The following graduate students received grants from JMU’s Office of Research and Scholarship to present their work at professional conferences during the 2024-2025 academic year.

Art, Design and Art History

Iorver Ikeseh received a grant to present on "How to Paint Murals" at the Art in The Park in September 2024.

Assessment and Measurement

Riley Herr received a grant to present on "Evaluating Measurement Equivalence: Demonstrating Different Approaches (first presentation); Assessment In-Context: Building Measures at the Intersection of Research, Psychometrics, and Use (second presentation)" at the Northeastern Educational Research Association (NERA) in October 2024.

Mara McFadden received a grant to present on "1) Evaluating the Generalizability of the Question-Behavior Effect on Test-Taking Behavior, 2) Effectiveness of an Intervention to Train Faculty and Staff on Equitable Programming and Assessment" at the 19th Annual International Conference on Psychology in May 2025.

Nicolas Mireles received a grant to present on "1. How Does Rapid Guessing Distort Estimates in Longitudinal Diagnostic Models? 2. Positionality in Action: Developing Tools to Recognize Bias Across Settings; 3. Addressing Class Imbalances to Optimize Rapid Guessing Classifications Through Supervised Machine Learning" at the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Annual Meeting in April 2025.

Kelsey Nason received a grant to present on "Comparing Disengagement Indices: Self-Report or Time-on-Task" at the Northeastern Educational Research Association (NERA) Annual Conference in October 2024.

Autumn Wild received a grant to present on ""Beyond the Multiple Group Model: Utilizing Moderated Nonlinear Factor Analysis to Explore Measurement Invariance" (Part of a Symposium Titled, "Evaluating Measurement Equivalence: Demonstrating Different Approaches")" at the Northeastern Educational Research Association Annual Conference in October 2024.

Audiology

Nicole Kirk received a grant to present on "Novel Paradigm to Assess Motion Perception in Children" at the AAA 2025+HearTECH Expo in March 2025.

Biology

Madison Bendele received a grant to present on "Using machine learning clustering models to determine co-regulated genes in bacteriophage genomes" at the Association of Southeastern Biologists in March 2025.

Chelsea Donovan received a grant to present on "Impact of exogenous oxidative stress on cyanobacteria circadian rhythms." at the 86th Annual Meeting of the ​Association of Southeastern Biologists in March 2025.

Jordan Heydt received a grant to present on "Microbial Biodiversity of the James River Rock Pool Ecosystem" at the 86th Annual Meeting of the Association of Southeastern Biologists in March 2025.

Emily Myers received a grant to present on "Increased EMG activity supports the presence of movement evoked reflexes during the tail nociceptive withdrawal response" at the 86th Annual Meeting of the Association of Southeastern Biologists in March 2025.

Eriberto Osorio received a grant to present on "Experimentally testing a potential mechanism of urban adaptation in a songbird" at the American Ornithological Society (AOS) Annual Meeting 2024 in October 2024.

Clinical and School Psychology

Nisa Khaldun received a grant to present on "The Development of Self-Worth Throughout Adolescence, Adolescent Intimacy and Ego Development: Links to Future Relationships and Well-Being" at the SRCD 2025 Biennial Meeting in May 2025.

Cameron Piper received a grant to present on "Interactions between Online Communication and other Social Qualities​ as Predictors of Romantic Satisfaction" at the Society for Research in Child Development 2025 Biennial Meeting in May 2025.

Clinical Mental Health Counseling

Daisy Foncha received a grant to present on "Neurodiversity: Applying Humanistically Oriented Universal Designs to Learning in Counseling Spaces" at The AHC Annual Conference in April 2025.

Emily Plowright received a grant to present on "Neurodiversity: Applying Humanistically Oriented Universal Designs to Learning in Counseling Spaces" at the Association for Humanistic Counseling 2025 Annual Conference in April 2025.

Communication and Advocacy

Eriona Hoti received a grant to present on "The Problems of Grind Culture: Rest as Fugitivity in a Graduate Classroom" at the ECA in March 2025.

Olorunsayo Tolulope Ijeluola received a grant to present on "Collaborative Strategies for Tackling Health Misinformation Among Young Adults: What Works in Public Health Campaigns?" at the National Communication Association (NCA) in November 2024.

Thandwa Maphalala received a grant to present on "The Soft Life: The Political Economy and Ideas of Rest in South Africa" at the 116th Annual ECA Convention in March 2025.

Leonita Morina received a grant to present on "The Problems of Grind Culture: Rest as Fugitivity in a Graduate Classroom" at the Eastern Communication Association in March 2025.

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Jesus Gomez received a grant to present on "Risk of Falls in Underserved Populations: A Scoping Review" at the American Balance Society 2025 Annual Conference in February 2025.

Rachel Ritter received a grant to present on "Mixed Methods Study of Adults’ Perceptions of Items from the Social Responsiveness Scale- Second Edition" at the American Speech-Language Hearing Convention (National Convention) in December 2024.

English

Aiman Rahman received a grant to present on "The Mycelium of Liberatory Delights: Ross Gay’s Exploration of Black Joy" at the Liberatory Practices for Worlds in Crisis in March 2025.

