Mary Baldwin University students showcase original research and celebrate academic achievement at the 2026 Capstone Festival.
Above: MBU Senior Maya Britton posing with paintings from her project, Persecuted, Erased, Suppressed, which earned distinction for “Best Artistic Presentation”
The tables were lined with tri-fold boards and laptops, each one a window into months — sometimes years — of focused academic work. On Tuesday afternoon, Mary Baldwin University’s Grafton Library filled with students, faculty, and guests as the Class of 2026 brought their capstone research into public view, standing beside their posters and walking visitors through findings that ranged from microbiology to macroeconomics.
The poster session was the culminating public showcase of MBU’s 2026 Capstone Festival, a two-day academic celebration that featured graduate and undergraduate research presentations across disciplines before closing with a formal awards ceremony in Francis Auditorium. Together, the days represented what a Mary Baldwin education is designed to produce: students who don’t just absorb knowledge but generate it, defend it, and share it.
Spotlight on Poster Presentations
Eight students presented original research during the afternoon poster session, covering topics that reflected the breadth of MBU’s academic Neighborhoods, from the natural sciences to the humanities to economics. What follows is a closer look at their work, in their own words.
Alex Flanagan
Hometown: Chaptico, Maryland
Major: Biology (Biomedical Emphasis)
Plans after Graduation: Continuing work at the University of Virginia lab that supported this research
“What’s the one thing you want people to walk away understanding about this?”: “If you’re bitten by a tick, save it in case you get sick.”
Cassidy Newcomb
Hometown: Chase City, VA
Major: Biology (Biomedical Emphasis)
Plans after Graduation: Applying to a physician assistant program and working as a medical assistant at Shenandoah Dermatology
“What’s the one thing you want people to walk away understanding about this?”: This research came from a personal experience and it’s really easy to research something when you’re passionate about it. So never be afraid to pursue the things that interest you most.
Adiba Tojimirzaeva
Hometown: Namangan, Uzbekistan
Major: Biochemistry, Minors in Math and Psychology
Plans after Graduation: Grad school
“What’s the one thing you want people to walk away understanding about this?”: “There are so many avenues that haven’t been explored and are still being discovered when it comes to new cell-lines and the broader project of Alzheimer’s research, and I’m excited that my work helps fill out some of the important progress at the granular level of this research.”
Em Yuhasz
Hometown: Abingdon, VA
Major: Environmental Biology
Plans after Graduation: Moving to Maryland and working in the National Park Service
“What’s the one thing you want people to walk away understanding about this?”: “Fungi are absolutely essential to the success of ecosystems, and we need to continue to work to understand their relationships.”
Madeline Trace
Hometown: Bunker Hill, WV
Major: Applied Mathematics
Plans after Graduation: I plan to move to Virginia and explore grad school options.
“What’s the one thing you want people to walk away understanding about this?”: There are a lot more uses for graphs than people realize, no matter what field.
Mya Gaudier
Hometown: Newport News, VA
Major: Biology
Plans after Graduation: Commissioning into the U.S. Army National Guard as a second lieutenant in the chemical corps
“What’s the one thing you want people to walk away understanding about this?”: Pollutants affect the world around us, even if it’s been a long time since initial contamination.
Awards Ceremony
At 3:45 p.m., the celebration moved to Francis Auditorium, where the afternoon shifted from conversation to recognition.
Dr. David McLeod, associate professor of biology, delivered the keynote address ahead of the award announcements.
“Learning is not complete until it’s shared,” McLeod began. “What we celebrate today is not about output. It’s not just the result of the work and the experiments conducted along the way. It’s a celebration of the process … Curiosity is a fundamental part of the human experience, and it unites us across the arts and sciences and every department here at Mary Baldwin University.”
2026 Capstone Awards and Winners
Best Social Sciences and Humanities Paper: Jack Corns ‘26, “From Service to Sentencing: The Triple Threat Behind Veteran Incarceration”
Best Literature Paper: Lee Iraheta ‘26, “The Instability of Masculinity and a Case for Pluralism: an Ecofeminist Reading of Moby Dick”
Best History Paper: Hunter Gregory ‘26, “Censoring the Narrative: How the Hays Code Shaped the Way America Saw Itself”
Best Quantitative Paper: Mirah Rose ‘26, “The Role of LL-37 in Prostate Cancer Cell Migration via the CCL2-NF-kB Signaling Pathway”
Best Artistic Presentation: Maya Britton ‘26, “Persecuted, Erased, Suppressed”
Best High Impact Practice: Kaneesha Anderson ‘26, “Trauma-Informed Shelter Counseling Program”
Best Science Poster: Alex Flanagan ‘26, “A Serosurvey of Central Virginians for Exposure to Heartland Virus”
Best Quantitative Poster: Mya Gaudier ‘26, “Impact of Mercury Exposure on Malaria Prevalence in Carolina Wrens”
A final award, presented by MBU’s Chaplain Dr. Katie Low, recognizes the importance of diversity and pluralism in producing research projects of the highest quality.
Pluralism Award: Lee Iraheta ‘26, “The Instability of Masculinity and a Case for Pluralism: an Ecofeminist Reading of Moby Dick”
The work displayed and recognized on Tuesday afternoon offered a fitting close to MBU’s 2026 Capstone Festival — a reminder that the university’s promise to its students isn’t just a credential at the end of four years, but the confidence and capability to contribute something meaningful to the world beyond campus.
For a full look at the 2026 Capstone program — including paper presentations from across MBU’s academic Neighborhoods and graduate programs — the complete event program is available below.