 Academic excellence is a hallmark of Fairfield University's Catholic Jesuit educational mission. Students pursue the magis the more. They do more, learn more, and share more. They aspire for their work to have an impact beyond the classroom. Our committed faculty closely mentor individual and groups of students to develop innovative research projects that address today's pressing societal issues. Fairfield University supports student faculty collaborative research in the classroom and community at home and abroad. In community-engaged learning courses, students partner with local organizations to carry out project-focused research. Immersion trips and experiences abroad expose students to how their field of study is actively present in the world. Community experience and student travel are highly encouraged for networking and career development. Students who want to present at professional conferences can apply for research and travel grants through the Office of the Provost. This commitment supports nearly 75 students annually with over half a million dollars awarded in recent years. As each spring semester ends, hundreds of students and faculty mentors leave the classroom to present the results of their collaborative work at the annual Innovative Research Symposium. It is a day to celebrate and showcase the spark of imagination igniting all of the undergraduate, graduate, independent, and faculty research that occurs across Fairfield University and its diverse disciplines. An event open to all, the Innovative Research Symposium is now a Fairfield tradition. We join together to take pride in the academic achievements of Fairfield University faculty and students. We initiate the many donors whose gifts enable Fairfield University students to pursue their academic goals. With your continued support, we can increase and improve the opportunities available at Fairfield University and advance our pursuit of the modules. Hello and welcome to Fairfield University's 2021 Innovative Research Symposium. We are so glad you're here. I'm Patrick Sittiati, Class of 2020, and I'm happy to be hosting our first Innovative Research Symposium live show. This year, the annual Innovative Research Symposium celebrates 248 student presentations supported by 80 faculty members. We are proud to feature 10 graduate student projects and 6 Corrigan scholars from across academic disciplines. In our morning and afternoon Zoom sessions, students are presenting capstone nursing and health studies projects, research from our STEM Sigma-sized students, and community engagement and independent projects. It is an important day to share and present what we've learned with the community. Today is also Stag Giving Day. Continuing the tradition of Stag Giving Day, a group of donors are challenging you to be inspired by our students and make a gift. When 1,942 stags donate to any area of our community, an additional $1 million will be released, supporting all areas across campus. Make your gift today at fairfield.edu-slash-stag-giving. It's a great day to be a stag. We have a full lineup of events for this afternoon beginning with our keynote speaker, Melody Serafino at 1 p.m. Student research presentations continue on Zoom at 2 p.m. and a special performance by Palabalus Dance Company at 4.30 p.m. followed by a discussion with artist Todd McRing. And now, I'd like to introduce Fairfield University President, Dr. Mark Nemek, for some opening remarks. Thank you for joining us for the 2021 Innovative Research Symposium. Though our current moment necessitates we are virtual this spring, this symposium nevertheless highlights our tradition of forming men and women of purpose through the pursuit of truth, beauty and grace. As a value-based, student-centric, outcomes-focused institution, we invite all of you to celebrate the inquiry and impact of our students' work and the commitment to excellence and spirit of collaboration with faculty, which we will showcase today. Additionally, as we are about to begin our Ignatian year celebrating Loyola's conversion upon his wounding in Pamplona 500 years ago, we are called to remember the four apostolic preferences of the society articulated by Father General Arturo Sosa. One, in particular, echoing the sentiment of Pope Francis calling us to care for our common home. It is with this in mind that a theme running through today's symposium is environmental sustainability. It is a featured topic throughout the day and especially during the concluding events when the Dance Company, Palabalus, will screen the branches, performance filmed with the Lost Birds Project in front of the library. Additionally, the performers, artists from the Project Todd McRain and its select students will join in a conversation about the role of art in creativity and innovation. Again, thank you so much for joining us to celebrate our students and their work with our faculty as we continue to shape our world. I know you will enjoy the day. Be well and God bless. Thank you, Dr. Nemek. All right, everyone, let's get into the first research story. The Bano Science Center has experienced a great upgrade in the last few years with facility renovations and the installation of advanced research instruments. Students use the eight brand new state-of-the-art research instrumentation and teaching labs to work alongside faculty. Sarah O'Neill is a sophomore biochemistry major who's an active student researcher advised by Dr. Jill Smith Carpenter. Earlier in the semester, she showed us around the new labs and we talked about research, life, and nucleopeptides. Hi, I'm Sarah O'Neill. I'm a sophomore biochemistry major with a mathematics minor. I chose Fairfield because during my college search, I was explicitly looking for colleges that were really eager to get undergraduates into their labs to have hands-on research, get them published, get them presenting, and have the professional skills they need to go into the field. And Fairfield was really eager to provide that, so that was just an immediate draw for me. I'm Jill Smith