Undergraduate Research Project Contest (MU)

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https://hdl.handle.net/10355/12770
The MU Libraries Undergraduate Research Paper Contest seeks to recognize and reward outstanding research conducted by undergraduate students at the University of Missouri. Any undergraduate in any discipline is invited to enter the contest, which is judged by a cross-disciplinary panel of librarians, members of The Friends of the MU Libraries, and MU faculty members. The MU Libraries Contest is different from other research paper contests in that it judges not only the paper itself, but also the research process and the student’s ability to articulate his/her experience conducting research. It is also unique opportunity for undergraduate students to present their research to an audience.

Winners:

  • 2026
  • 2025
  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • First place winner:Ashley Anstaett, Phong H. Nguyen, and Andrew J. Greenwald. Conceptual design of microfiber removal using pressure-swing filtration [not available in MOspace]
    • Second place winner: Erielle Jones. Fly like an eagle : the success of STOP-ERA in the Missouri Senate 1977 [not available in MOspace]
  • 2018:
  • 2017:
    • First place winner: Victor Topouria. The fabric road to power : geography of the textiles trade along the new Silk Road and China’s path to geopolitical dominance through the textiles supply chain. [Not available in MOspace]
    • Second place winner: Samuel Mosher. The suppression of the African slave trade in The Illustrated London News. [Not available in MOspace]
  • 2016:
  • 2015:
    • First place winner: Rebecca Honeyball. An examination of vocal fry in the context of peer bonding, authority and perceptions of self. [Not available in MOspace]
  • 2014:
    • Individual project winner: Emily Voss. Consanguineous Marriage in Bangladesh. [Not available in MOspace]
    • Group project winner: Read Hall History Collective (Christopher Bowen, Bryan Buer, Alexander Deckard, Christopher Fernandez, Andrew Holden, Adam Kleinerman, Russ Kohl, Bethany Korte, Meghan Moore, Daniel Neuhaus, Melissa Ryder, and Michael Williams.). All My Blood and Treasure: The Civil War and Divided Loyalties in Little Dixie, Missouri. [Not available in MOspace]
  • 2012:
  • 2011:
    • >

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    Recent Submissions

    Now showing 1 - 5 of 22
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      Literature review : chamber music in K-12 music education
      (2026) O’Bryan, Ava S.
      "Within the past two decades, research has begun to emerge on the topic of instrumental chamber music in K-12 education. There are several ideas that have become widespread in education at large that play major roles in the study of this field, and that may provide insight into the implications of chamber music in American public schools. Chamber music, usually characterized as a group of two to eight musicians with one player to a part, without the presence of a conductor, has been an integral part of musical expression for centuries (Carmody, 1988). However, chamber music is not always included in music education for a variety of reasons. Some educators may feel the curriculum is already too packed as they prepare for concerts, or they may feel the large ensemble experience is more valuable. One survey of string teachers indicated that the teachers expressed the least interest in adding chamber music classes when compared to other nontraditional ensemble options, with only 2.4% indicating that they would consider adding this to their curriculum (Savage & Harry, 2023). Notably, none of the teachers participating in the study indicated that they had existing chamber music programs. The purpose of this literature review was to understand existing practices regarding chamber music education in schools and the benefits, downsides, and methodologies of incorporating chamber music into instrumental music education curriculae. With this review I sought to address what literature exists on the topic and identify supporting arguments for the inclusion of chamber music in music education. Personally, I became interested in this topic as I reflected on the chamber music unit I worked on with my orchestra director as part of my independent study in my final year of high school. The students seemed to really enjoy the unit, and I wondered what research existed on best practices for teaching chamber music. The goal of this review is to highlight what best teaching practices are based on research, with the secondary purpose of informing fellow researchers on areas that could use further study. In this review, three key points about the nature of instrumental chamber music in the K--12 public school system will be discussed: how chamber music can affect student behavior development, how chamber music can affect the development of student musical ability and attitudes towards music, and how chamber music can be effectively incorporated into public schools." -- Introduction
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      “Saving Muslim women” : how language justifies intervention through USAID family planning programs in Pakistan between 1965-1979 and 2001-2018.
