Audry Ricks

2025 Peak Prize: Undergraduate Researcher of the Year Award Nominee

Caine College of the Arts

Music

Audry Ricks has secured two Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunity grants and two Summer Arts Research grants. Mentored by Dr. Cahill Smith, she developed and led a project conducted in Northern Ireland, focusing on strategies for managing performance anxiety. This project included collaboration with a team of five colleagues. Additionally, Audry integrated her knowledge of music and technology to create educational tools, including a web application utilizing state machines to produce infinite sight-reading excerpts at various difficulty levels. Audry presented at Research on Capitol Hill, the Music Teachers National Association Collegiate Symposium at the University of Michigan, UMTA conferences, USU Student Research Symposia, the USU Undergraduate Research Fair, and the CCA Faculty Retreat. She was named the 2024 SRS Undergraduate Oral Presentation Winner, selected as one of the Undergraduate Research Fellows Poster Children, and featured in Utah State Today and the Utah State Magazine's Winter 2025 issue on 'Demystifying Research.' Her other research endeavors include effective performance techniques, interpretive approaches to Beethoven, modern works including Currier's Scarlatti Cadences, and explorations of modernism through Marcel Proust's perspectives. Audry served as the President of the UMTA Collegiate Chapter, promoting research in the arts and educating other students about research grants and opportunities.