Category: Making and Creating

Fountain of Truth: Women Artists and Their Perspective on Aging.

Author(s): Silas Fransen

Mentor(s): LaNitra Berger, Department of Art History

Abstract

The project is an art exhibit of women using art to share their experiences with aging. This project was greatly inspired by a paper titled, “Why Are There No Older Women in Heaven?” by Zirka Z.Filipczak. The article discusses an prevalent idea from the Renaissance and Baroque periods that chastity and virtuous women keep youthful appearances longer. This idea manifests and is kept alive through art of women saints being made young again in heaven, unlike their male counterparts. By linking a woman’s virtue to youth and beauty, age and undesirable traits become linked to sin. Older women become representatives of lust and envy. This obsession with youth and aversion of age continues into modern American culture and is kept alive through the beauty industry, Hollywood, social media and so on. The exhibit will display art by women in the NOVA area and will be displayed at the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas. In the art I am looking for a variety of experiences and honest depictions of what it means to age as a woman. The goal for this project is to inspire women to feel more open to talking about their own experiences with aging as well as expose the public to a variety of experiences and conflicting feelings about what it means to age as a woman.

Audio Transcript

I want to begin by thanking the OSCAR Undergraduate Research Program for the opportunity to work on this project. I also would like to thank The Hylton Performing arts center for agreeing to host the exhibit and to all the artists that have submitted their artwork. Lastly I would like to thank my mentor for this project, Dr. Berger for guiding me in this project and helping me in realizing my vision for this project.
The project I have been working on is Fountain of Truth: Women artists and their perspective on aging.
I began my research for this project with the article: “Why Are There No Older Women in Heaven?” by Zirka Z. Filipczak, this article begins by looking through depictions of the Last Judgement in Baroque art and discovering that woman saints were always depicted young, unlike the men saints. She then connects these depictions to the Renaissance, during this time there was a growing belief that a woman who retained her virginity would keep her youthful appearance. For this reason, women saints were consistently depicted as young, to contrast youth and virtue, older women in art became the personification of envy and lust.
Even today, our culture has an obsession with youthful appearances. I have seen ads for preventative botox for people as young as their early 20’s
[Methodology and results]
For this exhibit, I am looking for a variety of experiences and honest depictions of what it means to age as a woman and art that can give insight into how a person’s identity shifts due to age.
[describe results]
Currently I have 5 works of art between three artists. And I am still collecting art submissions until January 9th.
I do not want to announce any of the artists just yet… but In the artworks so far there is an overarching theme of age being something to celebrate. These artists talk about how their identity becomes less externally driven and based more in a thoughtful self reflection after rejecting how they have been told to identify.
Each of these works of art are just so beautiful and so well thought out. It’s been really really wonderful to see how each of these artists are taking my idea at the start and really turning it into their own. It’s been a really wonderful experience.
The exhibit will run for 8 weeks, February 24th to April 11th at the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas. It’s going to be a really wonderful experience, as I just stated and I hope to see you all there! Thank you so much, it’s been a really wonderful semester. Bye!

Making and Creating Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Integrating Flavin Cofactor into Peptide Amphiphiles for Electron Transport

Author(s): Nathan Hernandez

Mentor(s): Lee Solomon, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry

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Abstract

Flavin is a redox cofactor found in many biological systems. Its ability to support electron transfer makes them a valuable tool to study this process in nature. In this project, we are synthesizing an Fmoc-protected flavin amino acid for use in peptide-based model systems that mimic redox-active proteins. This work is part of a broader effort to design an artificial system that isolates the biological properties underlying natural protein functions while being free from the complexity of evolutionarily affected systems. These simplified systems will ultimately help us understand redox behavior in proteins and contribute to the development of next generation bioelectronic materials.

Audio Transcript

Slide 1

Hello everyone. My name is Nathan Hernandez, and I’ll be presenting the integration of Flavin cofactor into peptide amphiphiles for electron transport.

Slide 2

So our original research question was whether or not we could embed the flavin cofactor into peptide amphiphiles to create a synthetic material that supports directional electron transport.

Slide 3

My research question stems from the fact that life relies on electron transport and is seen in processes like cellular respiration and photosynthesis. Throughout these processes, there are proteins that guide electron transport in a very specific manner. They rely on well positioned co-factors like hemes, Flavins, and Quinones.  But the issue with these systems is that they’re super complex and sensitive to environments, and it makes it difficult to isolate and reengineer in controlled environments.

Slide 4

I decided to choose flavin because it’s a cofactor that’s already found in the body and is able to support 2 electron and one electron transfer. It’s an extremely versatile co-factor with predictable redox potential. It’s chemically robust enough to survive acids and solid-state peptide synthetic conditions. And there’s also an existing protocol for synthesizing flavor modified amino acids, which can then later be introduced into peptides.

Slide 5

A peptide amphiphile is a short peptide sequence with a hydrophobic tail. These sequences under basic aqueous conditions form fibers. The really cool part about peptide amphiphiles is that we’re able to modularly design them and change the charges, hydrophobicity, and change the sequencing.  Which means we’re able to place our co factors in specific positions along the peptide. And due to their ability to form fibers, we’re able to control highly ordered structures which allow us to create a potential for directional electron movement.

Slide 6

To synthesize the flavor modified amino acid, we follow synthetic steps set by carrel et al. in 1998. This includes the oxidation of the precursor with potassium, persulfate in an acid to introduce the nitroso intermediate, which is an orange crystal. Highly activated for nucleophilic aromatic substitution.  And the ipso substitution with Boc protected lysine and pyridine for 72 hours. Which yields a deep red product and forms the key carbon nitrogen bond linking flavor, precursor to the amino acid.

Slide 7

The next step is a reduction done by a hydrogenation catalyzed by palladium on carbon to convert the nitro group into an aniline group. Alloxan monohydrate and boric acid are added to cyclolize the isoalloxazine core. This step is crucial and must be done in the dark to avoid photodegradation. This is followed by Fmoc protection. Through the addition of Fmoc OSU, which installs a protecting group that is suitable for solid-state peptide synthesis. The final product is a bright yellow powder, which is the flavin modified amino acid.

