UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH AND ARTS EXPO

Potassium ions (K+) are one of the most abundant ions in intracellular fluid, affecting a wide variety of cellular processes in living organisms. In humans, irregularities in extracellular K+ levels contribute to pathologies including cardiovascular disease, immunological diseases, and some cancers. Despite the role of K+ ions, the detection, quantification, and monitoring of K+ remains difficult. While fluorescent indicators exist that can provide a fast, easy readout for K+ concentration, they are often nonspecific, particularly... View the presentation.

The mapping of the human brain is one of the most challenging but important topics among the fields of research. The delicate, intertwined networks of neurons obstruct us from taking invasive measures to explore the wonders of the brain. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is a possible non-invasive technique for studying neural activity. When neurons are activated, without an internal reserve of energy, they rely on the increased regional cerebral blood flow for increased oxygen... View the presentation.

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are heavily studied because they share a similar genetic structure to humans. The skin patterns of zebrafish are comprised of horizontal stripes of different colored pigment cells. Accurately quantifying the cell size of various pigment cells in relation to their location on the skin is a crucial step towards better understanding cell behavior. The first step to measuring pigment cells is extracting cells from in vivo images of fish. In my research,... View the presentation.

Forecasting the outcomes of U.S. elections is a relevant and complex task that has been approached in many ways, most commonly incorporating statistics or proprietary methods that include some degree of subjectivity. Our approach differs from this convention in that we use multidisciplinary methods from applied mathematics. Specifically, we use a system of differential equations commonly employed for the study of disease transmission, to model the spread of political affiliation (Democrat or Republican) across states.... View the presentation.

The goal of our research has been to create software that extends the benefits of virtual reality (VR) to mathematics education. We report on the design and evaluation of a VR application meant to support students’ reasoning about objects in three-dimensional (3D) coordinate systems and to explore the possibilities of the application for mathematics education in high school classrooms. View the presentation.

This project is comprised of primary source research on the field of semiconductor microscopy. We were interested in determining a more interdisciplinary application of this technology, as the most frequently cited applications are for defense purposes such as drug screening or infrared imaging. When we researched, we found that these technologies have been used in detecting art forgery and were intrigued to find that laser imaging boasts remarkable benefits over prior methods, as they are... View the presentation.

Free space optical communication (FSO) offers a promising solution to the “last mile” bottleneck of high-speed telecommunications. Data is encoded using a modulated laser and optically sent through the air to a receiving photodetector. Although this requires FSO systems to have direct line-of-sight between the emitter and receiver, this is often much easier and more cost-effective than ripping up the streets to lay traditional copper wires or fiber optic cables. Today's cities are full of... View the presentation.

Harbor seal whiskers exhibit a tapering elliptical geometry uniquely suited to detect wakes (trails of water produced by upstream bodies) in ways a regular, tapering, or elliptical cylinder cannot. Previous studies into the matter have relied on idealized representations of the geometry the whiskers seem to take on and have tried to use these poor models to extrapolate information about the effects this geometry has on their fluid mechanics, including velocity sensing, optimizing the signal-to-noise... View the presentation.

With a large sphere of activity and ability to transfer data through wireless communication system, drones have proven to be more and more useful in both research and manufacturing. Whether by allowing researchers to collect measurements or filmmakers to attain aerial shots, the use of drone has allowed collection of real time data with minimum human intervention. In the field of agriculture, steady water levels and optimal crop conditions have been hard to maintain due... View the presentation.

In indoor environments, bacteria face selective pressure to carry antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) from antimicrobial substances used in furniture, building materials, and personal care products. Humans rely on antibiotics to clear bacterial infections, so understanding the way in which these genes are transferred, i.e., on mobile genetic elements, is critical. To investigate this phenomenon, dust samples were collected from over 100 collection sites in over 40 different athletic facilities. DNA from these samples was sequenced... View the presentation.

Ode to Times Beach, MO (1925-1985) is a research poem written in Prof. Rachel Webster’s class during the winter quarter of the creative writing poetry sequence. Times Beach, MO was a rural, primarily agricultural town of over 2,000 people, evacuated in 1983 just before the largest flood in the town’s history, and after 260,000 gallons of waste oil containing dioxin were sprayed over the town’s roads from 1972-1976. The town was declared a Superfund site,... View the presentation.

Previous research has shown that bodily gesture aids in learning words and is useful for musical expression. However, no studies to date have examined the use of gesture in learning words and music together. The original impetus for the present study was observing students with cognitive disabilities learn musical songs, using gestures to reinforce the words and melody. This study aims to investigate if iconic gestures used by a conductor while songs are being learned,... View the presentation.

Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya was kidnapped on May 25, 2000 when covering a prison riot in Bogotá. Held hostage for 16 hours, the journalist was repeatedly raped and tortured in response to her journalistic work. Due to its level of brutality and impunity, Bedoya’s story has become emblematic in Colombia. Yet, hers is not an isolated case; it is instead the reflection of a systemic issue in a country historically affected by different forms of... View the presentation.

Recently, there has been a public push for the film industry to improve female representation; subsequently, DC and Marvel released female-­lead films Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel to critical praise and record box office figures. Strictly looking at industry measures of success (critics’ reviews and box office totals) it would appear that the film industry and movie­going public are demanding more films with similar female representation. However, public opinion cannot be captured by critical interpretation... View the presentation.

It is no secret that Southeast Asia has long been a major source of opium production, providing a lucrative enterprise for European empires in the 19th-­20th century. The “Golden Triangle” region, where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand’s borders meet has been one of the world’s largest opium producers since the 1950s. Much has been written in Southeast Asian history about the economic and political impact of opium production in the region, but what of the human... View the presentation.

Situated in the heart of urban Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (1976) stands as a monument to the eponymous first president of the Republic of China (ROC). Consisting of a main memorial hall, opera theater, Western concert hall, and surrounding gardens, the memorial complex was constructed to commemorate Chiang’s life and to secure his role in Taiwanese history. Existing literature in English on the memorial is scarce and scholars who do... View the presentation.

