Posters - 2026

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  Unique Undergraduate Experiences and their Impact on Postgraduate Plans for St. Mary's University Psychology Majors

  Angelina Robledo, Zoe Lozano, and Jose Ignacio Guerrero Donoso

  • The amount of research opportunities a student has available is linked to higher post graduate student success rate (Stoloff et al., 2015).

  • The quality of different research experiences also matter (Love et al., 2007). Positive undergraduate experiences lead to higher levels of self-efficacy in undergraduate students.

  • Students' soft skills are improved throughout various classroom activities, preparing them for post graduate opportunities (Marsh et al., 2016).

  • Wayment and Dickinson (2008) found that students who participated in undergraduate research were more likely to get accepted to graduate school.
  • Hypotheses
    • Attending sophomore retreat can reassure areas of interest for psychology undergraduates, which may be related to higher graduate school acceptance rate.
    • More soft skills in the classroom will help undergraduate students get into graduate school.
    • Students who participated more in research during their undergraduate degree may be related to graduate school acceptance.

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  Rewilding the Coral Reefs

  Magali Rodriguez and Luciana Alvillar

  Coral reefs are among the most valuable ecosystems globally, contributing an estimated $10 trillion annually and supporting hundreds of millions of people through food, livelihoods, and coastal protection. (NOAA 2026) They also provide critical habitat for diverse marine species. However, reefs are rapidly declining due to rising ocean temperatures, acidification, pollution, invasive species, and physical disturbances. Globally, 30–50% of coral reefs have already been lost(NOAA 2026), and without intervention, many may face extinction by the end of the century. Rewilding and restoration efforts have become essential strategies to address this crisis. Initiatives such as NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program highlight restoration as a key approach to improving reef resilience. This project evaluates the effectiveness of coral reef rewilding by comparing pre- and post-restoration conditions using scientific literature and government data to assess changes in biodiversity and overall ecosystem health.

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  UltraGPS: A Low-Cost, Open-Source Ultrasonic Positioning System

  Scott Roelker Murillo and Nnamdi Jesse Onwuzurike

  We want to raise the bar in high school robotics. In Texas, and likely in many other states as well, high school robotics has reached a roadblock when it comes to autonomous navigation. In many competitions, the autonomous portion sees few, teams successfully completing tasks that require positioning and guidance. In modern robotics, it is no longer sufficient for a robot merely be “remote controlled.” They need to be able to navigate independently and adapt to the environment around them. To achieve this goal a positioning system is needed to develop the foundational algorithms for autonomous controls. However, these systems are often prohibitively expensive or proprietary, preventing their use at the high school level. To address this challenge, we continued the work done from senior design project to developed a simple, open-source, low-cost positioning system designed for use in high school environments to advance the state of educational robotics.

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  Synthesis and Characterization of Metal Complexes of Oxindole-Based β-lactams

  Kenya Rosas, Erick Morales Orrante, Carlos Sifuentes, and Alexsei Nazarov

  • β-lactams are essential structural components of many antibiotics and widely studied due to their biological importance and synthetic versatility.
  • The Ugi reaction is a multicomponent reaction, involving a primary amine, carboxylic acid, isocyanide, and an aldehyde or a ketone, that rapidly generates α-acetamido carboxamide derivatives (Ugi adducts).
  • The synthesis and characterization of four oxindole-based β-lactam derivatives:
    • 1-Benzyl-N-(tert-butyl)-2-oxo-3-(2-oxoazetidin-1-yl)indoline-3-carboxamide (4a).
    • N-(tert-butyl)-2-oxo-3-(2-oxoazetidin-1-yl)-1-phenylindol-3-carboxamide (4ab).
    • N-(tert-Butyl)-2-oxo-3-(2-oxoazetidin-1-yl)indoline-3-carboxamide (4d).
    • N-(tert-butyl)-1-methyl-2-oxo-3-(2-oxoazetidin-1-yl)indol-3-carboxamide (4e).
  • The coordination of the four Ugi adducts with Cu (II) and Ni (II) at different pH points to enhance their stability and improve biological activity.

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  Design, Synthesis, and Characterization of Phosphonate-Functionalized Diimide Ligands for Metal-Organic Framework Construction

  Kenya Rosas and Jonathan Uribe

  • Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are solid, porous materials composed of metalions reacted with organic linkers

  • MOFs are customizable through variations in their metal ions, organic linkers, and the functional groups of the organic linker all yielding a structure with different properties

  • MOFs have a variety of applications, ranging from storage and catalysis to drug delivery

  • The synthesis and characterization of four phosphonate-based diimide ligands:
    • N,N´-bis(phosphonomethyl)-pyromellitimide (PPMI).
    • N,N´-bis(phosphonobenzyl)-pyromellitimide (PPMI-Ph).
    • N,N´-bis(phosphonomethyl)-3,3′,4,4′-biphenylenediimide (PBDI).
    • N,N´-bis(phosphonobenzyl)-3,3′,4,4′-biphenylenediimide (PBDI-Ph).