Slide 8

After the amino acid is synthesized, we incorporate it into a peptide using our purepep chorus automated peptide synthesizer. Since the flavor monomer is bulky, we use a double coupling cycle to ensure that it is fully incorporated into our peptide. The peptide is then cleaved off the resin and precipitated with cold ether to yield the product.

Slide 9

The crude peptide is then purified through high performance liquid chromatography, and its mass is verified through mass spectrometry.

Slide 10

Our current results are that we’ve been able to synthesize the flavin modified amino acid and verified structure through NMR. We’ve also been able to synthesize crude peptide in high yield. However, we have been unable to fully purify this through high performance liquid chromatography.

Slide 11

Once our peptide is pure, we plan to analyze its structure through atomic force microscopy. This will confirm nano fiber formation, length, height, and bundling of those nanofibers. We will also use conductive atomic force microscopy to analyze the conductive properties of these fibers.

Slide 12

We will use redox Titrations with oxidizing and producing agents to analyze the electrochemical properties of our nano fibers. This will be done through step-wise edition of oxidants and reductants to cycle the flavin between oxidized and reduced states. We will monitor these changes through UV-ViS, spectroscopy, to track the characteristic flavin bands.

Slide 13

This work creates a simplified platform to study electron transport while avoiding the complexity of full proteins. This has potential applications and bioelectronic interfaces, implantable or wearable sensors in the next generation of circuitry.

Making and Creating OSCAR

Machine Learning aided Nanoindentation to Discover Material Properties

Author(s): Jake Samuel

Mentor(s): Ali Beheshti, Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Machine learning has been explored as a method of identifying material properties from the material’s indentation data in a process called inverse analysis. A paper by Lu Lu, et. al examines machine learning techniques that could aid this process by adding a residual connection in a neural network (MFRN) [4]. This work examines how this technique improves inverse analysis for small samples of high fidelity data. The MFRN was compared to gaussian process regression, a multi-fidelity model that is well established. It was found that adding a residual connection lowered error significantly for inverse analysis for smaller samples of data.

Audio Transcript

Hello, my name is Jake Samuel and I’m here to talk about using machine learning aided nano indentation to discover material properties. So first let me get some background. Material property testing can be a long and expensive process. It can be hard to test on materials that may be small, or if you’re using a destructive test on a thin film material, you might not want that. So another way to go about for testing material properties is using nano indentation. So nano indentation is the process of adding a small indent in a material and then you’re measuring the loading and the unloading, the force over depth. And then if we were to know the material’s microstructure and the relationship of that between its properties, we can, we can find the material properties. However, that is a, that can be quite a hard process to do rigorously. So instead, machine learning techniques have been applied to this kind of problem with pretty good success, as machine learning models are able to find patterns which can be, that might not be obvious for humans. So the machine learning model we’re going to be examining in this model is a neural network which is just composed of, as you can see here, some hidden layers which have some kind of activation function. So each of them do a little math, and then you have some number of inputs which all lead to some number of outputs and essentially functions as a black box. And you can train it over very large data sets. But the problem is that if you were to train it on indentation data, an indentation test is also, you know, it’s a test you have to run. It can take a long time to perform. And if you are in the business of data collection, you know that data can become corrupted or you can have bad data really easily, and indentation is no different. If you have a long period of testing for indentation, you are likely to have bad data if the test gets messed up. So there is a paper by Lu lu that examines how certain machine learning techniques can be improved. So an example of this is multi fidelity, where if you have, not a lot of data points, you can supplement it with some, a lot of lower quality data points. For example, for indentation, if you don’t have a lot of experimental data points, you can supplement them with, sorry, you can supplement them with some simulations. And one of the innovations that is described in this paper is adding a residual connection to improve the neural network. So you will see some math here. So I’ll try to explain it really quickly. Multi fidelity uses some kind of linear function and a nonlinear function in combination. To learn both the linear and nonlinear relationships between the high and the low fidelity data. And what Lu lu describes here is this residual connection alpha-L Y-L, which in theory should make it easier to learn from data that might already be connected. So we’re going to compare this to Gaussian process regression which is a popular machine learning algorithm. It has been used since 2001 and multi fidelity models of Gaussian process regression have existed for a long while. So you can, we can call this the standard in multi fidelity machine learning. So in the work I have done is I have compared how I’ve tried to replicate the machine learning model proposed by Lu lu and compared it with traditional Gaussian processing. So here we see on when using simple simulation data. So this is from Fem2D and the high fidelity is Fem3D. In the orange, our multi fidelity model with the residual outperforms our multi fidelity Gaussian processing quite significantly. Now for any of you familiar with machine learning, you might think that the the learning curve is a bit flat. Usually you’ll see a curve similar to a downward slope like here. And the reason for this is because since this is strictly simulation data, it is really easy for a machine learning model to learn it. Think of it as a computer that’s spitting out data would, intuitively it would be easy for a computer to learn from it. And when measuring with mean average percent error, the residual does significantly better. With almost 10% MAPE. The MFGP gets around 90% MAPE. Now doing. Replicating these results on actual experimental data gives us some interesting figures. Here we have again in orange the multi fidelity model with the residual connection. And, and as you can see it does a lot better in lower data set sizes. So up until you get high fidelity data set size of 6, which I think is like 60 or 600, I think it’s 60, 60 high fidelity data points. Our residual connection does a lot better. But it evens out to be about the same. The traditional Gaussian processing regression does do a little bit better at 0.5% MAPE while the residual connection network plateaus at 1% MAPE. So from this we can learn that using a residual connection as proposed by Lu lu seems to hold promise for learning from low size data sets and low fidelity data sets. Now this is important because it could greatly reduce costs and, if you are running into problems with data collection, it is a useful thing to know. And for the future, future work will explore how physical data from indentations. Here we have a mark of an indentation and we can learn the indentation depth and the indentation width from it, how that could potentially relate to material properties such as creep. And this is relevant because this data is a lot less, it gives you a lot less information than if you would do like get data normally from nano-indentation tests. I would like to give a big thank you to Dr. Ali Beheshti and Shaheen Mahmood for supporting me in the lab, for Dr. Karen Lee and the OSCAR program for giving me the opportunity to do my research, and thank you for watching.

