Fulton Conference 2018: Giving back scholastically

For 14 years, students from the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences have had the opportunity to perform insightful research alongside faculty mentors at the Fulton Mentored Student Research Conference. This not only gives students the chance to vastly expand their research skills, experience preparing and presenting a scholarly poster, and add a notable research project to their resume, it allows them to personally contribute to scholarship in their field of interest.

The Mentored Student Research Conference is hosted by the Mary Lou Fulton Endowed Chair. Mary Lou Fulton had a passion for educating and elevating student aspirations and through this conference, students are able to achieve the skills and experiences to do so.

At this year’s conference, 250 posters were presented by 542 students who researched topics ranging from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics to how parents teach teenagers about romantic relationships. Prizes were awarded to students from each department as well as from the Redd Center, the Office of Civic Engagement, and the Gerontology department.

Congratulations to the poster winners and to all the students and faculty who participated!

Undergraduate

Anthropology

1st place: A Closer Look at Nabataean Burials
Student: Anna Nielson
Faculty Mentor: David Johnson

2nd place: Converting Gendered Expectations: Emerging Feminist Discourse among Protestant and Seventh-day Adventist Hmong
Student: Stephanie Parsons
Faculty Mentor: Jacob Hickman

3st place: Fremont Jewelry as Signs of Gender: A Comparison of Fremont Depictions of Ornamentation
Student: Jaron Davidson
Faculty Mentor: John Clark

Economics

1st place: Are Trains Worth the Cost?
Students: Mitchell Anderson and Joshua Kunzler
Faculty Mentor: Michael Ransom

2nd place: The Long-Run Effects of Dustbowl Migration
Student: Julie Hollenbaugh
Faculty Mentor: Joe Price

Geography

1st place: The Quintessential Mormon Landscape
Students: Seth Smith and Philip Morgan
Faculty Mentor: Sam Otterstrom

History

1st place: Praise and Prejudice: American Attitudes Toward Japan in Uncle Ben
Students: Anna Nielsen, Rachel Baron and Emily Orton
Faculty Mentor: Aaron Skabelund

Neuroscience

1st place: Beating Clusters Created with Cardiac Extracellular Matrix from Decellularized Pig Hearts and Repopulated with Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived Dardiomyocytes
Students: Sebastian Valencia, Clayton Holding, Rane Eskelen, Silvia Moncada, Bandon Driggs, Matthew Trone and Beverly Roeder
Faculty Mentor: Alonzo Cook

2nd place: Ethanol-mediated Inhibition of Ventral Tegmental Area GABAergic Neurons and Involvement of Connexin-36 Mediated Electrical Coupling
Students: James Brundage, Jake Lattin, Davis Rutter, Stephanie Williams, Daniel Obray and Jordan Yorgason
Faculty Mentor: Scott Steffensen

Political Science

1st place: Voter ID Laws & Turnout: The Effect (Or Lack Thereof) of Voter ID Laws on Election Turnout in the U.S.
Students: Mandi Eatough, Alessandra Carbajal, Brittany Bair and Nichole Keddington
Faculty Mentor: John Holbein

2nd place: Rethinking Transitional Justice: A Comparative Analysis of Women, Grassroots Involvement, and Truth Commissions
Students: Eliza Riley and Nathan Hogan
Faculty Mentor: Natalie Romeri-Lewis and Jessica Preece

3rd place: Improving the Bureaucracy: What Leads Government Officials to Use Evidence-Based Research?
Student: Nicholas Moffitt
Faculty Mentor: Darren Hawkins

Psychology

1st place: Destined to Dominate? The Link between Prenatal Androgens and Dominance Rank in Rhesus Monkeys
Students: Parker Jarman, Elizabeth Passey-Wood and Alexander Baxter
Faculty Mentor: Dee Higley

2nd place: First Mile Performance as a Mediator Between Anxiety and Overall Performance in Half-Marathon Runners
Student: Braden Tanner
Faculty Mentor: Ben Ogles

3rd place: Frienemies! Neural Indices of Feedback from Ambivalent and Supportive Friends
Student: Whitney Allen
Faculty Mentor: Michael Larson

Honorable Mention: Sleep Onset Latency and Discrepancy in Younger Adults
Student: Spencer Henry
Faculty Mentor: Daniel Kay

School of Family Life

1st place: Romantic-Specific Parenting: Shaping Future Romantic Relationship Quality in Adolescents
Student: McKenzi Prawitt
Faculty Mentors: Adam Rogers

2nd place: What Mama Don’t Know, Might Hurt Her: A Look at Parental Media Monitoring, Child Media Disclosure/Secrets, & Prosocial Behavior
Student: Sara Stinnett
Faculty Mentor: Laura Walker

3rd place: Fathers Be Good to Your Daughters and Sons
Student: Amanda Young Clavell
Faculty Mentor: Alex Jensen

Honorable Mention: Let’s Talk About Sex: Religion and the Sexual Debut
Students: Sara Griffes and Anasteece Smith
Faculty Mentor: Brian Willoughby

Sociology

1st place: Late-Life Parental Divorce and Young Adult Mental Health
Student: Alex Wambaugh
Faculty Mentor: Mikaela Dufur

2nd place: Understanding Biracial Women’s Identity Formation
Student: Tinesha Zandamela
Faculty Mentor: Carol Ward

3rd place: Are Oldest Children at Higher Risk of Depression?
Student: Elizabeth Pulshipher
Faculty Mentor: Mikaela Dufur