Sulynn Miao

My research project is a continuation of research already being done by the Berkeley Early Learning Lab that has sought to understand children with autism spectrum disorder’s (ASD) abilities to make statistical inferences. This ability is important because it allows typically developing children to make generalizations about the world and learn, and if hindered in children with ASD, could have cascading consequences in learning and development. ASD is a disorder that the world still does not know much about, therefore research is of the utmost importance to help develop better […]
Julie Lee

According to the author herself, Oh Jung-hees 1981 short story collection (“The Yard of Childhood”) took the form of a novel sequence when she rearranged eight of her previously published stories by protagonist age. The sequence, however unplanned, elegiacally traces the compressed post-war development of South Korea in the 1950s-70sall through the anonymous coming-of-age story of an impoverished girl who becomes an alienated housewife haunted by her past. My research, then, engages in a close reading of Oh through the lens of literary trauma theory, examining how the psychological process […]
Yuchen Yang

This study asks, do class and childrens gender shapes parents child-rearing patterns in contemporary China? Furthermore, how does different parenting styles affect the childrens psyche, such as confidence and sense of control? By statistically analyzing quantitative data from Chinese Family Panel Studies, I believe this research can contribute to the current sociological and China studies scholarships as it revisits Lareaus classic theory of concerted cultivation and accomplishments of natural growth and brings it beyond the US-centric sociology to China, where social inequality and class antagonism are becoming more and more […]
Justin Germain

As San Francisco transformed into a hub of social activism in the post-World War II era, the longest protest against freeway construction of the 1960s exposed deep social tensions between the local government and its citizenry. While men notoriously controlled City Hall and local industry, housewives launched housing associations and sparked popular sentiment to fight freeway construction. My research asks how womens involvement in the 1951-1966 Freeway Revolts reflected or altered gender roles in urban San Francisco neighborhoods. How, and for what reasons, did women become involved in the Freeway […]
Jacob Liming
My work addresses various moments throughout the history of the Lusophone empire in which Portugal attempted to interpolate imperial subjects into larger universalizing political projects. In other words I investigate how difference was contended with and inflected in teleological narratives of prominent Portuguese figures, emphasizing the latencies, erasures, contradictions, and legacies of violence immanent within these political discourses. First, this iteration of the project hopes to focus on Jesuit incursions across Brazil in the late 17th and early 18th century, which sought to convert indigenous populations and cristaos novos to […]
Kathy Zhang

The visual systems astounding ability to create a stable view of the world around us is critical to our everyday experiences, helping us process what would otherwise be a visually chaotic world. One proposed mechanism for such remarkable perceptual stability is a phenomenon known as serial dependence in visual perception, which is thought to facilitate a systematic perceptual bias to make objects nearby in space and time appear more alike than they actually are. Through this misperception, the visual system seems to be sacrificing accuracy for stability. For example, movie […]
Sayaka Ri
The Syrian civil war is approaching its fifth year of conflict and has been labelled the worst humanitarian disaster of recent times. Since the beginning of the conflict, the Al-Assad regime has systematically targeted health-care facilities and personnel as a weapon of war. In international criminal law, these attacks are a war crime and documentation is important to preserve evidence for purposes of accountability. Despite the increasing number of attacks on health-care systems in the twenty-first century, data on attacks are lacking and there is no standardized method for reporting […]
Iman Abdella

The further one reaches towards the outer fields of Oromo, the closer one gets towards the chaotic infrastructures currently in place. Since late November 2015, dozens of violent confrontations have emerged in towns across Ethiopia, merging into the central Oromia region, which is home to the largest ethnic group, the Oromo. Protesters are opposed to party members and their current master plan, being the fight against an urban plan. Most refer to such plan as the master plan, a new urban infrastructure development project in Addis Ababa (the capital of […]
Kevin Nuckolls

Carbon-based nanomaterials have been the focus of a myriad of research endeavors within the field of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics for the past few decades. Certain allotropes of carbon, such as single-layer graphene, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), and spherical carbon fullerene, have been thoroughly explored in their electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. These forms of carbon have exhibited extremely interesting physical properties, such as high carrier mobility, high tensile and elastic strength, and superconductivity. However, as recently as 2010, a new form of carbon has been discovered known as […]
Libby Perfitt
I am investigating the effects of singing on speech in geriatric voice. In my work as vocal coach I have perceived changes in students speaking voices alongside their advancements as singers. Scientifically, it has been noted that the voice undergoes many changes with age, most of which occur more intensely after 65 years of age in men and after menopause in women. Academically, I hope to build on existing research to discover more specifically what scientific factors of speech can be improved through singing. To this end, I am conducting […]