Artificial agent development is motivated by the dream of making machines perform undesirable labor instead of humans. To replace humans in undesirable labor, it follows that the machines should not engage in actions that will lead to devastating consequences. They should be “moral” artificial agents. In my paper, I deal with two questions on this concern: 1. What should be the direction of moral artificial agent development? 2. Is the idea of a moral artificial... View the presentation.

In the Marvel Comics series Moon Knight, a mercenary believes an ancient Egyptian deity has brought him back from the dead so he can become the eponymous superhero. However, the mercenary’s symptoms of schizophrenia suggest he is instead simply suffering from a psychological break. From 1975-1999, Moon Knight stories used this psychological-religious tension to explore the significance of mythology and religion in modern society. For my research, I examined the way Moon Knight stories represent... View the presentation.

Each successive wave of immigrants to America has faced prejudice founded in fear and uncertainty. Immigrants from Italy were particularly discriminated against in the early years of their arrival, from 1880 through 1920. They faced violence, racial slurs, and media attacks based on an unsubstantiated stereotype of criminality. This project set out to discern how the Italian immigrant community in America, through the case study of the city of Cleveland, evolved from being despised and... View the presentation.

This thesis analyzes the role segregation and white flight played in the development of New York City’s suburban Westchester County, particularly in regards to how white flight from (and within) New Rochelle during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s was presaged by the racial reification of the suburb’s communal boundaries during the preceding four decades. Historians have charted how white flight after World War II trapped Blacks within urban spaces that public officials proceeded to devalue... View the presentation.

This project aimed to create a well-rounded digital marketing strategy for ChangEd, a student loan repayment application. We were tasked with improving the awareness, engagement, and consideration, areas the application needed to improve on. We created a digital and social media marketing strategy using primary research we conducted with their target audience (graduates, current students, and parents), suggesting ways to improve current paid and earned media, as well as introduce new approaches using our insights... View the presentation.

One of the most dynamic in South Asia, Pakistan’s vibrant and outspoken media is de facto credited to the media liberalization policies of 2002 by President Pervez Musharraf. Yet, the country’s media landscape, particularly the private news channels, are known to be sensational for their exaggerated reporting style. Using Pakistan’s two mainstream news channels, Geo News and BOL TV, as case studies, this research digs deeper into the history and establishment of private TV channels... View the presentation.

Bacteria interact intimately with humans, from “good” bacteria that live in our bodies to “bad” pathogenic bacteria that cause disease. Pathogenic bacteria express virulence genes, which help bacteria invade and attack their host. The ability to control virulence gene expression would help us treat infection more effectively. Several virulence genes in the bacterium Salmonella typhimurium have been observed to be heterogeneously expressed, which means gene expression levels vary among individual bacteria. However, it remains unknown... View the presentation.

During pregnancy, mothers undergo a range of physiological changes including shifting hormone levels, modified immune function, and reduced gut motility. These changes are necessary to meet the pregnant mother’s increased energy needs and inhibit rejection of the fetus. The gut microbiota (GM) – the community of microor­ganisms that live in the digestive tract – is theorized to play a role in the produc­tion and regulation of the immune system. As a result, the GM is... View the presentation.

Light regulates the mammalian vertebrate visual system to affect a wide array of visual behaviors. Light is detected by the canonical rods and cone photoreceptors, but also by a novel, third class of photoreceptor, termed intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs). ipRGCs express the photopigment melanopsin (gene: Opn4) and are a diverse population, consisting of six types (M1-M6), which differ in morphology, electrophysiological properties, central brain projections, and their influences on visual behavior. However, the... View the presentation.

Much insight into infants’ neuromotor development can be gleaned from their spontaneous movements. Specifically, a greater understanding of neuromotor development is valuable for the early diagnosis of cerebral palsy (CP), a neurological disorder resulting from brain injury or atypical development at an early age and is characterized by impaired movement and balance. This study utilized a smartphone application to collect video data of premature infants’ movements. Focusing on the upper extremities, this study sought to... View the presentation.

By assessing infants’ movements, our research goal was to determine if particular movement characteristics are indicators for cerebral palsy (CP), a disorder caused by a brain injury to the fetus/infant that leads to impaired development of movement. Our research may contribute to developing an earlier diagnosis for CP, and therefore earlier intervention. This would benefit children since the early promotion of motor skill development may correlate with better outcomes later in life. My specific focus... View the presentation.

Examining fertility knowledge and identifying knowledge gaps in those who may need to delay childbearing is essential, especially for individuals who may be pursuing higher education. Educating these individuals is also critical as prior research has confirmed that fertility awareness may modify future reproductive choices and outcomes. The primary goals of this project are to ascertain baseline fertility knowledge in well-educated undergraduate students and to determine the best educational methods to improve fertility knowledge. An... View the presentation.

An action potential (AP) is a shift in the membrane voltage of a neuron generally caused by a sudden ion influx, resulting in excitation, allowing for the cell to send signals across its neural network. Spontaneous excitation can be crucial for organizing neural circuits, especially in sensory modalities. For hearing specifically, the auditory brainstem area contains a low-frequency subset of neurons best studied in the avian cochlear nucleus magnocellularis (NM) area termed NMc. Nearly 40%... View the presentation.

The goal of this project was to better understand the pathogenesis behind rheumatoid arthritis(RA), an autoimmune disorder that primarily affects the joints. Despite affecting around 1.3 million people in the United States, its causes are not well­-understood. Previous research at Pope Lab indicated that when compared to the healthy controls, the knock­out HUPO mouse model displayed significantly decreased regulatory T cells (Tregs). This deficiency, however, could be restored in­-vitro via administration of recombinant IL­-2. When... View the presentation.

With concerns about how to feed an exponentially growing, increasingly obese population, humanity’s relationship with food is a pressing concern. Evaluating the evolutionary changes in the composition of gut microbiota (GM), defined as the microorganisms that live in the digestive tract, may offer insight into how human bodies have adapted to these changing metabolic and energetic needs. Host diet has proven to influence the composition and function of the GM, which subsequently affects human nutrition... View the presentation.