  • These ligands were then coordinated with zinc or copper metal ions to make MOFs.

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  AI Dependence and its Impact on Human Decision-Making Quality and Supply Chain Efficiency

  Jesus Salazar, Leonardo Fabbri, and Axel Villegas

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming supply chain management by enabling:
    • Data-driven decision-making
    • Improved forecasting accuracy
    • Enhanced operational efficiency (Choudhary et al., 2023; Ivanov & Dolgui, 2021)
  • AI applications such as predictive analytics support:
    • Inventory optimization, Logistics planning
    • Procurement decisions in real time
  • However, increasing reliance on AI introduces risks:
    • Automation bias (over-trusting AI outputs)
    • Reduced human critical thinking
    • Overdependence on algorithmic recommendations (Raisch & Krakowski, 2021)
  • This study examines the dual impact of AI dependence on:
    • Decision-making quality
    • Supply chain efficiency
  • Objective:
    • Identify whether AI improves performance or reduces human effectiveness
    • Determine the optimal balance between AI support and human judgment

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  Do young belugas play more or less than adult belugas?

  Winter Saldana

  ★ The presence of play is used as an indicator of well-being in many species including belugas (Hill et al., 2017; Hill & Ramirez, 2014). ★ Adult and young belugas engage in similar types of play, but the frequency with which belugas play with objects, the actions used during those object play bouts, and the type of materials the objects consist of have not been examined in detail (Hill & Ramirez, 2014). ★ The purpose of this study was to explore if object play exhibited by belugas varied in frequency of play bouts, actions, and materials used by young and adult animals.

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  Life Experiences to Lyrics: What Mental Health Looks Like in Music

  Ashley Salinas and Ashley de la Fuente

  ● Music conveys human emotion and mental states, often reflecting societal struggles such as depression and anxiety. Lyrics often shape how listeners experience these emotions, influencing mood, identity formation, and emotional processing in young adults (Gustavson, 2021; Chen, 2023). ● Depression, characterized by persistent sadness, loss of interest, and withdrawal is frequently expressed in music through explicit descriptions or metaphorical language (Shriram, 2015). Whereas, anxiety involves excessive worry, restlessness, and hypervigilance, is less studied yet similarly present in music (Kim, 2023). ● Previous studies have highlighted that pop lyrics often emphasize relational uncertainty, country songs depict fear of loss, and rap lyrics highlight stress from systemic pressures (Kresovich, 2020). ● This study analyzed lyrical content in three music genres (breakup-pop, rap, and country) to examine how depression and anxiety symptoms are portrayed.

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  "P" is for Protest: How San Antonio Students are Showing the Rise in Young Justice Advocates

  Eliana Salinas

  - Recent 2025-2026 legislation under the Trump administration specifically targets immigration and militarize Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

  - Such actions have instilled fear in the general population, and encourage anti-immigration and biased rhetoric towards many, no matter their citizenship status.

  - Specifically, adolescents have responded by taking matters into their own hands by walking out of school as a form of protest; a demonstration unique to their age group demographic.

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  American Death Penalty Opinion's are Affected by Religion, Right?

  Addysen Schniederjan

  How does religion affect Death Penalty Public Opinion?

  • align with doctrine?
  • religious beliefs affect political beliefs?
  • political ideology?

  If public opinion is not affected by religion, what does this say about religious beliefs?

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  Increasing Affordability and Safety in our Surrounding Community: Subsection 6 of the St. Mary's Gateway

  Addysen Schniederjan

  Unaffordability is a widespread problem not only across San Antonio and the sub a rea of the St. Mary’s Gateway district. Affordable housing is defined as no more than 30% of a resident's income spent on housing (Bhasin, 2024). Subsection 6 faces a layered set of challenges:

  - aging housing stock - proximity to industrial uses - limited neighborhood amenities - safety threats-decreasing property value

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  Measuring the Flux of Cosmic Ray Muons with a Coincidence Telescope

  Carlos C. Sifuentes

  ❖ Cosmic Ray Muons are short-lived fundamental particles formed in the upper atmosphere, and have a half-life of 2.2 microseconds.[3] They travel down to surface level due to relativistic effects.

  ❖ Cosmic Watch Muon detectors were placed in coincidence. [1]

  ❖ Varied the angle from zenith using a 3D printed telescope designed in AutoCad.

