Paluku Makelele ‘25, left, with Jimmy Hart ‘24, a Summer Science Scholar who is working on a project called "Neutron Star Equation of State." His mentor is Leslie Wade, associate professor of physics. Photo by Vaughn Hajra '24.
Student research at Kenyon can take many forms as undergraduates work with faculty experts to tackle big questions. It’s a central part of the student experience — no matter what the field of study — to probe deeply, seek answers and forge solutions.
And it doesn’t just happen during the traditional school year. Campus is buzzing with the work of student researchers all summer long, too.
The following 70 students were involved in summer research projects, under the expert guidance of 43 faculty mentors, in 2023.
Cascade Science Scholars
The Cascade Science Scholars program is designed for first-year and second-year students in the natural sciences who have no previous research experience:
- Cindy Chen ’26, Targeted Drug Screen to Rescue Defective Mitochondrial Metabolism
Mentor: Peter Kropp, assistant professor of biology - Sam Connors ’26, Characterization of Organic Anion Transporters
Mentors: Chris Gillen, professor of biology, and Matt Rouhier, assistant professor of chemistry - Elizabeth Cramer ’25, Flight Performance and Sexual Dimorphism in House Sparrows
Mentor: Natalie Wright, assistant professor of biology - Ally Lavy ’26, The Structure-function Relationship of Protein in Branched-chain Amino Acid Degradation
Mentor: Kerry Rouhier, associate professor of chemistry - Emmanuel Makelele ’25, Gravitational-wave Physics with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO).
Mentor: Madeline Wade, associate professor of physics - Seryne Rafique ’26, Annelid Regeneration
Mentor: Kathy Gillen, assistant professor of biology - Jeremy Roberts ’26, Atmospheric Deposition in Ohio and Antarctica
Mentor: Ruth Heindel, the Dorothy & Thomas Jegla Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies - Paula Soric ’25, Determining the Effects of Maternal, Prenatal Stress on Glycogen Production in the Mouse Placenta
Mentor: Arianna Smith, assistant professor of biology and the Harvey F. Lodish Faculty Development Professor in the Natural Sciences - Lynne Usanase ’26, Antiseptics as Insecticides: Can Quaternary Ammonium-based Antiseptics Kill Mosquito Larvae?
Mentor: Matt Rouhier, assistant professor of chemistry
Center for the Study of American Democracy Summer Scholar
The CSAD Democracy Scholars Program provides opportunities for students to work in close collaboration with faculty members as full participants on a fundamental question, text or theme of American liberal democracy. The program is supported by the Class of 1978 Summer Research Fund and the Pamela K. Jensen Faculty Research Fund endowments for the Center for the Study of American Democracy.
- Julián Clivillés Morales '25, Racialization, Racecraft, or Something Else? Racism and the Recentering of the “Vital Center” in Civil Repair
Mentor: Celso Villegas, associate professor of sociology
Environmental Studies Sustainability Scholars
The Sustainability Scholars program provides opportunities for Environmental Studies majors to pursue research with a faculty mentor related to climate change or sustainability. The Sustainability Scholars program is supported by the Kenyon College Fund for Environmental Studies and the Office of Green Initiatives Green Revolving Fund.
- Vincent Vispo ’25, Ecosystem Services Valuation of the Brown Family Environmental Center Lands
Mentor: Robert Alexander, professor of economics and environmental studies
Hoskins Frame Summer Science Writing Scholars
The Hoskins Frame Summer Science Writing Scholars program supports student writers who wish to communicate artfully and with precision about science, with the goal of deepening our understanding of the natural world and our place in it.
- Sam Bowden '24
- Sarah Carmichael '25
- Tara Cerny '24
Mentor: Orchid Tierney, assistant professor of English
Kenyon College and The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center Pelotonia Partnership
For this highly competitive 10-week summer research project at Ohio State’s James Cancer Hospital, scholars participate in groundbreaking studies and methods to advance cancer research.
- Grateful Beckers ’24
Mentor: Dr. Timothy Pawlik - Keller Bueneman ’25
Mentor: Dr. Anna Vigelm - Rachel Chen ’24
Mentor: Dr. John Bridges - Jackson Newell ’24
Mentor: Dr. Dario Palmieri - Ayman Wadud ’25
Mentor: Dr. Daniel Gallego Perez
Summer Scholars in the Humanities, Fine Arts and Social Sciences
The Summer Scholars fellowship allows students to work as full participants in the processes of creating a research plan in certain fields, executing a research project and preparing results for presentation in a public forum. The program is funded by Kenyon and a grant from the Beulah Kahler Foundation.
