STUDENT: Landon Pumo

ADVISOR: Dr. Steven Frysinger

Natural disasters, such as the flooding seen in Asheville, NC, in 2024, frequently damage water supply infrastructure, leaving many without safe drinking water for extended periods. In these crises, vulnerable populations must find alternative sources, often waiting for external aid. Untreated water can lead to disease outbreaks, placing strain on already overwhelmed medical facilities.

This project presents an affordable, portable, and solar-powered filtration and disinfection system designed for immediate disaster response for families or small groups. The system uses a small 12-volg battery and solar panel to power a water pump, ensuring operation off the grid. The purification process combines sediment filtration, carbon block filtration, and chlorine disinfection.

The system uses standard 10-inch filter cartridges available at local hardware stores, ensuring serviceability and modularity. This allows the filtration media to be reconfigured based on specific local contaminants. By adhering to World Health Organization, Sphere, and Oxfam WASH standards for emergency water supplies, the system ensures water safety and the daily quantity necessary for basic survival.

This prototype offers a sustainable, low-cost alternative to bottled water, helping families secure their own water supply while infrastructure is repaired.

STUDENTS: William DeSimone and Andrew Udalov

ADVISOR: Dr. Robert Brent

SPONSOR: Virginia Department of Environmental Quality

Healthy stream ecosystems support diverse benthic macroinvertebrate communities that play an essential role in aquatic food webs and serve as key indicators of water quality. However, several streams on Virginia’s Eastern Shore have been identified as impaired due to degraded macroinvertebrate communities, signaling potential environmental stressors affecting water quality and ecosystem health.

Our project investigated the underlying causes of stream impairment using the Environmental Protection Agency’s Causal Analysis/Diagnosis Decision Information System (CADDIS) framework.
Available biological, chemical and physical monitoring data were analyzed to evaluate relationships between stream conditions and macroinvertebrate community health.

Candidate stressors such as nutrient enrichment, low dissolved oxygen, and habitat degradation were assessed to determine their potential contribution to ecological impairment. By identifying the most likely drivers of degradation, this research improved our understanding of coastal freshwater ecosystem health and supported more effective water quality management and restoration efforts on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

STUDENT: Abigail Fischer

ADVISOR: Dr. Chris Bachmann

CO-ADVISOR: Dr. Cheng-Li

This project explores how naturally occurring microorganisms can be used to convert crude oil contamination into clean hydrogen energy. Using microbial electrolysis cells, bacteria break down hydrocarbons found in crude oil and transfer electrons through an electrical circuit, enabling the production of hydrogen gas.

By testing different microbial communities and environmental conditions, the research aims to improve both oil degradation and hydrogen generation efficiency. This work highlights a potential dual benefit: cleaning up petroleum pollution while producing renewable hydrogen fuel, contributing to both environmental remediation and sustainable energy solutions.

STUDENTS: Evan Cooper and Zachary Lee

ADVISOR: Dr. Chris Bachmann

CO-ADVISOR: Dr. Mesude Bayrakci-Boz

SPONSOR: Solstice Farm Brewery

Our project explores whether solar thermal energy could help a local farm brewery reduce energy costs and produce beer in a more environmentally friendly manner. Solar thermal systems capture heat from sunlight and use it to warm water, which can then be used in a variety of processes at the brewery.

For this project, a solar thermal collector was designed and built to heat water during daylight hours. The system was then compared with more common renewable energy options, such as solar panels that generate electricity, to evaluate its overall effectiveness.

By analyzing both costs and potential savings, the study determined whether installing a solar thermal collector or solar photovoltaics would be a practical and financially beneficial choice for the brewery.

STUDENTS: Aiden Michaels and Colin Sell

ADVISOR: Dr. Chris Bachmann

Over the past two decades, sports have entered a data revolution, with statistics and analytics playing an increasingly important role in how teams evaluate players and make strategic decisions. This project explores how historical data from baseball and football can be used to predict game outcomes using statistical modeling and artificial intelligence techniques.

By identifying key performance metrics and patterns in team and player data, the research examines how predictive models can estimate the likelihood of winning or losing a game. At the same time, the rapid growth of legalized sports betting has created a new demand for accurate predictive analytics, raising questions about how these models are used and their broader implications.

This project investigates how modern analytics, statistical reasoning, and AI are shaping the future of sports analysis while highlighting both the opportunities and challenges of a sports landscape driven by data.

