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 […]

Sylvia Targ

Largely understudied, small-scale fisheries are critical to coastal livelihoods in the global south, yet are poorly represented in conversations about development, food security, human rights, and gender equity. The creation of marine-protected areas and parks along coastal regions with marine biodiversity in mind has displaced the livelihoods of traditional fishers. I will be investigating reactions and adjustments to this displacement along the caribbean coast of Colombia.

Gwyneth Hutchinson

Circadian rhythms are daily rhythms generated by all mammalian tissues that are critical to numerous physiological functions. These rhythms have far-reaching influence on the brain and periphery; therefore, circadian regulation of hormones is essential for normal functioning, and disruptions to circadian timing (e.g. irregular sleep patterns, nighttime light exposure, etc.) have detrimental health consequences. Labor and birth are reproductive events that exhibit a circadian rhythm by which human labor and birth tend to cluster during nighttime. Melatonin is a hormone secreted at night that is inhibited by light. We theorize […]

Aaditee Kudrimoti

Western political scientists and multilateral development banks (MDBs) are speculating about the extent to which Chinese development finance (CDF), specifically via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) may support or challenge the Western-led global economic order. To determine the extent to which Chinese-led projects may conflict with Western liberal policy agendas and the global economic status quo, as well as whether or not BRI actions may create a debt trap for borrowers, we need more data on how the Chinese conduct development infrastructure projects on the ground, and how they […]

Elena Mateus

If you turn on the television, chances are high that the news will be painted with violent criminals, Cops will be on all night, and Law and Order will be playing steady reruns. There is a plethora of scholarship investigating the ways media sensationalizes crime and portrays prison in a violent light; however, there exists a gap in research into understanding the ways in which people digest and make of use these images. People, whether they are affected by the criminal justice system or not, view fictitious media depictions that, […]