UT Tyler Lyceum

Honors College

About the Lyceum

The Lyceum is the University of Texas at Tyler's largest student research showcase.

The term "Lyceum" refers to Aristotle's school in ancient Athens. Following in this tradition, the Lyceum at UT Tyler serves as a opportunity for students to showcase their original research and work to the larger community. This annual event is held in the spring of each year and sponsored by the Honors College.

10th Annual Lyceum - April 2025

UT Tyler Honors students showcase research, innovation at annual meeting of the minds

We'd like to thank all who attended the 10th Annual Lyceum Student Research Showcase on April 11, 2025. We had nearly 100 presentations, and we'd like to honor each and every one of them including this year's winners listed below!

Undergraduate Oral Presentation

1st - Jeremy Nichols, Creating History Through Storytelling in Absalom, Absalom!

2nd - Brendon D. Shannon, Liquid Devils: A History of the Church During Prohibition

3rd - Ayesha Khalid, AI-Enhanced Classroom Support: The Virtual Teaching Assistant Project

Graduate Oral Presentation

1st - Kaitlyn Holian, Silenced Narratives: The Interplay Between Academic Censorship and Authoritarianism

2nd - Feranmi Obe, Investigating tight junction remodeling in pulmonary epithelial cells following pneumolysin induced injury

Tied for 3rd - Tanvir Ahmed, Optimizing Asphalt Balance Mix Design with Facemask Reinforcement: A Rudimentary Study AND John Faulkner, Magnum Opus: History of Alchemy

Undergraduate Poster Presentation

1st - Lana Mousa, Health Insurance Coverage and Neonatal Mortality: An Analysis of Texas Hospital Discharge Data

2nd - Rachel Smith and Ashlyn Peppler, A secondary analysis of the psychological capital and gratitude of high school students in Northeast Texas

Tied for 3rd - Virginia Bradway, Serratia marcescens Strain-Specific Immune Responses in the Cnidarian Exaiptasia diaphana AND Matthew Castillo and Rafael Reyes-Ramirez, A Comparative Analysis of Traditional and Data-Driven Smoke Detection Systems Using Machine Learning AND Millie Jeske, Integer Partitions and Their Tableaux

Graduate Poster Presentation

1st - Daniel Flynn Bankard, Control as a Transdiagnostic Mechanism for Mental Health Disorders: A Literature Review

2nd - Benjamin J. DiGiovanna, Addressing Moral Injury’s Prevalence in Military Populations: A Review of Current Literature

Tied for 3rd - Tanvir Ahmed, Advancing Water Demand Predictions Through Artificial Neural Networks for The City of Austin AND Emily Phelps and Khaldoun S. Abdelwahed, Computational Analyses with recently resolved Positive allosteric modulator-bound Cryo-EM Structure of the (α4)2(β2)3 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor

View the full 2025 Lyceum Program

We hope all who participated left enriched by their experiences and inspired to learn and discover more about the world around us. The biggest of thanks to our sponsors, judges, moderators, mentors and, most of all, our students! We’re extremely grateful, and we look forward to seeing you for the 11th Annual Lyceum in April 2026!