Phee Marcial
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
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 […]
Olivia Nouriani
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 […]
Nicolas Anderson
1.1 billion years ago, Laurentia, the Craton which makes up majority of modern North America‚Äôs landmass, was rifting apart in the Lake Superior region and growing in the American Southwest. Both of these processes produce magma. As magma cools, the magnetic minerals within align with Earth‚Äôs magnetic field and these alignments can be used to determine the age of a rock (paleomagnetism). Similarly, small crystals formed within the magma can also indicate a rocks age (geochronology). There is a likely connection between the locations due to similar timing of emplacement […]
Karah Giesecke
Ava Olson
How do fictional cops enable and validate real police brutality? My research surveys a wide selection of procedural television from the 1950s to the present, examining each show in its context to understand the cultural, political, and sociological work done by narratives that cast police officers as “good guys” in a reality where that may not be the case. From standard procedurals like The Rookies to more modern, “progressive” programs like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I hope to examine how television manufactures consent among the American public to justify over-policing and its […]
Orion Ning
Quantum field theory (QFT) — a theory describing subatomic particles as excitations of fundamental ‘fields’ — has long been established as the de facto framework for modern particle physics, yet it remains a topic riddled with open problems. Interacting QFTs in higher dimensions, particularly 6D, is one such problem, motivated by string theory, a highly theoretical mathematical model attempting to describe all of nature. These interacting QFTs have Lagrangians (precursors to ‘equations of motion’) that can probe M5-branes, which are objects of fundamental interest in string theory. However, the Lagrangians […]
Novia Kayfetz-Vuong
In Ecuador, the Epipedobates clade of poison frogs (Dendrobatidae) have speciated in different climate zones (Tarvin et al., 2017). Poison frogs are aposematic; they possess colorations and markings that serve to warn predators of their toxic defenses. Determining poison frog species can be difficult due to aposematism, as possessing different color and marking patterns does not necessarily indicate a separate species (Tarvin et al., 2017). Thus, genomic level studies are necessary to understand ongoing gene flow, i.e., the introduction of genetic material from one species to another through interbreeding. Advances […]
Lilou Redon-Gabel
Particulate air pollution contributes to millions of premature deaths worldwide annually and has major climate feedback effects. This is particularly true of black carbon (BC), a component of particulate matter (PM) that results from incomplete combustion sources and has not been as thoroughly assessed as other air pollutants. Gathering particulate air pollution data within communities most affected by industrial activities and vehicle traffic is necessary in developing solutions to mitigate the social and health inequities that result from exposure. My team at LBNL aims to analyze spatiotemporal trends of PM […]