Whitman College Undergraduate Conference Program 2020

Session 2
10:45 a.m. - Noon
Hispanic Culture
OLIN 138
Yann Dardonville, moderator
Zidane Galant-LaPorte, coach
10:45 a.m. YANN DARDONVILLE, MADI CROWLEY, TINA
DILWORTH, LEILA HAUSER, WHITNEY RICH, Memory,
Gender, Trauma: Considering the Complexities of Hispanic Culture
Our group presentation showcases the culminating work
of Whitman’s Hispanic Studies majors, demonstrating the
breadth of our research and highlighting the numerous
connections between our projects. Hispanic Studies seniors
were tasked with an original research project based on the
critical analysis of an aspect of Peninsular, Latin American
and/or U.S. Latinx narrative, verse, performance and/
or visual culture, all examined through one or multiple
theoretical lenses/methodological approaches. Collectively,
these projects represent a diversity of geographic spaces
(Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Spain) and a variety of historical
periods (from 17th-century Baroque to the 21st century).
They explore the social, political and cultural implications
of various works of literature, film and theater and engage
with themes of indigeneity, memory, the commodification
of culture, gender identity and societal trauma. Together,
they exhibit the power of literary analysis as a vehicle to
understand the complexities of the Hispanic world.
Faculty Sponsor: Nico Parmley
CS II: The Match Game,
Automated
OLIN 129
Ian Hawkins, moderator
Jamie Gold, coach
10:45 a.m. KIMBERLY TAYLOR, ROBERT QIN,
CHARLIE SCHNEIDER, BUYAKI NYATICHI, Automating
Mentor-Mentee Matching
The Whitman Mentor Program is a community service
program offered through the Student Engagement Center
that builds supportive mentor-mentee relationships
between Whitman students and students from Walla Walla
elementary schools through weekly meetings. Our project
automates the mentor-mentee matching process, allowing
program interns to better utilize their limited on-the-job
hours. We streamlined the mentor and mentee informationentry
process using Google Forms and Google Sheets.
Eligibility criteria for matching mentor-mentee pairs include
gender, language, transportation and availability, all of
which complicate the matching process. Because of the
types of these constraints, we found that eligible matches
could be modeled in a bipartite graph. We wrote a modified
bipartite matching algorithm to solve the problem and
created a plugin that uses Google Apps Script to extract data
from Google Sheets, build potential matches and formulate
the best possible matching scenario.
Faculty Sponsor: John Stratton
11:15 a.m. CHRISTOPHER PYLES, IAN HAWKINS,
TRUNG VU, ISAIAH STANDARD, Great Explorations: Designing
an Algorithm to Have a Human Touch
Every other year, hundreds of middle school students
register for the Great Explorations conference at Whitman
College. This all-female event features a wide variety of
STEM-related workshops. In previous years, students were
assigned to their preferred workshops by hand in order
to ensure equality and student satisfaction. We set out to
construct an algorithm to match girls to workshops more
efficiently, while still considering the same priorities. Our
algorithm focuses on satisfying student preferences while
also accounting for workshop capacity. Our presentation
shows how we programmatically apply a personal touch
while reducing the workload of our client.
Faculty Sponsor: John Stratton
Bio I: Plants and Animals
SCIENCE 159
Silas Miller, moderator
Alex Brockman, coach
10:45 a.m. PERTH SETHAPANICHSAKUL, Reconstruction
and Pairing of Mamenchisaurid Dinosaur Lower Jaws from Thailand
Dinosaur fossil excavation often yields misshapen or
scattered specimens that can be difficult to study. In
recent years medical technology has been applied to
paleontology to help work around these obstacles. Methods
such as computed tomography (CT) scans are very popular
for their ability to reveal the inner structure of fossils
and help separate bone fragments from sediments that
cannot be removed. My study aims to build on these
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