Carpenter, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In Bano, we have most of the science, disciplines, and engineering. And we proudly display our work with our students, either in posters or the journal articles that our students are co-authors on. Some of our labs have windows and kind of look in and see the cool instruments and the cool setup. If something starts to spark your interest, reach out to a professor. We love what we do and we want to talk to students about it. Professor Smith Carpenter was my Gen Chem professor for both semesters my freshman year. She was incredible. I really loved the class. It really confirmed that I was like, this is exactly what I want to be doing. Why wait to join research? So I basically went around the entire department, and I asked professors what projects were they working on, when would they accept students. And Professor Smith Carpenter's project was the one I was most interested in. She was like, I'm willing to get you in the lab next semester if you're ready. And I was like, will I be prepared? I only have one semester. And she was like, I'll get you where you need to be to work on this project. And I was like, okay. Sarah fit right in. Again, as an underclassman, even last year while she was a freshman in the lab, would never hesitate to ask questions, wanted to know how every instrument worked, and took notes. And that's how I knew she'd be a really good student. She took notes in her notebook. We have two nuclear peptides. They have different endings on these determinants, which is essentially just one end of the molecule. So on one, we have an oxygen bond to a hydrogen. And on the other one, we have a nitrogen bond into two hydrogens. And so what happened was we took these molecules, we put them in solution, and then they were able to really self-assemble. They would bond to the same nuclear peptides and form these complex larger structures. One of them is called the G-quadruplex. And that's essentially where you have the guanosine heads. They form like a little square and they stack on top of each other like a tower versus the G-ribbon where they go side to side in a plane like flat structure. And so we were researching, based on the endings of these nuclear peptides, does that play a role in the super molecular structure that forms. And what we found is that we believe the OH ending directly leads to the formation of the G-quadruplex, the sort of stack structure, while the NH2 ending will lead to the planar structure. So the paper we published last fall basically concretely states that the ending of these nuclear peptides determines the larger structures that form and build into nanofibrates and solutions. So now we're moving forward into, okay, what can we do with this? What does this mean? In previous literature, the G-quadruplex structure I talked about earlier that stacks on top of each other, it's from the OH ending. That one has been used to catalyze different reactions in combination with other biomolecules. Moving forward, we're going to keep working on catalyzing reactions of the nuclear peptides. I hope to spend the next two years researching under Professor Schmidt Carpenter. We've got plenty of time for more progress and hopefully more papers. And then I hope to apply for graduate school with plenty of accomplishments underneath my belt. Wow, it's amazing that Sarah is getting this experience in only her sophomore year. Congrats on the achievement of the paper being published. Successfully supporting students to pursue nationally competitive fellowships is one of our priorities here at Fairfield University. The Goldwater Scholarship Program is one of the most prestigious national scholarships in STEM. This year, we had four outstanding applicants and are proud to share that Nicholas Richardson, class of 2022, has been awarded the Goldwater. You can hear more from Nick during the conversation with Melody Serifino at 1 p.m. The Fulbright Program places students around the globe to engage in research and to teach. The university has assisted nearly 100 students in the Fulbright process. We look forward to mentoring more competitive applicants. The Research and Travel Grant Program supports many student research projects today. These grants include a range of funds generously made available by our donors. Since 2016, this program has awarded over $400,000 to support 249 student projects, impacting nearly 500 students. For more information on funding or applying for these grants, please contact the Office of the Provost. Our keynote speaker this year is Melody Serifino, class of 2005. Serifino is a media and public relations professional dedicated to storytelling, sustainability, and societal change. She has worked at agencies, publications, and now runs her own business. Her communications agency, number 29, specializes in connecting fashion, design, lifestyle, and nonprofit organizations to advance positive change. Join our webinar at 1 p.m. to see Goldwater Award winner Nicholas Richardson, assistant professor of physics, Dr. Robert Nazarian, and others talk to Serifino. She will cover how her Fairfield experience prepared her for a meaningful career in media and social issues related to diversity, environmental sustainability, and COVID-19. Graduate students Reynaldo Gonzalez and Michael Gerge use their expertise and apply data science to make information accessible and actionable. Working with Dr. Mehmet Kansoi of the Sociology and Anthropology Department, Reynaldo and Michael leverage their skills and talents to empower the United Way of Greenwich to effectively use and share data to fulfill their mission of helping the community. Hi, my name is Reynaldo Gonzalez. I'm currently a graduate student at Fairfield University doing a master's in applied data science with concentrations in social analytics and computational analytics. My name is Mehmet Kansoi. I'm an assistant professor in sociology and anthropology. I'm a sociologist, and I've been at Fairfield almost three years now. Late in 2019, Greenwich United Way contacted us. They were