Emma Paulina Bianco

No area is perhaps more synonymous with conservatism than Orange County, California. This region fell victim to Cold War paranoia of imposing Soviet threats and possible communist subversion. From the end of World War II to the late 1960s, Orange County residents engaged in local battles to protect their most precious individuals from socialist leanings: children. In an effort to reinforce American superiority, citizen organizations, parents, and school boards waged textbook wars to censure particular materials they believed subscribed to Soviet leanings. However, my study seeks to understand the viability […]

Sabrina Berger

The Very Large Array (VLA) radio interferometer in New Mexico is an excellent instrument to look for radio transients such as fast radio bursts (FRBs). FRBs are intense radio signals lasting milliseconds that do not yet have a confirmed origin. An interferometer employs an array of radio telescopes to observe radio frequencies. FRBs are a new major interest in radio astronomy because of their mysterious nature and increasing number of observations. Many radio telescopes are beginning to design and construct FRB pipelines that search incoming data in real time. Besides […]

Alexander Frenkel

Symmetry is a very important and beautiful tool in physics. From every symmetry in a physical system, one can derive a conserved quantity. However, when one attempts to study various quantum systems with interesting and useful symmetries compatible with Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, one finds that some of them fall apart and create divergences at high energies. One method of resolving this problem is to work in a hypothetical space-time where Lorentz symmetry doesn’t have to hold at high energies. This gives us more freedom in building the theory, […]

Zachery Valdez

As paradoxical as it may sounds, the deportation of American Veterans is a phenomenon that continues to affect our non-Citizen Veterans. My research will analyze and document the deportation and United States Veterans, in order to understand why these Americans are getting deported.

Arohi Saxena

Use-dependent learning is a motor learning process that is thought to arise from the repetition of a specific movement pattern. Use-dependent learning is thought to underlie the refinement of motor skills, such that well-practiced actions become more accurate and consistent (the practice makes perfect phenomenon); however, this learning process also comes at the cost of biasing subsequent actions to be more similar to practiced ones. It was initially assumed that pure repetition of a movement was the only necessary condition to drive use-dependent learning, however recent studies suggest that some […]

Jessica Bonnar

In eukaryotes, an essential growth regulator is a multi-subunit, plasma membrane(PM)-associated protein kinase, the Target of Rapamycin Complex 2 (or TORC2). Work using Saccharomyces cerevisiae has established that TORC2 is responsible for controlling processes that preserve PM homeostasis and that regulate actin polymerization. Studies have shown that the localization of TORC2 to the plasma membrane is essential for the complex’s function. However, little is understood about the processes that regulate the assembly, maintenance and activity of TORC2 itself. Avo3, a TORC2 subunit necessary for maintaining stability of the complex, contains […]

Dalila Robledo

According to the Standard Model, all baryonic matter is predicted to have a corresponding antiparticle. From this premise, we currently dont understand why we observe more matter than antimatter, making the study of antimatter a fascinating subject. My research project is with the ALPHA experiment at CERN, which produces antihydrogen. Composed of an antiproton and a positron bind together, antihydrogen is the matter counterpart of hydrogen. Because of its neutrality and correspondence with the hydrogen atom, it is a desirable system for experimental study. My summer project involves numerical simulations […]

Kamran Ahmed

The mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) is a protein complex that activates protein synthesis, modulates cell growth and proliferation, and regulates autophagy. Loss-of-function mutations in the TSC1 or TSC2 genes, which negatively regulate mTORC1, result in complex hyperactivity causing the syndromic neurodevelopmental disorder Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC). TSC patients have a wide variety of clinical presentations including high comorbidity rates with neuropsychiatric disorders in which the dopaminergic system has been implicated. Little is known about the impact of mTORC1 disruption on the dopaminergic system. Previous work showed that […]

Jonathan Qu

While speciation (the formation of new species) is often thought of as occurring through the splitting of one species into two, species can arise through other mechanisms, such as allopolyploidy. Allopolyploidy occurs through the formation of a hybrid between two species, followed by genome duplication. This mechanism of speciation is common in plants, including in crop plants. While artificial allopolyploid plants have been studied in the laboratory, allopolyploidy remains understudied in natural populations. Polystichum californicum is a fern species thought to have originated via multiple independent allopolyploidization events throughout its […]

Kiran Brar

While the unbalanced sex-based division of labor has been explored in various parts of the developing world, it remains largely unstudied in Punjab (Northwest India). Punjab is a predominantly agricultural society with diverse family organizational forms, including joint and extended families. I will examine how the division of labor amongst heterosexual couples in Punjab, India is influenced by gender, religion, education, and area of residency. I will conduct 20 in-depth interviews in two cities and two to three rural villages, divided evenly into the following four groups: 1) rural and […]