An Excel-Based Load Management System for Athletes

Drill menu and Practice Planner excel documents regarding a Catapult or other GPS load monitoring software. As well as a step by step manual on how to implement this and correlational data between estimated load and actual accumulated loads.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1148/thumbnail.jp

Olympic Cleans: Functions, Coaching, and Forgotten Details

This project will be covering both the Clean and Snatch movements. Not only how to coach each movement for beginner athletes, but also important notes regarding equipment and effectiveness of the exercises and their benefits.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1154/thumbnail.jp

Connections Between Home Environmental Factors and Risk-Taking Behavior in Preschool-Age Children

Risk-taking behavior is defined as making a decision to engage in an activity when the outcome is unknown. This study explores the influence that critical home factors (caregiver marital status, socioeconomic status, and children in the home) have on risk-taking behavior in preschool-age children. During the study, 54 preschool participants (aged 4-5) completed the BELT to gauge their successful risk-taking. Caregivers\u27 Health and Demographic information were collected as a measure of home environmental factors. The results of this study revealed no significant difference between risk-taking behavior across all familial and home factors. Despite the null findings, the results suggest that participant similarities, such as family income and structure, may have contributed to the null results, and provide the opportunity for future studies to address these limitations. This study contributes to the previous literature on early childhood risk-taking.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1087/thumbnail.jp

Hormonal Birth Control Amongst Merrimack College Students

This semester I have been working with Dr. Amy Shafrir in her research study on pelvic pain among college students at Merrimack College. Through helping with this study I have gained extensive information about pelvic pain and different effects it can have on the college student. For this presentation, I will investigate how the use of different types of birth control may cause differences between types of pelvic pain. This study was done through a survey that was available to female, at birth, undergraduate students at Merrimack College who have had moderate or severe pelvic pain in the past 6 months. Students completed a questionnaire including information about their demographics, specific pain, period regularity, and birth control use. We recruited participants through posting flyers around campus and by having our study listed on SONA . I will use the information from multiple questions for my presentation including but not limited to, type of birth control used, presence and level of pelvic pain, and age the participants first noticed pelvic pain. At this time, 55 participants have completed our study and we anticipate recruiting more participants before the conference. Over 70% of participants reported ever using birth control, with almost 35% reporting using more than one type of birth control in the past. The number of birth control types currently and previously used will be compared between participants with period pain and those with general pelvic pain.This study will show the correlation between types of birth control used and pelvic pain.https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rcac_2025_posters/1131/thumbnail.jp

The adoption of the game squad exergaming intervention for young adults with Down Syndrome: A qualitative analysis

Adults with Down syndrome face persistent barriers to physical activity, including mobility limitations, lack of accessible programming, and low self-efficacy. Exergaming represents a potentially scalable, home-based approach to increasing physical activity in this population