Making and Creating OSCAR Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Plasmonic Metal-Infused Laser-Induced Graphene for Enhanced Photodetection

Author(s): Graham Harper

Mentor(s): Pilgyu Kang, GMU Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Laser-Induced Graphene (LIG) is a promising platform for next-generation flexible photodetectors due to its high conductivity, scalability, and low-cost fabrication. However, its optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency remains limited by weak light–matter interaction. In this work, we enhance LIG photodetection performance through the in-situ infusion of plasmonic palladium nanoparticles into the polymer precursor prior to laser carbonization. During laser processing, the nanoparticles become embedded within the porous graphene microstructure, enabling localized electromagnetic field enhancement via surface plasmon resonance. Electrical characterization under UV illumination demonstrates improved resistance modulation and consistent ON/OFF cycling behavior in Pd-infused LIG compared to bare LIG samples. These initial results confirm plasmon-assisted photocarrier generation and highlight an effective, single-step approach to improving responsivity in flexible photodetectors. Future efforts will investigate wavelength-dependent response and additional plasmonic materials such as silver and gold nanoparticles.

Audio Transcript

Hello, my name is Graham Harper from the Mechanical Engineering Department at George Mason University. Today, I’ll be presenting my research about Plasmonic Metal-Infused Laser-Induced Graphene for Enhanced Photodetection.

Photodetectors are critical components in environmental and optical sensing systems. However, many conventional photodetectors are expensive to fabricate and lack flexibility.
Laser-Induced Graphene offers a more scalable and low-cost alternative due to its conductive porous structure and ability to be processed on flexible substrates.
The challenge is improving how efficiently it converts light into a measurable electrical signal.

One promising way to improve photodetection is by taking advantage of surface plasmon resonance.
Metal nanoparticles, such as palladium, can enhance local electromagnetic fields when illuminated, generating more charge carriers in the device.
By infusing metal nanoparticles directly into the polymer before laser conversion, the plasmonic functionality becomes embedded within the graphene structure.
Our hypothesis is that metal infused laser-induced graphene will perform better under illumination than bare laser-induced graphene.

Our objective is to fabricate laser induced graphene using a UV or CO₂ laser, characterize its structure and electrical properties, and measure photodetection performance under illumination.
The main goal is to determine whether palladium-embedded laser induced graphene produces enhanced optical-electrical response.

To create Palladium infused laser-induced graphene, a palladium-doped polymer solution is spin-coated for thickness uniformity. A laser induces carbonization to form conductive graphene that has palladium nanoparticles dispersed throughout.
Electrical contacts are added using silver paste and copper wires.
Samples are tested under a 62 mA UV laser while recording resistance changes as the light switches on and off.

Our results show a clear increase in resistance change under illumination for the Pd-infused samples.
The cycling data demonstrates consistent ON/OFF behavior with strong repeatability, confirming plasmon-assisted photocarrier generation and successful light response.

We successfully created plasmonically enhanced laser-induced graphene, palladium-infused laser-induced graphene showed stronger optical-electrical response, and the fabrication method remains low-cost and scalable.
This demonstrates that plasmonic nanoparticles provide an effective pathway to improve flexible photodetectors.

Future goals include testing silver and gold nanoparticles with stronger plasmonic response, expanding testing to more wavelengths beyond UV, conducting durability and reliability testing, and performing additional structural analysis (Raman, SEM).

Thanks to the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program, Dr. Pilgyu Kang, and the Nanomaterials Lab at GMU for their support.

Making and Creating Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Design and characterization of a de-novo adenine binding protein

Author(s): Amber Middleton

Mentor(s): Lee Solomon, Biochemistry

Abstract

This study explores the de novo design and characterization of a protein engineered to selectively bind adenine; a molecule critical to ATP function, nucleotide recognition, and a wide range of cellular processes [2]. Our objective is to determine whether targeted structural mutations can enhance adenine binding affinity beyond the levels achieved by the original computational model. The designed protein will be expressed via recombinant DNA techniques and purified using Ni-NTA affinity chromatography. Structural and functional characterization will be carried out using a variety of analytical techniques. Those include SDS-PAGE, circular dichroism (CD), fluorescence spectroscopy, surface plasmon resonance (SPR), and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). These methods will evaluate protein purity, secondary structure, and protein-ligand binding behavior. Through this approach we aim to identify key structural determinants that improve adenine specificity, offering new insights into rational protein design and the molecular basis of protein-ligand recognition.

