Malka Negret is taking her research from Austin Community College District (ACC) classrooms to the halls of Johns Hopkins University.
The Honors Psychology major has been selected to present her original research at the 2026 Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium. This March, she’ll travel to Johns Hopkins to join other students from across the country to share her work.
The Macksey Symposium is a national venue showcasing top undergraduate humanities research from colleges and universities across the country.
Malka will travel to Baltimore to present her paper, “Reimagining Life: How Death Rituals Guide the Way We Care for the Living.” The research compares Tibetan Sky Burial (Jhator), the Korean 49-day funerary ceremony (Cheondojae), and U.S. coffin burial, examining how cultural worldviews shape ethics of care and approaches to reducing human suffering.
Malka says the goal of her work is to “deepen self-awareness of the human condition and consider how different our perspectives can be when they prioritize reducing suffering and approach life with acceptance and compassion.”
Her selection adds to a growing list of achievements. She was one of only four students chosen for the 2025 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) at the University of Texas at Austin and previously received the Opportunities for Undergraduate Research in Human Development & Family Sciences (OUR HDFS) Fellowship at Texas State University in 2024. As part of the Macksey Symposium, she will also collaborate with managing editors and peer reviewers for potential publication in the Macksey Journal.
Learn more about undergraduate research opportunities and the Honors Program at austincc.edu/honors.