The successful development of vaccines for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) has been hindered because there are no identified tumor-associated antigens. As an alternative to peptide vaccines, the administration of tumor lysates has been investigated in TNBC to activate the immune system against tumors, wherein a mixture of tumor-specific lysates is administered to behave as antigens. The Mirkin group has previously demonstrated the capability of Liposomal Spherical Nucleic Acids (SNAs) to initiate antigen presentation and... View the presentation.

Obesity is a multifactorial disease reflecting the interplay of biological and social factors. Lower socioeconomic status (SES), food insecurity, and poor sleep quality are risks factors for obesity; yet, our understanding of the physiological mechanisms behind overweightness is limited. Leptin, a hormone which modulates hunger, could be a potential mechanism because resistance can develop and lead to energy imbalances. Leptin levels tend to be elevated by low quality sleep; although etevidence shows lower SES people... View the presentation.

Bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) are proteinaceous organelles contained within prokaryotes used to facilitate reactions with increased efficiency, or to carry out reactions with intermediates that are harmful to the cell if released into the cytoplasm. Oftentimes, compartments are used to metabolize unique carbon sources, such as 1,2-propanediol (1,2-PD), whose metabolic pathway contains intermediates toxic to cell growth. These compartments are a kind of metabolic workshop in that they localize necessary substrates into a specific area, and... View the presentation.

The basal layer of human epidermis is composed of progenitor cells that both self-renew and differentiate to form stratified epidermal tissue; this process requires strict, dynamic regulation of gene expression. The Super Elongation Complex (SEC) regulates gene expression at the level of transcription elongation by releasing RNA Polymerase II from its paused state. Dysregulation of the SEC has been identified in leukemia and fragile X syndrome, but how the SEC functions in somatic tissue homeostasis... View the presentation.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) affects over 422 million people worldwide. Within their multi-payer healthcare system, Germany has used standardized, evidence-based interventions called Disease Management Programs (“DMP”s) to manage T2D since 2002. Studies have shown markedly improved health care delivery and health outcomes, including reduced incidence of diabetic secondary complications, decreasing financial burdens of T2D in Germany. No such programs exist in U.S. healthcare. In 2017, diabetes care for 29 million T2D Americans cost $327 billion.... View the presentation.

The study of local adaptation in plants is critical for understanding the evolution of traits that contribute to survival in a dynamic environment, the genes underlying them, and the general process of adaptation. However, in the study of natural, non-model plant species, population-level whole-genome sampling is not always feasible and can be costly. Therefore, there is a need for methods based on population-differentiation that can take a reduced representation of whole-genome data to identify loci... View the presentation.

In humans, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is co-morbid with major depressive disorder. Individuals who are exposed to stress prior to a traumatic event have an increased likelihood of developing PTSD. To study this increased vulnerability, a rat model was developed using the Stress Enhanced Fear Learning (SEFL) paradigm. This study aims to show how SEFL’s consequences can differ depending on the sex, stress-reactivity of the animal, and intensity of fear conditioning. Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats... View the presentation.

According to the principle of free fall, only gravity acts upon an object in midair. However, as with all scientific principles, free fall plays out differently in practice. In my experiment, I first tested to see the effect of changing the glycerol weight-percentage of a drop of glycerol-water on its maximum spread when dropped onto smooth glass at each given height, greater spread indicating greater kinetic energy present within the drop. Turns out, glycerol weight-percentage... View the presentation.

Much has already been discovered about the Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway and its involvement in patterning and tissue development in embryos, but the specific functions its key components play has not yet been fully elucidated. One potential component is the protein kinase Dop, which is involved in cellular trafficking. Here, I examine whether Dop’s role in cellular transport has an impact on Hh signal transduction. Immunofluorescent staining experiments were carried out on wing imaginal discs... View the presentation.

Physiological linkage (i.e., the covariation of moment-to-moment physiology between individuals) is thought to play an important role in relationship functioning. The present study examined physiological linkage across interbeat interval (IBI) and skin conductance levels (SCL) in a sample of married spouses (N=106) during both a pleasant and a conflict conversation and looked for associations with spouses’ marital satisfaction and subjective emotional experience. When physiological linkage was operationalized with anti-phase and in-phase linkage constituting opposite ends... View the presentation.

There are few concerns greater than those of a parent with an adult with an intellectual or developmental disability (I/DD). How is she or he going to be taken care of as she or he ages? The government provides services and support in the pursuit of care and services, but how does that process work from the parent’s perspective? This study explored these questions by interviewing caregivers in this situation and learning how they understand... View the presentation.

When navigating through space, the brain must integrate sensory information with past experiences to choose behaviors that are most likely to produce a positive outcome. Striatal medium spiny neurons (MSNs) expressing dopamine receptor 1 (D1) and dopamine receptor 2 (D2) receive sensory and motor information from cortical and midbrain regions to modulate locomotion; how these cells are differentially activated in changing environments can contribute to sensory-dependent behavior selection. Dopamine release is evoked during unpredicted reward... View the presentation.

This study aims to advance our basic understanding of how we perceive objects in our environment. It’s unclear whether we understand object structure based on only how we perceive or on how it truly exists in the world. Examining eye-movements provides insight into how our visual system represents and understands objects. A perceived-space hypothesis predicts that we look at two different-looking objects in different ways, even if they are the same size from one’s perspective.... View the presentation.

The bacterial CRISPR/Cas9 system shows promise as a genome-editing tool to treat human disease. It is integral to understand the binding and unbinding kinetics of Cas9 to its target DNA to study specificity of the Cas9 protein. Standard practices involve the use of negatively charged polymer Heparin to reduce unspecific binding of Cas9 to non-target DNA. This study proposes a novel method for study of Cas9, while also demonstrating the negative impact Heparin has on... View the presentation.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by flashbacks of the traumatic event and high comorbidity with major depressive disorder (MDD). Prior stress is known to increase the likelihood of developing PTSD after experiencing a traumatic event. Currently, PTSD is diagnosed clinically, its biological etiology is not known and there are few effective treatments. This study aimed to identify if a genetic animal model of depression shows PTSD-like behavior using the Stress-Enhanced Fear... View the presentation.

