Andrew Harada Rowland

This research project will use a large series of migrant worker interviews to measure the option vale of the urban environment in Beijing, China. The difference in urban and rural earnings, taking into account respective changes in standards of living, are an important component of a migrant worker’s decision to move from countryside to city. Understanding the value migrant laborers place on their new urban lives will help paint a clearer picture of what has become the greatest migration in the history of the world.

Hongsik Park

A detailed mechanism of this so-called “feature detection” has been recently studied in humans; however, this mechanism has not been investigated in any animal model yet (Neri and Heeger 2002). Due to the general belief that rodents have very poor vision, scientists have paid little attention to them on the topic of visual perception. However, studies in the last 10 years have actually shown that the rodent visual systems present properties similar to those of other mammals such as cats and monkeys. Therefore, I believe rodents could be used as […]

Linda Marie Nyberg

With the crystallization of Cold War tensions by 1948/49, a specifically communist anti-fascism was invoked to distinguish East from West. In identifying West Germany as a fascist state, East Germany’s anti-fascist roots became her very raison d’etre. The roots, though, were shallow indeed; as the Cold War intensified, so did the degree of historical abstraction. By the 20th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic’s founding in 1969, the ideology of anti-fascism-based on a manipulation of history-had penetrated every aspect of both private and public life, from popular music to schools […]

Andrew Giovanni Prout

The Emperor Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, transformed a republican government with almost 500 years of history into an imperial monarchy that would last for another five centuries. It is important to understand the sources of Augustus political legitimacy so that I can understand how changes to those sources of imperial legitimacy, like the changes made by the Emperor Severus, led to the Third Century Crisis. By allowing me to focus on Augustus, this fellowship is an integral part of an ongoing project culminating in my senior thesis. Ultimately, […]

Samuel Francis Moore

The ability to detect, evaluate and immediately respond to unexpected changes in one’s environment is an important, adaptive characteristic of mammalian behavior. This process begins with an initial orienting response and continues with subsequent evaluative processes aimed at determining the significance of deviant events. These stages of novelty processing can be measured by averaging electroencephalogram (EEG) signals that are time-locked to event-related potentials (ERPs). My study will investigate the effects of aging on one of these ERPs (termed the Late Frontal Negativity, or LFN), thought to correspond with the mental […]

Jillian Lee Silvestrini

I am studying the possible physical or functional interaction between ELF3 and CRY2, two genes in Arabidopsis thaliana that are involved in regulating the plants biological clock. I will study ELF3 and CRY2 using Arabidopsis plants that have mutations in these genes, resulting in dysfunctional proteins. Many of the phenotypes of the single mutants are opposite, which helps to facilitate analysis of the gene interaction. I will look at flowering time, monochromatic and white light signaling (using hypocotyl elongation as an assay), and regulation of 24-hour rhythms using Luciferase as […]

Mark Roy McGrath

This study proposes an investigation of the production and distribution of media products, in the form of images and pornographic texts that depict and eroticize sexual practices deemed high-risk by public health officials. In the United States, the mid 1990s saw the emergence of social practices within at-risk populations that both celebrate and promote condomless sexual encounters. Since 1997 through to the present, several homegrown media productions companies have emerge that explicitly produce media that depict and promote unprotected sexual encounters. This project will evaluate the relationship and dynamics between […]

Ka Yi Emily Tam

My research project for SURF is on human memory performance when viewing different emotional stimuli. The types of emotion I want to experiment on includes: happy, negative, neutral, arousing (adrenalin rushing), and sexual. The positive correlation between arousal and positive stimuli, and memory performance has been proposed. The negative correlation between negative stimuli and memory performance has also been proposed. However, the connection between sexual stimuli and memory performance still remains unknown. This project aims to ascertain whether there is a positive or a negative correlation between sexual stimuli and […]

Jeff Patrick Manassero

The American Cultures requirement was ushered into UC Berkeley’s general curriculum during the late 1980’s, as universities across the nation followed suite. This project will study the development of multicultural requirements in the college curriculum, and specifically explore the origins of American Cultures on the Berkeley campus. In an attempt to portray American Cultures as an evolving curricular commitment, this project will focus on the historical narrative of the institutionalization and shifting of the AC requirement through changes in campus policy, administrative structuring of the program, and student, faculty, campus […]

Sara Beth Weinstein

Chytridiomycosis has been implicated in the decline of many amphibian species. Most recent studies in this area have focused on the effects of the causative agent, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, on anurans. I have found evidence of this amphibian disease in a local salamander species, Batrachoseps attenuatus. This summer I intend to document the progression of this infection in a species that was previously assumed to be unaffected. This summers work is in preparation for subsequent research exploring the means of transmission of B. dendrobatidis, a fungus with an aquatic infectious stage, […]