On Aug. 1, undergraduate and graduate students from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences presented research posters during the Summer 2025 Office of Student Creative Activities and Research (OSCAR) Celebration of Student Research and Impact.
The symposium, held at Dewberry Hall in the Johnson Center, offered students the opportunity to showcase their research to George Mason students, faculty, staff, and community members.
Yamileth Hernandez-Becerra (foreign languages major) and Melody Campos (community health) received a Best Poster award for their research entitled, “Community Roots, Linguistic Equity: The Power of Outreach in Dual Language Immersion.”
Their research was conducted during a George Mason Summer Team Impact Project (STIP) that was led by Ellen Serafini and Jihye Moon, associate professors in the department of Modern and Classical Languages.
“This is more research oriented and a student-led project, which is very nice,” Moon said. “They started from scratch coming up with the research questions and designing the research. Not just interviewing one stakeholder but they identified who are the major stakeholders in this program.”
The STIP focused on language, educational access, and social equity in local bilingual schools and included graduate teaching assistant Teo Rogers Mendizabal (cultural studies), eight undergraduate students Campos, Hernandez-Becerra, Sarah Choudhary (English and foreign languages), Sukyoung Yoon (global affairs), Chloe Davis (foreign languages), Avery Rhoden (global affairs and foreign languages), Giselle Concepcion (mathematics and foreign languages), and Roslyn Brown (foreign languages).
The group observed teachers at dual language immersion programs at two elementary schools in the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) — Laurel Ridge Elementary School (Spanish) and Colin Powell Elementary School (Korean) — and interviewed a diverse audience, including teachers, school administrators, parents, FCPS board members, and state administrators.
“It feels great to give back to my community and see what I can do to help them,” said Hernandez-Becerra, who attended Robinson High School. “It has been an eye-opening for me to learn about these programs… I love my team. I love my mentors. I’ve learned a lot.”
In addition to the STIP research, a handful of individual CHSS students also presented at the symposium as part of research conducted through the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) from OSCAR. English major Amaiyah-monet Parker presented on “Multi-generational Experiences of Structural Racism and the Denial of Innocence in the Lives of Black Girls in Philadelphia.”
Psychology majors Mehmood Shajih and Minasi H. Kaluappuwa presented research entitled “Parents’ Beliefs About Child Development and Child Executive Functioning.” Fellow psychology major Keyanna Jackson presented a study on “Researching Self Actualization: How Queer POC Integrate their Intersectional Identities.”
Aileen Fezzie, a psychology and criminology, law, and society double major, researched “Differential Susceptibility to Social Influence Across Cultural Orientations. Integrative studies major Alessaundra Shallal conducted an oral history study entitled “Living Between Labels: An Oral History on Race, Religion, and Recognition Among MENA Students at GMU (1960-2025)."
“I’m so honored to have received this funding and this platform to share something that I believe deserves more visibility,” Shallal said. “The fact George Mason offers this is incredibly telling of its values.”
September 02, 2025