Audio Transcript

My name is Amber Middleton and my project is called the design and characterization of a Doo adding binding protein. Our research question is can specific structure mutations and Danovo designed protein enhanced binding affinity and specificity for adding compared to the original computational design so why adding all nucleotide bases are rigid and aromatic, but addinine has a hydrogen bon or donor arrangement that is unique and specific um for selective and specific binding to proteins so it’s better suited for binding when interacted with ATP. The mutations that we made are from Alline to Isosine Alline to veailinging to 3ine and glycine to searin all these mutations were done by a regent PhD student Robert Spain for our methods, we had to express the protein purify it check the purity check the secondary structure and do a series of binding assets. The first thing is the expression of the proteins and recombinent DNA techniques, TB Media, LB Media, and inoculation overnight then we move on to NINTA chomatography to purify your protein where you’ll put your protein down into the column. It’ll run through. You’ll rise it with binding buffer samples and then you’ll rinse it with mixtures of binding buffer and ausion buffer samples and then you’ll collect each of those for analysis separately you then check the purity via SDS page so you’ll take those samples that you collected from the column, put them in run them at 180 V and they will separate by mass ideally, the thicker or darker the bands they hire their protein concentration. You’ll take the thickest ones, darkest ones, and do dialysis to remove all small salts and then we’ll move on a circulularichroism to check the secondary structure for for alpha helix proteins. You’ll see two negative peaks one at 208 n and one at 222 n which we do see in both of the pictures to the right the top being the wild type and the bottom being the mutant we then moved on to our first binding assay, which is surface plasma residence. We were only able to do a negative control with the wild type in adding proving that adding does not bind to the wild type. We then moved to our second binding assay fluorescence, and isodropy. This measures molecular interacts by detecting changes in fluorescent molecules, rotations so the faster the tumbling, the less binding that’s happening and the slower the tumbling, the more binding that is happening. This is some of our results from the first few anisropy experiments as you can see in yellow these are a little bit weird values. They imply that they’ protein technal gives more of a signal than protein addinine does, which essentially means that addingine quitching the protein signal or other things such as G-factor issues are going wrong our values are specific are expected to be between zero and 0.4 for anisatropy, but that’s not what we see in the highlighted so because of this, we wanted to move on to isothermal titration calorimetry, which measures heat released or absorbed, and these are the results that followed that on the left we have a IC thermogram of Valerab into the wild type AT&D, which is our positive controls and we were able to see that there is decreasing exothermic peaks, which proves that there was um functional liggin interaction and binding with the wild type protein, but on the right we have a ITC thermogram of adding with AT&D mutant, which looks nothing like the one on the left showing that there were only small producible changes in heat changes and there was no binding happening so our conclusions and future directions again we were able to purify and express our proteins and get up for alpha helix bundle, but upon doing finding assays, we were able to determine that addine and our mutant do not bond to each other so we have to go back to insilical design to re-engineer the binding pocket for addinine recognition using structural modeling and computational design followed by the validation CDEFSPRNITC and we aim to create a new mutant capable of selectively binding addine and this will help our understanding of targeted mutations to shape Lan specificity and enobble protein scaffolds

Making and Creating OSCAR

Collaboration and Community: The Rise of Collective Creativity in Contemporary Christian Music since 2020

Author(s): Evan Sites

Mentor(s): Jesse Guessford, OSCAR

Abstract

For the research portion of my capstone project, I will examined the noticeable increase in collaboration among Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) artists since 2020. The CCM industry has long thrived on collaboration, but in the years following 2020, the practice has grown in both frequency and visibility. Several factors, including the rise of digital distribution, the influence of streaming platforms, and changes in worship culture accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have contributed to this growth. By studying these developments, I aim to gain a deeper understanding of how collaboration serves as both an artistic and strategic tool for CCM artists and its impact on the CCM industry as a whole.

Audio Transcript

0:01
Hi, my name is Evan Sites and I am a
0:05
senior here at George Mason University.
0:09
I am currently pursuing a degree in
0:12
music technology as well as minoring in
0:15
business.
0:17
For my capstone project this semester,
0:20
the research portion specifically,
0:23
I decided to look at the Christian
0:28
contemporary music industry.
0:32
Reason being is because that is a field
0:36
of
0:38
um music that I’m very passionate about
0:40
and that I enjoy
0:44
doing as well as listening to.
0:49
What I researched this semester was the
0:52
noticeable increase in collaboration
0:55
among CCM artists since 2020.
1:00
Now, the CCM industry has long thrived
1:03
on collaboration, but I believe that the
1:08
practice has grown in both frequency and
1:11
visibility.
1:13
I believe that three things contributed
1:16
to this increase of collaboration that
1:19
we see today. Number one, the rise of
1:22
digital distribution. Number two,
1:25
increased use of streaming platforms.
1:28
Number three, worship culture changes
1:31
accelerated by the CO 19 pandemic.
1:35
I believe that I have gained a deeper
1:37
understanding of how collaboration
1:39
serves as an artistic and strategic tool
1:43
for CCM artists as well as the CCM
1:46
industry as a whole.
1:50
For this research project, I
1:52
specifically looked at four different
1:54
case studies. I looked at um a album
1:59
that Maverick City Music came out with
2:01
um a couple years ago and this album it
2:05
just represents um inclusivity,
2:08
innovation and community within the
2:09
worship um industry.
2:14
Another case study that I looked at was
2:16
a song called The Blessing. And this
2:19
song is an example of what
2:24
a researcher said in his book regarding
2:27
how digital technology has reshaped
2:30
music making in the Christian context.
2:35
The third case study I looked at was an
2:38
album by Elevation Worship and Maverick
2:41
City Music called Old Church Basement.
2:44
This album achieved massive commercial
2:46
and spiritual success. According to the
2:49
Gospel Music Association, Old Church
2:51
Basement set a new world worldwide
2:55
record for the most first day streams
2:58
for a Christian and gospel album on
3:00
Apple Music. It also won multiple
3:03
Grammys that year. The last case study I
3:07
looked at was an album by Chris Tommen
3:09
entitled Chris Tomlin and Friends. This
3:12
was a cross genre collaboration album.
3:15
It features
3:17
um multiple artists from the pop scene
3:21
as well as some country artists. Um this
3:26
album is an example of what Emma Madden
3:29
highlights in her article uh published
3:33
by NPR that highlights the recent
3:36
collaboration between CCM artists and
3:38
secular pop artists. and she frames
3:42
these partnerships as signs of the
3:45
genre’s evolving cultural position.
3:50
The broader implications of this study
3:52
show that collaboration serves as both
3:54
an artistic and strategic tool for um
3:59
CCM artists.
4:01
I foresee that digital collaboration is
4:04
going to be the new model for creative
4:06
ministries based off of the research
4:09
that I read. um during this semester.
4:13
In conclusion,
4:15
since 2020, collaboration has become a
4:18
defining force in the Christian
4:19
contemporary music scene.
4:22
It unites artists and audiences through
4:25
shared faith and creativity.
4:29
Digital platforms have defined worship
4:32
as both um something in the local and
4:35
global context. And the future of CCM
4:40
lies in community-based creativity.
4:43
Thank you.

