griffiths
The Economics Behind the Construction of the General Relief Society Building
Kiersten Robertson and Mary Jane Woodger
A Summer in Moscow
Ellie Vance and Thomas K. Edlund
fMRI and QEEG Imaging of Auditory Function and Source Localization
David L. McPherson
Unseen, But in Plain Sight: Identifying Developmental Patterns of Females with Symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder
Rebecca Lundwall
Funding American Democracy
Michael Barber
Effects of Acute Sleep Restriction on Neural Responding to Anticipated Peer Evaluation and Food Consumption in Overweight and Obese Adolescents
Chad D. Jensen, Ph.D.
Improving High School Students’ Workforce Literacy through Collaborative, Online Alternative Reality Games
Jon Balzotti
Increasing the Accuracy of Molecular Biomarkers via Evidence-based Algorithm Selection
Stephen R. Piccolo
Meta-Analytic Investigation of Physical Ability Subgroup Differences Based on Age and Race
Cody Reeves
Rational design of multifunctional enzyme-like catalysts for assembly-line chemical synthesis
David Michaelis
Computational Number Theory: Modular Forms
Paul Jenkins
2017 Archaeological Excavation – Ataruz, Jordan
Aaron Schade
Professional Responsibility and Professional Development in a Crowdsourcing Model of Legal Assistance
Kif Augustine-Adams and Ivan Meitus
Enhancing Social, Emotional, and Language Learning in Children with Language Impairment
Bonnie Brinton, PhD and Martin Fujiki, PhD
Professional Responsibility and Professional Development in a Crowdsourcing Model of Legal Assistance
Kif Augustine-Adams and Ivan Meitus
A Race Against Time: Deciphering Evolution and Describing New Species of Threatened Tropical Stick Insects (Phasmatodea)
Michael F. Whiting
Development of Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (q-PCR) Assays for the Detection and Identification of Drug-resistance Genes in Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE)
Richard A. Robison, Ph.D.
RAGE and SAGE: Therapeutic Modalities for COPD
Paul Reynolds
Cognitive Patterns of Information Addiction
Rayman Meservy
Validating Market Segmentation Solutions
Marc Dotson
Understanding the Wind-dominated Landforms of Saturn’s Moon Titan Through Earth Analogues
Jani Radebaugh, Eric Christiansen, and Shannon Tass
Mentoring Astronomy Students Through Extensive Research (MASTER)
Dr. Michael Joner