Nikhil R Chari
This research project will investigate the effects of redox conditions on temperature sensitivity of soil methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) respiration. Temperature and rainfall regimes are changing with climate change, which can create fluctuating redox dynamics in humid environments such as tropical forests and wetlands. This has global implications for ecosystem carbon (C) storage and loss. CH4 is a potent greenhouse gas produced under anaerobic conditions, and the effects of changes in temperature on redox and CH4 fluxes are not well understood. Fe-reducing microorganisms can contribute significantly to CO2 […]
Frank Lee
Listeria monocytogenes is a Gram-positive pathogenic bacterium that causes the foodborne illness Listeriosis in humans. The Portnoy lab discovered that L. monocytogenes has the ability to do extracellular electron transfer (EET), which consists of transferring electrons from the inside of the bacteria to extracellular acceptors outside, using compounds called flavins. This process allows L. monocytogenes to grow on non-fermentable carbon sources, and strains lacking EET activity have been shown to have reduced viability in vivo. I will be studying the role of two proteins discovered to be essential for EET […]
Hannah Cox
My research will serve as an inquiry into the particular language of the prosaic and poetic works of Armenian-French writer Shahan Shahnour, nom de plume Armen Lubin. Shahnour was a part of the Menk generation (so named after the Armenian word for “We”), a literary group of Armenian migrs living in Paris in the 1920’s, having survived the Armenian Genocide and fled the Ottoman Empire. Within the frame of exile and mourning a lost homeland, Shahnour’s novel in Armenian and Lubin’s later poems in French illuminate a unique language space […]
Nicholas Pingitore
On October 24, 1648, Europe signed The Peace of Westphalia. This marked the end of the Thirty Years War, one of Europes bloodiest conflicts, which claimed the lives of more than eight million people. But perhaps more importantly, The Peace of Westphalia is remembered as the birth of what political scientists, politicians, and even your morning paper would come to know as modern international relations: a system of states, in which sovereign and independent nations exist in a chaotic realm of constant competition, locked in a balance of power in […]
Sabrina Lu
Empirical studies have revealed a wide range of racial and gender disparities in the American criminal justice system. People of color, specifically Black males, make up the majority of our prison population, but incarceration is vastly influenced by historical and societal ills that negatively impact minority groups. Through racial profiling and other forms of explicit and implicit biases, society creates and perpetuates stereotypes of people of color as deviant, dangerous, and criminal. Gender stereotypes also impact perceptions of criminality. Aggression in males aligns with masculinity and is consistent with the […]
Clara Jimenez
My research project focuses on three major works of twentieth-century African-American literature: Toni Morrisons Beloved and Alice Walkers The Color Purple. I seek to explore how the female protagonists at the center of these narratives embody chronic depression. My research intends to validate the trauma these women undergo, as well as delineate the coping mechanisms they create in response to the physical, sexual, and psychological subjugation they face. These characters are not only linked by the oppressive structures they struggle against, but also by their roles as daughters who experience […]
James Kennerly
Deng Xiaopings 1978 market reforms profoundly impacted the way Chinese people relate to their material surroundings. Some previously worthless objects (rare-earth metals, for example), gained newfound value as precious commodities. Other objects, before deeply cherished, became suddenly irrelevant through the process of commodification. In the frontier zones of the Chinese economysparsely-populated regions, ethnic minority areas, and border zonesthe transition of the social world of objects has been especially dramatic.I propose to study these dynamics from Liangshan Prefecture in Sichuan Provence, a rural, mountainous region on the southwest of the country, […]
Christopher Machle
The capacity to reject potential choices is critical to everyday function and is a core issue for multiple behavioral disorders, particularly addiction. Though a wealth of research displays that the subcortical region known as the striatum is a pivotal site for enacting value-based decisions, the mechanism underlying choice rejection is significantly understudied. Current research assumes a go/no-go heuristic that divides the two pathways of the striatum into discrete roles, asserting the direct pathway initiates decisions and the indirect pathway initiates rejections. Though the simplicity of this go/no-go heuristic is attractive, […]
Laura Goy
Since the rollout of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 2004, Malawi has made tremendous strides in the fight against HIV and has almost achieved the global targets for diagnosis and treatment set by UNAIDS. However, emerging drug resistance threatens the progress made in Malawi and other countries facing limited access to resources and technology. Alternative drug regimens are available in Malawi, but clinics are extremely inefficient at switching patients to these life-saving drugs. As a result, people with untreated resistance can develop AIDS and transmit drug-resistant HIV to others. To address […]
Josette Miller
Have you ever fallen for a hoax? And if so, were you being exploited because of your gullibility or were you consciously or unconsciously complicit in your own beguilement? Who benefited from tricking you: the people who sold you the hoax, the audience, or the actors of the hoax itself? My research follows this line of questioning in an anthropological investigation into exploitation and agency in nineteenth-century America. Specifically, I will be examining hoax journalism and freak shows as avenues of mass media based exploitation. Through applying anthropological theories of […]