AU's Research Day presents a wide range of topics

Adelphi University held its Tenth Annual Research Conference with projects ranging in subject from A to Z – covering trending topics like Autism and Zombies. This annual conference offers the opportunity for students and their faculty advisors to display their scholarship and to inspire ongoing research explorations. All disciplines within the University were invited to submit projects.

“Conference submissions are diverse and the various disciplines shared by the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences are well represented. Indeed, this reflects Adelphi’s flourishing academic environment, in which students and faculty are actively engaged in the process of asking novel questions, searching for methods to answer them and enduring the ambiguity inherent in this complex undertaking,” agreed conference co-chairs Katherine Fiori, Ph.D., Assistant Professor from the Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies and Christopher Storm, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.

One of the winning projects included the common query – does money buy happiness? Kimberly Atkins, a Levermore Global Scholar (LGS), conducted research under the guidance of LGS director Peter Debartolo, analyzing whether there was a correlation between national happiness and the size of a country’s gross domestic product.  She also used findings and oberservations aquired while studying in the nation of Costa Rica to discover that money does not, in fact, buy happiness.

Graduate speech and language students from the Ruth S. Ammon School of Education, Selene Gatzonis and Diana Scotto, presented on the effects of yoga on the condition of stuttering. The goal of the study was to determine if yoga used as an intervention therapy would have any effect on a subject who suffers from stuttering.  The aim of a yoga therapy program is to synchronize movement of the body with the breath, and to improve self-perception, thus targeting two concerns prominent in stuttering. Advised by Dr. Renee Fabus, associate professor of communication sciences and disorders, the duo discovered with their particular subject that the therapy was successful; they plan to revisit the progress of their subject at a variety of intervals in the future.

Jennifer Ganley, ‘13 a psychology student, researched  how a therapist’s self-disclosure and client’s attachment are linked to a relationship. Ms. Ganley, along with her advisor Dr. Jairo Fuertes, associate professor of psychology,  found no previous study had brought these two variables together and how the factors led to gains in psychotherapy.

These are just a few of the spotlighted projects that included a study on sleep apnea and its relation to the body’s cholesterol count, the use of drones in military warfare, and the effect of a nurses elevated stress on the quality of patient care.

Wrapping up the day filled with more than 130 engaging projects presented was a keynote address by University of California, Berkley professor, Dr. Tyrone Hayes, a world-renowned expert on frogs and other amphibians. Dr. Hayes’ own research on the effect of chemicals on this population has led to his boisterous opposition regarding the use of certain fertilizing compounds.  He's become an active critic of the farm chemical atrazine, which he's found to interfere with the development of amphibians' endocrine systems. His stories on the power of research resonated with the audience of students eager to further share their own findings.