Ten students present Maple Scholars research

2025 Maple Scholars Projects

A study on first-generation persistence

Blanka Bodo, a junior psychology major, worked with Jan Kauffman, associate dean of student success, to study how first-generation students build persistence for their college careers, interviewing a variety of first-generation student and creating recommendations for the college to improve the student experience.

Roommates and room matchings

Josiah Miller, a sophomore math and secondary education double major, studied game theory with David Housman, professor of mathematics and chair of the department, studying algorithms to solve the “roommate problem,” a classic game theory problem where the goal is to find stable matching for an even-sized set.

Latinx middle class in northern Indiana

Fernando Daza, a senior peace, justice and conflict studies and business double major, and Cristobal Garza Gonzalez, professor of Spanish, interviewed numerous successful Latinx community members in northern Indiana, showcasing how Latinx people are thriving and helping the community. They hope to eventually write a report to share with the broader community.

Enhancing engagement: an interpretive approach to writing labels for the GC art collection

Senior art major Ryan Snider and Sara Method, professor of art and department chair, worked together to develop a labeling method for the many pieces in Goshen College’s extensive art collection, which spans across campus.

Mapping the story of Goshen College

Emma Campbell, a senior elementary education and TESOL major, worked with Eric Bradley, head librarian of the Mennonite Historical Library, and Sarah Mast, assistant registrar, to create an interactive map of Goshen College with historical photos, showcasing what campus looked like since the early 20th century.

GC employee well-being + student success: a mixed methods analysis

Peace Muhagachi, a graduated sociology student, collaborated with Patty Hartshorn, director of Health & Wellness and Title IX coordinator, to measure employee well-being on a holistic scale, incorporating a variety of factors and developing a report for the institution.

From field to archive: creating data from past Marine Biology experiences

Laci Munger, a senior environmental and marine science major, worked with Phil Allman, professor of marine biology, to digitize nearly 50 years of data from GC’s marine biology program and create historical datasets.

Her Song Remains: The Story of Cora Dale

Silas Immanuel, a graduated film production and accounting student, worked with Kyle Hufford, professor of communication, to produce a documentary focused on local musician and playwright Cora Dale, who was sent to a state mental hospital for much of her adult life.

Exploration of the antifungal potential of honey bee (Apis mellifera) propolis

Ashley Garcia Coto, a senior molecular biology and biochemistry major, worked with Andrew Ammons, professor of biology, studying propolis, a mixture of beeswax, resin and other byproducts, that honeybees use to seal their hives.

Analyzing neural network weights for functions, inverses, and autoencoder-based

Filippo Gallo, a senior computer science major, worked with Manu Bhattarai, professor of physics, to study how trained neural networks can compress and decompress data and the methods the network uses to learn.