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Three Kentucky State University (KSU) students swept the poster category competition during the inaugural Mid-Southern Interdisciplinary Sciences Association (MISA) conference in Franklin, Tennessee.

“Winning all categories is no easy feat,” Dr. Debbie Thomas, provost and vice president for academic affairs at KSU, said. “I commend the students on their excellent work and faculty for their leadership.”

Graduate students Dennis Hall and Eric Mason won first place for their poster titled “Media Imagery and Social Media: Desensitization and Selective Consumption of Social Media Violence.” Undergraduate student Kelvin Brooks earned second place for his poster titled “Black Lives Matter and the Cycle of Oppression.” Instructor Lana (Marlene) Browning was awarded third place for her poster titled “Citizen Journalism and Public Cynicism toward Police in the United States.”

“As always, our students represented KSU and the Bluegrass State Intelligence Consortium well,” Dr. Mara Merlino, associate professor of psychology and sociology at KSU, said. “Our group represented a substantial portion of the event program, at which we presented three hour-long panels, a grad student paper by Kessiah Cunningham, and a total of 11 student posters.”