University Celebrates Student Research at 2026 Academic Festival

From AI to social justice, student projects reflect real-world impact and academic excellence

Key Highlights

• Sacred Heart’s Academic Festival highlights student research and creative work across all disciplines
• Focuses on undergraduate (and some graduate) projects, often developed with faculty mentorship
• Includes poster sessions, presentations, and creative displays

Sacred Heart University hosted its annual Academic Festival, showcasing outstanding undergraduate and graduate research across disciplines. The culminating event at West Campus brought together students, faculty, staff, and guests to explore innovative projects presented through poster sessions, oral presentations, and creative work.

The festival highlights the University’s commitment to academic excellence, interdisciplinary collaboration, and real-world impact. More than 500 students worked on 275 projects.

This year’s festival featured a wide range of topics from health care innovation and environmental science to artificial intelligence, literature, and social justice. The large poster session at West Campus allowed students to present their research and engage directly with attendees.

“The Academic Festival is my favorite day of the year,” said Amanda Moras, vice provost. “It’s this amazing opportunity to celebrate our students and all their hard work. It’s really about the culmination of academic excellence and scholarship that we see from them every day. This is really the opportunity where we get to showcase it publicly, see everything we already know that is going on in our classrooms and show it to our entire Sacred Heart community, so we just couldn’t be prouder. Ultimately, we want our students to make the world around them better, you look at their projects, there is no doubt that’s what they are on their way to go do.”

Top Awards

• Provost’s Prize
  Julia Piascik & Doria Lukasik-Drescher – Maker’s Assistant for Retrieval and Kinetics (MARK)
• Best Multidisciplinary Research or Collaboration
  Sophia Maldonado, Erin Phillips, Mae Esposito, Francesca Evangelista, Chelsea St. Cloud, Sebastian Rosario – From Paws to Peace: Stress Reduction in College Students
• Best Technology Prototype
  Julia Piascik & Doria Lukasik-Drescher – Maker’s Assistant for Retrieval and Kinetics (MARK)
• Best Visuals
  Ava Russo – Reducing Alarm Fatigue and Promoting Patient Comfort Through the Alaris Pump Computer Link System
• Best Writing
  Mahmud Kandawala, Joaquin Camaran & Thiago Reis – Binary Age Classification in NHANES
• Most Creative
  Isabella Lovato & Emma Valerian – Spartina Alterniflora Restoration Research
• Most Scholarly Impact or Potential
  Ryan Mastropaolo – Synthetic Data Generation for NCAA Basketball Performance Analytics
• Most Transformative for Social Justice
  Gracie Patriarco – The Hidden Consequences of Mass Deportation

Dean’s Prize Recipients

• College of Arts & Sciences – Humanities (1st Place)
  Christina Poirier – Beyond Critique: Experiential Pathways from Meritocracy to Solidarity
• Natural Sciences (1st Place)
  Mason Tsaglos – Effects of seed source and sediment conditioning on seagrass germination and seedling performance
• Social Sciences (1st Place)
  Ava Hufford – The Social Costs of Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in the United States: An Analysis of Attitudinal Dispositions, Sentiments, and Actions Indicating Cohesion
• Davis & Henley College of Nursing
  Nicole Case – Improving Communication with Tracheostomy or Mechanically Ventilated Patients Through Bedside Communication Boards
• College of Health Professions
  Elena Pasquale – The Differential Distribution of Subcutaneous Body Fat in Cyclists
• Farrington College of Education & Human Development (Undergraduate)
  Lindsay Capobianco – Teaching Visualization to Support Reading Comprehension in an Elementary Classroom
• Farrington College of Education & Human Development (Graduate)
  Sarah Bergers – Can AI Score Student Work Like Faculty?
• Welch College of Business & Technology
  Petr Beranek – The Alcohol Paradox: Do Drinkers Weigh Less? Evidence from National Health Data

Honorable Mentions

• Julianna Mondella Marissa Voorhees, Liam Connelly, Maddie Hodges, Alexa Westhoff – Anxiety and spatial memory in pregnant rats
• Mahmud Kandawala – AI system for aerospace maintenance
• Lillian Deking – Circadian control of learning and sleep
• Victoria Saracino – Marriage in Pride and Prejudice
• Olivia Smith and Sylwia Lipinski – Alcohol Exposure and Behavior Regulation
• Christina Poirier – Meritocracy to Solidarity
• Nicole Case – Communication for Ventilated Patients

The 2026 Academic Festival underscores Sacred Heart University’s dedication to fostering student research, creativity, and innovation. By providing a platform for students to present their work, the University continues to prepare graduates to contribute meaningfully to their fields and communities.