Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Zoe Zong

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Sexual Assault (SA) is a highly prevalent form of trauma – around 43.6% of women and 24.8% of men in the US will experience some form of SA in their lifetime. The physical and mental health consequences experienced by SA survivors place a tremendous burden on society, as SA is correlated with greatly increased risk for psychopathology, especially Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). However, little has been uncovered about the day-to-day PTSD development immediately following SA. How do PTSD symptoms interact with each other over time? How is this dynamic interplay […]

Heidi Yang

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Adaptive radiations are rapid bursts of diversification of a single ancestor that give rise to many ecologically different species. While the ecological and evolutionary aspects have been extensively studied, little is known about the genomic mechanisms that produce such high genetic and phenotypic diversity. Transposable elements (TEs), DNA sequences that can change their position within a genome, are one potential genomic component, since they can quickly produce a wide variety of mutations when active. McClintock (1984) first proposed that TE activity may increase in response to “challenges to the genome.” […]

X Sun

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Thin-shell concrete structures are material-efficient and low-mass building systems with the ability to cover large spans and building envelopes. The geometry of shells and their corresponding gridshells plays a vital role in many performance factors such as their structural stability, constructability, costs and environmental impact. Therefore, exploring different design alternatives in the early stages of the construction workflow can have a significant impact on the overall performance of these building systems. Motivated by these challenges, the goal of this research is to evaluate the environmental impact, cost efficiency, and constructability […]

Jonathan Kuo

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Current U.S. state laws permit vaccine mandate exemptions based on medical contraindications, religious beliefs, or personal beliefs. In recent years, outbreaks of measles attributed to subpar vaccination rates have caused the personal belief exemption to come under close scrutiny from lawmakers, medical officials, and the public. Current scholarly literature, however, lacks a clear history of the personal belief exemption, in part because that history varies by state. In this project, I will visualize and narrate the story of the personal belief exemption in American history. Through an interactive essay grounded […]

Julia Nicholson

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Groundwater is essential to ecosystems in Sierra Nevada meadows. Flora and fauna depend on groundwater cycles for a reliable source of water. Climate change is expected to disrupt groundwater supply, so understanding precisely how groundwater responds to temperature change, and how groundwater affects surrounding flora is an integral part of protecting meadow ecosystems in the face of climate change. This summer, I will develop a mathematical model to analyze time series of meadow groundwater, in order to study the relationship between groundwater and the ecosystems it fuels. I will study […]

Phee Marcial

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In the past few decades, discussion of gender-fluidity in poetry has become more prevalent, but it is often limited to contemporary literature and the realm of modern queer theory. My research investigates poetic portrayals of gender-fluidity in the work of the ancient Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus. I am focusing in particular on the original poetry of Catullus alongside Romantic, Victorian and contemporary translations/adaptations in English in order to track how these portrayals have changed over time. The approach is grounded by the conception of poetry in translation as valuable […]

Isaac Engelberg

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My project explores the pedagogy of urban scale models as they are disseminated from scholarly fieldwork. As my central ‘text’ I will use Detroit’s Greenfield Village — the nation’s first living history museum, created by the automobile baron Henry Ford — and trace the user experience of the park, exploring the discourse of good design it sought to construct. Greenfield Village is an essential document of the early 20th-century ‘field study,’ a method of sociological investigation which held that by systematically carving up and analyzing the city, one could reform […]

Sahar Zarafshan

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The 26S proteasome is the last stop of the main protein degradation pathway in our cells, and it allows us to keep our bodies healthy by degrading old or non-functional proteins. The motor of the proteasome is responsible for engaging, unraveling and pulling the targeted protein into the core, where it is degraded. The pore loops, six in total, are located on the motor and are the parts of the proteasome that physically interact with the targeted protein. These six pore loops pull the protein to the core like hands […]

Olivia Nouriani

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The notion of a “Great Replacement” and the Eurabia thesis are two Islamophobic conspiracy theories with similar roots and trajectories. They both articulate the fear that, with the support of European elites, Muslims are demographically replacing Europeans, threatening to extinguish “Western culture” and replace it with a global Islamic civilization. Circulation of these theories has accelerated since 2015, alongside a rise in white supremacist violence. The theories themselves are linked to Zionist political thought, but they build on long-standing antisemitic tropes, and have occasionally been taken up in service of […]

Zaid Ahmad

I’m interested in developing computational methods to quantitatively describe the impact of natural selection on various traits and genes expressed in modern human populations. Detecting and inferring natural selection is central to understanding how populations of individuals have evolved over time. Advances in next-generation genomic sequencing technologies have made it possible to extract high-quality DNA data from ancient relics such as fossils. Specifically, I want to understand how this ancient DNA data can help us detect selection, and I’ll also be testing methods that I develop with real ancient DNA […]