Research by LWU Honors Students Goes 'Next Level' at Statewide Meeting

Honors students present research about hurricane katrina COLUMBIA, Ky. (10/19/2026) — A pair of students from the Lindsey Wilson University R.V. Bennett Honors Program spent part of their weekend discussing their research about Hurricane Katrina and creating a formula that can effectively and efficiently create a work schedule.

Lindsey Wilson students Zachary Hite '27 of Hodgenville, Kentucky, and Abigail Vanderheyden '28 of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, presented their research at the fall meeting of the Kentucky Honors Roundtable Conference, which was held Saturday, Oct. 17, at the University of Kentucky.

Hite and Vanderheyden were among several dozen undergraduate students from Kentucky colleges and universities who presented their findings to their peers and guests.

Hite, who is a mathematics and media studies double major, presented "Workforce Scheduling Model for Flexible and Fixed Shift Settings," which included showing a mathematical formulation he created last summer using a large language model while working on a research experience for undergraduates at the University of Cincinnati.

The goal of Hite's study was "to propose a general formulation that schedules a set of workers with specific roles and requirements in the most optimal and cost efficient way possible for two scheduling scenarios: a flexible shift structure and a fixed shift structure."

Hite hopes his formula can help all kinds and sizes of companies, from a large manufacturer to the manager of a 30-employee fast-food restaurant.

"It's hopefully a one-size-fits-all kind of thing," he said.

Hite had presented at a previous Kentucky Honors Roundtable Conference.

"It's nice to see what everybody's interested in and researching," said Hite. "I enjoy getting to offer to others what I'm interested in. It's also nice to be around people who just love to learn."

Revisiting Katrina

Vanderheyden's research presentation, "An Exploration of Ecological Catastrophe Through Literature," was sparked in part by Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast region in 2005. The storm caused billions of dollars in damages, caused the deaths of more than 1,300 people and displaced thousands of residents. Among those displaced by the deadly storm was Vanderheyden's step-father, Tyrone, who relocated from New Orleans to Tennessee.

Her other source of inspiration came from LWU English professor Rachel Carr's "Major Authors" seminar she took last spring and included reading Jesmyn Ward's award-winning novel "Salvage the Bones," which is set during Katrina.

As Vanderheyden pointed out in her research, the 1,392 people who were to have known died in Katrina "were not a direct result of the hurricane but of the aftermath."

"Families were wading in deep water, lacking food, denied proper medication, exposed to decomposing bodies and pleading for help," said Vanderheyden, who is a psychology major. "This was not random: it was a legacy of the plantation system, which rendered residents of the South extremely vulnerable to ecological catastrophe. These unnatural aspects and unnatural vulnerabilities of natural disasters, if not written about, will go undetected in media and historical records, which only blame the hurricane for the damage and death, not the preexisting inequalities."

Lindsey Wilson history professor Elizabeth Tapscott, who is director of the R.V. Bennett Honors Program, said that it was "a joy to behold" to watch Hite and Vanderheyden present their research.

"The level of research that these students are doing and then to watch them to present it to their peers from other schools is just a joy to behold," said Tapscott, who attended the conference with psychology professor Jordan Greenburg, who is assistant director of the R.V. Bennett Honors Program. "The poise that Abby had in giving her presentation was truly impressive and Zach's project was just next level."

Pictured: Two members of the Lindsey Wilson University R.V. Bennett Honors Program attended the fall meeting of the Kentucky Honors Roundtable Conference, held Saturday, Oct. 17, at the University of Kentucky. From left: history professor and R.V. Bennett Honors Program director Elizabeth Tapscott; student Abigail Vanderheyden ’28, a psychology major from Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Zachary Hite ’27, a mathematics and media studies double major from Hodgenville, Kentucky; and psychology professor and R.V. Bennett Honors Program assistant director Jordan Greenburg.