Marina Nasrin Sharifi

I am characterizing a set of Chlamydomonas insertional mutants defective in carotenoid biosynthesis using pigment analysis, genetic crosses, and TAIL-PCR to connect mutations in specific genes with specific blocks in carotenoid biosynthesis,with the goal of elucidating in detail one or more steps in the Chlamydomonas carotenoid biosynthesis pathway. A better understanding of this is not only important for the understanding of the process of photosynthesis in general, but also in the comparison of carotenoid biosynthesis in the model organism Chlamydomonas with that in higher plants, possibly revealing interesting evolutionary and […]

Stefanie Stella Como

Past research by Shelton, Richeson, and Salvatore (2005) has shown that minority group members feel less authentic interacting with people outside of their ethnic group than with their in-group. There are many reasons why people feel inauthentic during such interactions, but one likely part of the explanation is based on regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997). This theorizes that people interact with the world in two ways. People who are promotion focused gear themselves toward aspirations and gains; conversely, prevention focused people vigilantly avoid negative outcomes (Seibt & Forster, 2004). In […]

Gavin Alle Raders

Conflicts over the control of natural resources lie at the heart of wars, violence, and terrorism worldwide. Water is the most precious resource for over 800 million farmers in India who depend on the groundwater for their physical and cultural survival, and water has been held for millenia to be the common property of all beings, to be maintained and distributed democratically at the decentralized village level. Control over water was transferred to the state during British colonial rule, and today rain and groundwater is being privatized by multinational corporations […]

Christopher Cochran

A great deal of research has recently emerged regarding the concepts of agency, intentionality, and Free Will. In The Illusion of Conscious Will (2002), Dan Wegner asserts that people believe they cause their own actions in a way that is concurrent with the theory of Free Will (Wegner, 2002). I believe that a lay theory of agency varies by culture. I describe Americans understanding of agency as purposeful and Asians understanding as adaptive. My hypothesis is based on cross cultural research that shows that Asians and Americans have different understandings […]

Amanda Pojanamat

In developing capitalist countries such as Thailand, many women migrate every day from the rural areas to Bangkok in search of the better life. I would like to explore how their understandings of the good life are influenced by modern discourses and whether their constructions and reconstructions of these modern discourses contain resistance either to oppressive conditions in the rural areas or in the urban. Do their interpretations of modernity ultimately provide them with the discursive tools they need to improve the conditions of their lives? To answer these questions […]

Zoe Wilen Brent

The growing cooperative movement in Argentina, emerging out of the economic crisis of 2001, presents an interesting opportunity to study the ways in which the cooperative is modeled and understood in the context of a capitalist economy. For two months I will look at the model put forth by the four-star Hotel Bauen. Specifically, I will examine how the cooperative is understood and how that understanding is affecting and affected by the consumer tourist market to which it caters. To this end, I will conduct a series of interviews and […]

Jobert Poblete

The Philippines has become a leader in the export of nurses. Filipino nurses are leaving by the thousands every year to take positions in chronically understaffed medical facilities in the United States and around the world. This research project is concerned with this migrant flow. Specifically, I intend to conduct ethnographic research on men doctors retraining as nurses in order to gain access to the American labor market. This practice entails a variety of maneuvers gendered, professional, and transnational. Why do these men engage in this strategy of upward and […]

Rebecca Baran-Rees

My research project addresses the important questions of how new forms of governance are emerging in response to the growing challenges of urban management in many parts of the third world. Specifically, I will investigate the newest forms of solid waste management initiatives in Argentina put forth by the World Bank, the national and provincial governments of Argentina, local cooperatives and private agenciesand the extent to which these organizational forms can actualize participatory development goals. As hundreds of thousands of Argentinos have taken to picking and sorting trash as a […]

Catherine Ngo

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in America. Hundreds of different diseases are characterized as cancer, but all have the same underlying cause. This mortal disease results from mutations in genes responsible for cell division regulation. For my project, I will positionally clone the curly mutation of Xenopus tropicalis, a defect due to alterations in a tumor suppressor gene. This summer my primary goal is to narrow in on the region in which the curly gene resides–the first step of positional cloning. After this initial step, I […]

Aeshna Badruzzaman

Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) are playing an increasing role in the economic development of the global south. Bangladesh in particular is a country in which NGOs have emerged as a huge portion of the countrys source of development aid. I will be examining two particular organizations in Bangladesh. Both organizations allocate funding to NGOs. The first acts somewhat like a bank for NGOs by using loans it received from the government, to loan money to NGOs, which in turn give micro credit loans to villagers. The other organization also acts as […]