The culmination of each student’s DSSRF experience is the presentation of their final project. The Project Gallery below represents the vast and varied range of topics which our students have explored over the years. For some students, the DSSRF project serves as a starting point to a larger research project, such as an honors thesis. Featured here are the stories of three DSSRF alumni who leveraged their initial projects into further work.
Tyler Candelora '19
A native of the central Pennsylvania Coal Region, Tyler's research journey began in 2016 when he was selected for the Emerging Scholars Program at Bucknell University; he conducted research on the cultural significances of nearby Shamokin and Coal Township by analyzing ten monuments. As a member of the first DSSRF cohort in 2017, he expanded on this research with a more in-depth look at representations of coal miners throughout the Coal Region by analyzing monuments, literature, photography, and other mediums. His honors thesis in Comparative Humanities, "Translation, Memory, and Place: The Ethics of Digital Hermeneutics", continued his research into cultural memory, place studies, digital humanities, and memorialization.
Abby Dolan '19
A member of the Bucknell Gamelan Ensemble, Abby's project in DSSRF sought to leverage digital tools to create an online educational resource for students of the gamelan. The gamelan is a traditional Indonesian orchestra made up of mostly percussion instruments; Bucknell's gamelan consists of more than two dozen instruments played by nearly 20 student musicians. As a member of the 2018 DSSRF cohort, Abby created an initial version of the digital gamelan, with the goal of helping new learners become familiar with the instruments outside the classroom. In Spring 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic sent students home, Abby worked with Gamelan Ensemble Director Bethany Collier to create updated versions of the digital instruments. The updated version includes five downloadable instrument applications. Explore the instruments at Gamelan Learning.
Emilia Blechschmidt '26
As a mathematical economics major, Emilia participated in DSSRF the summer after her first year at Bucknell and researched factors affecting vaccine distribution in sub-Saharan Africa. Her research was inspired by an Engineers Without Borders trip to Mattru, Sierra Leone, which she went on with her father. On that trip, she learned about the lack of resources in other parts of the world and the challenges they face to provide simple medical care. After DSSRF, Emilia continued her research on the topic of vaccine equity (with a focus on COVID-19 vaccination) as a Presidential Fellow working under Professors Jan Knoedler and Amy Wolaver in the economics department. Her three years of research culminated in her honors thesis in mathematical economics, "Barriers to Immunity: Understanding COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake in Africa."