Music 

Doctor of Musical Arts:

Daniel Esperante received a grant to present on "Sofia Symphonic Summit Collaborative Artist Workshop & Recital" at the Sofia Symphonic Summit in July 2025.

Anna Showalter received a grant to present on "Gray Catbird and Urban Noise" at the College Music Society and Association for Technology in Music Instruction annual conference in November 2024.

Stefanie Tetzloff received a grant to present on "Minimize Barriers, Maximize Learning: Methods to Enhance Private Lesson Instruction for Trumpet Students with ADHD" at the International Trumpet Guild Conference in May 2025.

Master of Musical Arts:

Josephine Polim Suwanpoh received a grant to present on "Singing Masterclasses and Building Healthy Singing Workshop Session - Guest Speaker" at The 7th Symposium on Choral Music 2024 in January 2025.

Occupational Therapy 

Zyaira Booker received a grant to present on "Exploring the Impact of Nature-Based 360 Virtual Reality on Stress and Physiology" at the Virginia Occupational Therapy Association (VOTA) Annual Conference 2024 in October 2024.

Nancy Doody received a grant to present on "Exploring the Impact of Nature-Based 360 Virtual Reality on Stress and Physiology" at the Virginia Occupational Therapy Association (VOTA) Annual Conference 2024 in October 2024.

Natalie Farnsworth received a grant to present on "Assessing Instructor Knowledge, Confidence, and Competence of Interoceptive Curriculum in Sexual Education for Individuals with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities (I/DD)" at the Virginia Occupational Therapy Association 2024 Annual Conference in October 2024.

Amy Goodman received a grant to present on "Exploring Sport as a Therapeutic Occupation: Looking Through the Lens of Paralympic Athletes " at the Virginia Occupational Therapy Association 2024 Annual Conference in October 2024.

Madisyn Hess received a grant to present on "Assessing Instructor Knowledge, Competence, and Confidence in Teaching Interoceptive Curriculum in Sexual Education for Individuals with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities (I/DD)" at the VOTA 2024 Annual Conference in October 2024.

Katelyn Thompson received a grant to present on "Exploring the Impact of Nature-Based 360 Virtual Reality on Stress and Physiology" at the Virginia Occupational Therapy Association (VOTA) Annual Conference 2024 in October 2024.

Haley Wright received a grant to present on "Exploring the Impact of Nature-Based 360 Virtual Reality on Stress and Physiology" at the Virginia Occupational Therapy Association (VOTA) Annual Conference 2024 in October 2024.

Psychological Sciences 

Anna Garst received a grant to present on "An Exploration of College Student Basic Needs and Health Outcomes" at the Virginia Association for Psychological Science 2025 Convention in April 2015.

Jack Gilmore received a grant to present on "Exploring Machine Learning for Measuring Student Engagement in a Low-stakes Assessment" at the 2025 National Council for Measurement in Education (NCME) Annual Meeting in April 2025.

Jonathan Henriques received a grant to present on "Time of Day's Influence on Engagement and Performance for a University Low-Stakes Assessment" at the Northeastern Educational Research Association Annual Conference in October 2024.

Josiah Hunsberger received a grant to present on "Evaluating the efficacy of the IRTree model for Disengagement" at the Northeastern Educational Research Association in October 2024.

Madison McGuire received a grant to present on "A Cross-Cultural Comparison of the Multicultural Neuropsychological Scale (MUNS) " at the INS 2025: Translational Science for Brain Health Equity in February 2025.

Juste Mehou received a grant to present on "An IRTree Approach to Investigating Item-level Predictors of Disengagement on the PISA" at the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Annual Meeting in April 2025.

William Moncure received a grant to present on "A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Accurate Differential Diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder" at the 2024 Annual Conference in September 2024.

Katarina Schaefer received a grant to present on "Who is Testing at 3am? Profiles of College Students Who Take Low-Stakes Tests at Different Times of Day (within a symposium titled: Investigation of Factors Affecting Students' Disengagement in Low-stakes Assessment)" at the 2024 Northeastern Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in October 2024.

Speech Language Pathology

Leena Sayed received a grant to present on "Discussing Pediatric Feeding Disorders Through the DEIA Lens: What Does it Look Like?" at the American Speech- Language- Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention 2024 in December 2024.

Sport and Recreation Leadership

Rohan Prakash Kulasekara Pandian received a grant to present on "The Impact of Early Sports Specialization on Future Participation Intentions Among NCAA College Athletes" at the EASM 2024 - Paris in September 2024.

Strategic Leadership Studies

Zerrouk Bessa received a grant to present on "1-Effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act Policies on Employee Satisfaction, 2-Leader's Communication Behavior using NLP" at The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) in November 2024.

Marcus Hubbard received a grant to present on "Testing the Basic Needs Through a Quantitative Dissertation" at the William Glasser Institute for Choice Theory Conference in July 2024.

Barnabas Suva received a grant to present on "The Role of Collective Board Members’ Social Capital on the Financial Performance of Non-Profit Organization." at the 53rd Annual ARNOVA Conference in November 2024.

Yu Wang received a grant to present on "Explore the Comprehensive Accountability of Community Colleges to the Perceived Effectiveness of Student Goal Attainment" at the 53rd Annual ARNOVA Conference in November 2024.