      (2026) Banion, Lucy
      "“It is problematic to construct the Muslim woman as someone in need of saving. When you save someone, you imply that you are saving her from something. You are also saving her to something” (Abu-Lughod, 2013, pg 46). The ‘saving women’ trope placed all Muslim women into the category of oppressed, and into a binary relationship with the Western, liberated, implicitly non-Muslim, woman. It focused on Western voices speaking for the Muslim women, rather than their own perspectives, which were often ignored or disregarded. Abu-Lughod continues, ”Projects of saving other women depend on and reinforce a sense of superiority, and are a form of arrogance that deserves to be challenged” (Abu-Lughod, 2013, pg 47). While the post-9/11 “War on Terror” is often cited as the moment ‘saving Muslim women’ became central to US foreign policy, the legitimization of intervention as a means of ‘saving’ has deep roots. The US has consistently tried to ‘save’ foreign nations for decades, and the centrality of women in this agenda is nothing new. To what extent had this ‘saving women’ mission contributed to the US neoimperial agenda since WWII and how had it evolved? In this paper I will argue that programs pertaining to “population control” and “family planning” in the 1960-70s also exemplify the discursive logic of the “saving Muslim women” rhetoric. For non-US women, these programs were not just about health or empowerment, but a means of exerting political and social control, with their reproductive bodies as the battleground. Constructed narratives of need and overpopulation positioned non-US women as requiring the salvation of the West, often through relationships with the Western woman. These narratives targeted Muslim-majority countries, which were also seen as ‘less developed.’ The Agency that employed this Western salvation and development rhetoric more than any other was the United States Agency of International Development (USAID). The United States State Department began formally managing foreign assistance programs in 1955 with the establishment of the International Cooperation Administration. This predecessor to USAID was dissolved in 1961, by the Foreign Assistance Act which established USAID for the first time. Where, how, and to whom the economic and developmental assistance was given reflects US foreign relations and agendas. The Food for Peace Act of 1966 was the first official declaration of a US War on Hunger by Lyndon B. Johnson.¹ Emerging from a period of decolonization, the fear from the “developed” countries was that there would not be enough food to feed the population, and the burden would fall on their nations to support the “less developed” countries’ hungry population. As newly independent nations, the US and the Soviet Union fought to establish their alliances in the midst of the Cold War. Increases in aid and military support were motivated by this. Intervention in these forms also served as a way for the US to retain some social control lost in the decades prior². The increase in interventions for the purpose of fighting the War on Hunger effectively furthered the divide between “the West” and the “rest” (Hall, 2018, pg 209). Some agencies worked towards increasing production of genetically modified crops overseas and expanding the world food supply and access to it. Other programs sought to minimize the population itself, lessening the projected burden of care. The Population Council was established in the US in 1952, and the Family Planning Association of Pakistan in 1953, both of which have closely partnered with the USAID since its founding. An exemplary case of this kind of USAID intervention can be evidenced in the Muslim-majority country of Pakistan. Pakistan gained independence from the British Crown in 1947 through the Indian Independence Act which created India and Pakistan as separate, independent nations. The Act separated the land into dominions, which were separated based on religion, resulting in a massive, forced migration of Muslim, Hindi, and Sikh peoples³. The two nations have gone to war in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999. Each time, the allegedly allied American response was deemed less than adequate by Pakistan, and a relationship of abandonment and distrust perpetuated. As Daniel Markey describes, “the US has been the more fickle partner, its approach to Pakistan shifting dramatically across the decades. Pakistan, however, has been guilty of greater misrepresentation, claiming support for American purposes while turning US partnership to other ends. Consequently, both sides failed repeatedly to build a relationship to serve beyond the immediate needs of the day.” (Markey, 2013). This complicated relationship can be seen in the varying levels of economic assistance as shown below: Neither Pakistan nor the US are completely aligned