Tepper School Undergraduates Showcase Innovative Research at 2025 Meeting of the Minds

Several Tepper School of Business undergraduate students took part in Carnegie Mellon University’s 2025 “Meeting of the Minds,” held on campus on April 30. The annual university-wide Undergraduate Research Symposium celebrates the breadth and depth of student-led research and creative inquiry across disciplines.

This year, Tepper School students presented a wide range of projects focusing on topics from economics and leadership, to artificial intelligence and public policy. These projects reflect the academic excellence of the Tepper School’s undergraduate program, as well as the students’ dedication to exploring complex, real-world issues through research.

The Tepper School is proud to support and celebrate the research contributions of its students. Their participation in the Meeting of the Minds underscores the school's commitment to fostering intellectual curiosity and interdisciplinary impact at the undergraduate level.

Participants and their projects included:

• Grace Ahn – The Moral Liability of Algorithmic Collusion (advisor: Derek Leben)
• Briana Chen – The Comparative Effectiveness of AI-Assisted Versus Human-Generated Social Media Content in Influencing Purchasing Decisions (advisor: Melissa Murphy)
• Anisha Chintala – The Impact of Transformational Leadership and Emotional Intelligence on Organizational Change and Team Development (advisor: Rubab Jafry O'Connor)
• Grace Fujino – The Efficiency of Financial Literacy Programs Across Demographic Groups (advisor: Julie Downs)
• Dillon Guludec – Research Methodology for Predicting the Best Explanation in Group Conversations (advisor: Simon DeDeo)
• Sonya Karnataki – Navigating the Social-Emotional Landscape of Neurodiversity in AI Education (advisor: Darren (Ren) Butler)
• Ethan LeBlanc – Economic Voting in US Presidential Elections (advisor: John Gasper)
• Tianrui Lin – Detecting Anomaly in US Corporate Emission Statements: An Entropy-Based Empirical Study (advisor: Gaoqing Zhang)
• Aditi Shimpi – Healthcare Private Equity, Impact of Fee-For-Service to Value-Based Care Model Shift on Private Equity Strategies & Patient Outcomes (advisor: Matthew Denes)
• Evan Stuhlfire – Leadership Styles and Efficiency: A Case Study on Directive Task Assignment vs. Self-Directed Work (advisor: Rubab Jafry-O'Connor)
• Ethan Tao – EarthLinguist: Building a Cross-Cultural Language Documentation Platform (advisor: Franceska Xhakaj)
• Frances Yu – Correlations between Children's Cognitive Skill Development and Cortical Thickness (advisor: Marissa Laws)
• Baishuo Zhou – Gender, Disability, and Labor Market Outcomes: A Comprehensive Analysis (advisor: Rebecca Lessem)