Anxiety disorders are the most common group of mental illnesses in the United States and affect over 15% of the population. Prior work utilizing electroencephalogram (EEG) to investigate event-related potentials (ERPs) from the scalp has shown success in isolating certain neural correlates related to increased risk for developing anxiety disorders. However, most of these studies investigate error- and threat-related processing. Far fewer have explored potential relationships between anxiety and abnormal reward-related ERPs. The relationship between... View the presentation.

Due to their ability to be engineered for specific cellular targeting, nanoparticles (NPs) have emerged as promising drug delivery vessels for immunotherapeutic and vaccination treatments. However, a major unsolved obstacle for cell-specific nanoparticle delivery is non-specific circulatory clearance by the mononuclear-phagocytic system(MPS). Comprised of various phagocytic cells, the MPS removes NPs from circulation shortly after recognition, preventing NPs from efficiently reaching their target cells and reducing the intended therapeutic effect. Although some MPS cells can... View the presentation.

Patients with psychosis experience deficits in multisensory integration (MSI), or the communication between different sensory modalities, such as sound and sight. One way to assess multisensory integrations is by utilizing voice-pitch tasks in which participants hear the pitch of their own voice artificially altered by a computer. When healthy individuals hear this computerized pitch-shift, they respond behaviorally by changing their own pitch. This is a reflexive attempt to “correct” a perceived error, demonstrating communication between... View the presentation.

Skeletal sexual dimorphism presents itself in humans primarily through the anatomical shape of the cranium and pelvis. However, some physical anthropologists maintain that climate could have an effect on human sexual dimorphism. Despite ongoing research pertaining to climatic effects on soft tissue or size dimorphism, little to no research has looked how climate affects nonmetric skeletal indicators of sex. To further understand the plasticity of the human skeleton, standard sex indicators of the cranium and... View the presentation.

Approximately 1 in 3 deaths in the US is caused by cardiovascular diseases, among them atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis occurs through excessive cholesterol deposition (hyperlipidemia) along the inner layer of the artery called the intima, resulting in plaque formation that blocks arterial blood flow and could lead to heart attacks and strokes. It has recently been recognized that inflammation plays an important role in plaque formation. Specifically, T cell activation can affect the progression of atherosclerosis through... View the presentation.

A famous topic in mathematics involves the theoretically infinite nature of geographic coastlines. If one were to measure the perimeter of Great Britain, for example, the smaller the measuring tool, the larger and more accurate the measured perimeter would be. This phenomenon contains similar properties to the mathematical objects known as fractals: shapes with infinitely many self-similar segments. In our research project, we set out to visualize what a fractal coastline would look like and... View the presentation.

Image colorization is the process of artificially coloring a black and white image such that this fabrication appears realistic and authentic to the viewer. There are many nontrivial applications of this process, such as the colorization and augmentation of historical photos as well as the removal of color tone filters from images. This research employs a unique architecture of a convolutional neural network, a type of artificial neural network, to train a machine to identify... View the presentation.

Given any polyhedron in R3, we can cut it open along its edges, flatten it out, and obtain a polygon in the plane R2. In this project, we explored the opposite process, an open question that was first posed about 70 years ago: given a polygon in R2, what is the folding procedure to reconstruct the polyhedron in R3? We focused on a special case, where we are given a polygon with n vertices and... View the presentation.

The High Energy Density Sciences group at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory studies materials in extreme conditions such as very high temperatures and pressures. We use shock waves produced by the Linac Coherent Light Source to compress polycrystalline diamond samples. Compressing these samples allows us to use x-ray diffraction to study the changes to the material’s structure as it experiences high pressure conditions. As a result of the shock wave, the polycrystalline diamond samples undergo dynamic... View the presentation.

Currently, a great deal of information is conveyed through written online communication. However, this leads to a lack of important pragmatic, or contextual, cues that are present in face-to-face interaction such as body language, tone of voice, or facial expressions. One method to potentially reduce this issue is emoji usage. In this project, we studied face emojis and how they affect the interpretation of ambiguous text messages between people with different social relationships and hope... View the presentation.

There is a certain condition that exists in modern Japan that plagues people’s lives and causes their world to come to a halt. Here, the mere thought of leaving their room is unthinkable, let alone going to school or working. They fill their time with games and other mindless entertainment, continuing to live on in their world away from society. Such is the Hikikomori, or as it roughly translates to acute social withdrawal. By nature,... View the presentation.

Now more than ever, forecasting the outcomes of U.S. elections is an important and challenging task. Traditionally, statistical or political-science methods have been employed to better understand how individuals will vote. Our approach differs in that we use mathematical modeling. Adapting methods commonly used in epidemiology to understand biological disease transmission, we model the spread of political affiliation (Democratic or Republican) across states using differential equations. We simulate thousands of possible election scenarios, accounting for... View the presentation.

Race is a socially constructed category firmly embedded within a system of privilege and oppression that places White people at the top and Black people at the bottom. Though this system has tangible implications in the lives of individuals, much existing literature explores race on an arguably superficial level, without situating the individual’s understanding of race within societal structures. As race is embedded within a system, an individual’s understanding of occupying a different position in... View the presentation.

When asked to imagine a computer scientist, males and females tend to report that they imagine a male. This perception can be detrimental for females’ computer science self-efficacy and may contribute to findings that as early as elementary school females are less interested in and less confident in their computing abilities in comparison to their male peers. However, not all females imagine computer scientists to be males. Here we examine the association between females’ perceptions... View the presentation.

For over a hundred years, psychologists have sought to understand the role of spirituality in human behavior and experience, and how it might relate to features of personality. This study considered personal narration of spiritual experience and how it relates to the personality traits of Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Over 400 narrative accounts of spiritual experiences given by mid-life adults (approximately half of whom were white and half African American) were... View the presentation.