or opposed to the other, yet even a cooperative relationship has at times seemed impossible. Since its independence in 1947, Pakistan has relied on US military and economic assistance, the US on Pakistan’s geographical location for its counter terrorism efforts, but the diplomatic relationship lacks trust or transparency. The American perception of Pakistan changes under each administration swinging like a pendulum between “extremes of ungrounded exuberance and overstated fear” (Markey, 2013). While the reason for involvement may have changed over time, it remains that Pakistan has been a US development site for decades. Pakistan has been a consistent recipient of US foreign assistance since the creation of the USAID in 1961 and continued to receive aid until January 2025. USAID serves as a particularly revealing case study for examining how the “saving Muslim women” rhetoric has operated and evolved as a means of control as it links development assistance to US strategic interests. With one of the highest birth and poverty rates in the 1960s, Pakistan was a target for those concerned with overpopulation. Again, in the early 2000s, as a Muslim majority country, and neighbor to Afghanistan, Pakistan was an important agent in the War on Terror. The financial assistance Pakistan received through USAID during these two eras- the Cold War (1965-1979) and the War on Terror (2001-2018) reveals how Muslim women’s bodies became the justification for intervention framed as humanitarian necessity. Their experience demonstrates that the language of empowerment, health, and education that justified invasive family planning programs functioned as a tool of control and established rhetorical patterns that would emerge into the explicit “saving Muslim women” discourse decades later. For these reasons, I argue that Pakistan serves as a telling example of the programs and aid missions led by USAID. Neither an ally or enemy, in conflict or in communion, it allows us to see the ways in which these programs targeted predominantly Muslim women as a means to continuing the US neo-imperial agenda. USAID’s involvement in Pakistan reveals how Muslim women became the center of justification for intervention through humanitarian aid. The rhetoric used in USAID’s family planning programs of the 1950-60s in Pakistan positioned women as in need of saving from themselves, by other women. When the same programs were reinvented in the early 2000s, women remained in need of saving, but this time from the patriarchy, by their husbands. This analysis reveals that the ‘saving women’ narrative had justified foreign aid intervention through family planning since 1965." -- Introduction
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      Sounds of the energy transition
      (2025) Huenefeldt, Jackson
      "In April 1896, Swedish physicist, chemist, and Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius¹ first answered the question “Is the mean temperature of the ground in any way influenced by the presence of heat-absorbing gasses in the atmosphere?”² Although anthropogenic climate change has been known for more than 200 years, fossil fuels have proven too convenient and too profitable to be completely replaced yet. This has had two major consequences: ¹) The lives of billions of people have been improved—access to energy, easily produced by combusting fossil fuels, is strongly correlated with quality of life³—and 2) Our planet’s biosphere has been irrevocably harmed, with more negative effects projected without immediate action.⁴ Noise is an overlooked impact of the fossil fuel economy. For the purposes of this paper, noise is defined as anthropogenic sound that is unwanted, disruptive, or harmful to living things. Noise pollution is a danger to human health,⁵ and negatively impacts biodiversity⁶ and wildlife behavior.⁷ Transportation, building temperature control, and fossil fuel extraction and processing are major contributors to noise pollution.⁸ If clean energy‑powered versions of these sources are quieter, the transition to clean energy could be the greatest reduction in noise pollution in history." -- page 2
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      Tracing routes through roots : unraveling the Bantu migration through linguistics and archaeology
      (2025) Schmolzi, Nina
