Andrew Giovanni Prout

The Emperor Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, transformed a republican government with almost 500 years of history into an imperial monarchy that would last for another five centuries. It is important to understand the sources of Augustus political legitimacy so that I can understand how changes to those sources of imperial legitimacy, like the changes made by the Emperor Severus, led to the Third Century Crisis. By allowing me to focus on Augustus, this fellowship is an integral part of an ongoing project culminating in my senior thesis. Ultimately, […]

Samuel Francis Moore

The ability to detect, evaluate and immediately respond to unexpected changes in one’s environment is an important, adaptive characteristic of mammalian behavior. This process begins with an initial orienting response and continues with subsequent evaluative processes aimed at determining the significance of deviant events. These stages of novelty processing can be measured by averaging electroencephalogram (EEG) signals that are time-locked to event-related potentials (ERPs). My study will investigate the effects of aging on one of these ERPs (termed the Late Frontal Negativity, or LFN), thought to correspond with the mental […]

Jillian Lee Silvestrini

I am studying the possible physical or functional interaction between ELF3 and CRY2, two genes in Arabidopsis thaliana that are involved in regulating the plants biological clock. I will study ELF3 and CRY2 using Arabidopsis plants that have mutations in these genes, resulting in dysfunctional proteins. Many of the phenotypes of the single mutants are opposite, which helps to facilitate analysis of the gene interaction. I will look at flowering time, monochromatic and white light signaling (using hypocotyl elongation as an assay), and regulation of 24-hour rhythms using Luciferase as […]

Mark Roy McGrath

This study proposes an investigation of the production and distribution of media products, in the form of images and pornographic texts that depict and eroticize sexual practices deemed high-risk by public health officials. In the United States, the mid 1990s saw the emergence of social practices within at-risk populations that both celebrate and promote condomless sexual encounters. Since 1997 through to the present, several homegrown media productions companies have emerge that explicitly produce media that depict and promote unprotected sexual encounters. This project will evaluate the relationship and dynamics between […]

Ka Yi Emily Tam

My research project for SURF is on human memory performance when viewing different emotional stimuli. The types of emotion I want to experiment on includes: happy, negative, neutral, arousing (adrenalin rushing), and sexual. The positive correlation between arousal and positive stimuli, and memory performance has been proposed. The negative correlation between negative stimuli and memory performance has also been proposed. However, the connection between sexual stimuli and memory performance still remains unknown. This project aims to ascertain whether there is a positive or a negative correlation between sexual stimuli and […]

Jeff Patrick Manassero

The American Cultures requirement was ushered into UC Berkeley’s general curriculum during the late 1980’s, as universities across the nation followed suite. This project will study the development of multicultural requirements in the college curriculum, and specifically explore the origins of American Cultures on the Berkeley campus. In an attempt to portray American Cultures as an evolving curricular commitment, this project will focus on the historical narrative of the institutionalization and shifting of the AC requirement through changes in campus policy, administrative structuring of the program, and student, faculty, campus […]

Sara Beth Weinstein

Chytridiomycosis has been implicated in the decline of many amphibian species. Most recent studies in this area have focused on the effects of the causative agent, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, on anurans. I have found evidence of this amphibian disease in a local salamander species, Batrachoseps attenuatus. This summer I intend to document the progression of this infection in a species that was previously assumed to be unaffected. This summers work is in preparation for subsequent research exploring the means of transmission of B. dendrobatidis, a fungus with an aquatic infectious stage, […]

Clifford Kaho Mak

Joyce’s Wake is many things (understatement of the year): as a wake, it is an initiation and a journey into the world of eternal sleep and all the fabulous events therein, and as such, the Wake is a meditation upon Joyce’s vision of the afterlife. Joyce, however, was not the first to explore in art the idea of an afterlife; his admiration for Dante is well known, for example, and the latter’s own intricately-structured apocalyptic vision is appropriated and reinterpreted by Joyce in many of his works. I would like […]

Kamelia Ghazi

Curcumin (CUR), the active chemical of the Asian spice tumeric, has a strong anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory effect in preventing neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimers (AD), as well as an anti-proliferative effect on cancerous cells. Based on broad ranges of scientific literature on this topic, CUR has correlated with dramatic reduction in acetylation of histone. However, the precise mechanism by which curcumin achieves hypoacetylation and therefore represses the transcription of cancerous cells, is poorly understood. In this experiment, I will culture C6 rat glioma cells and through using immunostaining and protein assay, I […]

Susan Soojin Yi

The representation of any minority group in film or television often results in a heated debate regarding either the film or television show’s reinforcement of negative stereotypes or its “white washing” of the group’s identity. With my research project, I intend to explore this polarizing argument within the construction of black identity by black filmmakers starting with Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), a film intended to dispute the “Uncle Tom-ing” of Sidney Poitier’s noble black characters, and ending with the films of contemporary black filmmakers such as […]