interested in doing a needs assessment. What did people in town need in terms of services? So basically, I had to sit down and read the original needs assessment and it was a very big static document that people had in their desk and they would pull out whenever they needed some type of information about the town. Our plan was to make the data accessible, transparent, and easy to use for anybody. So people could get the information and write different grant applications, help their nonprofits guide different services to different parts of the community. When you think about Greenwich, you usually think about this extravagant wealth and resources. This data was going to show us that this community had a lot of people that were in need of different services and that because we were going to make this data available to them, those gaps were going to try to be filled. It's really important to be doing things based on concrete data. So a lot of times our undergraduates will go on to take jobs like employment and positions where they make decisions about things. Being able to base those decisions that they're going to make as a fact of daily life on concrete data, on sound analytical strategies, on models that are externally validated is really important. And the types of skills we focused on in this project are absolutely those types of skills. What I've learned about this project really is how giving our majors and what we've learned how to do and putting that at a specific level at which we can apply that to data as well and working with data and it's providing a medium between sociology, anthropology and coding data and giving visualization aspects to that. I got to experience everything from interviews, surveys and then the creation of the dashboards. It was imperative for me to basically take time to grasp the whole idea and then ask the right questions. It's been very interesting to see that there's a really clear story there and that we did not put our narrative forward. We just let the numbers and the data talk for itself. Our hope is to make this an ongoing relationship with Greenwich United Way where annually we update them with more data and more analysis. This will both provide opportunities for students to work on this project, but hopefully build a long lasting relationship with the community organizations that our ultimate goal at the Center for Social Impact is to provide them with the expertise that they might not otherwise have. The work that Reynaldo and Michael are doing truly exemplifies what it means to be a person for others. Despite working remotely, they developed and delivered innovative tools that directly benefit the greater community. It's been a challenging year that changed how we interact. Fairfield has been focused on maintaining the student experience, including the faculty student research that makes a Fairfield education unique. University Provost Christine Siegel sat down with Dominique Trucio, class of 2023, to talk about Fairfield's approach to higher education during the pandemic and the future of academics and research at the university. I'd like to start just by thanking Provost Siegel for being here today and giving me this opportunity to discuss Fairfield with her specifically research at Fairfield. So as we have, we all could agree this year has been pretty difficult, pretty different than past academic years. I think it's really important to acknowledge the efforts of the faculty and the staffs and the students who tried to, who tried their best this year honestly. So my first question is, can you tell us a little bit about how the institution has adapted to the challenges of 2020? Fairfield has been really challenging, but continually I've been surprised and impressed with the ways in which students have shown us that they want to learn and continue to grow. And the way professors have worked to meet students where they are. In the spring, we did that remotely over Zoom through the summer, we worked to be prepared to bring students back to campus this fall. And even though we had to be best at times and six feet apart from each other, you know, whether it was virtually like we are today or in small groups outside or inside. It's incredible that despite all this, you know, at today's innovative research symposium, we have over 240, nearly 250 faculty student projects being presented as a, you know, the outcomes of this project. And we're so thrilled that yours is one of them. Thank you. I could definitely attest to your answer because as a student, I basically lived what we all live what you said as a student, I could definitely relate to that. And I also agree that in times of adversity, I feel that the Fairfield community definitely always rises. And as a student again, I was able to produce like great research and I know for a fact my fellow peers were able to produce great research with their faculty members as well. So I feel it's definitely monumental, especially given the year so a little bit of pride knowing that we were able to all that something we should all be proud of, especially being able to present it here today. I certainly am proud of you and all of our students and our faculty. I'm so, you know, thrilled to hear you say that you too can feel that sense of pride for yourself and in your fellow students for the work that they've done. It's truly remarkable. Really is. Yeah. Why do you think it's so important for us to participate in research opportunities, especially alongside faculty members as well? I think there's a number of reasons. Several years ago, there was a survey about the most meaningful aspects of college and undergraduate education long term over the course of one's life. And it showed that it didn't really matter as much what college you went to, but what you did while you were there. And one of the most impactful things long term after college was the ability to work on a sustained project for more than one semester. And the ability to connect directly with professor around their area of expertise and specialty and to