Beth Connors
One of the most interesting components of the global carbon cycle is the movement of carbon from the atmosphere to the deep ocean, where it is deposited as particulates, a process called the Biological Carbon Pump (BCP). The BCP combines physical oceanography and biology, as the majority of the carbon dioxide that is pulled from the atmosphere into our oceans for biological processes in the photic zone, and then moves from the surface to the deep ocean as zooplankton excrement. Using robotic devices to monitor this chemical and biological cycle, […]
Faustine Luo
The Wnt signaling pathway is an evolutionarily conserved signal transduction pathway that regulates important developmental processes such as cell fate, cell migration, cell polarity, and cell proliferation when activated by secreted Wnt glycoproteins. Mutations in Wnt signaling or Wnt genes have been shown to lead to specific developmental defects, including many human diseases such as cancer. Using C. elegans as a model organism, we strive to more deeply understand how Wnt signaling shapes development in more complex organisms. My research project focuses on the Wnt pathway that establishes the polarity […]
Michelle Tong
Homeless individuals experience increased risk for violence and victimization on the streets and in shelters, as well as by spouses, partners and acquaintances. Older homeless adults suffer from even higher rates of violent attacks, although research is limited with regards to risk factors associated with violence and victimization. With half of single homeless adults in the U.S. aged 50 and older and the rising median age of single homeless adults population, understanding the prevalence and nature of violence in this sub-population is crucial to direct future targeted interventions targeting. This […]
Beth Hightower
The story of genocide has largely been taken up by its victims: their testimony takes on a reparative significance, counteracting their previous erasure. Jonathan Littells 2006 novel Les Bienveillantes, however, depicts World War II through the eyes of a Nazi official, who speaks to the reader as both an intellectual and historical actor. The narrators intellectualism authenticates him, makes him relatable, places him in a French literary tradition, and facilitates his crimes. This intellectual bent allows the narrator to take an administrative position within the regime, granting him access to […]
Moira Peckham
I am seeking to explore the intersection between water management techniques and structures (called acequias) and community identity in Abiqui, New Mexico. I’m taking a multifaceted approach to engage with this question. I am looking at the physical irrigation structures (constructed during the Spanish occupation of New Mexico) and their connection to other structures that are important to the community, archival and literary research, and oral histories regarding shared history and water use. Another important aspect of this project is that it is community engaged archaeological scholarship, meaning that there […]
Brian Woo
The Toll-like receptor (TLR) family is a key component of the host innate immune response to foreign microbes. In the cell, TLRs localized to endolysosomes (termed intracellular TLRs) recognize microbial nucleic acids, and recognition of these microbial products then invokes an immune response to a myriad of bacterial and viral pathogens. One regulator of intracellular TLR activity that my project aims to characterize is Unc93B1, a chaperone protein that is currently understood to traffic intracellular TLRs to their correct endolysosomal compartments. This summer, my goal is to elucidate the role […]
Ian Tayler
An essential component to better understanding cellular electrical signaling is to address how the resting membrane potential in neurons is established and modified to affect excitability. Two-pore domain potassium (K2P) ion channels are directly involved in this process and comprise a unique protein family that is essential for the maintenance of this resting membrane potential. The TWIK-related spinal cord K+ channel (TRESK) is considered a major contributor to background K+ currents and is expressed abundantly in DRG neurons. This K2P channel is thought to be involved in pain sensation and […]
Nora Harhen
In everyday life, seldom are the choices weve made reinforced by objective reward like food or water. Rather, we tend to set goals for ourselves, and actions leading to those goals are what are reinforced, even in the absence of reward. Theoretical work has suggested that treating goal achievement as a pseudo-reward is an effective means to learn complex behavior, which may require going through many intermediary, value-neutral sub-goals before leading to reward. There has been indirect evidence for pseudo-rewards when reaching subgoals in EEG and fMRI, but as of […]
Bridget Hua Bui
Since the discovery of the CRISPR-Cas adaptive immune system in prokaryotes, Cas9 proteins have been used as a genome editing tool in a wide variety of organisms and promise to provide new solutions to long-standing, unsolved problems in human disease. However, despite the great potential CRISPR technology holds, concerns remain about the risk of unwanted edits in the human genome that could lead to genetic disease. Therefore, my project aims to find anti-CRISPR proteins that serve as off-switches for Cas9 activity to ensure gene editing safety and prevent malicious use […]
Iris Li
The Target of Rapamycin (TOR) is a protein kinase involved in many aspects of cell physiology. Because of its importance in regulating growth, TOR has been central to metabolic and cancer research for years. Saccharomyces cerevisiae contains two paralogs of TOR, Tor1 and Tor2, which exist in their respective multi-subunit complexes TORC1 and TORC2. TORC2 has been found to regulate cell polarity, endocytosis, and actin polymerization in response to external stimuli, and studies have shown that the localization of TORC2 to the plasma membrane is essential for the complex’s function. […]