Eighteen Bridgewater College students spent the summer conducting full-time research under the mentorship of faculty in disciplines ranging from game design to environmental science. Funding was provided by the Dr. John W. Martin Summer Science Research Institute and by The Research Experience @ Bridgewater (TREB). Here are a few of their projects:
Acen Hite ’27, a computer science and game design major, worked with Associate Professor of English Dr. Sam Hamilton on a project to determine if large language models (LLMs) and large reasoning models (LRMs) could be trained to beat humans at the card-based party game Apples to Apples.
Unlike games that are based in logic—say, Checkers or Chess—winning at Apples to Apples requires players to pay attention to how their opponents play the game and change strategy on the fly. According to Hamilton, this is something that LLMs and LRMs struggle to do.
In their project, “AI-pples to AI-pples,” Hite and Hamilton recruited teams to play the game against three LLMs/LRMs, logged the players’ decisions, and then input that information into the tools. Then the humans played the trained LLMs/LRMs to see who would win. Hite will present the results of his research at ASPIRE: A Celebration of the Arts, Scholarship, Performance, Innovation and Research Excellence, to be held in spring 2027.
Brooklyn Williams ’27, a human development and family science major, worked with Dr. Donna Hoskins, Associate Professor of Health and Human Sciences, on a teacher handbook for early childhood educators.
Their project, “Developing a Culture of Inquiry in Early Childhood Classrooms: Ways to Use What Science Tells Us,” was part of Hoskins’s ongoing work to synthesized current literature in the field of early childhood education to create training material for teachers on how to create a culture of inquiry in their classrooms. Williams’s role in the project was to develop a table of contents, develop examples of activities to include, and write a draft of a portion of the book.
Williams will present her work at the Virginia Teachers of Family and Consumer Sciences state conference later this year. Hoskins hopes to submit the final teacher handbook to an educational publisher.
Landon Frye ’29 and Lilyana Green ’29, both environmental science majors, worked with Dr. Tim Kreps, Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Science, to create an interactive map to help connect the local community to the North River watershed in Rockingham County, Va.
A cooperative effort with a newly-formed watershed group, North River Friends, the trio compiled existing data on the watershed—water-quality assessments, surveys of fish populations, etc.—and organized it in an easy-to-read format. The map will also highlight the history and recreational usage of the river. The goal of the project is to help connect local residents to their watershed and inspire greater environmental engagement and stewardship.
A full list of the summer research award projects is available here: bridgewater.edu/research2026.
Published: October 9, 2026