The purpose of this research project was to highlight that there are different perspectives on mental health that stem from various experiences. All of these views should be valued and not discriminated against for any reason other than that they are different. As a child of Soviet Immigrants, I quickly observed that my parents and extended family perceived mental health differently than other Americans. I never understood why they did so when I had the... View the presentation.

The global coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed the way people and institutions interact with one another. In the United States, there has been an observable and documented increase in xenophobia and a breakdown of social and institutional trust. Consistent with a US history of scapegoating other populations for major crises, the US government primarily blamed China for the origin and spread of the virus. These actions have been discussed in a variety of forums with... View the presentation.

The revitalization of endangered languages is both deeply personal and political, as language subjugation is directly linked to intentional efforts by colonizing powers to suppress and eradicate indigenous culture and dismantle local collective identity. Many studies have been conducted on how to promote endangered languages, but few evaluate the effectiveness of the movements and explore the underlying determinants of success, particularly how the relationship between minority language speakers and the colonizing powers may affect these... View the presentation.

Experts have recognized the potential for religion to shape environmental attitudes. In recent decades, the world has seen the rise of faith-based organizations in tackling issues of sustainability, particularly those following Islamic ecotheology. Embedded in Islamic scripture is an emphasis on responsibility and accountability towards the Earth; Islamic environmental organizations have capitalized on such teachings to inspire action in Muslim communities. In my research paper, I explored the following question: how are environmental organizations, operating... View the presentation.

In the English language, wh-question constructions give rise to gap positions in sentences, because the wh-phrase that corresponds with the object of the verb moves to the beginning of the sentence, leaving no word to appear in the typical object position. Typically wh-phrases are associated with just one gap, however, in some special cases, multiple gaps have been found to be associated with a single wh-phrase. These sentences are called Parasitic Gap Constructions and are... View the presentation.

Homelessness and menstruation are constructs and processes that are plagued with stigma. For decades, academics have researched menstruation and homelessness as separately stigmatized experiences. However, in the process, scholars have overlooked the converging and intersectional nature of the stigma surrounding homeless menstruation. Through library research and records, this paper analyzes in what ways menstrual stigma and homeless stigma coincide to exacerbate detrimental psychosocial issues faced by homeless menstruators. The result was the identification of seven... View the presentation.

Through framing, identical information can be portrayed in different ways. Existing literature finds that receiving positively framed information makes people more risk-averse than receiving negatively framed information, but disagreement remains on the strength of this effect and the conditions under which it occurs. In this study, 503 participants were surveyed about their willingness to go out to dinner during the COVID-19 pandemic given three infection probabilities: 2.75%, 5.50%, and 8.25%. Responses were collected in February... View the presentation.

Research finds people reproduce incorrect information provided by their collaborative partners. These “social contagion” effects largely studied memory for information introduced during experiments (e.g., word lists), rather than preexisting knowledge. This study extends the effects of social contagion of memory to social contagion of knowledge: Does what people know to be true change when they hear inaccurate answers from collaborative partners? After reading inaccurate facts (e.g., The capital of France is Marseille), people are more... View the presentation.

Codable robots, small electronic devices programmed with software or apps, have become popular toys for children to play with at home. During play, children learn about coding by programming their robot to move and behave however they choose. But given the novelty of coding, children may face impasses when coding their robot to behave in these desired ways. In these moments, they turn to social partners for assistance - and in the home that’s often... View the presentation.

Media accounts report that the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement disproportionately affected Black communities and businesses, amplifying already- existing racial health and economic disparities. Black-owned small businesses experienced significant indirect and direct economic damages in Chicago, Illinois, and research literature is now striving to provide analyses of Black business owners’ experiences in 2020. The present study uses quantitative and qualitative data analyses to discern the impact of 2020 crises on small... View the presentation.

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a prevalent issue on a global scale, but the effects of such violence upon Asian/Asian American communities in the United States is compounded by their immigrant, refugee, and/or other historically marginalized identities. While current literature recognizes GBV as a public health issue of equity and social justice, anthropology closely examines the asymmetry of power by informing a holistic view of local contexts. The research examines the perspectives of Asian-identifying frontline workers... View the presentation.

Previous research indicates that regret is a painful experience for people but often leads to enhanced self meaning and personal growth. In this study, we employ a narrative approach to explore the architecture and coping methods of regret experiences in late midlife adults. We relate variation in regret narratives told by 163 adults aged 55 to 57 to psychosocial adaptation, conceptualized in terms of psychological well-being and Erikson’s adult-developmental factors of generativity and ego-integrity. Two... View the presentation.

My research paper focuses on inequality in America specifically covering the incarceration system and the intersection of race and the criminal justice system. This is an important topic to study due to the high number of racially diverse individuals that are disproportionally affected and incarcerated due to the inequalities in the crime and criminal justice system. To investigate the extent of the issue, ethnographic interviews were conducted in a diverse sample of people by asking... View the presentation.

My research is a historical ethnography of depictions of the ethnic and cultural other in 19th century England. I was motivated to do this research by curiosity about how cultural and racial otherness and national belonging was constructed historically. Although my work does not directly relate to modern conceptions of national belonging, I was inspired to do my research by seeing ideas about this shift during my own lifetime. My work is a historical ethnography... View the presentation.

Efficiency and equity have always been the key dilemma in local economic developments. On the one hand, economic prosperity is crucial for sustainable growth; on the other hand, the neighborhoods might undergo gentrification, transforming the area to appeal to high-end markets. Hence, vulnerable or indigenous residents might face displacements, and the neighborhood would lose its originality and authenticity. This thesis project takes a quantitative approach by using the difference-in-differences method to examine hybrid form of... View the presentation.

We think data is definitive, but our perception of it contains bias from expectations and motivations. For example, when Democrats and Republicans view the same depiction of global temperature trends, Democrats see an increasing trend, while Republicans see overall flatness. Could prior beliefs bias our perception of relations depicted in visualized data? We empirically examine how prior beliefs influence correlation estimations in scatterplots. We recruited 295 adults from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and trained them to... View the presentation.

