From AI to oyster mushrooms, Steinbrecher fellows are prepared for intensive research
Five Clark University undergraduates have been awarded Steinbrecher Fellowships to pursue creative research projects in the sciences and humanities. The projects will begin this summer and continue through the 2026–27 academic year.
The fellows’ majors span the breadth of Clark’s academic departments, according to Professor Nancy Budwig, who directs this cornerstone program. The Steinbrecher Fellowships began in 2005 with a gift from the friends and family of the late David C. Steinbrecher ’81. David’s parents, the late Phyllis and Stephen Steinbrecher ’55, endowed the program to provide funding for Clark undergraduates to pursue original ideas, creative research, public service, or enrichment projects, with each cohort presenting the results of their work to faculty mentors and members of the Steinbrecher family.
This year’s fellows are:
Preeti Bachu ’27
Major: Psychology
Minor: Education (teaching certification)
How Caregiver Emotion Dysregulation Shapes Child Aggression Through the Lens of Pretend Play
Bachu will examine how children who grew up during the COVID-19 pandemic express socio-emotional themes in solitary pretend play, how these expressions relate to peer aggression, and how caregiver emotion dysregulation contributes to these patterns. The research will involve 50 pairs each of a caregiver and a 4- to 8-year-old child.
By the end of the summer, Bachu will produce preliminary analyses and a parent-friendly infographic summarizing practical strategies to support children’s emotional expression and regulation. The projectaddresses the need to understand how pandemic-era environments may have shaped children’s emotional development and interpersonal functioning.
Gage Dexter ’27
Major: Media, Culture, and the Arts + Health Science and Society
Minor: Music
Linking Arts to Health: Building Foundations for Social Prescribing in Worcester
Dexter will explore and advance social prescribing — a community-centered public health approach that connects individuals to non-clinical resources supporting health and well-being. Through independent study and applied fieldwork, he will examine the value of social prescribing, map existing community assets in Worcester, and build relational networks between community organizations and health-adjacent stakeholders.
Dexter’s project combines research, outreach, and public-facing deliverables, and will result in a community asset map, visual arts materials (e.g., flyers, social media assets, etc.), and reflective analysis linking community engagement to health outcomes. Through this work, Dexter will contribute to public health practice while developing his own practical skills in communication, outreach, and community engagement.
Fae Kitchens ’27
Major: Biology
Hybridization Between the Golden Oyster Mushroom and the Pink Oyster Mushroom
The golden oyster mushroom, Pleurotus citrinopileatus (Pc), is a cultivated Asian mushroom now invasive in North America. The pink oyster mushroom, Pleurotus djamor (Pd), is a non-native species of the same genus. These mushroom populations often overlap in Massachusetts. In his project, Kitchens will test Pc-Pd hybridization potential, which could impact their competitive ability against native species.
This lab research follows up on hybridization evidence from a semester project in the Introductory Mycology course and will develop important lab skills for Kitchens’ future career, including creating and following procedures, performing microscopy, and synthesizing results with past research. Kitchens plans to present this research at ClarkFEST in the fall.
Michael Schiumo ’27
Major: Finance
Minor: Management minor (business data analytics concentration)
Bounded Autonomy in Practice: Human Judgment and AI Decision Structures in Lean Public-Serving Organizations
Schiumo will investigate how small startups, nonprofits, and municipal offices structure their human oversight of AI-assisted workflows when AI outputs shape public-facing decisions. Existing AI governance research centers on large technology firms while this study focuses instead on resource-constrained organizations where oversight occurs in real time under deadline pressure. Through short-term embedding in a New York City-based AI startup, structured workflow mapping with a Worcester public-serving institution, and cross-sector interviews with additional lean organizations, Schiumo will document delegation thresholds, escalation triggers, override mechanisms, and accountability structures in real-world settings.
Schiumo plans to produce a bounded autonomy casebook, a Human-AI authority map, and an autonomy evaluation rubric for small public-serving organizations, which will all help translate abstract AI ethics into operational governance designs rooted in lived decision environments.
Manny Torto ’27
Major: Business Administration
Minor: Music
How Much AI is Too Much: The Perception of AI in Creative Production
This project will center on testing variations of a song to determine the lengths to which AI can be used in creative art, accompanied by a structured marketing campaign and research analysis. The work will combine studio production, carefully chosen AI tools, audience analytics, and social media strategy to study how listeners perceive the tension between human-made art and AI-assisted content. The project will investigate ethical and artistic questions raised by AI’s growing role in the music industry, through the lens of an independent alternative pop artist navigating platform algorithms and creative labor.
The project will deliver a single and a video for the most popular song selected by a test group from among a selection of songs using various amounts of AI.