Nearly 40 undergraduates from Laurier Wilfrid University’s Brantford campus had the opportunity to show what they know during the ninth annual Academic, Creative and Engaged Research Showcase (ACERS) on Thursday, March 20, 2025.
Organizers, Bryce Gunson, research project coordinator in the Faculty of Liberal Arts, and Tracy Woodford, research project coordinator in the Faculty of Human and Social Science, said that event allows students across various disciplines to present their research projects beyond just their professors, but to their peers, families and local community members as well.
“It’s really an opportunity for undergraduate students to be recognized for their academic work. Today they’re displaying their research projects through a few different mediums like posters, videos, and podcasts,” said Woodford. “They submit the work, they’re evaluated by faculty and staff a few works beforehand, and then today we’ll be awarding the winners and celebrating their success.”
Gunson added that during the awards ceremony, students are awarded first, second and third place under each presentation medium.
“This event is sponsored by the Race family and so we’re actually able to give out over $5,000 in cash prizes,” he said. “Even our honourable mentions, of which there are two in each category, get something too so that’s always a nice bonus for them.”
While you could say ACERS is the equivalent to an undergraduate science fair, the students were presenting more than just inherently scientific topics; from criminology to video game design and much more, there were plenty of unique projects on display.
Clara Patey, a fourth-year forensic psychology student, was just one of several students presenting via a podcast. She explained that her research project ultimately looks at how social media alters users’ self perception of mental health.
“The podcast touches on people that self-diagnose themselves through social media and who use it as a mental health tool, as well as other interesting things that are going on online. This is such a relevant issue right now as researchers, including myself, are declaring self-diagnosis on social media platforms as an epidemic,” she said. “We’re seeing a large increase of this happening with adults but especially the youth, and so I’m hoping to spread some education and awareness to this issue so we can learn how to critically assess the content that we see online.”
Patey added that while she isn’t completely done with her research findings just yet, she can see how social media is affecting the younger population.
“A lot of our youth think that they have all sorts of mental health concerns that they don’t actually have, and haven’t even been assessed for, because they have all this trust in social media influencers who aren’t actually mental health professionals,” she said. “So while I’m not completely done with my finding just yet, I can see this is a big problem.”
Mackenzie Martin, a second-year student in the university’s social work program said that her research project “Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ/Cayuga Novice Learning Resources – Creation and Distribution,” first began in one of her first year classes called Indigenous Languages of Turtle Island.
During the class her professor, Jessica Bomberry, had students create Cayuga language resources to later distribute them to a language immersion school located on Six Nations of the Grand River.
“We all made resources, not just for kids to use but for everyone to use, and they’re all just fun activities to do in the language to support novice learning. …When the course ended, she [Bomberry] had given all these activities to her immersion class and so I reached out to her to see if we could do more,” said Martin. “I ended up asking her to send me all of the resources so that I could upload them to Google Drive and distribute them to a larger audience. I basically uploaded and organized everything so that people couldn’t edit the original copies, but so they could download them, use them and even download copies that you could translate and edit into other languages.”
She added that she also went out of her way to make an information sheet breaking down how to navigate the Google Drive and how to edit and reupload translated documents, and then contacted various organizations and teachers to distribute the resources.
Noting that she knows this alone won’t save the Cayuga language, she said what it could do is provide hope.
“These resources won’t bring those fluent speakers and teachers back, but I think it brings some hope; it brings something tangible that can surely make some sort of impact on some level,” said Martin.
Elisha Felician, a fourth-year law and society student, explained that the idea of her “Decolonizing Climate Change,” research project came to her after she saw the after effects of flooding in Pakistan on the news one day.
“I did a discourse analysis to focus on how power structures and how words influence society and vice versa. What I did was, I read three reports from three Global South countries which were Chile, Pakistan and also the Marshall Islands, because they are at risk of disappearing,” she said. “What I found out is that, yes, they attributed responsibility to developed countries, yes they were asking for some money, and yes, they also emphasized economic solutions for climate change. But what I did find interesting was that they weren’t as radical as I thought they would be.”
She explained her results ultimately pointed towards needing more grassroots approaches.
“We need more Indigenous voices, we need more women, people of colour and racialized communities to actually change the way we view climate change,” said Felician. “Once we change the way we view it and how we see it, then we’ll be able to change our solutions, but nothing’s happened like that so far.”
Following the main showcase event, students were then awarded for their work. First place winners received $750, second place winners received $500, and third place winners received $250. Those who were recognized as honourable mentions also received one $100 each.
The results were as follows:
Poster Category
First: Karlee Comer – “How the Waco Massacre Helped Advance Forensic Science: STR Quadraplex System”
Second: Elisha Felician – “Decolonizing Climate Change Narratives”
Third: Kate Fretz – “User Experience and Gamification: Understanding Effective Game Mechanics and the Flow State Within Digital Experiences”
Honourable Mentions:
- Bailie Kinrade – “Psychopathy & Gender Expression”
- Hans Yaaqob – “No Choice, No Voice: The Reality of Forced Treatment in B.C.”
Video Category
First: Hannah Baglole – “Building the Colonial Canadian Modern Girl: A Study of Modern Canadian Girlhood in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”
Second: Vanessa Currado – “Looking Up! How Birdwatching Inspires Awe and Enhances Well-Being”
Third: Natalia Luciani – “Immersive Virtual Reality Meditation and Acute Stress Regulation”
Honourable Mentions:
- Alex Kunlenkamp – “Nature’s Guardians: A Dive into Game-Based Learning”
- Hannah D’Agostino – “Lessons Beyond the Letters: Ideologies in 1880s Readers”
Podcast Category
First: Jasmine Cossette – “Case Study on the Value of Gastric Content Analysis in Forensic Medicine”
Second: Ashely Di Biase and Carissa Muise – “Bridging Worlds”
Third: Clara Patey – “Social Contagion: How Social Media Alters Users Self Perceptions of Mental Health”
Honourable Mentions:
- Claudia Khwale: “Exploring the Public’s Perception of Justice Through the Lens of Digital Vigilantism”
- Madison Konieczny – “Unmasking Propaganda”
Early Year Researcher Award (for first and second year students):
Selin Ulugbay – “The Effects of Mandatory Minimum Sentences on Gladue Principles”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