College of Engineering and Computing College of Humanities and Social Science Honors College Making and Creating OSCAR Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR Winners

A Robotic Cat for Examining Camera Clarity and Privacy in Human–Robot Interaction

Author(s): Alexia De Costa

Mentor(s): Eileen Roesler, Department of Psychology

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Abstract

This project presents the Bioinspired Automated Robotic Cat (BARC), a functional companion robot designed to support research in human–robot interaction and privacy-aware design. BARC features camera-based facial detection, expressive gaze behaviors, audio responses, and various soft and rigid materials to mimic a household cat. Because camera systems can enhance interaction while raising privacy concerns, the ongoing study compares peoples’ responses under two conditions: a clear, high-quality camera filter and a blurred, low-clarity camera filter. Using surveys and observation of touch behavior, the study examines how camera clarity shapes engagement and perceived privacy, informing the design of social robots that are effective while respecting user comfort.

Audio Transcript

Have you ever wondered what a robot actually sees when it looks at you?
Today, social and service robots are becoming increasingly common, and many rely on cameras for facial recognition and user engagement. But as useful as cameras are, they also raise important questions: Do they make people feel watched? Can a robot feel friendly while still respecting privacy?

These questions lie at a key intersection in human–robot interaction, that robots need perception to understand us, yet high-resolution sensing can make people uncomfortable. So I wanted to explore a central challenge: can we reduce privacy concerns without making interactions less enjoyable? And does being transparent about what a robot sees change how people feel?

To investigate this, I designed and built a robot cat from scratch called BARC, the Bioinspired Automated Robotic Cat. BARC is part engineering platform and part research tool. It can switch between two controlled camera conditions: a clear, high-quality camera filter and a blurred, low-clarity filter that still allows for partial facial detection. These interchangeable physical filters let me directly compare how different levels of sensing clarity influence interaction.

BARC is also designed to feel expressive and lifelike. It uses camera-based facial detection for gaze behavior, animated OLED eyes, a speaker for cat-like sounds, and soft and rigid materials that mimic the look and feel of a household cat. Through surveys and observations of touch behavior, my ongoing study explores how these two camera conditions shape user engagement and perceived privacy.

To create BARC, I began with feline anatomical references, studying limb placement, joint spacing, and overall proportions, to inspire the CAD model for the chassis. I laser-cut the acrylic components and assembled them using screws and tab-and-slot joints for a sturdy, lightweight frame.

At the heart of the robot is a Raspberry Pi 4, which handles perception and behavioral control.

A camera provides the main sensory input for facial detection.

Two OLED displays animate expressive eyes that track the user once a face is detected, giving the illusion of attention and social presence.

A speaker and amplifier generate a range of cat sounds, from meows to purrs to alarmed yowls.

An accelerometer-gyroscope detects movement, such as being picked up or shaken, so BARC can respond appropriately.

Servos are controlled by a PCA9685 driver, animate the limbs, jaw, head, and tail.

All behaviors are programmed in Python and organized in a state machine with modes such as Idle, Seeking Attention, Interacting, and Startled. BARC transitions between these states based on sensory input and probability, helping interactions feel natural rather than scripted.

To examine how camera clarity influences engagement and privacy perceptions, BARC serves as a fully capable research platform. Seventy-two participants are currently part of a single-blind study with two groups:

Group 1: interacts with BARC using a clear camera filter

Group 2: interacts with BARC using a blurred, privacy-preserving filter

The physical filter is noticeable, so using filters in both groups keeps the robot visually consistent. That way, any differences we see are truly due to what the robot can or can’t perceive.

Participants interact with BARC, complete a survey measuring constructs such as Perceived Sociability and Perceived Enjoyment, and then are shown a live camera feed so they can see the actual resolution of the robot’s vision. Afterward, they complete a second survey measuring perceived privacy, perceived surveillance, disturbance, and attitudes about robots.

The hypotheses are:
1: No difference in sociability, enjoyment, or touch behavior.
2: The filtered-camera group will report higher perceived privacy.
3: The clear-camera group will report higher perceived surveillance.

This interdisciplinary project connects mechanical engineering, psychology, and human-robot interaction to better understand how people perceive robotic sensing. BARC’s expressiveness, biological inspiration, and controlled camera conditions make it a powerful research platform.

By comparing clear versus filtered camera views, this research explores whether privacy concerns come from what the robot actually sees, or what users believe it sees. Ultimately, the goal is to guide the design of future social robots that remain engaging and respectful of user’s privacy

Special thanks to Dr. Eileen Roesler (Psychology) and Dr. Daigo Shishika (Mechanical Engineering) for their invaluable mentorship. Thank you to Katya Schafer for assistance with data collection, and to Dr. Karen Lee and OSCAR for their support and funding, which made this project possible.

Thank you!

College of Engineering and Computing Making and Creating OSCAR Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Laser-Induced Graphene–Nanoparticle Platforms for Plasmonic Enhanced Photosensing

Author(s): Ali Kabli

Mentor(s): Pilgyu Kang, Mechanical Engineering

H

Abstract

This project explores the potential for enhancing the performance of Laser-Induced Graphene (LIG) using metallic nanoparticles (NPs) as a platform for fabricating photosensors with enhanced sensitivity. The main question being addressed is can a Laser-Induced Graphene–Palladium nanoparticle (LIG-PdNP) nanocomposite enhance sensor sensitivity through plasmonic and interfacial effects? Research has been conducted in the past regarding the use of LIG as the functional material in a photosensor, and the rationalization behind using these metallic NPs in a nanocomposite material is to improve the sensitivity of the sensor by improving the photoresponsivity. This is due to the introduction of plasmonic effects from the NPs, which allows for the photocurrent to flow more efficiently. The main novelty behind this particular project’s approach lies in the synthesis of the nanocomposite, where classic means would have the NPs deposited on the LIG surface creating point contacts. The synthesis technique being explored here involved a one-step synthesis via precursors and a polymer substrate, which creates a “seamless interface” between the components of the functional material. This interface allows for the electrons to flow freely between the LIG and NPs, enhancing the photoresponsivity of the device. Two devices were compared, one with 0wt% of PdNPs, and another with 30wt% PdNPs in order to observe any improvements in the performance of the devices when hit with a blue laser (448.2nm wavelength). Future research regarding this project includes using NPs with higher plasmonic effects such as gold or silver, as well as refining the geometric footprint and patter of the sensor itself to increase performance further.

