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Southwestern Michigan College Honors Program’s NoTED Talks and Poster Presentation for the 2023-24 academic year took place April 23 in the Student Activity Center.

Three projects presented on stage in the SAC theatre included Elena Alvarado’s ”Fairytale and Mythology in Young Adult: Cinder and Percy Jackson”; Winona Paul, “Using the Trigonometric Fourier Series to Analyze the Sounds Generated Through Simple Electrical Signals”; and Nick Weston, “The Physics of Running.”

Paul, of St. Joseph, is interested in engineering. Paul was also part of a biosorption research project for Dr. Douglas Schauer with cross-country runners Kierstyn Thompson and Tori Yates, and Ginger Coleman-Caballero.

Alvarado, of Hartford, graduated from Watervliet High School. She will transfer to Western Michigan University to pursue education, using her bilingualism to become an ESL, or English as a second language, teacher.

Alvarado highlighted The Lunar Chronicles series, particularly “Cinder,” Marissa Meyer’s modern retelling of Cinderella as a cyborg — one of her stepsisters is nice, she doesn’t lose a glass slipper, but her robotic leg, and works as a mechanic; and Percy Jackson and The Olympians Series by Rick Riordon, rooted in Greek mythology.

“Cinder doesn’t wait for someone to come save her,” Alvarado said, “she takes things into her own hands. Riordan’s characters are all demigods.”

Charles Perrault — a French writer credited with inventing the fairy tale — in 1697 cast the form Cinderella would take for 400 years, introducing the glass slipper, the pumpkin and the fairy godmother, minus bibbidi bobbidi boo of Disney’s 1950 animated classic in a time period that believed women achieved the American Dream not through work, but through marriage.

Weston, a semi-finalist for a Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, ran cross country and participated in club track and field for the Roadrunners.

Runners “swing our arms to counter torque,” a twisting force, Weston said while navigating a slew of equations. “My coach is smiling because that’s something I struggle with when I get tired.”

He also touched on Usain Bolt being clocked at 27.33 mph in a 100-meter race.

Last month in New Orleans, Weston presented his research using fungi to remove lead from water to the American Chemical Society’s national meeting.

Weston, of Paw Paw, will transfer to Western Michigan University to study biochemistry.

He was joined in Louisiana by Mitzy Grana Diaz, Hartford; Alex Foster, Baroda; Katie Lull, Marcellus; and Delaney Platt, Illinois.

Out in the atrium, posters lined the curved glass wall.

Deijah Strickland, an accounting major from Benton Harbor, researched cancel culture.

Michelle Clapp, a biology major from Marcellus, delved into animal corridors developed to counteract loss of biodiversity and genetic diversity within animal habitats.

Tyhe Glenn, St. Joseph graduate from Benton Harbor, looked at anime. He was selected from a national pool of applicants as a Summer Scholar for Chautauqua’s 150^th season this July in New York. He wants to earn his bachelor’s degree in animation and game art at WMU.

Volleyball player Abi Marquis, who attended Michigan Lutheran High School in St. Joseph, is studying elementary education. Her mother, who works in Children’s Protective Services, suggested her topic, abolishing capital punishment.

Shilah Semple, 43, of Niles, titled her poster, “Fatal Flatulence: Glo’Bull’ Warming.” While she grew up around farming, she’s studying art. After putting her children through school, she decided it’s her turn for college.