Le Sun

How do political parties influence online posting behavior? Previous research attributed an individual’s utility from posting online to two major channels: contribution to public knowledge and identity boosting. In this project, I will develop a model of demonization that analyzes how a political party, using posts on social media as signals, interacts with its supporters via these two channels. Using a set of state-sponsored posts and comments about the 2022 Ukraine-Russia Crisis from Weibo, one of China’s largest social media platforms, I will test how topic distributions of the comment […]

Jacob Li Rosenberg

What are the purposes, possibilities, and limitations of the traditional gallery space? Through understanding who has been excluded from the gallery, we aim to rethink what an exhibition space can and should be. Through our research, we will stage our own space on campus that subverts gallery conventions. We will present an alternative functionality, proposing that the gallery space should offer tangible assets to its community. Our work is a collaborative art project situated in the history of service labor, endurance art performances, gallery culture, and the history of subversive […]

Jiayi Tan

People with high level of nearsightedness will have a 5- to 10-fold chance of developing glaucoma, cataract, and sight-threatening diseases such as retinal detachment later in life. Atropine eye drop is one of the most effective therapies for nearsightedness control. I will conduct a small-scaled randomized controlled trial to understand the impact of eye color on the effectiveness of atropine eye drop. Many studies on atropine have focused on Asian populations, and few studies have compared the effect of atropine between Asians and Europeans, who tend to have much lighter […]

Jianxiang Zhang

  Cataract, a clouding of the eye lens, is the leading cause of blindness worldwide. Periaxin (Prx) is a scaffold protein interacting with membrane/cytoskeletal networks in the lens and other cell types and has been implicated in cataract development. My project will investigate the functions of Prx variants in lens cells. Recent studies in the Gong Lab suggest that Prx is a genetic modifier regulating cataract severity in connexin 46 knockout (Cx46KO) mice. Four Prx missense variants have been identified between the 129SvJae (129) and the C57BL/6J (B6) mouse strains. […]

Diana Ramirez

The livelihood of the Poblano community’s oral histories and traditions, “desde nuestros pueblos a los estados unidos” (from our pueblos to the U.S.), is telling of my community’s ancestral resistance. The survival of our heritage allows our families to build community and identity, a home in a country that rejects and displaces both our Mexican immigrant communities and ancestral knowledge and identities. My research project is a transborder study in which I will trace my Indigenous roots in Puebla, Mexico and construct a memoir of the oral histories of my […]

Luna Ramos

Instead of focusing on the interpersonal instances of transphobia, this project is curious about what circumstances allow for cultural shifts than transform the school experiences of transgender youth of color. By conducting interviews with transgender youth of color from the San Francisco Bay Area, this project is centered on a group that is often excluded and made invisible in academic work. Transgender youth and their allies are continually antagonized, even aside from quotidian bullying, increased risk for homelessness, and suicide. Legal protections do not translate to material safety for Trans […]

Daniel Rostamloo

Algebraic geometry is a rich area of mathematics that investigates the properties of geometric objects (like a variety the solution set of a system of polynomial equations) using their underlying algebraic structure. The closely related field of homological algebra studies how mappings between algebraic spaces (e.g., collections of polynomials) can be understood in terms of more concrete representations with tools from topology and algebra combined to understand the geometric structure of varieties. One homological invariant is a table of numbers called the Betti table, which captures nuanced geometric information about […]

Alexander Toller

Suppose that we have a (finite or infinite) series of independent, identically distributed real-valued random variables (increments of time). From this series, we can form a random walk. We can consider the partial sums of this series and analyze the average value of the walk the partial sum divided by the number of increments up to that point at each of its time increments. This project is focused on studying the distribution of the maximum average value of a random walk through a variety of computational algorithms. While there already […]

Katarina Vallero

In 1996, the Museum of Art and Design in San José, Costa Rica curated MESÓTICA II Centroamérica re-generación, which featured both emerging and well-established artists from Central America. The artworks in the exhibition were selected as a survey and investigation into the sentiments of regional artists in consideration of the earlier civil war era in Central America that lasted from the 1970s to the 1990s. A majority of the research for this project focuses on analyzing the archives from the exhibition and understanding the role of curatorial practice in the […]

Jordan Serrano-Guedea

First-generation college students (FGCS) experience many unique familial, cultural, social, and academic challenges as the first in the family to pursue a four-year degree. Previous research has found that these extra stressors may place FGCS at higher risk for mental health problems, lower retention rates, and lower graduation rates (House and Kolb, 2020). Yet, findings in the literature on the impacts of first-generation status on FGCS mental health are mixed, and no systematic review exists on this topic to reconcile the varied findings. This summer, I will expand upon this […]