Sophia Gaynes
This summer, I will be working in the Ramesh Group to develop a new method of measuring the magnetoelectric switching in BiFeO3 (bismuth ferrite) at the nanoscale. BiFeO3 is a magnetoelectric multiferroic material meaning that it has coupled and stable electric and magnetic polarization without the presence of an external electric or magnetic field. This material was discovered in the Ramesh Group in 2003 and is still the subject of investigation in the lab. BiFeO3 has promise for use in the future of memory storage devices. One of the current […]
Peter Birghoffer
It is convenient to see the failure of the Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance), the economic union of Eastern Bloc countries, as a verdict on command economies. Central planning is commonly understood to have reduced the competitiveness of these countries to the point where they could no longer provide themselves with the resources required to maintain a viable economic portfolio. But the Comecons lack of success to keep up with the West cannot be ascribed to the shortcomings of central planning alone. In this project, I argue that a […]
Anagh Sinha
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a devastating neuropsychiatric disorder affecting 16 million people in the United States, with an estimated public burden of $210 billion/year. Yet, mechanisms leading to MDD progression remain poorly understood. Persistent activation of microglia, resident immune cells of the brain, has been previously linked to depression. This activation also appears to be linked with changes in expression of cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2). Targeted activation of CB2 has shown to bias microglia to a pro resolution state, but whether proper CB2 expression is necessary for the normal […]
Hideyasu Kurose
Tragically, fascism has re-appeared in many forms and permutations throughout modern history. Although Japan and Argentina represent only two nations which have suffered this political epidemic, through studying these nations perhaps deeper deductions can ultimately be drawn about a contemporary political phenomenon which Albert Camus rightfully labeled an epidemic. Accordingly, my research will focus upon the literature of Japan and Argentina with the aim of discovering key commonalities which suggest vulnerabilities to what Emilio Gentile categorized as a political religion. Socio-historical theorists ranging from Hannah Arendt to Robert O. Paxton […]
China Ruiz
In September 2016, Governor Jerry Brown passed a bill that called for the implementation of an Ethnic Studies program in California public high schools. This moment follows decades of student-led movements fighting for a culturally relevant education. The implementation of this bill necessitates an examination of the ways current Ethnic Studies curriculums are being practiced. As Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales alerted us to in Toward an Ethnic Studies Pedagogy, this celebration comes with an urgency to address Ethnic Studies pedagogies given the number of teachers who will be placed in these classroom […]
Nathan Cheng
Matrix multiplication is one of the most foundational mathematical operations, and has deep connections to many areas of math, including algebra, geometry, and combinatorics. There is huge incentive to improve the speed of matrix multiplication as well as understand the inherent bounds on its complexity, due to its importance in applied mathematics and the computational sciences. Many of the questions concerning the complexity of matrix multiplication are still unsettled, namely: how can we make it faster and how fast can it go? It is thought that intrinsic mathematical properties of […]
Delaney Farris
Nuclear DNA is subjected to various levels of compaction, including tight wrapping around histone proteins producing densely packed, relatively inaccessible regions of heterochromatin. How nucleosome positioning is established and maintained is an area of active study. Understanding nucleosome positioning allows further understanding of proper and improper gene regulation. Budding yeast is a simplified yet highly conserved eukaryotic model used to gain understanding of complex processes that occur in humans. I am interested in studying the mechanism of silencing, using the silent mating type locus in yeast. I am curious about […]
Yvette Yi-Chi Wu
While languages like English use grammatical markers to signal plurality (like the -s in cat-s), languages like Chinese use separate words called classifiers. A classifier is a unit of measurement that allows the noun it describes to be countable, similar to saying three pieces of furniture instead of three furniture-s in English. Although Chinese has long been researched as a classifier language, most existing work has focused on Mandarin, overlooking the variations that exist among Chinese languages. By conducting research on variations in plurality among southern Chinese languages (including Cantonese, […]
Adrian Overly
Critical photoperiod, the threshold day length that accelerates or is required for flowering, allows plants to flower in response to seasonal cues that indicate environmental conditions should be favorable for seed development. Twenty-first century climate change, however, has led to changing precipitation and temperature patterns, and because day length will remain constant, the same photoperiod may not necessarily predict the best time of year to flower on a local scale. Species unable to evolve their flowering responses to photoperiod are at high risk for extinction. Understanding the genetic basis of […]
Mason Cummings
The visual field of the human eye is not limited to external objects, but instead includes visible effects which arise from within the optical system itself, otherwise known as entoptics. One may be familiar with entoptics in the form of floaters or migraine auras, as well as the field of changing colors and shapes borne of gentle pressure applied to the back of shut eyelids. Through research on the human optical system, the basic morphological components of these visual phenomena have been classified into a set of primarily geometric forms. […]