Eba Kim

In a recent groundbreaking paper by Bartal et al., Science 2011, entitled Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats, researchers discovered that when one rat of a pair of cage mates was placed in a restrainer while the other rat was free, the free rat learned to emancipate the restrained rat. This helping or empathic behavior persisted even in the absence of potential contact with the newly freed rat, which proved that the free rat engaged in this behavior for the sole purpose of liberating the trapped rat instead of expecting […]

Arya Nikjoo

Elevated accumulation of glycosaminoglycans in tumor microenvironments of many advanced cancers, including breast cancers, has been associated with poor patient prognosis. Our laboratory has long been developing in vitro physiologically-relevant culture models that provide epithelial cells with an in vivo-like microenvironment, which is optimal to bridge the gaps between epithelial monolayer cultures and animal models. We have also developed glycosaminoglycan-based probes for identifying invasive breast cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. My project characterizes uptake patterns of these probes into a panel of normal and malignant epithelial cell lines […]

Soo Yeon Han

In todays culture, the east is often defined as archival and conservative, the west being its modern progressive counterpart. Nevertheless, the patriarchal dominance had significant influence in both hemispheres. Of the same nationality yet of contrasting environment, Korean and Korean American poets maintain similar yet different perspectives. How do contemporary Korean women poets express themselves differently from their mothers who suffered oppressions? Furthermore, how would the Americanized daughters of the Korean mothers develop similar thematic approaches as part of their poetics? As my senior thesis, I intend to analyze the […]

Derrek Coleman

The Large Underground Xenon, or LUX, collaboration has spent the last few years constructing a dual-phase liquid xenon detector which is sensitive enough to detect weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), the primary candidate for dark matter. The detector is finally running and has been taking data since February of this year. With the first round of data in hand, I will analyze LUXs current level of performance. I will look for unexpected drops in its photo-detection rates and other signs that previously unaccounted for factors are limiting the detectors efficiency. […]

Jonathan Kim

This summer I will be working in Ken Goldberg’s Automation Lab on a project in surgical robotics. Currently most surgical robotics systems are not “true robots”; rather, the actuator components of the systems mirror the motions of a human surgeon operator. I will be conducting research into the possibility of increasing the autonomy of such surgical robotic systems. I will be working on the Raven surgical robot system to integrate a vision component to the overall system. After this first step I will then be conducting research into what is […]

Claire Parker

Pollination systems, particularly the coevolutionary forces between plants and pollinating insects, have proven vital to both natural and managed landscapes. My research will examine the assembly of pollinator communities in response to fire in backcountry settings of Yosemite National Park (YNP), through the dynamics of succession along a chronosequence since fire disturbance. Meadows created by fires in YNP, previously vegetated with native wildflowers and grasses, have been invaded by non-native cheat grass (Bromus tectorum). This invasion is thought to have substantial effect on the native California ground-nesting bee species that […]

Hai Hoang

What will happen if Myspace use can increase your narcissism? What will happen if Facebook use can increase your self-esteem and decrease your self-control? What will happen when only ten minutes of using Facebook may make you more willing to purchase online products? Those are some of the questions I want to answer in my study considering it is impossible to deny the great influence of online social network on our daily lives. More specifically, I want to examine if peoples personality and self-control may change after using Facebook, and […]

Kendall Condon

DEAD-box proteins are vital to the central dogma of biology. They are involved in all aspects of RNA biology including ribosome biogenesis, mRNA export, RNA-protein complex remodeling and much more. Since DEAD-box proteins have been implicated in pathways of viral infections, like HIV, and many types of cancers, they are critical to human health. The two most formidable hurdles in researching this family are their highly similar active sites and that most are essential for life. This makes studying individual DEAD-box proteins difficult, so many of their functions remain unclear. […]

Andrew King

The 1957 obscenity trial of Allen Ginsbergs Howlthat cornerstone epic of the Beat generationis understood as a major episode not only in the history of American and West Coast poetics but in the history of American culture. Missing from prevailing accounts of the trial, however, is an assessment of the role of Gil Orlovitzs text, The Statement of Erika Keith and Other Stories, Poems and a Play. When undercover officers Russell Woods and Thomas Pagee purchased a copy of Howl in order to arrest City Lights Books clerk Shigeyoshi Murao […]

Xuchen Hu

Desiccation tolerance is an organisms ability to withstand removal of as much as 95% of its intracellular water and be able to resume normal metabolism upon rehydration. However the molecular basis for tolerance is not completely understood. Budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is one of the rare species that exhibit this amazing trait and is an excellent organism to study desiccation tolerance. Upon desiccation, yeast, like other desiccation tolerant organisms, accumulates the disaccharide trehalose. However, mutants that are unable to make trehalose exhibit significant tolerance, suggesting the existence of other molecules […]