An interdisciplinary symposium for seniors at Brown University

April 22 & 28–29, 2026

Critical Connections, Reflecting on the Journey

Symposium Schedule

[Day 2]

Tuesday, April 28, Petteruti Lounge 

12:00 – 1:15 p.m. | Roundtable: 

Dis/abilities, Education, and Design 

Rishika Kartik Disability and Design in the Practice of Medicine (Advisors: Sydney Skybetter, Sarah Skeels, Grace Argo)

Hannah Stoch Shaping Toward the Normative: Knowledge Production and Dissemination at Private Autism Schools (Advisors: Leon Hilton, Jennifer Lambe, Xan Chacko)

Zoe Florida – Programming Materials, Designing Systems: Translating Bioinspired Materials into Regenerative Applications (Advisor: Benjamin McDonald)

Moderator – Shaunté Montgomery, Associate Dean of the College


1:30 – 3:00 p.m. | Pecha Kucha-style Lightning Talks 

Ilektra Bampicha-Ninou No One Gets What Cognitive Narratology Is, but I Swear it Makes Sense (Advisors: John Cayley, Michael Stewart) 

Harshil Garg – How Brown led me to the UN (Advisor: Janet Isserlis)

Asya Gipson – When Communities Fail: Education and Empowerment in the Real World (Advisor: Kiana Murphy)

Emily LinYou Already Own It: A Digital Tool for Translating Outfit Inspiration into Action (Advisor: Jeff Huang)

Nene Mokonchu The Democratic Dilemma: Passive Pedagogy, Elite Compliance, and the War on Critical Thought 

Matteo Papadopoulos – Legal Geographies of Power at Brown and Beyond (Advisors: Lisa DiCarlo)

Oscar Petrov – What is the ‘Target Morphology’ of a Human System? (Advisor: Leo Kozachkov)

Cal Waytana Curriculum Evolution (Advisor: Harold Roth)

Emily Lin There Was Never a Right Decision


4:30 – 6:00 p.m. | Poster Session

Nikitha Bhimireddy – Understanding Skin Tone Modification: Behaviors, Influences, and Knowledge Among University Students (Advisors: Oliver Wisco, Toni-Marie Achilli)

Aidan Choi The Move On Chinatown (Advisors: Thea Quiray Tagle, Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Robert G. Lee, Angela Yuanyuan Feng, John Eng-Wong)

Sydney Chon Narratives of Care: Exploring Diversity and Health Management through Children’s Books (Advisors: Francois Luks, Therese Zink, Daniel Stupar, Li-Qiong Wang)

Michael Y. Clarke – Characterizing and Targeting Dysregulated Cholesterol as a Driver of Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (Advisors: Dennis Bonal, Patrycja Dubielecka-Szczerba)

Liz Duke-Moe – The Quiet Machine: On Soft Robotics, Bio-Composite Structures, and Lo-Tec Synthesizing (Advisors: Sharon Swartz, Nora Ayanian)

Eleanor Fuller Connections Between Control and Compassion to Enact Social Change 

Junnie Kim – How Old is “Old Enough”? Examining Extended Foster Care through an Emerging Adulthood Perspective (Advisors: Tracy Gladstone, Riki Heck)

Huy Le – Spatial Transcriptomics and Network Analysis of Prostate Cancer (Advisor: Ece Uzun)

Christopher Liu – Participant Meal Delivery Preferences in Meals on Wheels: A Thematic Analysis of Survey Data from the Deliver-EE Trial (Advisors: Emily Gadbois, Kimberly Bernard, Melissa Clark, Kali Thomas)

Phillip Meader Yetter Novel Analysis Framework for Studying Chronic Pain (Advisors: Chloe Zimmerman Gunsilius, Stephanie Jones)

Jake Regenwetter “Hey, I’m Walking Here!”: Simulating Vision-Based Pedestrian Dynamics Models for Multiple Collision Avoidance (Advisors: William Warren, Nicole Pangborn, Seda Salap-Ayca)

Anita Zahiri Deep RNA Sequencing as a Tool for Assessing Infection in Transplant Patients (Advisors: Sean Monaghan, Kristina Monteiro, Julie Roth)


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