Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities

URCA Assistant & Faculty Awards

Congratulations to the winners of the Fall 2025 URCA Assistant Program Awards!

URCA Research Mentor of the Semester Awards

Dr. Jason Finley, Department of Psychology

Nominated by: Nia Roy, Caroline Moon, Emma Peterson, Indy Bishop, and Logan Wilson

 Nomination: 

 "Caroline Moon, Emma Peterson, Indy Bishop, Logan Wilson, and Nia Roy have worked closely with Dr. Jason Finley in the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Program. We are all honored to nominate Dr. Jason Finley to receive an award for being the top Research-based Mentor at Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville.
Over the course of two years, Caroline and Nia have collaborated with Dr. Finley in recreating a contemporary version of Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve. During this time, Dr. Finley taught us how to code qualitative data and transcribe documents for data analysis. Additionally, outside of the study, he encouraged both members to pursue Honors Academy, which is an established program within the Department of Psychology that allows undergraduate students to pursue an individual capstone project, resembling a master’s thesis. His guidance, experience, and encouragement allowed each member to develop as researchers.

     This year, all members have equal participation in the third edition of the Wearable Camera Study, produced by Dr. Jason Finley. Not only has he provided materials for the experiment, but he also assigned each member a role based on their strengths. Utilizing our strengths allowed us to become more experienced with quasi-naturalistic studies and quantitative data. Additionally, he encouraged us to lead this experiment by suggesting key stimuli and writing cover stories, allowing us to develop our leadership and critical thinking skills.

    Each project produced and supervised by Dr. Jason Finley contributes to our development in becoming top researchers. Every lab meeting serves as a micro seminar on best practice and real-world research decisions. As a tenured professor and researcher, his ability to simplify complex concepts inspired us to become experienced with coding qualitative and quantitative data, following procedures, interacting with real participants, writing academic papers, and attending conferences such as the Midwestern Psychological Association.

    We all wholeheartedly recommend Dr. Jason Finley to receive Top Research-based Mentor of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. It is an honor and a privilege to work and learn alongside a researcher of his caliber. His dedication, expertise, and commitment to cognitive psychology make him an outstanding candidate for this role."

URCA Research Mentor of the Semester Awards

Dr. Markus Nauroth, Department of  Business, CMIS

Nominated by: Nicholas Witaschek

 Nomination: 

     "I am writing to enthusiastically nominate Dr. Markus Nauroth for the Research-based Faculty Mentor Award for his exceptional mentorship on our project, which studies the impact of cyberattacks on the market valuation of publicly traded companies.

    When I started, I had no prior research experience. Dr. Nauroth patiently taught me valuable research methodologies, ensuring I became a major contributor to our project, which we plan to publish this Spring. Through his guidance, I have truly grown as an academic, a researcher, and an individual.

    Dr. Nauroth’s support propelled our research to the highest levels of recognition. Last fall, I presented our findings to Chancellor Minor and the Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees. Following their commendation, I presented our work to Illinois State Legislative staffers. Dr. Nauroth was an invaluable resource for these high-profile events, spending countless hours updating slides and listening to my run-throughs. He was integral to the success of every presentation.

    Crucially, his mentorship extends beyond the research. I often drop by his office, and our conversations frequently run long, covering business, solving fun math puzzles, and discussing our shared German background. This commitment to my holistic intellectual growth makes him an outstanding mentor.

    Most significantly, the foundation built through our URCA project made my future career goals possible. With his dedicated help, including securing an affiliation letter from the Mainz University of Applied Sciences, I applied for a prestigious Fulbright Research Award in Germany to continue this work on the European market. The only reason I was able to put together such a competitive application is because of the work I did with Dr. Nauroth. My URCA experience with him has had a career-defining impact, and I believe there is no one more deserving of this award."

URCA Research Assistants of the Semester Awards

Emma Prott, Department of Environmental Sciences

Nominated by: Dr. Adriana Martinez

 Nomination: 

       "I am pleased to write this letter on behalf of Emma Prott for recognition for her outstanding work as an URCA Assistant. I am a Professor and Chair in Environmental Sciences and have been supervising Emma as an URCA assistant for three semesters. Emma is an Undergraduate student majoring in Environmental Sciences with a minor in both Biology and Chemistry.

     I first encountered Emma when she signed up for an optional field trip to Mammoth Cave that Dr. Sharon Locke and I organized. This later evolved into field and lab work on the Rio Grande. She was eager to learn about the cave formations and displayed her scientific knowledge as well as her humor. I encouraged her to apply for an URCA position regarding the impact of immigration infrastructure on the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas. This work primarily involved processing sediment samples in the lab after field collection that I had conducted. However, after seeing Emma’s interest in the project, I invited Emma to participate in the field portion of the study.