develop your own passion and your own curiosity. Certainly the courses that we teach are rich and deep in content and knowledge that we give our skills, but the opportunity to engage deeply in a project to take that through the curiosity that it excites in you. I think is has meaningful long term impact. We're really happy at Fairfield that we're able to provide so many students that opportunity when we hire professors and mentor professors. We're looking for people who want to engage students in those research projects. And so I think, you know, that's why it's important. I'd be really curious to hear from you why it was important to you how you found your way to a research project and do you know what what it meant to you across your time here. From a young age I've always been a curious individual like most students at Fairfield that's why I love Fairfield so much. I'm also a Corrigan scholar so I was given the opportunity. Thank you. Create my own research, essentially from start to end. And my mentor is doc Alfonso and so it was really great to have her as my mentor because she's a lawyer, she's interested, we have similar interests, I want to go to law school as well. And she's also a brilliant professor. So, so by having her as my mentor, I was able to challenge myself and sometimes after meetings, a little stress and having more questions and answers, but she always pushed me to do better. And at first, like, I was always a good writer a good researcher but through this experience I've developed profound skills I would never, will never honestly develop I personally feel I learned how to research effectively learned how to communicate with members of the community because for my paper, I conducted like personal interviews I attended certain meetings to like add to my research that I would have never known to do all that if it wasn't for her guidance so I feel like research is so important because learning never stops. No matter the age, no matter how old you are, we may think we know everything or we like to think that but there's always more to learn so I feel like for all the students out there who have the opportunities to research. Yes, it's a lot of work but that work is definitely rewarding. You don't know how far your research can go and who could influence or impact. So I feel like that's what's so important about taking advantage of research opportunities. One of the things you said I think really resonated with me is that you left sometimes having more questions than answers and I think that's another reason why research and scholarly work is really important and somewhat different than coursework so when students are taking courses and learning content. There often is a right answer there's often answered to be arrived there's, you know, the answers on the test or you come to some conclusion and, you know, the professor evaluates that really good research generates more questions and keeps the conversation going. So it's an important compliment to the student educational experience that we learn that sometimes, you know, there are answers to be derived and answers to give and other times, you know, the best outcome is that you have the next question or another important question. And that's what makes the learning lifelong and not just something that happens for years at Fairfield. I'm curious as to what your question was that you started or the types of questions that specifically your research is addressing. I've always had a passion for the criminal justice system and law. And I knew that order for me to conduct a meaningful research assignment, I had to be interested in it and you have to be passionate about it so I knew that I didn't want to just pick a topic to pick a topic I really wanted to have that passion to make me want to do it. And Dr. Afonso obviously agreed and guided me in that direction. And so with that being said, I, the ants look at like prison systems in the United States and punitive measures that exist in the United States. And from there from in the beginning, actually, it was funny because I tried having a definitive thesis like in our second meeting and Dr. Afonso was just like, No, like, she's like, she's like, if you have a thesis and there's no, she's like, if you have a definitive thesis and there's really no, you have no research, like how are you having a thesis? Again, it's idea that you have to ask questions, let the research take you. Like you don't determine the research and I did that at first. The main question, the main thing we tried to, I tried to research was, I tried to demonstrate actually was the punitive escalation that exists in the United States society, specifically as in the late 20th century, and how the US became increasingly punitive in both penal and social policy, so like welfare policy. So we transitioned from a welfare state that that try to help individuals overcome inequalities and structural factors that will be on their control, and we reversed. Now we placed greater responsibility on the individual and kind of forgot about those structural factors that perpetuate inequalities. So that really was my research focused on this idea of these punitive measures were a way to govern those who are socially marginalized, binaries, those who are poor, those who are incarcerated, those who are considered essentially the have nots of society, we always have to have nots, that's why really tried to piece together this like so simultaneous punitive escalation. And again, there's so more questions if you were to read my paper, someone else could probably write another paper or my paper to expand upon that. And I've learned that's what good research research should do. I have to thank you so much for sharing that with me because you highlighted, first of all, completely interesting topic engaging timely topic and I just learned so much right now by listening to you and I have another, you know, 10 questions I could ask you. But for the sake of time I'm just going to also emphasize how much what you just said highlights why research is