In everyday conversation, individuals actively process speech in order to comprehend and respond in real-time. As a word unfolds, listeners activate possible lexical candidates and actively determine the target word as they receive more information, a process referred to as incremental processing. This process requires knowledge of one’s native spoken language and the ability to recognize individual phonemes. While this process allows for rapid word recognition, it can also result in phonological competition among multiple... View the presentation.

Negative body image in women has been a prevalent issue throughout history. Societal expectations have left many women feeling insecure and dissatisfied. Current research has indicated that oftentimes negative body image is passed down from mother to daughter. While there is a variety of research on mother-daughter interactions with body image, there is not a lot of research that specifically studies the connotation of words used. This research explored the correlation between body satisfaction among... View the presentation.

Listeners have difficulty understanding speech in environments containing background noise. This difficulty is exacerbated for listeners with hearing loss, which is often attributed to the degradation of the speech signal caused by interfering noise, impaired hearing, hearing device processing, or a combination of these factors. To resolve and understand speech despite this degradation, listeners must allocate attention to the speech signal and inhibit their attention to competing background noise. Thus, the inability to selectively attend... View the presentation.

In the era of international volunteerism, mounting evidence suggests that the presence of unskilled and culturally unaware volunteers in the Global South fosters “voluntourism”, and endangers the very populations and institutions that volunteers want to help. Northwestern does not enforce a pre-trip curriculum for student organizations that coordinate private service trips, leaving the students to independently prepare themselves for their trip. This spring, eight students including myself intended to volunteer in Haiti through a Haitian-based... View the presentation.

Life stories are strong predictors of identity, since the specific narratives adults tell about themselves represent individual differences in personality characteristics. One way researchers analyze these life stories in adults is by measuring the story’s coherence, which is comprised of a clear context, a linear chronology, and an explanation of why the specified events are important to the narrator. In doing so, researchers have found that more coherent personal narratives are related to better memory... View the presentation.

In the past few years, educators have been pushing for an integration of the arts into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning in order to promote innovation and creativity in these fields. The present study explores the relation between creativity and STEM learning among young children in digital and non-digital contexts, and how creativity affects STEM engagement. Parent-child dyads (n = 31) consisting of one parent and one child aged four-and-a-half- to five-years old... View the presentation.

On college campuses, one in five women will experience sexual assault in some capacity over the course of their undergraduate experience. College men in fraternities are three times more likely to commit sexually assaultive acts than non-Greek students. Despite pervasive knowledge that fraternity members are often involved in rape on college campuses, research has not fully examined the norms, attitudes, and behaviors that might underlie and perpetuate sexual assault in fraternities. Further, few studies have... View the presentation.

The theorists who developed Social Justice Education (SJE) claim that its goals are: to critically analyze how oppression operates on an individual, cultural, and institutional level, to harness empathy and respect for others, and, ultimately, to commit to working for lasting change. However, the literature lacks research on how to evaluate such programs. Social empathy—empathy that takes into account contextual understanding and social awareness—is associated with higher engagement in social action. I used a mixed... View the presentation.

This study reports on the results of a psychosocial questionnaire survey of professional symphonic musicians in the United States. The response rate was 12.36% (n= 395) and the sample was members of the International Conference of Symphonic and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) which is a conglomerate of the top 50 orchestras in the United States. Participants exhibited significantly higher depression levels than the general U.S. public prevalence rates listed in the DSM-5. 98.7% of musicians screened... View the presentation.

In the midst of the Great Recession of 2008, corporate scandals overflowed newspaper headlines. Companies such as Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and others contributed to the most recent stock market crash on Wall Street. There is some evidence that the calculative mindset may have contributed to these corporations’ decisions to act unethically. An individual with a calculative mindset analyzes non-quantitative problems, such as social and moral issues, mathematically. When individuals crunch numbers, the mechanical, mathematical problem-solving... View the presentation.

The decision to breastfeed or formula feed is a largely contested one by mothers, healthcare administrators, and politicians. Yet, research suggests that both breastfeeding and formula feeding are healthy ways to provide nourishment to newborn babies. Considering this, I sought to analyze why this decision is such a site of contestation. I did this by critically analyzing the meaning-making work that breastfeeding discourse had for women during the historically significant moment when Rhode Island, Massachusetts,... View the presentation.

Two popular critiques of Asian American Studies are its US-centrism within the Americas and its inherent valorization of race/ethnicity and racial/ethnic difference in its endeavors to critique and liberate its subjects from the same system. Though not able to fully tackle the latter, this project aims to address both of these issues by locating Asian American Studies theory in Mexico in regard to indigenous, not Asian, communities. During a four-month span in Yucatán, Mexico in... View the presentation.

Research has found that both schizophrenia populations and populations at clinical high risk for psychosis show alterations in facial affect expressivity, specifically blunting. However, it is unknown whether these alterations occur prior to onset, or whether they develop as a consequence of psychosis onset processes. The current study sought to examine a non-clinical psychosis (NCP) population, defined as those who experience infrequent and fleeting positive symptoms 1-2 times per year, to determine where along the... View the presentation.

The Modern Orthodox Jewish (MO) community currently functions on the fantasy that MO teens are receiving all their messaging around sex from their Jewish schools and communities. The messaging these students receive tells them to refrain from sex and touching people of the opposite sex until marriage. This messaging can be confusing for young people who live in both the secular and religious worlds and don’t know which religious laws or cultural norms to conform... View the presentation.

Children come to understand race within a historically-established racial hierarchy, but they have the agency to accommodate or resist this establishment as they form their own racial identities. Previous research identified distinct narrative types that either reinforce existing societal structures (Master Narratives) or disrupt them (Alternative Narratives). The Counternarrative (CN) is the most assertive Alternative Narrative where children reference the structural consequences of race, and explicitly name and challenge racism in their own lives. This... View the presentation.

Nearly half of all women in corporate America will experience sexual harassment at work at some point during their career, and yet limited progress has been made to mitigate these occurrences of sexual harassment. Gender inequalities (i.e. the male dominated workforce, lack of female leadership, and large power differentials between men and women) have been regarded as the key factors that lead to sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the workplace. This study adds to... View the presentation.