      "Humans have been moving across the globe for thousands of years, often following food and other resources. As they migrate, they leave behind traces of their history, including linguistic, archaeological, and botanical evidence. One of the largest migrations in African history was the Bantu migration of Bantu-speaking peoples moving from Central West Africa to the eastern part of the continent. Despite its large scale, the fine details of this migration– specifically the timing and exact paths of the migrants– remains up for debate (Koile et al. 2022). I chose to study the Bantu Expansion because of its fascinating history and the link between two of my majors, anthropology and linguistics. Despite all the studies conducted in history, genetics, archeology and linguistics, there are still many unknowns about the early migration routes in Central Africa. The aim of this paper is to examine the findings made by archeologists and linguists working on lexicostatistics to classify languages in order to understand the mismatches within and between these disciplines.. This paper aims to summarize the main hypotheses according to leading linguists and archaeologists, and to discuss their merits and what future research could be done to come closer to the truth of this mass migration, which began around 5,000 years ago. The Bantu people are characterized by their language group of the same name which is a significant subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family that consists of 1,500 languages in Sub-Saharan Africa. The term “Bantu” was coined by the German linguist Wilhelm Bleek as a reconstruction of the Proto-Bantu term for ‘human’. In modern times, the Bantu subgroup encompasses over 500 languages spoken by approximately 240 million people across a vast area of 9 million square kilometers. The origin of these languages is widely believed to be situated near the border of Nigeria and Cameroon at approximately 4,940 BP (Koile et al. 2022). The early Bantu people were semi-sedentary agriculturalists occupying primarily savannah habitats and moved at a rate of approximately 1.2 km/yr (Clist 1989). At the migration’s completion, most Bantu people were sedentary as a result of widespread iron industry and today, represent hundreds of distinct cultural groups. Being such a large group within the Niger-Congo phylum with a great deal of internal diversity, there has been some argument over the decades about what a language requires to be considered Bantu. The seminal work in Bantu classification was done by Malcom Guthrie, who defined Bantu as a system of noun classes marked by prefixes– similar to gender in non-Bantu languages– organized into singular-plural pairs; and as having a common lexicon with cognates, words that share the same direct descent from a parent language. Guthrie created a system of dividing the Bantu area into 15 geographic zones with letters associated, and each zone was divided into smaller linguistic groups by decades (ie. A10, A20, etc), and each individual language within the larger group was given its own number (i.e. E53 to designate the language Mwĩmbĩ). His approach has since been updated and rearranged, as grouping languages geographically tends to give a false sense of relatedness between them. It is more reliable to group languages based on common ancestors, and the field of historical linguistics focuses in part on building phylogenetic trees for languages based on cognates and sound changes between closely related-languages, and this work is being done on Bantu languages." -- Introduction.
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      Robust defense against extreme grid events using dual-policy reinforcement learning agents
      (IEEE., 2025) Peter, Benjamin M.; Korkali, Mert; 2025 IEEE Texas Power and Energy Conference (TPEC)
      Reinforcement learning (RL) agents are powerful tools for managing power grids. They use large amounts of data to inform their actions and receive rewards or penalties as feedback to learn favorable responses for the system. Once trained, these agents can efficiently make decisions that would be too computationally complex for a human operator. This ability is especially valuable in decarbonizing power networks, where the demand for RL agents is increasing. These agents are well suited to control grid actions since the action space is constantly growing due to uncertainties in renewable generation, microgrid integration, and cybersecurity threats. To assess the efficacy of RL agents in response to an adverse grid event, we use the Grid2Op platform for agent training. We employ a proximal policy optimization (PPO) algorithm in conjunction with graph neural networks (GNNs). By simulating agents’ responses to grid events, we assess their performance in avoiding grid failure for as long as possible. The performance of an agent is expressed concisely through its reward function, which helps the agent learn the most optimal ways to reconfigure a grid’s topology amidst certain events. To model multi-actor scenarios that threaten modern power networks, particularly those resulting from cyberattacks, we integrate an opponent that acts iteratively against a given agent. This interplay between the RL agent and opponent is utilized in N − k contingency screening, providing a novel alternative to the traditional security assessment.
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