Be Informed

Join us as our upper-year students present research and projects to colleagues, friends, family members, and the wider BU community.

Monday, April 13, 2026

Stay for the day or stop by any one of our themed sessions. All presentations will be held in the Louis Riel Room.

8:30–10 a.m. — Memory, Cognition, and Learning in Humans

Facilitator: Marley Burdeniuk

• Molly MacPherson-Blair — “Understanding the Role of Delay Across Repeated Trials in Item-Method Directed Forgetting”
• Gemma Barcellona — “Typing vs. Speaking Motor-Elicited Sympathetic Arousal”
• Maria Vreeman — “Exploring Alternative Splicing and Differential Splice Variants in Learning and Memory”
• Nhi Phan — “Analysis of AI Use”
• Arthur G.F. Blakely — “Effects of ADHD on Event False Memories in University Students”

10:15–11:30 a.m. — Writing the Speculative and Science Fiction Narratives

Facilitator: Elena Leach

• Liberty Bachewich — “Somewhere, It’s Still Tuesday”
• Alycia Oleson — “Escape”
• Mely Vasquez Varela — “The Tongue of the Universe”
• Lillianne Hiller — “A Dark Tunnel’s Entrance”

11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. — Turning Points

Faciliator: Hailey Anderson

• Juanita Cook — “Carl Ray: Professional Native Indian Artists”
• Jaycene Paul — “Jackson Beardy: Professional Native Indian Artists”
• Brooke Graham — “Oral History Collection in Thompson”
• Adam Waldner — “Dionysus, Christ and the Apocalypse”

12:45–1:15 p.m. — Lunch break

1:15–2:45 p.m. — Science and Survival: From Cells to Cities

Facilitator: Afsana Tabassum

• Favour M. Temitope — “Genomic Profiling of Chemotherapy-Resistant Breast Cancer”
• Bree Pringle — “Ectopic ATP Synthase Supports Cancer Cell Survival”
• Carter W. Baranyk — “Impervious Surface Mapping of Mixed Urban Surfaces with UAV Imagery”
• Sarah K. Devries — “Simulation of Connected Autonomous Vehicles”
• Shane Sangster — “Constructive Method for Generating Free Algebras”

3–4:15 p.m. — Political Power, Conflict, and the Modern State

Facilitator: Carson Zavitz

• Makenzie Wells — “Erosion and Adaptation: United States Retrenchment and Middle Power Leadership in the Liberal International Order”
• Jillian Thelander — “Clausewitz’s Fog and Friction: Digital Fog of the Modern Battlefield”
• Ethan R. Swayze — “Hungary: Clawing its Way Back from Illiberalism?”
• Ethan Cidro — “Government Facilitation of Polarized Environments through Encouragement of Digital Echo Chambers in Social Media”

4:30–5:15 p.m. — Stories of Identity, Meaning, and Imagination

Facilitator: Nathan Atkins

• Trent Martin — “A Film’s Importance”
• Reannah Oberland — “Little Sparrow”
• Kaelyn Delaurier — “The Land of Rainbows”