In the midst of the Great Recession of 2008, corporate scandals overflowed newspaper headlines. Companies such as Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and others contributed to the most recent stock market crash on Wall Street. There is some evidence that the calculative mindset may have contributed to these corporations’ decisions to act unethically. An individual with a calculative mindset analyzes non-quantitative problems, such as social and moral issues, mathematically. When individuals crunch numbers, the mechanical, mathematical problem-solving... View the presentation.

Does the political context influence how children think about who they are and will become? This study analyzed longitudinal data to explore children’s references to sociopolitical events, such as presidential elections, when they described their own social identities and future aspirations. Children (7-14 years old; N = 245) were individually interviewed on two separate occasions: Time 1 interviews coincided with Barack Obama’s seventh year of presidency (May, 2014); Time 2 interviews happened after Donald Trump... View the presentation.

Past research suggests that stereotypes about collective identities (i.e. race, ethnicity, and gender) shape aspirations. However, less is known about how actual representation of collective identity relates to aspirations. The proportion of an identity in a given career will be used as an indicator of numeric representation and I hypothesize that it relates to aspirations of middle school students. In the present thesis, I investigate how the pattern of representation in middle school students’ aspirational... View the presentation.

Women in developing countries occupy a unique role in the economy that is often underappreciated, informal and highly vital to the country’s economic stability. Despite their high productivity and output, women in countries such as Morocco lack support from their government and communities as well as the infrastructure necessary to develop and grow their businesses. Project Thea: Morocco addresses a current gap in the literature on the specific environment women in Morocco face. To answer... View the presentation.

In the realms of higher education, the term “first-generation” is a buzzword and many universities pride themselves on the amount of first-generation students that inhabit their campuses. Broadly, first-generation college students are students whose parents did not attend nor graduate from a 4-year institution. First-generation students face unique challenges when compared to their continuing-generation peers and this can sometimes stem from a cultural mismatch. While there is much research done on the first-generation experience transitioning... View the presentation.

The goal of this research paper is to analyze concepts of armed conflict and peacebuilding from a gender perspective using a feminist epistemology approach. I examine the impact of armed conflict on women, and the implications of women’s roles in armed conflict and in peacebuilding processes post-conflict. In doing so, I raise the question of how situations of armed conflict and peacebuilding influence women’s empowerment and contribute to the social transformation of predominantly patriarchal societies... View the presentation.

Standard narratives on the relationship between art and urban development detail art networks as complicit agents in processes of upscaling and gentrification connected to the political and economic elite. My thesis challenges the conventional narrative by investigating the relationship between grassroots art spaces, tied to local, community- based interests, and the urban political economy of development in the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen. Using archival, ethnographic and interview methods, I investigate three art networks—mainstream, do-it-yourself and... View the presentation.

It has been hypothesized that mindfulness-based programs with a primary focus on teaching self-compassion or empathy will have greater effects on self-compassion and empathy than will mindfulness-based exposure programs, which focus primarily on enhancing present moment awareness and reducing distress. However, because research on mindfulness-based exposure programs has centered on their potential to reduce distress and facilitate exposures, their effects on self-compassion and empathy are unknown. The current study’s goal was therefore to determine the... View the presentation.

Negative emotional behaviors, such as criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling, that spouses may show during conflict are key predictors of marital dissatisfaction. Existing research has focused on middle-class couples, but little is known about how these negative emotional behaviors predict marital satisfaction among couples from socioeconomically diverse backgrounds. The present laboratory-based study sought to address this gap in the literature. Thirty-seven married couples (74 spouses) from socioeconomically diverse backgrounds (age: M = 41.98, SD =... View the presentation.

Over the last decades, there have been many changes in the business world that are associated with 52 percent of Fortune 500 companies either going bankrupt, being acquired by other companies, or ceasing to exist. One critical change is the transformation of the economy into a knowledge-based economy, where information and learning are key drivers of economic growth and productivity. In order to survive and thrive in this new business world order, many argue that... View the presentation.

Expanding on research done on the mental health and happiness benefits associated with romantic relationships, this study investigates whether identity denial, the experience of being socially denied one’s chosen identity by having others refuse to acknowledge that identity, presents a challenge for bisexual people within committed romantic relationships. For straight, gay, and lesbian individuals, one’s choice of partner makes one’s own sexual identity more visible to others. For bisexuals, committing to a partner may obscure... View the presentation.

A survey of adults (n = 706) found low levels of awareness of two social movements aimed at decreasing weight stigma: the Fat Acceptance Movement and Health at Every Size movement. For HAES, providing a brief story of an overweight person who endorses HAES improved perceptions of the movement. View the presentation.

According to Lisjak, Lee, and Gardner (2012), a threat to a brand can elicit the same response as a threat to the self. The current research examined whether people react differently to brand threats as a function of East Asian versus North American culture and as a function of whether the source of the threat was a stranger or a close friend. In Study 1, 616 U.S. and East Asian participants were recruited to complete... View the presentation.

Children are impressionable customers, and the media they consume influences their behaviors and perceptions. Gender stereotypes are highly prevalent in children’s media, which can often lead children to create idealized images of what boys and girls should be. This paper explores advertising in children’s television commercials given changes in our society promoting gender equality. Researchers studied commercials from 20 different television programs for children to find differences in male- and female-targeted advertisements. Commercials were coded... View the presentation.

Drill rap, a subgenre of hip-hop intimately connected to Chicago street life and brought into the nation’s musical mainstream by Chicago rapper Chief Keef, sounds and means differently than traditional forms of hip-hop. Unlike most hip hop, drill is outwardly unconcerned with mobility. This project explores drill’s departure from hip-hop’s traditional aesthetics and messaging, considering what about Chicago gave rise to this departure, the extent to which the departure categorizes the subgenre, and what the... View the presentation.

With 80% of US hospitals seeing limited English proficient patients on a regular basis, language assistance services are a pivotal component of ensuring equal access to health care. State and federal civil rights policies guarantee the provision of language assistance services to limited English proficient hospital patients. However, local civil rights advisory committees report hospitals do not adequately comply with these policies. Through the development and analysis of an original dataset of qualitative interviews with... View the presentation.

