Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Margaux Fitoussi

Revolutionary Cuba provided international support and financial assistance to the liberation movements throughout southern African. Cuba’s foreign policy of international revolution and its liberation discourse crossed boundaries erected by the apartheid state and influenced the South African emancipation movement. Despite a strong public rapport between Cuba and anti-Apartheid leaders, the majority of research on Cubas foreign policy towards Africa has excluded South Africa. Drawing on archival research conducted at the University of Cape Town and South African national archives, Margaux hopes to contribute to the analysis of Cuba’s symbolic significance […]

Amin Ebrahimi Afrouzi

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Platonic dialogues usually consist of an interrogative discourse between Socrates and his interlocutor, situated in a specific setting, much like a stage, with other people present and participating somehow. Amin will investigate the role of peripheral participants and the staging of the dialogue in some essential texts known to be mostly concerning modes of discourse, namely Gorgias and Protagoras, as well as two early dialogues, “Crito” and “Meno”. Amin will examine these texts in the light of modern theories of discourse and performance while paying specific attention to cultural significations […]

Jonathan Wang

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At the edge of the city, beyond the stadiums newly built to house South Africa’s 2010 World Cup, are clusters of temporary relocation areas that have come to house tens of thousands of South Africa’s internally displaced urban peoples. Jonathan will travel to South Africa to visually document and map the dialectic relationships between these distinct spaces of exception through photography, video, and open-source mapping technologies. He will also be working with Ikamva Youth to teach mapping and photography workshops designed to create open-source maps of neighborhoods of the Delft […]

Louisa deCossy

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The recent influx of modernity and opportunity into Ireland has profoundly affected the countrys social, geographical and cultural framework. In response to growing social pressure and the relaxation of the power of the Catholic Church, Ireland has changed many repressive laws regarding divorce and homosexuality and has closed antiquated institutions, such as the Magdalen Laundries. Louisa will research the effects of these changes on the social fabric of Ireland by interviewing women from different facets of Irish society regarding their newly emerging cultural identity. She will also visit historical and […]

Tawny Tsang

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Contrary to previously held beliefs, the cerebellum is not restricted to activities involving motor control. It participates in a variety of cognitive functions from attention to verbal working memory. This can be attributed to its connectivity with regions of the cortex that are involved in learning and memory. Previous research suggests that the cerebellum may be more involved in metric-based rather than rule-based or categorical learning. Tawny’s project will examine that hypothesis and investigate the cerebellums contribution to specific types of learning as well as the role of feedback on […]

Susan Chen

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Metabolic engineering has the potential to provide environmentally friendly routes for the synthesis of a variety of molecules, including therapeutics and biofuels. One way to improve the flux of metabolic pathways is the use of synthetic protein scaffolds that colocalize enzymes in the engineered mevalonate biosynthesis pathway. Susan’s project tests the hypothesis that optimal scaffolds of certain architectures mimic substrate channeling and function by forming large, oligomeric complexes that bring scaffolds into close proximity. Adaptor molecules are synthesized that co-assemble scaffolds to designably control complex size. Mevalonate product titers will […]

Yu-Dong Sun

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Technologies based on superconducting quantum systems have contributed significantly to the development of high precision magnetic sensors and quantum bits. These experiments require ultra-low temperatures which are achieved by dilution refrigerators. In contrast to conventional dilution refrigerators, which generally require a continuous supply of liquid helium and complex circulation systems, the dilution refrigerator Yu-Dong aims to construct will not use liquid cryogens and mechanical pumps. This will be accomplished by integrating a 2-Kelvin pulse tube cryostat with a self-contained dilution unit prototype from Chase Cryogenics, to further lower the base […]

Elton Chan

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The bacterium Salmonella is a significant cause of food-borne disease. Its pathogenesis depends on the type III secretion systems (T3SSs) that were acquired by horizontal gene transfer; the invasion of Salmonella into the host cells requires appropriate expression of T3SSs. Recent research has identified small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs) as a class of regulators that fine tune gene expression required for bacterial physiology and pathogenesis. Elton will investigate the specific interaction between one of these newly discovered Salmonella sRNA and its predicted candidate targets; he will characterize the interaction between IsrM […]

Alison Smith

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RNA interference (RNAi) is a rapidly expanding field of research that promises to yield a better understanding of how cells regulate their environments through RNAi mediated gene silencing pathways. Harnessing RNAis transformative properties may prove to be a powerful methodology for developing effective, cell-specific drugs, thus reducing harm and unwanted side effects. Alison’s project involves reconstituting the piRNA biogenesis machinery in vitro; specifically, elucidating the role of the protein, Squash. piRNAs are a recently discovered class of small regulatory RNAs that are thought to facilitate transposon silencing through RNAi, thereby […]