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Foreign languages major Yamileth Hernandez-Becerra and community health major Melody Campos received a Best Poster award for their research, “Community Roots, Linguistic Equity: The Power of Outreach in Dual Language Immersion,” during the Summer 2025 Office of Student Creative Activities and Research (OSCAR) Celebration of Student Research and Impact in August.

Their research was conducted as part of 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 in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS). 

The symposium, held at Dewberry Hall in the Johnson Center, offered undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to showcase their research to �������� community. 

For the STIP program, faculty make a proposal to the Office of Undergraduate Education in the Provost’s Office. Projects are then selected for funding. Serafini and Moon’s summer project focused on language, educational access, and social equity in local bilingual schools.

The team observed teachers at dual language immersion programs at two Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) elementary schools—Laurel Ridge Elementary School (Spanish) and Colin Powell Elementary School (Korean)—and interviewed teachers, school administrators, parents, FCPS board members, and state administrators.  

“This is a student-led project,” Moon said. “The students started from scratch coming up with the research questions and designing the research. They identified who the major stakeholders were in this program and interviewed them.”

Graduate teaching assistant Teo Rogers Mendizabal, who is working on a degree in Cultural Studies, worked on the project with eight undergraduates: Campos, Hernandez-Becerra, English and foreign languages major Sarah Choudhary, global affairs Sukyoung Yoon, foreign languages major Chloe Davis, global affairs and foreign languages major Avery Rhoden, mathematics and foreign languages major Giselle Concepcion, and foreign languages major Roslyn Brown. 

“It has been an eye-opening experience for me to learn about these programs.… I’ve learned a lot,” said Hernandez-Becerra, who attended nearby Robinson High School. “It feels great to give back to my community and see what I can do to help them.”

In addition to the STIP research, a handful of 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 titled “Parents’ Beliefs About Child Development and Child Executive Functioning.” 
• 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 titled “Living Between Labels: An Oral History on Race, Religion, and Recognition Among MENA Students at GMU (1960 to 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.”