- Cade Apton ’25, Qualitative Advances in the Study of Emotion Regulation and the Pandemic Nursing Project
Mentor: Marci Cottingham, associate professor of sociology - Nicole Cooper ’24, Layered Traumas: The First World War Refugee Crisis and Holocaust Survivor Testimonies
Mentor: Eliza Ablovatski, associate professor of history - Eve Currens ’25, Collaboration Research in Labanotation
Mentor: Julie Brodie, professor of dance - Zoe DeLay ’25, An Exploration of Textiles and Diet in the Late Viking Era: Identifying Microfossils of Fibers and Edibles in Calculus
Mentor: Kimmarie Murphy, John B. McCoy-Banc One Distinguished Teaching Professor of Anthropology - Sara Landon ’24, Greek Quotation in the Letters of Cicero and Fronto
Mentor: Michael Barich, assistant professor of classics - Catherine Mori ’25, Collaborative Labanotation Research
Mentor: Julie Brodie, professor of dance - Hannah Sussman ’25, The Impact of Social Relationships and Social Resources on Transgender Experiences of Minority Stress
Mentor: Austin Johnson, associate professor of sociology - Mia Tsuchida ’25, In Their Own Words: A Documentary on Migrant Workers in Japan
Mentor: Sam Pack, professor of anthropology - Maya Virdell ’24, Empresses and Saints: Translating the Synaxarion of Constantinople
Mentor: Brad Hostetler, assistant professor of art history
Summer Science Scholars
Student-faculty pairs spend up to 10 weeks in the summer to delve into research projects in the natural sciences. Science scholars present their findings to the public at a research poster session during Family Weekend in October.
- Zachary Baker ’24, Adapting Whole Mount in situ Hybridization to Lumbriculus variegatus to Study the Mechanisms of Regeneration
Mentor: Kathy Gillen, assistant professor of biology - Emily Banthin ’24, Cell Regeneration and ROS in Lumbriculus variegatus
Mentor: Kathy Gillen, assistant professor of biology - Adam Blum ’25, Local Gravity Using GPU-accelerated Spectral Methods
Mentor: Tom Giblin, professor of physics - Isabel Braun ’26, Constraining the Neutron Star Equation of State Using Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Measurements of Tidal Deformation
Mentor: Leslie Wade, associate professor of physics - William Bryant ’25, Analyzing Chemical and Physical Properties of Aeolian Sediment Collected in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica
Mentor: Ruth Heindel, the Dorothy & Thomas Jegla Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies - Katherine Coffin ’26, Noncovalent Interactions in Molecular Semiconductor Solids
Mentor: Katie Mauck, assistant professor of chemistry - Logan Coleman '25, Evaluation of Organic Anion Transporter Inhibitors Probenecid and Naringin in Aedes aegypti Through Microinjection of Patent Blue VF and Phenol Red.
Mentor: Matt Rouhier, assistant professor of chemistry - Ronan Daly ’25, Modeling Astrocytic Ca2+ Signaling in Epileptogenesis
Mentor: Sheryl Hemkin, acting provost - Casey Flueckiger ’24, Comparative Regression Modeling of Economic Inequity from DAACS compiled Artifacts at Mount Vernon and Little Bay Plantations
Mentor: Khadene Harris, assistant professor of anthropology - Dominick Frost ’26, Increasing Signal Strength in Measurements of State Mixing Through Spin Echo Excitation and Magneto-Optical Trap Upgrades
Mentor: Aaron Reinhard, associate professor of physics - Audrey Gibson ’26, Examining Consequences of Soil Condition on Microorganismal Nitrogen Processes Through Metagenomic Analyses
Mentor: Joan Slonczewski, professor of biology - Vaughn Hajra ’24, A Long-term Statistical Analysis of Injuries in Elite Athletes
Mentor: Brad Hartlaub, professor of mathematics and statistics - James Hart ’24, Neutron Star Equation of State
Mentor: Leslie Wade, associate professor of physics - Isaac Johnson ’24, Histopathology of Liver and Ovary in Xenopus tropicalis Frogs Lacking the Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor
Mentor: Wade Powell, professor of biology - Subin Kim ’26, Identifying a Cotransport that Carries Out an Excretion in Aedes aegypti
Mentor: Matt Rouhier, assistant professor of chemistry
- Sophia Knaysi ’24, Evaluating the Effects of Maternal Stress on Dio2 Expression and Glycogen Storage in the Mouse Placenta
Mentor: Arianna Smith, assistant professor of biology and the Harvey F. Lodish Faculty Development Professor in the Natural Sciences - Sam Kovach ’25, Modeling the Dielectric Function of PdCdTe Using Ellipsometry