important. Number one, the passion, when you started talking about this project, your passion and enthusiasm for it just showing through and that's an important part of research. Number two, you made a really excellent point that when we do research, again, unlike when, you know, as a student you write an essay for class you don't start with a thesis statement and then try and line up support for it right. Good research pushes that the envelope of understanding so you first had to dive in and do a lot of reading and to figure out what was what's kind of known already in this and what's the next question to be asked. And that's the other thing that research does is it pushes the field and it pushes understanding. So it's not just reiterating what's known already, as you might do in a typical, you know, essay that you might have written in a class or for high school, but it's pushing knowledge and so you have to first immerse yourself in a lot of reading to get there. And particularly for the type of research we do at Fairfield University, you talked about a project that has a really important implications for society for people and for how people are treated. And so that's the best of what we call the Catholic social teaching that really engages inquiry that's important topic of society for the world today and tries to examine it based on its elements of humanity. So that's so wonderful. I also just have to pick up on the fact that you said you're a Corgan scholar, and we're so fortunate for your field to support many students in their research from generous donations from people outside our university. So thanks so much for sharing your project with me, but also, you know, giving me an opportunity to highlight how that shows so much of what happens here. I definitely learned a lot and I feel inspired and hopefully it's conversation inspired other students and other faculty members to participate in research in the future. And I'm sure we both look forward to viewing the research that was presented here today and also looking forward to the research that will be done in the future. So thank you again. Thank you so much. Now I want to highlight a group of students who took action at a time of great uncertainty. One year ago at the beginning of quarantine, engineering student Lilliana Delmonico and nursing student Caroline Smith wanted to help provide PPE, personal protective equipment to local frontline health care workers and first responders. They quickly organized a plan and pitched the idea for 3D printed face shields to then interim Dean of Engineering Richard Heist. Heist supported the effort and soon students Drew Jobson and Evan Fair had seven 3D printers up and running. According to team lead Lilliana Delmonico, in total 4095 face shields were donated to 107 unique places around the country. We are extremely proud of our students initiative. This facial project embodies the very best of Fairfield engineering, leaders about their own initiative, user skills and talents for the betterment of society and one another. In and out of the classroom, Fairfield students work to promote healthy and vibrant communities. In honor of Earth Day, we'd like to thank the students whose sustainability efforts promote a better environment. From the promotion of environmental awareness to recycling initiatives and grant funding opportunities, the campus sustainability committee, FUSA and leaders for environmental action at Fairfield are committed to a more sustainable future. Thank you. Hearing for our communities and others is a hallmark of the Ignatian tradition. Lucy Malosquez is a senior nursing major with a passion for mental health care. With guidance from her faculty mentor Jessica Marafa, Lucy explores the use of weighted blankets to reduce anxiety in her oncology patients. My name is Lucy Malosquez and I am a senior nursing student and psychology minor. The title of my project is the effectiveness of weighted blankets in the treatment of anxiety in oncology patients. The mental health needs of patients are very important and something that I always like to focus on when I care for patients. So I wanted to come up with a way to non-pharmacologically address this anxiety in the oncology patient population. I'm Jessica Marafa. I am a clinical adjunct professor at the Fairfield Eakin School of Nursing and Health Studies and I am a clinical instructor at Stanford Hospital and I have Lucy there as one of my students. We're on an oncology unit and so Lucy tried to take her passion of mental health and relate it to the oncology patients that she's been working with each week. So finding a strategy to reduce anxiety in these oncology patients has been really important to her. The weighted blankets mechanism is through deep touch pressure, which stimulates the pressure receptors in the skin, which regulates the autonomic nervous system by decreasing sympathetic activity, which is your fight or flight response, and increasing the parasympathetic activity, which brings the body to a state of homeostasis and in turn this gives the patient a feeling of relaxation, comfort and safety. During this isolating time during the pandemic, with visitor restrictions, these patients already have a severe level of anxiety plus the oncology diagnosis. Their anxiety levels are very high right now, so the use of the weighted blanket on the unit has been very receptive and we hope to continue forward in this project to hopefully get it implemented. The research that I have completed backs up what I have seen in real life, the positive effect that a weighted blanket has on patients anxiety levels. So I'm very excited to have the opportunity to present this to the floor I'm working on and potentially implement this practice on the sixth floor of Stanford Hospital. Being part of the research symposium is a great way for her to show her professional growth and her strategy is that she is bringing into the field of nursing with her going forward. Lucy is such a pleasure to work with. She is going to be a great nurse and I'm so proud