The purpose of this project is to investigate the lack of significant reform regarding women’s issues during the perestroika period. Part one establishes the foundational ideology by analyzing Marxist and Leninist ideas on women and comparing them to official Soviet doctrine as established by government officials and leading scholars. Also in this section is an overview of feminist theory in regards to both social policy and communism. These form the set of beliefs regarding the... View the presentation.

Marital emotional functioning is one of the most important predictors of marital outcomes (e.g., marital satisfaction), which in turn has important consequences for well­being and health factors for both spouses and their children. Thus far, negative emotions (e.g., anger) have been the central focus in distinguishing dissatisfied from satisfied couples (i.e., low and high marital satisfaction). In sharp contrast, positive emotions have rarely been the target of empirical marital research, notwithstanding the sizeable body of... View the presentation.

Affective science has long been interested in the coherence between different emotion response systems (e.g., subjective emotional experience, behavior, physiology). Although evolutionary functionalist accounts of emotion hold that emotional coherence should be related to greater adaptation, few studies have analyzed links between emotional coherence and well­being. Thus, in this laboratory-based study, we examined the link between emotional coherence (specifically the coherence between behavior and physiology) and dispositional well­being in a sample of 41 adults (22... View the presentation.

This project was originally motivated by a life­long love of the Harry Potter series and a teenage love for fan fiction and other fan­created works. I was motivated to do research when I stumbled upon the lack of inclusivity in many fan communities, which I found to be shocking. In attempting to learn more about the harmful homonormativity, gender roles, and sexism that I had come across within works of queer fan fiction, I analyzed... View the presentation.

The research question concerns the correlation between Global Positioning System (GPS) error signals and geomagnetic activity in the ionosphere. The purpose of this investigation was to learn more about the correlation between GPS errors and geomagnetic activity in the ionosphere. Additionally it was to investigate the specifics of this correlation to find out exactly what values and measurements in the GPS system are affected and involved. In this project, the GPS errors were determined by... View the presentation.

Arrhythmia is a disease characterized by abnormal electrical signals in the heart that results in ineffective pumping. Stethoscopes, as well as EKG's, are used to diagnose arrhythmia. Modern Stethoscopes diagnose arrhythmias with a 40 percent accuracy rate. EKGs, on the other hand, diagnose with an high accuracy rate but can be very expensive. Sometimes, money on EKGs can be wasted if you had a benign arrhythmia, i.e. heart simply skips a beat. This application/program analyzes... View the presentation.

4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (or 4-MCHM) is a toxic chemical used in coal power plants. A 2014 chemical spill released a crude form of 4-MCHM, greatly affecting the surrounding community and environment. This chemical is often used in factories to clean coal, and was thought to be safe to use. After the spill, 4-MCHM has been tested on mammals such as rats and guinea pigs, causing decreased activity and mortality. In humans it has caused skin irritation and... View the presentation.

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of common household paints, and the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that they contain, on Drosophila melanogaster. Previous research has demonstrated a correlation between VOCs in paint and the development of conditions like asthma in humans, as well as to disruptions to the central nervous system. Procedure: Three different paints were tested for harmful effects on Drosophila melanogaster. Four experimental groups were prepared: a control,... View the presentation.

Purpose: To determine the effectiveness of antioxidant protection against UVB radiation and to determine which antioxidants out of Ascorbic Acid, Zinc Oxide, and Vitamin E most effectively prevent UVB radiation from damaging cells as well as to design an in-vitro model that can help test the ultraviolet absorbing capabilities of different natural antioxidants. Procedure: Saccharomyces cerevisiae was used as a model organism in this project as they have a similar anatomy and physiology compared to... View the presentation.

The purpose of this experiment is to test the effects of varying levels of the geomagnetic field on the mortality levels of the tardigrade species, Hypsibius dujardini, since different magnetic fields are present on other planets and tardigrades are extremophiles. Due to their extreme resilience, tardigrades could be a solution to humanity's overpopulation problem and its eventual migration to other planets through the possibility of biological terraformation. However, the effects of planetary factors such as... View the presentation.

Purpose: What are the effects of antioxidants on the climbing abilities of fruit flies exposed to dental resin? Research: Free radicals are highly reactive particles containing unpaired electrons in their valence shells and seek to fill in empty spaces within their valence shells. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) containing oxygen are one of the most common free radicals and can lead to potential DNA damage and diseases including cancer, immune diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases. On the... View the presentation.

Purpose: To determine the inhibitive properties of metal ions on catalase activity as well as to determine which antioxidant most effectively diminishes the inhibitory effect of the most inhibitive metal on catalase activity through chelation and compare it to a synthetic chelator, EDTA. Procedure: Set up a gas-collecting apparatus. For Part 1, to determine which metal inhibits catalase the most, test H2O2 alone for negative control, test catalase for positive control, catalase + copper, catalase... View the presentation.

Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the build up of various metal ions. These metal ions start to build up on the brain’s neurons. The build up of these metal ions start to create a protein that is known as Tau protein. The purpose of this experiment was to demonstrate the effects of metal ions, EDTA (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) and turmeric on catalase activity. Also, to inhibit catalase function on neurons. The hypothesis for the experiment was... View the presentation.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are free radicals containing oxygen that seek to fill in empty spaces within their valence shells. ROS are especially harmful to embryos and fetuses as they interfere with cell signaling leading to birth disorders. In contrast, resveratrol, an antioxidant, pairs unpaired electrons in ROS before oxidation can occur. Therefore, I studied the effects of the resveratrol-containing foods, blueberries and red grapes, on the movement abilities of fruit flies exposed to dental... View the presentation.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Currently, 33% of cases are misdiagnosed. The use of Artificial Intelligence could reduce the chance of error leading to possible earlier diagnoses which could be the difference between life and death for some. The objective of this project was to develop accurate Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Neural Network (DNN) algorithms to create a application for assisted heart disease diagnosis. My project compared the ML model... View the presentation.