Marco A. Flores

Though growing rapidly, the literature on the displacement of immigrants within the U.S. rarely addresses queer undocumented immigrants. By engaging with theories of affect, Marco’s project will explore the experiences of displacement queer undocumented immigrants encounter in their search for home. Through qualitative interviews, Marco will bring together two seemingly unrelated identities — “queer” and “immigrant” — exploring the complications of experience and sentiment driven by the dwelling that takes place in search of home; an engagement of the body in relation to a fragmented self. Ultimately, by illuminating forms […]

James Gabriel Eckhouse

The entertainment business dominates many people’s lives. Theorists of different stripes have been eager to understand the role it plays in modern society. However, these inquiries rarely treat entertainment as an industry. No one has thoroughly pursued the question: what kind of value is produced by the entertainment industry? Emphasizing the creation of value this project views Hollywood’s film and television industry through the lens of a Marxian Political-Economist. James’s focus will be understanding how the people who produce entertainment might create a particular type of value that is different […]

Niku T’arhechu T’arhesi

The vintage anthropological enterprise typically derived from the researchers gaze on a non-Western society, in turn, producing the simultaneous exoticism and denigration of the so-called primitive. An anthropological production of knowledge relied on the holistic gathering of dataa process many times resulting in the researcher’s, the museum’s, or the universitys claim to ownership of material and immaterial cultural heritage. Contemporary anthropologists seek to exorcise the vintage specter by engaging in collaborative repatriation projects with indigenous communities. One such collaborative repatriation project developed when the Warao indigenous inhabitants of Mariusa, Venezuela […]

Katya Cherukumilli

Since the early 20th century, global surface temperatures have risen 1.4F, with the majority of the warming occurring in the past three decades due to anthropogenic activities. Significant changes in sea level, ecosystems, and ice cover are predicted to occur as a result of increasing temperatures. Katya aims to understand ecological responses to simulated and natural climate change in a subalpine meadow at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. She will maintain a database for the longest-running climate manipulation experiment in the world and gather additional information about the species abundance […]

Joseph Root

Since the onset of the financial crisis, many European countries have seen the financial base of their economies dissipate. Fueled largely by high levels of debt and market malaise, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and others have been forced to implement excruciating austerity measures to prevent financial collapse. Despite the ubiquity of bond markets, academic economists continue to speculate about the various forces that govern the fluctuation in market evaluation of risk. Joseph’s research will attempt to clarify the role that market sentiment plays in determining interest rates by looking at data […]

Jenna Cavelle

The Citarum River and its drainage basin, which has been called the most polluted river in the world, spans 11,000 square kilometers, serves 378 industries, 25 million people, and supplies Jakarta with 80% of its water. With so many people and ecologies depending on this critical river, each with a different perspective and a distinct relationship to the river, there are many narratives about rights, access, and pollution being told. Jenna will travel to West Java to further explore what individual and collective claims are being made, which practices and […]

Denisse Rojas

Transposable elements (TEs) are movable pieces of DNA that can have detrimental effects in the plant genome. When TEs are expressed, they can disrupt normal gene function. Small RNAs (siRNAs) direct DNA methylation, which signals other proteins to prevent TE expression. Previous studies show that methylation patterns in the endosperm affect silencing of TEs in the embryo, and propose that siRNAs from the central cell, a female supporting germ cell, mediate TE silencing in the egg cell. Denisse will test the idea that siRNAs move from the central cell to […]

Clarissa Arafiles

The body of the slain journalist, elevated to heroic proportions, has become indispensable in contemporary constructions of Filipino nationalism and democracy. This project will compare two episodes in the history of Philippine media that fortify the journalists presence in the Filipino imagination: the three-day broadcast by Radio Veritas during the 1986 People Power Revolution and the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre. Between June and August, Clarissa will engage in archival research at the National Library of the Philippines in Manila and conduct interviews with news media personnel and anti-impunity campaigners. She will […]

Navpreet Ranu

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that often attacks the lungs and can be spread through the air by coughing, sneezing, and other airborne means. Approximately 2 billion people are infected with TB and around 1.6 million people die of this disease every year. Navpreet will develop a point of care (POC) diagnostic device that will be able to quantify specific TB biomarker levels in serum using electrical impedance spectroscopy. His project tests the hypothesis that the limit of detection can be improved by creating a 3D gel sensor as […]

Samantha Alford

Figurines in the shape of humans, animals, and inanimate objects, such as furniture, have been found in excavations throughout the archaeological site of Mycenae, a Bronze Age settlement and palatial center. Samantha will investigate the production patterns of these figurines by analyzing archaeological data from a Mycenaean ceramics center, Petsas House. By comparing these figurines to those from other Mycenae excavation sites, she will attempt to make inferences about the distribution of figurines and the social structure of Mycenae. Previous scholarship has suggested that Mycenaean religion was socially stratified, with […]