Bridging Horizons:
Innovation, Identity, and Global Futures
Volume 1, Issue 3 — March 2026
Published March 2026
ISSN: 3069-8200
Building on the intellectual trajectory established in previous issues, this volume further affirms PJIR’s dedication to careful, cross-disciplinary inquiry into questions of contemporary significance. The contributions gathered here reflect a research landscape in which technological change, environmental constraint, and shifting social norms increasingly intersect.
Two Best Paper selections exemplify this breadth: "Deepfakes On Trial: A Mixed-Methods Study of Student Perceptions and Regulatory Concerns about Non-Consensual Deepfakes at the London School of Economics and Political Science," which interrogates the ethical and regulatory implications of emerging synthetic media technologies. Meanwhile, "Interpretable Transfer Learning with EfficientNetB0 for Automated Detection of Rare Anemia Morphologies in Peripheral Blood Smears" demonstrates how advances in machine learning and biomedical imaging can be translated into clinically meaningful diagnostic tools, highlighting the growing convergence of computational innovation and medical practice.
Alongside the two Best Paper selections, this volume features contributions addressing religion and social meaning, structural inequality, developments in the life sciences, and more. We hope these studies encourage readers to draw connections across fields and to approach complex contemporary questions with intellectual openness.
All accepted articles are published online under ISSN 3069-8200.
Editor’s Note
Serious scholarship often begins with a single, well-defined question. Yet the moment we follow that question far enough, we find it rarely stays in one place. Questions about attention become questions about education and equity. Questions about algorithms become questions about trust and accountability. Questions about biological systems quickly intersect with questions about human experience. This issue brings together work that reflects precisely this movement across boundaries.
In this volume, we are proud to feature research on ADHD, the effects of racial bias in dermatology datasets on convolutional neural networks, the emerging legal terrain of deepfakes, sustainable building materials, structural inequality, developments in the life sciences, and more. The issue also includes work engaging questions of religion and belief, examining gender and social identity, and exploring problems in linguistics, and more.
We celebrate interdisciplinary scholarship not as a slogan, but as a practice. The work collected here demonstrates careful technical reasoning alongside ethical awareness and social sensitivity. It shows that strong research does not dilute disciplinary rigor; rather, it is often strengthened when scholars remain attentive to the wider implications of their methods and findings.
PJIR Editorial Team
Articles in This Issue
Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Risk Through APOE ε4-Linked Blood Protein Changes
Author: Sruthi Chetput
Affiliation: Lynbrook High School
Abstract:
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that begins years before clinical symptoms start to appear. This study investigated whether carriers of the Apolipoprotein E4 (APOE ε4) allele exhibit early changes in plasma protein expression, independent of any amyloid deposition or any cognitive decline...
Keywords: Alzheimer’s, APOE ε4, protein expression, blood-based biomarkers, early detection
The Idolization of Wealth and the Moral Decline in Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Author: Samaya Shah
Affiliation: Cambridge Centre for International Research
Abstract:
This study explores Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend as a critique of Victorian society’s idolization of wealth, arguing that money replaces traditional moral and religious values, leading to widespread social and moral decay. Dickens illustrates this shift through his complex characters from the upper and lower classes, including Lizzie Hexam, Eugene Wrayburn, Rogue Riderhood, and John Harmon...
Keywords: Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, Victorian Society, Wealth, Morality
A Comparative Study on Cognitive Bias in Large Language Models
Author: Siddharth Sreekanth, Ali Mahmoodi
Affiliation: Nikola Tesla STEM High School
Abstract:
Large Language Models (LLMs) have revolutionized natural language processing and artificial intelligence by enabling machines to understand and generate human-like text. However, these models are not immune to cognitive biases, which can be inadvertently acquired during the training process. This paper explores the sources and implications of cognitive bias in LLMs...
Keywords: Machine Learning, Large Language Models, Cognitive Biases
From Roles to Realities: Participatory Speculative Art as a Tool for Gender and Reproductive Futures
Author: shuang cai¹, Ruichao Jiang²
Affiliation: ¹Human Centered Design, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States
²Independent Researchers, New York, New York, United States
Abstract:
New Assisted Reproductive Technology (New ART) is a speculative reproductive clinic installation, where the artist and the curator transformed a traditional gallery space in NYC to examine how immersive design and participatory process engage audiences in reimagining gender roles. The study is guided by the research question: “How has participatory world-building in speculative art assisted in reimagining binary gender divisions?”...
Keywords: Speculative Art, Speculative Design, Gender Studies, Male Pregnancy, Non-Binary Perspectives, Reproductive Politics, Immersive Experiences, Fanfiction Subcultures
Citation for This Issue
Princeton Journal of Interdisciplinary Research. (2026). Volume 1, Issue 3 — Bridging Horizons. PJIR.
https://www.princeton-press.com/pjir/issues/vol-1-issue-3
Open Access Statement
This journal is fully open access. All articles are freely available to read, download, and share without subscription or access barriers. We encourage scholars to cite and engage with the research published here, as such scholarly exchange plays an important role in supporting emerging and early-career researchers and advancing ongoing academic conversations.