    To date, Emma has travelled down to the border with me three times to collect samples, conduct drone flights, and meet with local elected officials about the project. During these trips, we take aerial imagery of the site where Emma helps me set up the survey equipment and monitor the flight. We have also obtained permission from Texas DPS to go on their air boats to the buoys to collect sediment samples, release dye to monitor water velocity, and measure channel changes in the river. During this field work, Emma is always eager to learn, has picked up new skills in reading the river and collecting samples, and learning about river safety. She has also accompanied me to discuss the research findings with the Eagle Pass Mayor, the Mexican Consulate, our Texas Congressional representative, and city council members. During these meetings, Emma is able to articulate the project’s importance and research findings with well-known individuals that she has never met before. In addition, Emma has conducted interviews on the project with St Louis Public Radio and with SIUE Marketing for a news story on her work.

    Throughout this time, Emma has embraced the nature of the work. She chose to attend a basic lecture on river processes to learn river theory. She has also embraced the Tex-Mex culture while on the border, enjoying the food, getting to know locals, and visiting historical sites. The topic is a contentious one given the current political climate. It also isn’t always the most comfortable with muddy and either very hot or very cold days on the river in July or December. We also interact with the military and, at times, immigrants on the river. Emma has navigated all this with ease and has always focused on the importance of science telling a factual story of what is happening to the river. All this in addition to being an amazing field AND lab assistant.
In summary, Emma has gone above and beyond the duties of a normal URCA assistant. Therefore, I highly recommend her for the outstanding URCA Assistant award."

URCA Creative Assistants of the Semester Awards

Ella Young, Department of Theater and Dance

Nominated by:  Dr. Johanna Schmitz

Nomination:

    "I am delighted to nominate Ella Young  for the URCA Student Award this semester. Our project, "Building the Rose Theatre (1587-1605) Archive after the 1989 discovery" is a long-term on-going project now reaching 22,000 digital items, but due to Ella's skill and inventiveness, our work this semester has already made significant advancements in key areas of the public-facing elements of the project. These developments include the completion and publication of three collections:

     1. Because of Ella's involvement, the "Events at the Rose archaeological site" collection of over 260 items has been brought up to date, has enhanced formatting and more complete metadata and has been made public: lectures, book launches, open days featuring architecture, archaeology, historic costume, original practice in performance, script analysis, etc. The work is on-going this semester - there was a new lecture held last week in London - we have captured it!

    2. Another collection, The Friends of the Rose monthly newsletters going back twenty-six years is an informative exhibit chronicling the use the liminal space between excavation and new development - a transition that will be interesting to historians once the Rose Revealed construction project is completed and the site is stabilized. Ella helped copy and arrange these items into a new digital exhibition within the archive platform, complete with metadata.

 
    3. We have created a fairly comprehensive social media collection including old Rose Playhouse websites (which were difficult to manipulate), Blue Sky and Instagram posts, and, due largely to Ella Young's diligence to probe the possibilities of a file that had proprietary locks on it, a Twitter archive from 2009-2021 with some 21,000 "tweets" and more responses and reposts. The issue was accessing the data without accessing Twitter/X. It was Ella's idea to screen-record a video feed of these posts to maintain the familiar Twitter format and allow access to the User to this data reasonably quickly. The benefit is that this collection provides a chronological record of how the Rose reported activities at this designated Ancient Monument and how those posts were received by an international audience at a crucial time in the post-discovery Rose.

    4. Because of Ella's curatorial skills, part artist, part storyteller, and part engineer, we created a new You Tube channel and are configuring playlists to connect to the existing archive. not exist anywhere else. The Rose has an international interest, and these materials will reach international audiences/user groups.

    Ella's understanding and insight for the project, and her cool determination to untangle wooly issues of preservation and presentation of archival materials has enabled the project to gain new momentum - to finish some old projects that make it possible to move to other new areas of the archive (i.e. video/film) that have been languishing. This work will be part of my presentation at the World Shakespeare Congress in Verona next year. The digital archive, I hope, will be presented at the Shakespeare Association of American Conference digital scholarship exhibition in 2027.

    Every day we work on the Rose archive (Monday-Friday), Ella ends the day with measurable accomplishments. These are often projects I do not want or know how to complete. Ella finds a way to tell the story of the Rose bit by bit, file by file, image by image as we sew this quilt of theater history together one item at a time. I could not make this kind of progress this semester without her help. We are both learning together. We are both proud that, through this archive, we carry on the mantra of those who worked so diligently to preserve the Rose in 1989, "Save the Rose!""