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Foundations For Business Success: A New Course Integrating Disciplines & Soft Skills
Get PDFIn today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, higher education plays a vital role in preparing students for the workforce. Business education, the most popular undergraduate major in the U.S., with over 20% of students earning business degrees (Behara & Davis, 2015), is responsible for equipping students with both technical expertise and the soft skills necessary for success in diverse professional environments. However, many business programs continue to operate in highly siloed structures, resulting in fragmented interdisciplinary knowledge and insufficient development of essential soft skills. As the demands of the economy continue to evolve, business curricula must adapt to provide a more holistic, integrative learning experience to provide students within our institution the knowledge and development we advertise and promise. As explained in (Kleckner & Butz, 2001), initiatives to teach interpersonal skills should be a central goal across all educational institutions’ missions, spanning every academic discipline and knowledge area. To address this issue, my capstone project proposes a new course entitled “Foundations for Business Success”, designed to provide business students with a de-siloed, interdisciplinary learning experience that enhances business education and soft skills. The course will serve as a model for how business schools can effectively combine practical business training with essential professional skills, ensuring that graduates are not only knowledgeable in their fields but also equipped to thrive in dynamic and collaborative professional environments throughout the span of their lives after graduation. Ultimately, in my project I will enhance business education for first-year students through creating a required course that prepares students for interpersonal and professional success.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1027/thumbnail.jp
Housing Challenges and Policy Gaps for Immigrant Families in Boston: A Systematic Literature Review
Get PDFBoston is home to a large and diverse immigrant population, in 2021, with over 28% of residents being foreign-born (Harrington et al, 2024). However, rising housing costs and a severe shortage of affordable housing have disproportionately impacted immigrant families, particularly those with low incomes, limited legal status, and pending work permits (Harrington et al., 2024). Many immigrants face unique barriers to securing stable housing, including discrimination and a lack of established credit history (Wu, 2022).
This systematic literature review explores three key research questions: (1) How do Boston’s current affordable housing policies impact immigrant families? (2) What are the primary challenges immigrant families face in securing housing? (3) How can successful housing programs from other cities be adapted to address the needs of immigrants in Boston? By synthesizing existing research, this study shows policy gaps and identifies potential strategies to increase the accessibility of affordable housing for immigrant communities in Boston.
This research has critical implications for social work practice in Boston, particularly in advocacy and policy reform. Social workers can play a key role in addressing housing inequities by supporting immigrant-friendly policies, increasing outreach efforts, and collaborating with community organizations. By implementing equitable housing policies, Boston can better support its immigrant population, fostering economic stability and social integration.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1048/thumbnail.jp
My Experience Interning at the Lawrence Court Service Center
Get PDFThis past semester, I participated in an internship with the Court Service Center at the Lawrence location. I attended in-person, two days a week, beginning in January. My internship primarily involved me helping litigants who do not have access to an attorney with filling out court documents. Additionally, I often provided court users with general legal information as well as pointed them towards community and legal resources that may be of benefit to them. I even got to experience sitting in on both civil and criminal hearings, allowing me to gain an understanding of these types of court proceedings. This internship allotted me the opportunity to learn about the court system, while greatly improving my communication and writing skills.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1051/thumbnail.jp
The Pandemic Skip and the Power of Nostalgia: Why Gen Z is Drawn to Animated Kids Shows
Get PDFThe early 2010s produced animated kids shows such as Gravity Falls, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, and The Legend of Korra, which drew Generation Z because of elements like family, friendship, and self-introspection. This connection is strengthened by the Pandemic Skip Phenomenon: a time where young adult’s mental growth was stunted during COVID-19, leading to this generation looking for comfort in these nostalgic animated series’ to assist the transition into adulthood.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1069/thumbnail.jp
Mental Health & Nature
Get PDFHow does exposure to nature influence mental health and well-being? These students will distribute a survey designed to measure these concepts to a sample of Merrimack students. They will ask about time spent in nature and questions about well-beinghttps://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1075/thumbnail.jp
Breath Regulation for Enhancing Attention and Task Handling in Executive Function
Get PDFThe present study is aimed at investigating the association between slow-paced breathing and executive functioning in college students with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. The physiological effects of slow-paced breathing were measured using heart rate variability and executive functioning was assessed using a classic response inhibition task known as the Go-No-Go task. A within-subjects study was used to assess how response inhibition changed when a three minute bout of slow-paced breathing preceded the task compared to a control condition. Each participant’s heart rate was measured in a resting state and during the Go/No Go task. During the breathing condition, heart rate was also assessed during the paced breathing bout. Additional assessments were used, such as the Positive And Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), to gather information on the participant’s current state of mind before and after the executive function task.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1079/thumbnail.jp
Connections Between Home Environmental Factors and Risk-Taking Behavior in Preschool-Age Children
Get PDFRisk-taking behavior is defined as making a decision to engage in an activity when the outcome is unknown. This study explores the influence that critical home factors (caregiver marital status, socioeconomic status, and children in the home) have on risk-taking behavior in preschool-age children. During the study, 54 preschool participants (aged 4-5) completed the BELT to gauge their successful risk-taking. Caregivers\u27 Health and Demographic information were collected as a measure of home environmental factors. The results of this study revealed no significant difference between risk-taking behavior across all familial and home factors. Despite the null findings, the results suggest that participant similarities, such as family income and structure, may have contributed to the null results, and provide the opportunity for future studies to address these limitations. This study contributes to the previous literature on early childhood risk-taking.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1087/thumbnail.jp
Tasking with a Twist: Turtle Edition
Get PDFhttps://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1088/thumbnail.jp
Senior Design Vex High Stakes
Get PDFThis senior design project involved the design, construction, and competitive evaluation of VEX robots by mechanical engineering students. Teams applied fundamental engineering principles to systematically plan, analyze, and simulate robot performance prior to fabrication. Utilizing CAD modeling, structural analysis, and iterative prototyping, students optimized robot mechanisms to achieve efficiency and robustness. Completed robots were subsequently tested through direct competition at the university-hosted robotics event in February, demonstrating practical effectiveness, durability, and competitive success. This experiential approach emphasized not only technical proficiency in robotics but also teamwork, strategic problem-solving, and the integration of mechanical design with real-world constraints and requirements.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1107/thumbnail.jp
Data Mining to Understand the Impact of the Circadian Advantage in the NHL
Get PDFThis project utilizes Data Science methodologies within RStudio to investigate the circadian advantage in the NHL. The core focus is to determine how travel across time zones impacts team performance, specifically analyzing the effects of circadian rhythm disruptions on game outcomes. I am data mining and feature engineering for two datasets. The datasets are from the 2016-17 and 2017-18 NHL Seasons. Game-level data include the Date and Time of the game (in local time), the Home and Away team, the total number of goals for each team, the division of each team, the Time Zone of the game, how many time zones the Away team traveled to get to the game, the days since their last game, the distance (in miles) they traveled, and the winner of the game. This data will be used to analyze how the timing of the games and the direction of travel affect the win percentage. The goal is to provide insights into the real-world effects of circadian rhythms on athletic performance, with potential implications for optimizing team travel schedules and improving player performance.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1111/thumbnail.jp