There is increasing interest in understanding how active learning affects students’ mental health as science courses transition from traditional lecture to active learning. Prior research has found that active learning can both alleviate and exacerbate undergraduate mental health problems. Existing studies have only examined the relationship between active learning and anxiety. No studies have examined the relationship between active learning and undergraduate depression. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted hour-long exploratory interviews with 29 students with depression who had taken active learning science courses across six U.S. institutions. We probed what aspects of active learning practices exacerbate or alleviate depressive symptoms and how students’ depression affects their experiences in active learning. We found that aspects of active learning practices exacerbate and alleviate students’ depressive symptoms, and depression negatively impacts students’ experiences in active learning. The underlying aspects of active learning practices that impact students’ depression fall into four overarching categories: inherently social, inherently engaging, opportunities to compare selves to others, and opportunities to validate or invalidate intelligence. We hope that by better understanding the experiences of undergraduates with depression in active learning courses we can create more inclusive learning environments for these students.

My thesis, Design of Hierarchically Porous Materials Containing Covalent Organic Frameworks, focuses on testing the validity of incorporating nanoporous organic materials into macroporous scaffolding to improve the functionality of covalent organic frameworks as materials for filtration applications. The macroporous scaffold was based off of a material recently described in literature and the bulk of the experimentation was focused on the effects of the necessary processing for the creation of the macroporous material on the structure of the covalent organic frameworks. The property primarily investigated was the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area, as the applicability of the frameworks is largely determined by their nanoporous surface area.

The recent discoveries of 2D van der Waals (vdW) materials have led to the realization of 2D magnetic crystals. Previously debated and thought impossible, transition metal halides (TMH) have given rise to layer dependent magnetism. Using these TMH as a basis, an alloy composing of Fe1-xNixCl2 (where 0 ≤ x ≤ 1) was grown using chemical vapor transport. The intrigue for this alloy composition stems from the interest in spin canting and magnet moment behavior since NiCl2 has in-plane ferromagnetism whereas FeCl2 has out-of-plane ferromagnetism. While in its infancy, this project lays out a foundation to fully develop and characterize this TMH via cationic alloying. To study the magnetic properties of this alloy system, Vibrating Sample Magnetometry was employed extensively to measure the magnetism as a function of temperature as well as applied magnetic field. Future work with use a combination of X-Ray Diffraction, Raman, Scanning Electron Microscopy, and Energy-Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy Mapping to verify homogeneous alloying rather than phase separation. Additionally, ellipsometry will be used with Kramer-Kronig relations to extract the dielectric constant from Fe1-xNixCl2. This work lays the foundation for future, fruitful work to prepare this vdW cationic alloy for eventual device applications.