Konnor von Emster
The upside-down jellyfish, Cassiopea, is a model organism for sleep despite its decentralized nervous system (DNS). The nervous system consists of radially spaced, interconnected motor control nerve clusters, ganglia, that control Cassipeas pulsing behavior. Preliminary research indicates that a unique subset of these ganglia may command pulsing for days to weeks at a time instead of random command that current literature suggests. My research will be focused around answering the question: what molecular differences cause morphologically identical ganglia to have activity differences? RFamide and Taurine are neuromodulators known to exist […]
Miles Mellott
The complement system is a function of the innate immune system a group of proteins in the blood that target, mark, and destroy potential pathogens, as well as modulating the response of immune cells. Most viruses must interfere with its activity in order to infect someone, but the mechanism of interactions remains largely uncharacterized. My project seeks to specifically identify and characterize the interactions of Human Cytomegalovirus proteins with the complement protein MBL1 (Mannose-Binding Lectin) by use of a yeast-two-hybrid protein interaction assay. This assay can determine if a given […]
Angela Yin
Yonna Kim
Solid-state defect centers such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond are promising nanoscale quantum sensors capable of operating at extreme pressures and temperatures. Their sensitivity to magnetic field noise allows for the characterization of a wide range of dynamical phenomena arising from charge, spin, and phonon fluctuations in correlated matter. The frequency dependence of these fluctuations encodes unique information about the underlying physics processes that cannot be gleaned from the static signatures that are typically used in standard magnetometry. With NV centers, one could measure the magnetic response of […]
Ashley Elizabeth Bendl
You may have heard the phrase You look just like your mother, but how often have you heard You look just like a bacteria? The former is an example of the type of genetic inheritance most of us are familiar with, vertical, or inheritance from parents to offspring. This project, however, involves horizontal inheritance: that is, the exchange of genes between species, otherwise known as horizontal gene transfer (HGT). The project involves investigating how and why a horizontally transferred gene was transferred from viruses to insects several million years ago.
Marina Norfolk
Interactions between infectious diseases and their hosts underpin a vast array of ecological and evolutionary dynamics. These host-parasite interactions are thought to contribute to the maintenance of genetic diversity in animal, plant, and insect hosts. One important factor in this is called the monoculture effect where genetically homogenous host populations may select for more virulent pathogens. This project seeks to test the monoculture effect in the Boots labs Plodia interpunctella (Indian Meal Moth) and granulosis virus model system.
Sonnet Phelps
Research in conceptual metaphor has established that, far from being a decorative flourish, metaphor is integral to human reasoning: we extrapolate from our immediate experience to make sense of abstract objects and processes. Climate change is such a process, happening on spatial and temporal scales far beyond our perceptual horizons. While metaphor is indispensable in every genre of climate discourse think greenhouse gas, carbon footprint, and tipping points poetry is a particularly rich generator of innovative metaphoric framings. In this project, I will put insights from cognitive linguistics in conversation […]
Elisa Yang
Nest structures are widespread across animals and yet are one of the most understudied components of avian life history. Some of the most remarkable examples of elaborate nest design are within the Weaverbirds (Ploceidae), an Old World family of birds containing over 100 species, making them an ideal model system for studying patterns of biodiversity. While it is known that each species constructs a uniquely designed nest, the evolutionary factors that influence design are unknown. Research questions to address include: 1.) What are ancestral versus derived nest characters? 2.) Are […]
Susana Torres-Londono
For my research, I will use a computer simulation to predict the macroscopic behaviour of a material, FeCoNbS2, by making assumptions about its microscopics. To do this, I will use the Monte Carlo method to simulate FeCoNbS2’s magnetism. The Monte Carlo method is a random sampling algorithm that has been applied to everything from investment banking to climate change models. Magnetism is a fundamental physical phenomena that has vast implications in computer and circuit technology. Thus, studying magnetism using the Monte Carlo method is a pretty interesting task which combines […]
Giancarlo Tucci-Berube
In the realm of poetry, lyric, as a noun, signifies a category of poetic form, as an adjective, abstract subjectivity. The Italian poet, screenwriter, film director, and essayist-critic Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) takes up these definitions of lyric and through a diversity of mediums expands them beyond poetry, and beyond mere signification: articulating a possible critical consciousness of the concept itself. Pasolinis poetry and films are conceived through a lyric style or form that actively connects sensuality, rigorous thought, intellectual and political critique, experience of contradictionand in terms of the […]