  ❖ Varied the distance of the detectors and viewed changes in flux

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  TopShelf

  Ayden Jay Soliz

  With so many great video games releasing each year, it becomes challenging to keep up with the latest. Players find it difficult to maintain an updated list of future games to play, and many existing online trackers have become too complicated to use. TopShelf is designed to be a simple video game backlogging website that will track games for the player. By connecting to an online video game database API, users can add/drop games from their personal list and enable tracking and receive emails for platform releasing. Gamers can leave all the tracking and updates responsibilities to TopShelf

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  AI vs. Human Imagery in Advertising: Do Consumers Care?

  Belyn Thompson

  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming digital marketing, with AI-generated images increasingly used in advertising and brand communication. While these visuals allow companies to reduce costs and experiment with creative ideas, it remains unclear how consumers perceive AI-generated content compared to human-created visuals. Advances in platforms such as DALL-E and Midjourney have made AI images more realistic and difficult to distinguish, raising questions about transparency and ethical disclosure in advertising. This study examines how AI-generated images and disclosure strategies influence consumer perceptions, including purchase intent, aesthetic appeal, and perceived realism across different product categories.

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  Peace without Security: Intersectional Feminism and the Reintegration of Colombian Female Ex-Combatants

  Savannah Torres

  This projects speaks to those engaged in gender studies, human security, and post-conflict reintegration by examining why reintegration efforts continue to fall short for female ex-combatants. Focusing on Colombia’s 2016 Peace Agreement and its aftermath, the study analyzes how reintegration frameworks inadequately address the human security needs of former guerrilleras. It asks how reintegration processes fail to account for the intersecting identities of women as gendered, racial, and economic subjects and former combatants, and how these oversights generate persistent vulnerabilities. While existing literature acknowledges entrenched patriarchy in Colombian society, reintegration is frequently framed through victim-oriented lenses that obscure women’s agency. The paper first outlines the theoretical foundations of intersectionality and feminist human security, then examines women’s participation in the FARC-EP, followed by an analysis of gendered shortcomings in reintegration policy. It concludes that long-lasting peace depends on recognizing female ex-combatants as political actors and addressing their personal security in tandem. Without such an approach, post-conflict reintegration risks reproducing inequality rather than achieving sustainable peace.

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  St. Mary's Gateway, Culebra Park: A Study of Housing and Infrastructure

  Cielo Vargas

  San Antonio has been named one of the “most economically segregated cities” in the United States, despite being the seventh biggest city. Historic redlining policies left areas, such as Culebra Park, neglected during San Antonio’s urban development. During field work, this neglect became more evident, having impacted the housing quality of Culebra Park community

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  Exploring Communication obstacles of Indigenous Language Speakers (Research Proposal)

  Robert Vargas

  Indigenous languages have been disappearing at an alarming rate. It is estimated that every two weeks an indigenous language dies (Toth, 2022), and the cause of this rapid decline in indigenous language use is too often ignored or unrecognized by non-indigenous language speakers. This study is focused on pinpointing the factors that play into the decline of indigenous languages and how these factors correlate to the experiences indigenous languages speakers face. Through Literature review the findings will highlight the importance of preserving indigenous languages and the benefit indigenous languages can have within cultures and societies.

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  Who's Qualified? Examining Attorney Perspectives on LPCs in the Legal System

  Becca Wilson and Bernave Vega

  Legal cases frequently intersect with mental health concerns, positioning Licensed Professional Counselors (LPCs) to contribute clinical expertise in custody disputes, trauma documentation, and psychological functioning. As mental health issues become increasingly central to both civil and criminal proceedings, the working relationship between attorneys and counselors carries real consequences for clients, yet LPCs entering legal settings often face challenges related to role clarity, courtroom preparation, and professional credibility. Existing research has focused primarily on counselors' forensic experiences, leaving attorney perspectives on LPC involvement largely unexplored. This gap is meaningful, as attorneys serve as gatekeepers to expert involvement and their perceptions of mental health professionals shape how clinical contributions are received in court. This study employed a qualitative phenomenological design to examine Texas attorneys' lived experiences collaborating with LPCs in civil and criminal legal cases.

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  The Role of Short-Form Video Content Strategy in Campaign Performance in Service Operations

  Arianna Yates and Aileen Olivares

  Short-form video content, particularly Instagram Reels, has become central to digital marketing strategies aimed at increasing engagement and campaign effectiveness. As consumer attention spans decline, marketers increasingly rely on visually engaging, concise, and interactive content formats. Prior research highlights the importance of content characteristics in shaping engagement outcomes. However, limited empirical evidence exists on which specific attributes most strongly influence performance in short-form video contexts. This study examines how call-to-action (CTA), audio type, and authenticity influence engagement rates in Instagram Reels.