This year’s edition of Merrimack College’s annual marquee student-research showcase, the Research and Creative Achievement Conference, on Thursday, May 1, featured nearly 240 pieces of scholarship, discovery and creativity from more than 400 undergraduate and graduate students, highlighting the depth and breadth of the students’ pursuit of knowledge.
“We are excited to celebrate our student researchers, faculty collaborators and mentors who have shown resilience in a complicated and challenging time, as it serves as a testament to perseverance, resourcefulness and creativity,” said John “Sean” Condon, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, “Their efforts highlight the importance and value of meaningful inquiry.”
The Sakowich Center’s Multipurpose Room was filled with posters detailing the work done by students from all five Merrimack schools.
Raynn Collier ’27 and Daniel Ayanian ’27, both environmental science majors with the School of Arts and Sciences, shared their research on consumer decision-making based on corporate environmental malfeasance.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t have a large enough sample size to make a firm conclusion,” explained Collier, “but we did find commonalities that showed knowledge of malfeasance negatively affects spending habits.”
Mechanical engineering students from the School of Engineering and Computational Sciences detailed their time competing in the VEX U Robotics Competition in Framingham, Mass. in February. Competitors were tasked with building robots that could pick up rubber rings splayed across a game floor and hook them onto goal stakes.
“We passed through four of the six qualification rounds and made it to the semifinals,” said John Hart ’25. “It was a lot of fun.”
Finance major Steven Petrillo ’26 and business major Ian Montero ’26 of the Girard School of Business partnered with iMotions, an IT company based in Boston, Mass., that specializes in human behavior research software, for their research into advertising effectiveness.
“We used iMotions software’s eye movement, galvanic skin response and facial expression analysis capabilities to track our participants’ responses to various advertisements,” said Petrillo. “Based on the data, we found that emotional ads triggered more facial engagement and joy in older viewers, while humorous ads captured the attention of younger audiences.”
Thanks to the resources available in the Mucci Capital Markets Lab, the pair also used AI machine learning to create a ChatGPT bot to further analyze the data found through their research.
“We spent a ton of hours feeding this thing information,” said Montero. “It knows every detail of the study.”
Meanwhile, over at the Rogers Center for the Arts, the Department of Visual and Performing Arts hosted a reception for its senior capstone projects. The reception featured a live musical performance by Audrey McGill ’25, a music and theatre arts major. For her capstone, she wrote “Between Shadows and Light,” an 11-song indie folk concept album.
The centerpiece of the exhibit, located in the McCoy Gallery, featured two hand-crafted chairs inspired by yellow lady’s slippers and large-fruited sand verbena flowers.
“By forcing the audience to sit with the discomfort of the chair’s design, I hope to inspire a deeper understanding of the vital role plants play in our existence and the need for immediate action in preserving them,” explained Carly Taylor ‘25, the graphic design and studio art major behind the piece.