STUDENTS: Megan Bayne and Darnell Hicks

ADVISOR: Dr. Chris Bachmann

SPONSOR: LifeNet Health

LifeNet Health is the global leader in providing organs and tissue for regenerative medicine. Vascular grafts are commonly used for patients with peripheral vascular disease (PVD), kidney failure requiring hemodialysis, vascular trauma reconstruction, and beyond.

Before donor tissue can be provided to a recipient, it must undergo processing and testing to ensure it is viable and poses no risk of an immune reaction. LifeNet Health's patented process improves long-term patency by reducing the risk of inflammation, thrombosis, and neointimal hyperplasia. However, many of the steps involved require a laboratory technician to manually perform tasks for processing and evaluation. making the process time-consuming and expensive.

This project aimed to automate leak testing performed by technicians on vascular grafts by comparing results from a z-axis optical leak tester to the current manually performed gold-standard process. Preliminary results showed a strong comparison between manual and automated processes, indicating that the z-axis optical leak tester could automate this part of the vascular testing.

By reducing manual effort, this approach has the potential to increase efficiency and help LifeNet Health expand its impact—saving more lives, restoring more health and providing hope to patients around the world.

STUDENTS: Jada White, Jaylon Taylor

ADVISOR: Dr. Mesude Bayrakci Boz

CO-ADVISOR: Dr. Steven Frysinger

When Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico in 2022, over 3.1 million people lost power, some for more than nine months. For low-income coastal communities, extended grid outages are not an inconvenience; they are life-threatening.

This project simulates a solar microgrid with battery energy storage and machine learning-based cybersecurity for a community modeled after zip code 33755 in Clearwater, Florida, a census tract identified by FEMA as having very high hurricane risk and very low community resilience. As hurricanes grow more intense, communities like this one need energy systems that can survive a storm and resist the cyberattacks that increasingly target smart grid infrastructure.

Using HelioScope, two ground-mounted solar arrays were designed to meet 3.94 megawatts of daily demand across 1,876 buildings. HOMER Pro optimized battery storage and costs across five building-type schematics. The open-land park site required less storage and cost $378,000 less per year to operate than the developed supermarket site.

The hospital schematic sustained 22.2 to 26.7 hours of battery autonomy, confirming the system’s ability to protect life-safety infrastructure overnight. A feedforward neural network detected five categories of cyberattacks with 96.23% accuracy and a ROC-AUC of 0.9842.

While load profiles were modeled at the single-building level rather than full community scale, the results provide a credible, replicable framework for solar microgrid deployment in vulnerable coastal communities across Florida’s hurricane-prone coastline.

STUDENTS: Bradley Bookwalter and Ananshia Seenivasan

ADVISOR: Dr. Mesude Bayrakci Boz

STUDENTS: Zach Lee and Evan Cooper

ADVISOR: Dr. Mesude Bayrakci Boz

CO-ADVISOR: Dr. Chris Bachmann

The solar thermal system was designed and manufactured to evaluate the heating demand of the beer farm. Also, PV application is evaluated for power demand.

STUDENT: Olivia Jose

ADVISOR: Dr. Jennifer Coffman

SPONSOR: Jubilee Climate Farm

Muddy Creek in Rockingham County, Virginia, suffers from significant water-quality degradation caused by agricultural runoff, including excess nutrients, sediments, and pollutants.

This project aims to develop and assess biochar-based biofilters as a sustainable solution for improving water quality and capturing key nutrients for use in cropland.

Biochar’s adsorption capabilities will be tested under dynamic water conditions, contributing to scalable, cost-effective environmental remediation strategies. Findings will support watershed management practices and benefit stakeholders, including farmers, environmental agencies, local water resource managers, and downstream residents.

In addition to filling a research gap on biochar’s use in dynamic water systems, this study will evaluate the feasibility of integrating biochar biofilter remediation into existing agricultural landscapes. It also assesses biochar’s ability to adsorb harmful pollutants from agricultural practices, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and E. coli.

STUDENTS: Jordan Yang, Chad Kassan and Andrew MacRae

ADVISOR: Dr. Ehren Moler

Biochar was added to the soil in Virginia's two state-owned loblolly pine seedling production nurseries to investigate its potential to reduce nitrate-nitrogen loss to the environment through leaching.

STUDENTS: Jah Batts

ADVISOR: Dr. Rod MacDonald

This project develops a system dynamics model of the U.S. light-duty vehicle market to explore the transition from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to battery electric vehicles (EVs).

