Lafayette makes high-profile appearance at inaugural CBL conference

Lafayette made a strong showing at the first annual Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in STEM, bringing more CBL scholars than any other participating school.

“The inaugural Clare Boothe Luce Networking and Academic Conference was a wonderful way to bring together the undergraduate scholars and faculty from different institutions committed to supporting and advancing women leadership in STEM,” said Wendy Hill, director of the
Hanson Center for Inclusive STEM Education, who co-facilitated a workshop on “Imposter Phenomenon” with Jenn Rossmann, professor of mechanical engineering.

“The day was a terrific opportunity to learn from one another and harness new ideas and approaches to bring back to our respective campuses,” Hill added. “It also helped to reinforce the good work we have been doing at Lafayette in engineering through our Clare Boothe Luce Research Scholars Program as our students demonstrated real leadership both during the research presentation session and the workshops.”

Held at the Ford Foundation for Social Justice in New York City, the July 20 conference also showcased the work of student researchers. Lafayette was well represented as Erin O’Leary ’25 moderated a panel on “Understanding the Graduate School Application Process,” and nearly a
dozen other students delivered formal presentations about their research.

• Eve Bertoni ’25 – Mapping nonperennial streams in an urban environment
• Nava Chevan ’25 – Sustaining creatively? Investigating the effects of creativity and sustainability-focused evaluation criteria in design tasks
• Elizabeth Desmet ’24 – Drag force measurement in an expansion tube
• Paris Francis ’26 – Robo-Bike: Constructing an autonomous motorcycle to validate high- fidelity dynamic motorcycle safety simulations
• Sophia Harrill ’26 – Assessing purity and hydrolytic degradability of bio-based plastics from birch bark
• Madison Horvath ’26 – Impact of molecular weight ratio and dye used on drug release from PEO-b-PCL copolymer films
• Maia Merriman ’26 – Characterization of carbonyl-containing aqueous aerosols using a continuous-flow atmospheric chamber
• Erin O’Leary ’25 – Characterization of carbonyl-containing aqueous aerosols using a continuous-flow atmospheric chamber
• Sarah Sergi ’26 – Reversible CO2-controlled volume phase transitions and swelling in hydrogels
• Grace Trautwein ’26 – Fertilizer from wastewater: Biological-enhanced phosphorus removal
• Tara Whipkey ’25 – Analysis of degradation products from degradable poly(ethylene oxide)- block-polycaprolactone (PEO-b-PCL) films with changing crystallinity