Audio Transcript

Hello everyone, my name is Ali Kabli and today I’m going to present to you my undergraduate research project, Laser Induced Graphene Nanoparticle Platforms for Plasmonic Enhanced Photosensing. This project was advised by Dr. Pilgyu Kang from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

So to give a brief background and introduction, past research has been done by Dr. Kang and his group, utilizing laser-induced graphene, or LIG, as a sensing element in photosensors. Now, these sensors operate based on the premise of photosensitivity. You basically shine a laser of some known wavelength at the sensor, which will induce some photocurrent. The change in photocurrent can be observed and used for sensing purposes. We want to improve the sensitivity of these devices by introducing metallic nanoparticles, or NPs, to increase the plasmonic effects and photoresponsivity of these devices. Now, for the purposes of this project, the specific nanoparticles that were used were palladium. However, any metal that has known plasmonic effects can be used.

For the purposes of this presentation, or project, we proposed a novel nanocomposite synthesis technique, which resulted in a seamless interface between the LIG and the nanoparticles. Traditional methods would have you deposit these nanoparticles on the surface of the LIG, or whatever substrate you’re using, which results in a point contact between the particles and the bulk surface. The downside to this is the fact that that point contact doesn’t allow for the most efficient flow of electrons. However, through a one-step synthesis technique using precursors and polymer substrate, we are able to integrate these nanoparticles within the surface of the laser-induced graphene itself, allowing the electrons to flow seamlessly.

So, the main question that we were answering with this research project was, can a laser-induced graphene palladium nanoparticle nanocomposite enhance sensor sensitivity through plasmonic and interfacial effects? The plasmonic effects, once again, coming from the fact that we’re using these metallic nanoparticles, and the interfacial effects coming from the seamless interface through our unique synthesis technique.

The methods and procedure for this project involved the actual synthesis of our nanocomposite using the one-step technique. Then we would fabricate the photosensor device using the synthesized nanocomposite. It should be mentioned that the scale of this sensor was 500 millimeters by 500 milliliters, which is actually quite large given the nanoscale. It’s very, very large. So that may have resulted in the data being slightly skewed, which is an improvement that we will go over at the end of this presentation. Then we collected optical data regarding the photoresponsivity of the device by hooking it up to an optical testing apparatus where we would shine a laser on and off at known intervals. The laser’s wavelength was known for the purposes of this project. We were using a blue laser, 448.2 nanometers of wavelength, and we would plot the resulting photocurrent as a function of time. The long-term goals of this project are to one day harness these nanocomposites as a platform for plasmonically enhanced PEC or photoelectrochemical gas sensors.

Now here’s just a brief snapshot of the results. We see on the left side a comparison between the photocurrent resulting from a 30 weight percent nanoparticle nanocomposite and on the right side we have the photocurrent resulting from just pure LIG. As you can see the scale on the left side is in microamps, and the scale on the right side is in nanoamps, which means that we were able to show a drastic improvement, three orders of magnitude to be exact.

In conclusion, the experiment was a huge success in proving that plasmonic effects could enhance the sensitivity of these devices. However, more work is still needed in the future. We can refine the geometry and footprint of the sensor itself so that it’s a lot smaller than 500 by 500 millimeters. We can also test other nanoparticles with known greater plasmonic effects, such as gold or silver. And we can also play around with different laser parameters, focusing the laser’s beam more, increasing the wavelength, etc.

Some acknowledgements. Of course, my advisor, Dr. Pilgyu Kang, Graham Harper, who aided in data collection on this project, and Philip Acatrinei, for being an indispensable help in data collection and in setting up the experiment itself. He actually programmed the software that we were using to collect the data. So without him, this project would not have been possible. Thank you.

Making and Creating Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Tuning the Photoelectrochemical Properties of ReS₂ via van der Waals Heterostructures

Author(s): Linke Xu

Mentor(s): Yun Yu, chemistry and biochemistry department

Abstract

Rhenium disulfide (ReS₂) is a unique Transition Metal Dichalcogenide (TMD) known for its structural asymmetry, which dictates an intrinsic optical and electronic anisotropy. We investigated the influence of doping environment on this anisotropy. While intrinsic ReS₂ exhibits ideal anisotropic behavior, we found that p-type doping causes the angle-dependent properties to vanish. By engineering a van der Waals heterostructure and utilizing charge transfer doping from an ITO substrate, we successfully controlled and restored the material’s anisotropy. Our results demonstrate that the mechanism of photoelectrochemical response in ReS₂ is fundamentally coupled to the Fermi level position, allowing for rational design of specific-use optoelectronic devices.