The model represents

• interacting stocks of ICE and EV fleets
• technology cost trajectories
• consumer adoption dynamics
• charging infrastructure build-out
• firm investment decisions under evolving policy and market conditions

Endogenous feedbacks include

• economies of scale in battery manufacturing
• network effects from expanding charging infrastructure
• regulatory pressure through emissions and fuel economy standards
• balancing loops related to capacity constraints and profitability

Policy levers, such as purchase incentives, fuel or carbon prices, and infrastructure subsidies. Simulation experiments trace possible transition pathways, highlighting conditions that generate rapid, self-reinforcing adoption versus “stop and go” diffusion.

The model is intended as both a research tool and an educational platform for understanding the complex feedbacks that govern technological transitions in transportation.

STUDENT: Maegan Nicely

ADVISOR: Dr. Ehren Moler

SPONSORS: JMU Arboretum and JMU Facilities Management

This project was designed to help the JMU Arboretum pursue a higher level of accreditation as a conservation institution, a new priority for the Arboretum. The project focuses on two key steps:

1. Understanding which species are currently present at the Arboretum to identify opportunities for introducing new species and increasing overall biodiversity.
2. Evaluating whether regional-scale climate data accurately reflects the specific planting locations within the Arboretum.

The second step is critical for selecting species that can tolerate local weather conditions, especially as climate change introduces conditions that may differ from long-term regional averages commonly used in plant selection.

STUDENT: Caleb Kovack

ADVISOR: Dr. Ehren Moler

SPONSOR: Harrisonburg Department of Public Works

Water scarcity is becoming an increasing challenge for agriculture in many regions. This capstone project examines how lavender responds to drought conditions by testing plant performance under different irrigation levels.

Plant growth and health were monitored throughout the experiment to evaluate drought resistance. By identifying how lavender performs under water-limited conditions, this research explores its potential as a low-water crop suitable for sustainable farming systems.

STUDENT: Garrett Hall

ADVISOR: Dr. Ehren Moler

The Spotted Lanternfly is an invasive insect pest in the Mid-Atlantic region that is expected to continue spreading throughout the United States and potentially cause significant agricultural losses.

Experts have determined that the insect is attracted to sounds of a certain wavelength. Our study investigated whether sound attractants are likely to be useful tools for controlling the insect in noisy real-world environments.

STUDENT: Jason Hamant

ADVISOR: Dr. Rod MacDonald

CO-ADVISOR: Dr. Linda Thomas

This project model explains how cost and schedule overruns emerge from the dynamics of error creation and correction in projects that follow a rework cycle.

It represents how work flows through four stocks — work to be done, undiscovered rework, rework to be completed and completed work — and how feedback between schedule pressure, quality and rework drives overruns.

STUDENT: Julia Gagliano

ADVISOR: Dr. Rod MacDonald

CO-ADVISOR: Dr. Stefano Colafranceschi

In this rebuilt version of Dennis Meadows’ Stratagem, students step into the role of a national government tasked with guiding long‑term development by deciding how to allocate the country’s gross domestic product across multiple ministries.

Drawing on the original model’s interconnected sectors — population, energy, agriculture, environment and industrial production — the updated simulation assigns dedicated ministers for energy, agriculture, health and human services, the environment, and industry. Each advocates for investments that advance their portfolio’s goals while competing for limited resources.

In each decision cycle, the government collectively chooses how much of current GDP to devote to boosting productive capacity, protecting environmental quality, expanding energy and food systems, and improving health and social services. These decisions feed back into the system, shaping future GDP, population well‑being, and ecological resilience over several simulated decades.

By observing the model’s behavior over time, students experience the tensions between short‑term economic growth and long‑term sustainability. They also see how gains in one sector can create risks or opportunities in others, and learn how seemingly simple budget decisions can generate complex dynamic patterns such as booms, overshoot and decline.

STUDENT: Bradley Devoir

ADVISOR: Raafat Zaini

CO-ADVISOR: Shannon Conley

This project explores immersive simulation as a potential methodology for improving accessibility in aerospace education. Concepts such as rocket staging, orbital flight, and reusable launch systems are often difficult for students to visualize. Traditional aerospace education typically requires advanced mathematics, specialized facilities, and expensive laboratory equipment. As commercial spaceflight expands and reusable rockets reduce launch costs, improving public understanding of space systems is becoming increasingly important.

To explore new approaches to teaching these concepts, this capstone examined the educational potential of the physics-based spaceflight simulator Kerbal Space Program. Through structured experimentation with the platform, the project recreated a mission inspired by the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, including satellite deployment into low Earth orbit and recovery of the reusable first-stage booster. These simulations were used to evaluate how immersive digital environments can help illustrate core rocketry principles such as launch trajectories, staging events and orbital insertion.

