Samantha Swedzinski, a materials science and engineering doctoral student, received the Ignite Award as the judges’ choice for best presentation and the Glow Award as the audience choice.

Spark! Symposium showcases four big questions driving graduate research at UD

Article by Lisa Walenceus Photos by Evan Krape and Kathy F. Atkinson April 06, 2026

From outer space to Delaware’s backyard, UD graduate students are pushing the frontiers of discovery

The spring 2026 University of Delaware Graduate College Spark! Symposium, themed “New Frontiers: Discoveries Across Health, Society and the Galaxy,” highlighted four graduate students whose research offers insights with the potential to drive meaningful change. Designed to help UD graduate students communicate their work to audiences beyond academia, the Spark! Symposium underscores their essential role in advancing knowledge and addressing real-world challenges through discovery.

Here are the four big questions explored at the symposium and the graduate students behind them:

1. What if a simple concept could move us away from the brink of conflict?

Brooke Molokach, a doctoral student in communication, studies whether intellectual humility — the willingness to acknowledge we might be wrong — can reduce forms of “us versus them” thinking that encourage support for political violence and offer an off-ramp to political extremism.

Her research tests whether simple, scalable interventions designed to build intellectual humility can reduce dehumanization. Citing survey research that shows the acceptance of political violence in the United States has risen sharply in recent years, increasing from roughly one-fifth of Americans in 2024 to closer to one-third less than a year later, Molokach explained why the stakes are high.

“When you hear about political violence on the news, you hear words like political polarization, hostility, animus, hatred … but the real villain is dehumanization,” she said. Dehumanization facilitates cruelty toward opponents and drives support for violence, a cycle that intellectual humility could help disrupt.

Brooke Molokach, a doctoral student in communication, presented her research examining how intellectual humility may help reduce “us versus them” thinking that fuels political violence.

2. How can we find Earth-like worlds hidden within stellar noise?

Victor Ramirez Delgado, a doctoral student in physics, is working to improve the search for Earth-like planets beyond our solar system by filtering out faint planetary signals from the activity of the stars they orbit. The goal, ultimately, is to answer one of humanity’s oldest questions: Are we alone in the universe?

Ramirez Delgado focuses on improving how astronomers detect exoplanets using the radial velocity method, which measures the subtle wobble of a star caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet. Stars and planets rotate around a shared center of mass, or barycenter. When no planet is present, he explained, the star‘s velocity remains constant. When a planet is present, the star’s velocity is a repeating wave. The challenge is that stars are highly active, and phenomena such as flares and surface motion can obscure planetary signals.

“My research is about removing the noise from stars, similar to how ‘noise canceling headphones’ remove ambient noise,” he said.

Victor Ramirez Delgado, a doctoral student in physics, presented his research on detecting Earth-like planets beyond our solar system during the spring 2026 Graduate College Spark! Symposium.

3. What if building lung tissue in the lab could lead to a cure for fibrosis?

Samantha Swedzinski, a materials science and engineering doctoral student, is creating lab-based models of lung tissue to better understand idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a progressive disease of unknown cause marked by abnormal healing. Fibrotic diseases collectively account for one in five deaths worldwide.

There are currently only two approved medications for IPF, both of which slow disease progression rather than cure it, Swedzinski noted. Her research, she explained, could help pharmaceutical companies evaluate potential therapies more efficiently at a lower cost.

“In the United States, a clinical trial costs an average of $30 million to $50 million and takes six to seven years to complete,” Swedzinski said. “I design soft, light-responsive hydrogel platforms that model the lung tissue, and I use visible light to mimic injury and tissue stiffening. With these tools, we can study how cells respond to damage in a controlled way and test potential therapies before they reach patients.”

Swedzinski received the Ignite Award as the judges’ choice for best presentation and the Glow Award as the audience choice.

4. How can mapping PFAS contamination in Delaware’s drinking water help protect public health?

Megan Wassil, a doctoral student in water science and policy, is investigating the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called “forever chemicals,” in Delaware’s drinking water sources. PFAS exposure is linked to serious health problems affecting the cardiovascular, endocrine and reproductive systems, as well as kidney and testicular cancers.

Megan Wassil, a doctoral student in water science and policy, collects water samples from a Delaware stream as part of her research examining PFAS levels in local drinking water sources.

PFAS accumulate in the human body through everyday products and drinking water, Wassil explained, and 99% of people worldwide have been exposed.

“Cancer effects for PFAS are seen at just 0.6 parts per trillion, the equivalent of one drop in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools,” she said.

In samples collected from four streams used for drinking water in New Castle County, Wassil identified perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) levels that significantly exceeded that threshold. Between two sites along Red Clay Creek, PFOA concentrations spiked to 70 parts per trillion, more than 100 times the level linked to cancer risk. PFOA is one of the most used PFAS compounds. Her data, she said, supports the urgent need for expanded monitoring.

Held twice a year, the Spark! Symposium gives UD graduate students and postdoctoral researchers the opportunity to present short-form talks on their research to a broad audience. To learn more about the program and watch videos from past events, visit the Spark! Symposium web page.