Audio Transcript

Hello everyone, my name is Linke Xu, and today I am presenting my project,
“Tuning the Photoelectrochemical Properties of ReS₂ via van der Waals Heterostructures.” This work was completed in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at George Mason University.
ReS₂ is a fascinating two-dimensional material because its distorted lattice creates strong in-plane anisotropy—meaning its photoresponse depends on the angle of incoming light.
When I began this project, my goal was to explore whether light polarization could be used to influence photoelectrochemical reactions on ReS₂, especially hydrogen evolution. 53However, very early in the process we observed something surprising: the anisotropy did not behave consistently. Instead, it changed depending on the doping environment of the material.
This unexpected behavior prompted us to investigate a more fundamental question: What actually determines anisotropy in ReS₂—its crystal structure, or the electronic occupation of its band-edge states?
Based on these early observations, we hypothesized that anisotropy requires electrons in the Re d-orbital band-edge states. If the material become mes p-doped and those states are empty, the directional response should disappear. But if we raise the Fermi level again through charge-transfer doping, anisotropy should return.
1.56To test this idea, we exfoliated ReS₂ nanosheets onto two different types of substrates. Placing the flake directly on ITO induces n-doping, while transferring it onto a graphene/hBN stack isolates the flake and makes it p-type.
We then measured photoelectrochemical current and used scanning electrochemical cell microscopy, or SECCM under polarized illumination to map photocurrent anisotropy with spatial resolution.
Our results revealed a clear and consistent trend.
2.43First, when ReS₂ was n-doped on ITO, we observed strong anisotropy. Both the absorption and photocurrent showed the expected sinusoidal angle dependence, confirming that directional excitation was present.
3.01Second, when the same flake was placed onto the graphene/hBN heterostructure and became p-doped, the anisotropy almost completely disappeared. The photocurrent became nearly circular, indicating that the response no longer depended on angle.
3.22Finally, when we returned the flake to ITO, charge-transfer doping raised the Fermi level again—and the anisotropy reappeared.
3.34Because the crystal structure never changed, this reversible switching demonstrates that anisotropy is controlled electronically rather than purely structurally.
Overall, our findings show that the anisotropy of ReS₂ is not a fixed property of its lattice. Instead, it depends on whether the directional Re d-orbital band-edge states are occupied. By adjusting the doping environment, we can effectively turn anisotropy on and off, offering a simple and powerful strategy for designing polarization-dependent optoelectronic and photoelectrochemical systems.
4.25I would like to thank the OSCAR Undergraduate Research Scholars Program, my mentor Dr. Yu, my research partner Anna, and all members of our lab for their support throughout this project.
Thank you for listening.

College of Humanities and Social Science Making and Creating OSCAR

Translating María Zambrano’s The Tomb of Antigone

Author(s): Grace Wood

Mentor(s): Ricardo Vivancos-Pérez, Foreign Languages

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Abstract

Abstract
This project endeavors to create the first complete English translation of María Zambrano’s play The Tomb of Antigone (La tumba de Antígona, 1967). In this play-essay hybrid, Zambrano opens a philosophical dialog with Sophocles to offer a new interpretation of his Greek tragedy while illustrating her own experiences and ideas surrounding the Spanish Civil War. Using her philosophical construct of delirium, Zambrano creates Antigone’s stream of consciousness as she comes to her end. As the text demonstrates originality in its interweaving of genres to discuss the issues of Zambrano’s time, a translation of this work would foster new interpretations and discussions about Zambrano and Spanish culture with English speaking scholars in both the philosophical and literary disciplines.
To achieve this end, the mentor and student consulted various texts to understand the cultural, historical, and literary traditions of Spain during the time Zambrano was writing as well as the author herself, which led to the translation of the play’s prologue. The twelve-part play was then split into four sections that will be translated in two-week increments after which the mentor and student will convene to discuss the draft. Once the rough draft is complete, both the student and mentor will review and revise to create a more polished version. This project will result in a polished draft of the translation that will be sent to the María Zambrano Foundation in Vélez-Málaga to obtain permission to seek an academic publisher.

Audio Transcript

Have you ever walked into a bookstore and picked up a book and seen not one, but two sets of authors on the cover? The second set usually belongs to a group of people called literary translators. These men and women have taken up the extraordinary task of translating great works by Cervantes, Dante, and Tolstoy into English so that readers like you and I get a chance to enjoy their work. Hi, my name is Grace Wood, and in this video, I am going to show you my first attempt at trying to join these great men and women to become a literary translator. During my study abroad experience in Granada, Spain, I became familiar with the work of one Maria Zambrano, a famous 20th century Spanish philosopher and writer. Upon returning to the United States, I realized that much of this writer’s work has not been translated into English, thus barring scholars and the public from getting to enjoy her work. After doing some research and consulting with a faculty mentor, my independent study and URSP project was born. Over the course of an academic year, I endeavored to create the first complete English translation of Maria Zambrano’s play, The Tomb of Antigone, or La Tumba de Antígona, in Spanish, with the help of my mentor, Dr. Ricardo Vivancos-Pérez.
In this play-essay hybrid, Zambrano opens a philosophical dialogue with Sophocles to offer a new interpretation of his Greek tragedy, while illustrating her own experiences and ideas surrounding the Spanish Civil War. Sophocles’ original play tells the story of a young girl who wants to obtain burial rites for her brother who fought on the wrong side of the war. When her request is refused, she attempts to bury him on her own and is sealed into a tomb alive as punishment for being caught. Instead of Antigone committing suicide in the tomb like Sophocles intended, Zambrano instead uses her philosophical construct of delirium to create Antigone’s stream of consciousness as she waits for death. Antigone’s musings on life, death, faith, and brotherhood shed light on Zambrano’s own thoughts about the divided brotherhood surrounding the Spanish Civil War. As the text demonstrates originality and its interweaving of genres to discuss the issues of Zambrano’s time, a translation of this work would foster new interpretations and discussions about Zambrano in Spanish culture with English-speaking scholars in both the philosophical and literary disciplines.
So how do you go about translating a play? Well, first, I had to get the lay of the land to understand what Zambrano was thinking at the time she was writing the play. Starting in spring 2025, I consulted various texts gathered by my mentor to help me understand the cultural, historical, and literary traditions of Spain in the 20th century, as well as biographical and autobiographical works on the author herself. As both a fiction writer and a Spanish speaker, I had to understand her writing style, as well as her message and intentions in order to create the most faithful version of the play possible. At the end of the spring semester, I successfully translated the play’s 15-page prologue, which provides the context necessary to understand the play itself.
During this semester, we split the 12-part play into four sections with 3 parts each. I would translate one section every two weeks, after which I would meet up with Dr. Vivancos-Pérez to discuss the draft. In these meetings, we would discuss where I had not quite grasped some of the more archaic or literary Spanish being used and also work through passages I had trouble translating on my own. At the end of November, I successfully translated the entire play, resulting in a 75-page draft. Looking forward, my mentor and I will review and revise the draft to create a more polished version, which will be sent to the Maria Zembrano Foundation in Veles Malaga to obtain permission to seek an academic publisher, as they hold the copyright to her work. Once this text is published, English speakers around the world will be able to engage with this dramatic text and promote interdisciplinary discussions about Spanish culture through her work. Authors deserve to have their voices heard, especially in countries that don’t speak their native language. In time, I hope that Maria Zambrano will be the first of many authors I can give voice to in the English-speaking community. Thank you.

