Current Research

Seed Grants Recipients

2022 Seed Grant Awards

PI: Dr. Casey Canfield, Assistant Professor, Engineering Management & Systems Engineering and Co-PI: Dr. Clair Reynolds-Kueny, Assistant Professor, Psychological Science.

Additional Team Members:

Geoffrey Hugo, Professor and Director, Medical Physics, Radiation Oncology, WashingtonUniversity School of Medicine and Alex Price, Instructor and Chief of Adaptive Medical Physics, Radiation Oncology, Washington University School of Medicine; PhD Student, Systems Engineering, Missouri S&T

“Increasing Rural Access to Care with Mobile Radiation Oncology”

 

PI: Dr. David Wright, Associate Professor, English and Technical Communication, Co-PI: Dr. Daniel Shank, Assistant Professor, Psychological Sciences, Co-PI: Dr. Sarah Hercula, Associate Professor, English and Technical Communication and Co-PI: Thomas Yarbrough, PhD candidate, Civil and Architectural Engineering: 

  “Usability Testing of Smart Home Technology in a Controlled Environment”

 

PI: Dr. Jossalyn Larson, Professor, English and Technical Communication, and PI: Dr. Kelley Koob, Professor, Mathematics and Statistics: 

  “Supporting the Whole Student: Examining Self-Efficacy in Foundational Math and Composition”

 

 

 

PI: Dr. David Wright, Department of English and Technical Communication 

Co-PI: Dr. Daniel Shank, Department of Psychological Sciences and Co-PI: Thomas Yarbrough, PhD Candidate, Civil and Architectural Engineering:

“Usability Testing of Smart Home Technology in a Controlled Environment"  

 

PI: Dr. Nancy Stone, Department of Psychological Science

Co-PI: Dr. Fiona Nah, Department of Business, Information and Technology

Co-PI: Dr. Grace Yan, Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering

Co-PI: Dr. Hongxian Zhang, Department of Business and Information Technology:

“Improving Communication Infrastructure for Extreme Weather Warnings through Dual-Coding and Negative Framing to Enhance Public Safety”

 

Dr. Grace Yan, Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering,  Dr. Hongxian Zhang, Department of Business and Information Technology and Dr. Fiona Nah, Department of Business and Information Technology

“New Community Resilience Bonds to Allocate Resilience Cost Fairly among Stakeholders”

Dr. Amber Henslee, Psychological Science Department and Dr. Beth Kania-Gosche, Education Department

“The Care Kit preliminary project: Family interest in receiving hygiene and personal care items via a community food backpack program”

 

Dr. Fiona Fui-Nah, Department of Business, Information and Technology and Dr. Ting Shen, Department of Psychological Science

“A Meta-Analysis on the Effects of Gamification on Student Learning and Success”

Dr. Daniel Shank, Department of Psychological Science and Dr. David Wright, Department of English and Technical Communication

"Unplugged: Understanding Anti-adoption of Google Home and Amazon Alexa"

 

Dr. Daniel Shank, Department of Psychological Science and Dr. Patrick Gamez, Department of Arts, Languages, and Philosophy

"Virtue Ethics and Artifical Intelligence: How Does the Dispositional Character of an AI Agent Change Moral Attribution"

 

Dr. Amy Belifi, Department of Psychological Science and Dr. David Samson, Department of Arts, Languages, and Philosophy

"Investigating the Differences Between the Experience of Live and Streamed Musical Concerts"

 

Dr. Grace Yan, Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering

"Creating Risk Awareness of Tornado Disasters to Increase Homeowners' Preparedness and Property Reinforcement through Virtual Reality Animation"

Dr. Beth Cudney, Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering

"Cultivating a Culture of Ethics in Students Using an Interactive Online Module"

 

Dr. Yishu Zhou, Department of Economics and Dr. Rui Bo, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

"Measuring Emission Costs Pass-Through with Strategic Bidding"

Research projects, accomplishments, information, and highlights

Music-making during a pandemic:  S&T researchers study the experience of live versus recorded concerts 

Drs. Amy Belfi (Psychological Science) and David Samson (ALP) recently published their CSTS-funded work investigating how audience members respond to live versus recorded concerts. This project, entitled Aesthetic Judgments of Live and Recorded Music: Effects of Congruence Between Musical Artist and Piece, was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology in a Special Research Topic Area focused on the role of music during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 In their work, which was conducted in collaboration with Jonathan Crane of West Point Military Academy and Nick Schmit (S&T ’20, biochemical engineering), Belfi and Samson asked one group of participants to attend a joint live concert between the S&T Bands and the 399th Army Band from Fort Leonard Wood. A second group of participants watched a video recording of the concert alone in a laboratory setting.

During the concert, participants rated their enjoyment of four musical pieces, one U.S. patriotic piece and one non-patriotic piece by each band. The researchers sought to answer two questions: 1) Do people report enjoying the music more during a live concert than a recorded concert? 2) Do people enjoy music more when it “fits” with the band playing it? Their results indicated little difference in enjoyment between the live and recorded settings. Additionally, Belfi and Samson found a strong effect of “congruency,”  meaning that participants preferred music that “fit” with the band: they enjoyed patriotic music more when it was played by the army band and the non-patriotic music more when it was played by the S&T band. Overall, these results have important implications for music-making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic as artists work to replicate the live concert experience online. Most encouraging, the results indicate that listeners can experience pleasure even while viewing a pre-recorded concert, suggesting that some elements of the live experience can be faithfully replicated virtually.

Link to the paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.618025/full

 

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