of all of the research and accomplishments that she has done so far. The Egan School of Nursing has prepared me extremely well to transition into my professional practice and throughout these four years they've really emphasized the Jesuit values, creating well rounded people who genuinely want to help their patients. I've always felt very strongly about helping those with mental health issues and I feel like it's my calling in life to go into this field to support those who need help with their mental health. You can see how Lucy truly embodies the Jesuit value of caring for the whole person, mind, body, and spirit. I'm happy to share that Stanford Hospital will soon be using weighted blankets in their oncology unit based on Lucy's research. At the Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies, the public health major is growing. Public health professionals work to create sustainable communities through education, research, and the promotion of healthy lifestyles. Tierra Wheeler, a senior public health major, and Dr. Kim Doughty, explore the ways that minority communities perceive and experience the healthcare system. I'm Tierra Wheeler. I'm 22 years old. I'm from Norwich, Connecticut and I am a senior public health major here at Fairfield. By sophomore year I was in the Cura Personalist Mentor Program and my mentor, she was looking to be a public health major and so she kind of showed me what the major was all about and the many different routes and opportunities that public health allowed. There's a research side of it and the data collection and data analysis, but in terms of working with people or a community, you have to care about that entire community and what's going to benefit them. My capstone project is race, ethnicity, and trust in the United States healthcare system. I personally have my own questions about our healthcare system and I was just genuinely curious on whether or not other people of color felt the same way. I'm Kim Doughty. I'm a visiting assistant professor and director of the undergraduate program in public health here. Tierra stood out to me right away because she was always fully engaged in class. She also embodies the Jesuit values and mission of the university. In addition to pursuing scholarly achievement and development, she has a strong sense of commitment to social justice and I think that moral imperative has led her to this research topic. My two overall research questions include exploring and better understanding people's attitudes towards and experiences with the healthcare system. And second, if those attitudes, experiences, etc. have anything to do with a person's understanding and awareness of the historical medical mistreatment of minority groups. So although there are many other types of research that can be done in public health, survey research is kind of a mains day. It is a really important way that we gather information about the health of populations. To create the survey, first I went through some online resources and researched pre-existing surveys that had to do with just people's trust in general in the healthcare system or adverse experiences with the healthcare system. I also added questions about the historical component. For public health students, having the experience of developing a survey, administering it, working with the data is really valuable because it's highly likely that they will end up doing something like that in their future careers in some way, shape or form. So the interim results of our study and survey are showing that anybody who identifies as non-white are reporting higher levels of distrust in comparison to people who identify as non-Hispanic white. We've also come to learn so far that the non-white respondents have a higher tendency to perceive the healthcare system to be less fair. We've also seen that there was no difference in the awareness of the historical events where racial minorities were mistreated by the healthcare system or by researchers that there was just a low level of awareness for all respondents regardless of their race. We need research to both make informed decisions and to have data that backs up where problems might lie or where fixing needs to occur. I think that my survey could have implications for future research definitely. This research could also be used to shape academic curriculums. I think it's important to make sure that we're sending out the right people into the healthcare system and that there are people who are fit to operate in it and that there are people who are fit to care for all people because not all people experience life or healthcare or health the same way. Tierra's research shows us how important it is for us to look at healthcare from a policy perspective and how that affects entire communities. The newly-restructured office for research and grants currently supports over $14 million in active government and foundation grants, totaling 62 active grants. Fairfield University has been awarded $2 million in National Science Foundation grants over the past six years. Over $810,000 supported funding for new lab equipment used by our students with their faculty, ensuring the cutting-edge quality of our STEM education. We are so thankful for the funders who make this work possible. Unfortunately, we're nearing the end of our live show, but the symposium doesn't end here. Join our webinar at 1 p.m. to see keynote speaker Melody Serifino. Student research presentations are continuing on Zoom at 2 p.m. And be sure to join us at 4.30 p.m. today for a celebration of creativity and innovation. In the spirit of Earth Day, with a screening of The Branches, a performance by the Palabalus Dance Company, who will then be joined by Todd McGrane, the creator of The Lost Birds Project. Thank you for joining us. I'm Patrick Satyati, a proud Fairfield U alum. Have a happy Earth Day and Stag Giving Day. If you want to contribute to our participation goal of 1,942 donations, you can find a list of areas to support at fairfield.edu-staggiving. Good afternoon, everyone, and stags up.