Current Research

Seed Grants Recipients

2025 Seed Grant Awards

PI: victoria braegger, English & Technical Communication

" Engaging the Core: A Usability Study of Gamified Health as Understood Through PFMT Controllers"

PI: Shradha Agarwal, Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, Computer Engineering 

Co-PI's: Don Wunsch, Mary Finley Missouri Distinguished Professor, Director Kummer Institute Center for AI and Autonomous Systems, Beth Kania Gosche, Education, Nilanjan Chakraborty, Mathematics and Statistics

"Evaluating Teacher and Student Interactions with GradeAnt, an AI-Powered Grading and Feedback System in STEM Education"

PI: Ryan Cheek, English & Technical Communication

"Communities of Chaos: Exploring Dark Humor Conspiracism as a Rhetorical Tool"

 

Jessica Cundiff, Psychological Science

"Impact of bystander behavior on women's experience of everyday sexism"

Michael Eze, Bioanalytical & Environmental Chemistry

"Societal exposure to PFAS compounds"

Ann Schlotzhauer, Psychological Science

"Exploring the Effect of Communication Channel on Implementation of Employee Suggestions"

PI: Fiona Fui-Nah, Department of Business, Information and Technology

Co-PI: Ting Shen, Department of Psychological Science

“The socio-economic impact of carbon capture technologies on host communities”

PI: David Wright, English and Technical Communication

Co-PI: Daniel Shank, Psychological Science and Thomas Yarbrough, Civil & Architectural Engineering

"User experience and the matter protocol for smart home technology" 

PI: Robin Verble, Department of Biological Sciences

Co -PI: Sarah Hercula, English and Technical Communication, Matt Thimgan, Biological Sciences, V.A. Samaranyake, Mathematics & Statics

"Expanding a study of cognitive decrements resulting from sleep loss and workload in wildland fire dispatchers"

 

PI: Ryan Cheek, English and Technical Communication

Co-PI: Carleigh Davis, English and Technical Communication, Kathryn Dolan, English and Technical Communication, Rachel Schneider, English and Technical Communication

"Birds Aren’t Real: A Meta-Synthesis of Online Conspiracy Rhetoric Research"

 

PI: Amy Belifi, Department of Psychological Science

Co-PI: Karen Head, English and Technical Communication

"Investigating the effect of sensory modality on aesthetic judgments of poetry"

PI: Casey Canfield, Engineering Management & Systems Engineering

Co-PI: Daniel Shank, Psychological Science and Jessica Cundiff, Psychological Science

"Reducing Discrimination in Hiring using Algorithmic Recommendations"

 

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”

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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