Andrew Feher
In an era of globalization where food travels through tortuous production chains before arriving at its destination, too little attention has been given to government regulation. The question driving my research is how do small-scale California farmers involved in rearing animals respond to different forms of government regulation? Given that questions broad scope, I will bifurcate it along two lines: one related to production and one related to political mobilization. On the production side, I am interested in understanding how small-scale farmers adjust production based on various regulations. The political […]
Sierra Weir
My project investigates the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a paramilitary group that holds monthly border-watch operations with the ostensible purpose of stopping illegal immigration from Mexico and Canada. The far-right patriot movement of the 1990s has been resurging since the nomination of President Obama, and the recent acts of domestic terrorism show that this movement is growing. According to the camp facilitator, the MCDC is just one of three hundred distinct organizations using a variation on the Minuteman theme. This summer I will transcribe interview recordings from two trips to […]
Stefano Iantorno
My research project revolves around the population genetic structure of the white-ruffed manakin, Corapipo altera, a species of passerine bird native to Costa Rica that has been previously studied to determine the effects of deforestation and habitat fragmentation on the genetic diversity of bird populations. By sequencing 15 microsatellite DNA loci from blood samples of individuals of different subpopulations, we hope to detect some genetic structuring indicating an absence of gene flow as expected by theoretical population genetics models. This result, if actually observed, would contradict previous research in this […]
Zachary Westrick
My experiment examines two possible models of how the brain determines which arm to use during reaching movements. Under the non-competitive model, the motor areas in each hemisphere formulate a plan and race until one has reached some threshold level of activation for movement, while the competitive model has the two hemispheres race while sending inhibitory signals to each other. I’ll be giving subjects a simple reaching task in which they must respond to cues on a screen, but occasionally withhold their movement in response to a later stop cue. […]
Sun Young Jeong
I am studying how birds time their reproductive systems in response to local environmental changes. For instance, the European great tit has expanded northward as temperatures have increased and these northern populations have delayed the timing of breeding, an advantageous adaption because spring conditions come later in the year with increasing latitude. It is thought that the delay occurs via an increase in the photoperiodic threshold to induce gonadal growth. We think that a delay in the activation of genes that regulate photoperiodic response in the northern population is responsible […]
Tammy Stark
Aaron Kamajaya
CtrA is a central regulatory protein controlling cell cycle progression in Caulobacter crescentus. The active phosphorylated form of CtrA directly controls the transcription of at least 95 cell-cycle-regulated genes as well as binding to sites near the origin to prevent initiation of chromosome replication. CtrA consists of receiver domain and DNA binding domain. CtrA activity is regulated by phosphorylation and degradation. My project is to elucidate the degradation mechanism of CtrA. We hypothesized that there are specific amino acid residues on CtrA receiver domain that are essential for its proteolysis. […]
Yehuda Donde
I am working in a field of public finance that aims to develop a model indicating the optimal level of redistributive taxation in a given community. Assuming that public preference to redistribute income is determined by some combination of self-interest and civic altruism, the model must take into account the community’s various social, behavioral, and economic attributes. Using surveys, I will be gathering data on the effects of social factors, such as group cohesion, and behavioral factors, such as aversion to risk, on the tax policy decisions of kibbutzim – […]
Raymond Lam
Neural Prosthetics is a newly emerging field with many potential applications for patients who have lost one of their five senses. At the core of this technology, electrical microstimulation of neurons is used to artificially generate and restore lost senses. For my project, I will be targeting the visual cortex, and developing a rodent visual model for microstimulation in order to explore stimulation patterns that mimic natural neural activity. The goal of this project is to develop a more safe and effective way to elicit visual response and perception in […]
Isabela Le Bras
This summer I will be working in ion trap quantum computing. Quantum computing is an alternate form of computation that uses a quantum bit, called a “qubit”, in place of the binary system. My professor, Hartmut Haeffner, isolates ions in radio frequency traps to create qubits. This trapping must take place in an ultra high vacuum so that air molecules do not interfere with the ion. My project entails building RC filters for the ion trap that are compatible with the vacuum. These filters need to remove any radio frequency […]