College of Visual and Performing Arts Honors College Making and Creating Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) - OSCAR

Senior Thesis Short Film – Misafir

Author(s): Selma Veli

Mentor(s): Amanda Kraus, Collage of Virtual and Performing Arts

Abstract

This short film, Misafir, which translates to The Guest in English, is a mix of fantasy and drama set inside a Turkish household. The main character, Deren, invites her grandfather to her birthday celebration, unaware of the years of conflict between him and her mother. As Deren tries to uncover the truth behind their silence, an uninvited, mysterious guest appears. Her name is Kat, a cat-human who knows the family as if she holds it in the palm of her hand. And her presence stirs the tension in unsettling ways.
Misafir explores how, in uncommunicative families, the younger generation often feels displaced and even responsible for being the bridge or to pick a side. Many families carry silences and unresolved conflicts across generations, and this story shows how one small act of communication can open the door to healing.

Audio Transcript

Hi, my name is Selma Veli and I’m a film and video studies major concentrating in directing. For my senior thesis, I created a 10-minute short film supported by the Oscar research funds. With this support, I assembled a 25 person crew from George Mason University and cast seven Turkish speaking actors from New York. This short film, Misafir, which translates to “the guest” from Turkish to English, is a mix of fantasy and drama that takes place in a Turkish household. My main character, Deren, invites her grandfather to her birthday party, unaware of the conflict between him and her mother. As Deren tries to uncover the truth behind their silence, a mysterious guest appears. Her name is Kat, a cat humanlike creature that walks in the house and acts like she knows the family, but no one knows who she is or what she is and who even invited her. Misafir explores how in incommunicating families, younger generations often feel like they have to be the bridge between older generations or that they have to pick a side. And this story shows how one small act of communication can start the process of healing. One of the biggest challenges we faced was casting as it was really hard to find Turkish speaking actors, especially in the DMV area. My story was always in Turkish, but I was flexible to make it in English, but I knew it wasn’t going to be a true representation. We looked around in the DMV area. I asked friends and families, but one, no one really wanted to be in it. Second, they didn’t have the skills to be acting. So after receiving the funds, I was able to search beyond the DMV area and I found a bunch of beautiful actors in New York. But since this was a student film and I couldn’t offer payment, accommodation, their travel and stay was essential. So the funds really played a big role on helping me cover those. I also was able to achieve the look that I really wanted for the film. A lot of the props in the house or production design costume was also covered by the fund. The character cat had special props that she required. For example, her wig, her nails, her makeup, and her eye contact were some of the ways I was benefited by the Oscar found. On the production day, I’m 100% sure that our hospitality really satisfied our actors and bringed out the best performance out of them. Some of them were professional actors in the industry and they even came up to us and told us how professional and organized we were even though we’re just a student crew. Overall, the Oscar founding really made this film be a very professional, authentic, and pretty film that I’m very satisfied with. So, thank you for everyone who supported us and thank you Oscar for funding me.

College of Engineering and Computing Making and Creating

Controlled Syringe Pump Extrusion to Create Hydrogel Gradients

Author(s): Elizabeth Clark

Mentor(s): Remi Veneziano, Bioengineering

Abstract

The primary objective of this project is to build upon my previous research where I developed a method to create hydrogel gradients. Hydrogels are comprised of polymer(s) suspended in water. A gradient is the change from one concentration of to another. I used 10% gelatin weight ratio to deionized water mixed with dye. The gelatin was heated and stirred until dissolved and then was split into two portions and dyed two different colors and then placed into syringes while at around 45 degrees. By using a specialized nozzle, I could feed two syringes into one nozzle that has a static mixer at the tip to ensure the gelatin was evenly mixed. Gelatin is a liquid at higher temps (40-50 degrees C) and sets at lower temperatures so the gradients were extruded on a chilled metal plate so the gelatin would set almost immediately. Depending on how fast one syringe extruded versus the other I could change the color and even mix them. After creating several gradients by hand I utilized a syringe pump to have even extrusion rates. The syringe pump was utilized by alternating which pump was extruding so a colleague had to move the plate. This has applications in bioprinters and rather than having somebody move the plate manually the bioprinter will move the plate or the extruder. These results build on the potential of bioprinting gradients for use in bioprinters in regenerative medicine and other bioengineering applications.

Audio Transcript

Hello, my name is Elizabeth Clark and I’m a bioengineering student and my research project was built up on my previous research project which is creating hydrogen gradient as many cellular functions and processes utilize gradient in the human body.

So for keywords and background, hydrogels are comprises a polymers in water a gradient is the change of concentration so in this case in a line and will be represented by the changing color. Gelatin is the hydrogel I used. I use the 10% concentration so 10 mL of water I would use 1 g of gelatin and a syringe pump is the tool that I use that allows for the extrusion rate and you can program different extrusion rates.

So this slide just shows briefly the set up I used in my previous research project and I modified it slightly for the gelatin. Two syringes are being fed into a custom static mixer and extruded by hand. I only did this a few times just to ensure that a different hydrogel would work. Gelatin is a liquid at warmer temperatures so around 40 to 50°C and when placed on a cooler surface, in this case of metal plate that is chilled, it would sit almost immediately set.
I have with the syringe pump and it will alter the color by which one is extruded.

Here’s a video of that. When I wanted to change the color I would just pause one syringe pump and start to extrude on the other and then flip it. And as you can see on the right is the gradient that was just created from the video

Special thanks to Oscar for funding this project as well as my mentor Dr. Remi Veneziano, as well as the other people listed. Thank you.