Alan Jiang

I research the effects technological advances (such as expert systems and databases/data collection) and associated practices (like routine use exceptions) have had on privacy. I also research legislative attempts to address these issues, such as the Privacy Act of 1974.

Celeste Gonzalez

Math Crew is a group geared towards first-year elementary school teachers, facilitated by Mallika Scott, my mentor who is working under Professor Alan Schoenfeld, as she recognized the need for a space to discuss relevant issues that teachers face on the day-to-day basis and support theses teacher’s vision of creating a more equitable math classroom. Through qualitatively analyzing one hour videos, emails and end of the semester teacher responses, the goal of this research is to demonstrate the changes these teachers experienced by participating in Math Crew.

Xinyu Li

The D’Esposito Lab studies the neural bases underlying high-level cognitive processes such as working memory. My goal for this summer is to understand how frequency-specific stimulation can entrain the neuronal oscillations underlying these processes. The enhancement or disruption of working memory by rhythmic stimulation can have broader implications for treatments that target cognitive deficits, which are common to numerous developmental, neurological, and psychiatric disorders.

Kore Lum

My summer research will focus on understanding how selection from two different bacteriophages impacts the evolution of a bacterial population. I will use experimental evolution, microbiological assays, and genome sequencing to determine whether the plant pathogen, Pseudomonas syringae, is able to evolve resistance against each of two bacteriophages either in isolation or when applied as a cocktail. I will perform this in vitro and measure how multiple selection pressures alter the evolutionary potential of the bacterium.

Apoorva Polisetty

My current research uses data from the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS) to examine how people with schizophrenia conceptualize and experience their social worlds. With an emphasis on perceived barriers and motivations for social interaction as well as pleasure derived from those interactions, we hope to better our understanding of the complex dynamics underlying impaired social functioning in family relationships, romantic relationships and friendships among those with the disorder.

Sonia Hamilton

This summer, I will continue to lead the Digital Verification Corps, a team that partners with Amnesty International to respond to various international human rights violations in real time. The DVC performs the discovery and verification of open source information to provide vital information to Amnesty International in their support of their research and reporting. Much like a task force, the DVC is a fast-paced, versatile team that investigates immediate human rights situations spanning the globe.

Baichuan Huang

In 1877, Thomas Edison recorded and reproduced sound for the first time in human history. From then to 1950s, most recorded sound was lodged onto cylinder surfaces made by foil, wax, or plastic. To play an audio record, a cylinder is put in contact with a needle on a phonograph. However, because the needle slightly damages grooves on cylinders every time they rotate, most cylinders cannot be played after many rotations on phonographs. The goal of my research is thus to recover the sound stored in the cylinders made in […]

Caroline Eskandar

I help with translating themes within the Facebook datasets from Arabic into English, using a qualitative codebook. I read through refugee questions and concerns, smugglers, government officials and others and classify them then, enter them into the spreadsheet. The goal is to participate in eventually forming a reliable database for refugee to extract accurate information from during their journey through Europe.

Rachel Ajung Ryoo

This project aims to identify differences in ‘black (African American)’ and ‘white (European American)’ coming-of-age films. Over the past semesters, I have analyzed and collated such films that were screened between 1970 to 2015 and identified recurring topics and depictions. I mainly focused on portrayals of drug/alcohol usage, sex/sexuality, physical violence, oppression, and parenting/protection. Meanwhile, I have also collected previous literature on these films and themes.During summer internship, I will further the aforementioned study and review literature on group-expression through film and its effects on adolescent identity development. I hope […]

Gilberto Carrasco Urroz

My work for this summer will be a continuation of the research I have been doing for the past academic year. My research project focuses on reconciling the everyday learning practices of members of nondominant communities with the practices they undertake in formal educational settings, such as the classroom. This is a necessary step when seeking to address the disparities presented by the public education system. In order to accomplish this, my work requires me to become acquainted with a specific family’s video data, which I then organize, and for […]