Initial plans focused on developing an interactive classroom mission for students to complete. However, testing revealed that the platform’s complexity made direct classroom implementation challenging for beginners. As a result, the project shifted toward developing a narrated demonstration mission designed to explain key phases of a rocket launch through guided simulation.

The results suggest that immersive simulation may serve as a promising educational methodology for introducing aerospace systems and improving accessibility in STEM learning.

STUDENT: Braedon Farr

ADVISOR: Dr. Robert Brent

Access to safe drinking water remains a critical concern, even in residential settings where faucet-mounted filters are widely used. However, these systems don’t provide active feedback on water quality or filter performance, leaving users unaware of potential contaminant breakthrough.

This capstone project addresses this gap by designing and developing a smart, cost-effective device that integrates directly with existing faucet filters to continuously monitor water quality.

The system uses oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) sensing as a primary indicator of overall water quality and filter effectiveness, enabling detection of filter degradation over time. Collected data is transmitted to a user-friendly mobile interface, providing real-time insights and alerts when water quality declines or filters require replacement.

By automating monitoring and eliminating reliance on guesswork, this solution improves reliability, safety, and user confidence. This project demonstrates a scalable and accessible approach to residential water quality management, with potential for broader applications in public health and smart home systems.

STUDENTS: Sam Hubard, Brayden Vandenberg, and Michael Willliams

ADVISOR: Dr. Jonathan Miles

Tangier Island, a remote island community in Virginia, relies on an aging subsea cable for its power. The project builds on and improves an earlier microgrid model and design that would enable island residents to generate their own power while incorporating solar, wind and battery technologies.

STUDENT: Jack Eberl

ADVISOR: Dr. Jonathan Miles

This project develops a pre-application tool to simplify the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) for small businesses and agricultural producers pursuing distributed wind systems. Using user-provided inputs, the tool performs turbine sizing, financial analysis, and application guidance to assess feasibility and generate key components early in the process.

Focused on the Southwest Virginia region, it supports distributed energy deployment by reducing reliance on third-party consultants and lowering barriers to REAP participation.

STUDENT: Cameron Zuend

ADVISOR: Dr. Cindy Klevickis

SPONSOR: Pure Shenandoah

This report presents a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) of hempcrete blocks, a sustainable building material composed of the woody inner core of the hemp plant, lime binder, and water. By evaluating environmental impacts across raw material sourcing, cultivation, and manufacturing, this assessment captures the full upstream footprint of hempcrete production without extending into the use phase or end-of-life considerations.

The sourcing stage involves acquiring and transporting hemp seeds to the facility. The environmental burden varies depending on origin and shipping distance. During the cultivation stage, these seeds are grown into hemp plants through industrial farming processes, yielding baled hemp stalks ready for further processing.

The stalks are then processed using a decorticator, which separates the woody inner core, known as hemp hurd, from the rest of the plant material. The hemp hurd is combined with lime binder and water, then cured into the finished hempcrete blocks.

Firsthand cultivation, manufacturing, and processing data were collected in partnership with Pure Shenandoah, allowing the results to reflect real-world growing and production conditions. When compared with traditional insulation materials, this study highlights hempcrete's potential as a carbon-effective and environmentally favorable alternative in modern construction.

STUDENT: Cameron Burrows

ADVISOR: Dr. Tobia Gerken

Urban areas often experience higher temperatures than their rural surroundings, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island (UHI) effect. This occurs due to the replacement of natural land cover with heat-absorbing materials like concrete and asphalt, reduced vegetation, decreased evapotranspiration, and anthropogenic heat emissions.

The lack of evapotranspiration due to limited urban vegetation reduces natural cooling processes, intensifying heat retention and contributing to increased energy demand, environmental stress, and potential risks to human health. These temperature patterns are not distributed equally across areas and can vary significantly across the neighborhood level.

This project aims to map urban heat disparities associated with the unequal distribution of urban green spaces at the block group and census tract levels in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and to examine how these patterns relate to socioeconomic and demographic characteristics using U.S. Census data.

Using satellite-derived land surface temperature (LST) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), we analyze patterns across the area using ArcGIS. This data is integrated at the census block group level to identify correlations between heat exposure and race, income, and age.

Early results show a clear relationship between higher land surface temperature and densely built environments that lack green space. Existing studies have shown that urban heat exposure is often unevenly distributed across socio-economic groups, which this project aims to investigate.

Final deliverables include high-resolution maps, statistical analysis, identification of marginalized communities, and actionable recommendations for urban planning, such as targeted green infrastructure to mitigate heat and promote environmental equity in Harrisonburg, Virginia.