Mentor: Frank Peiris, professor of physics - Jolien Kusi ’25, Investigating the Role of Membrane Androgen Signaling in SNB Cell Survival
Mentor: Lauren Rudolph, assistant professor of neuroscience - Adrian Lee ’24, Building an Avian Life History Dataset — The Impact of Life History on Sexual Dimorphism in Flight Muscles
Mentor: Natalie Wright, assistant professor of biology - Issachar Lopez ’25, Identifying Membrane Androgen Receptor Location and Role in Androgen Signaling in the Spinal Nucleus of the Bulbocavernosus
Mentor: Lauren Rudolph, assistant professor of neuroscience - Makarios McCune ’24, Determining Structural and Functional Capabilities of Arabidopsis thaliana HIBDH Mutants
Mentor: Kerry Rouhier, associate professor of chemistry - Amanda Miller ’25, Understanding Local Gravity in Cosmological Processes
Mentor: Tom Giblin, professor of physics - Grace Neuger ’24, Characterization of Aedes aegypti CCC3
Mentor: Chris Gillen, professor of biology - Alyssa Perez ’25, Semiconductor Solids Characterization
Mentor: Katie Mauck, assistant professor of chemistry - Gabriella Pesticci ’25, Finding Coherence of Three-body States with Spin Echoes
Mentor: Aaron Reinhard, associate professor of physics - Reid Pfaltzgraff-Carlson ’26, Modeling Structure Formation in the Early Universe
Mentor: Tom Giblin, professor of physics - Wyatt Phillips ’25, Modeling an Inhomogeneous Universe
Mentor: Tom Giblin, professor of physics - Michelle Polak ’25, Web Portal for Open-source Cloud-controlled Enterprise Wi-Fi Software
Mentor: James Skon, professor of mathematics and computer science - Slaybrina Raphael ’26, Effect of Lipophilic Non-acid Organosulfur Compounds on the Selection of Multidrug Efflux Pumps in Escherichia Coli K-12
Mentor: Joan Slonczewski, professor of biology - Olivia Rataezyk ’24, Sexual Dimorphism in House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) Flight
Mentor: Natalie Wright, assistant professor of biology - Leif Schaumann ’25, Fractal Integer Sequences
Mentor: Judy Holdener, professor of mathematics - Jordan Schisler ’25, Sediment Composition, Characteristics and Mineral Weathering Processes in Supraglacial Ice and Snowbanks, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica
Mentor: Ruth Heindel, the Dorothy & Thomas Jegla Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies - Lucy Shamel ’24, Use of Spin Echo to Measure Decoherence Times of Three-body Entangled States Near Forster Resonance
Mentor: Aaron Reinhard, associate professor of physics - Isabella Strickland ’26, Memory Strategies for Learning American Sign Language
Mentor: Tabitha Payne, associate professor of psychology - Kavya Thaker ’25, Effects of Neuronal Defects in NFU1/NFU-1 Mutants on Chemosensation in a Caenorhabditis elegans Model of MMDS1
Mentor: Peter Kropp, assistant professor of biology - Rachael Tomasko ’25, Scaling Changes in Soil Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Conservation Reserve Program Wetlands across Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan
Mentor: Siobhan Fennessy, professor of biology and the Philip & Sheila Jordan Professor in Environmental Studies - Khue Tran ’25, Monte Carlo Power Studies in the Two-way Layout with Replications and Various Types of Interactions
Mentor: Brad Hartlaub, professor of mathematics and statistics - Michael Van Keuren ’24, Searching for Gravitational Wave Echos
Mentor: Madeline Wade, associate professor of physics - Olivia Westley-Sherman ’25, The World According to Neanderthals
Mentor: Bruce Hardy, professor of anthropology - Ryan Yarcusko ’25, Using Mutagenesis to Predict the Novel Functionality of Aedes aegypti CCC2
Mentor: Chris Gillen, professor of biology
Thomas W. Smith Free Market Societies Scholars
The Thomas W. Smith Free Market Societies Scholars Program provides opportunities for students to explore how markets and market-supporting institutions may shape social life and social outcomes, be used to address pressing social problems, or contribute to greater prosperity, democracy, or human liberty. The program is supported by a grant from the Thomas W. Smith Foundation to the Center for the Study of American Democracy.
- Eliya France ’24, Elections, Policymaking and Economic Development in 19th Century America
Mentor: Keith Harris, postdoctoral fellow in CSAD and history - Ellianne Retzlaff ’25, Gender and Race in Early Banking Institutions: Evidence from the Wilmington Savings Fund Society, 1831-1850
Mentor: Amanda Gibson, postdoctoral fellow in CSAD and history