Ryan Lee
Understanding the nature of insulating behavior in solids has long been an important problem in condensed matter physics and materials science. It is unclear how the electrons in many materials behave in their environment, where an atomic lattice and other electrons play a role in shaping their mechanics. As the use of insulators is commonplace, explaining their behavior will help us apply them in even more ways. Understanding the behavior of electrons in an insulator can additionally answer fundamental questions in physics, especially with regards to the quantum mechanics of […]
Erika Page
How does a modern social movement, dedicated to land reform in one of the worlds most inequitable societies, put its ecological and socialist ideology into practice in the Brazilian countryside? Through agroecology, the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement Movimento Sem Terra (MST) offers an alternative to conventional agro-industrial farming strategies that have marginalized rural workers; created dependencies upon cash crops and agro-chemicals with extensive ecological costs; and failed to solve the issue of global hunger. Agroecological farming systems operate in accordance with ecological principles in ways that are socially, environmentally and […]
Junhao Fan
In our research, we will use toric geometry to study the cohomological structure of complex Grassmannians. The cohomology ring of a Grassmannian varieties is described by the Littlewood-Richardson rule. One of the main open questions in Schubert calculus concerns the generalization of the Littlewood-Richardson rule to flag varieties. Such a generalization is highly desirable, because it is a manifestly positive formula that can be applied to other areas: in algebraic geometry, it helps describe complicated intersections; in representation theory, it helps to find irreducible, direct-sum decompositions of tensor products; in […]
Nancy Jauregui
The aim of this project is to develop, implement, and assess a new model for undergraduate involvement in research, targeting first and near-first generation to college STEM majors who attend community colleges. First-generation college students are only slightly underrepresented in terms of initial STEM enrollment, but much less likely to complete their degree. Near-first generation students are those who have a parent with a four-year degree, but who have little to no knowledge about success in higher education in the U.S. (e.g., foster children, children of immigrants). Students from both […]
Aidan Backus
Over the summer, we propose to investigate the root multiplicities of (generalized) Kac-Moody Algebras. Our plan is to create an open-source computer package that allows for the computation of root multiplicities of Kac-Moody algebras, building upon the existing tools available to computational mathematicians, for instance, the popular library sage-math. Once we have developed and verified this package against known tables of root multiplicities, we aim to start investigating the root multiplicities of simple graphs, and attempt to address some outstanding conjectures on the distributions of root multiplicities. A greater understanding […]
Yining Liu
In our research, we will use toric geometry to study the cohomological structure of complex Grassmannians. The cohomology ring of a Grassmannian varieties is described by the Littlewood-Richardson rule. One of the main open questions in Schubert calculus concerns the generalization of the Littlewood-Richardson rule to flag varieties. Such a generalization is highly desirable, because it is a manifestly positive formula that can be applied to other areas: in algebraic geometry, it helps describe complicated intersections; in representation theory, it helps to find irreducible, direct-sum decompositions of tensor products; in […]
Davy Deng
Listeria monocytogenes is a pathogen often found in poorly preserved food , especially dairy products. L. monocytogenes can survive with or without oxygen as well as inside or outside of host cells. During infection, L. monocytogenes must pass through the low-oxygen environment in the intestines before entering the high-oxygen target tissue. It thus stands to reason that both aerobic and anaerobic growth processes might be important for L. monocytogenes pathogenesis. Recently, it has been shown that essential components of aerobic respiration are critical for intracellular replication in vivo. However, the […]
Abel Fernando Vallejo Galindo
My project utilizes both qualitative and archival methods to assess and interpret how undocumented people challenge the criminal injustice and immigration system. The devaluing of undocumented people has increased the uncertainty associated with their social value. Specifically, by engaging with scholars, professionals, and community members, this project amplifies their critical insight regarding future social and political integration. Moreover, public discourse is increasingly creating awareness and assessing the policing of criminalized populations, specifically as it relates to the carceral apparatus. In my research, I present the carceral apparatus as including multiple […]
Iris Wu
Several age-related neurodegenerative diseases are a result of a decline in protein homeostasis as organisms age. Mitochondria, a vital organelle in the cell, is especially susceptible and thought to be a sensor of proteotoxic stress. Understanding how mitochondria communicate stress and recover homeostasis is therefore fundamental in developing novel treatments for age-onset human diseases. One way that mitochondria communicate stress is through the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt). Important work has shown that stress can be communicated between tissues, such as from neurons to intestinal cells, called the cell-non-autonomous UPRmt. […]
Mounika Gopi
Meiosis, the method by which diploid cells produce haploid gametes, is a dramatic cellular remodeling event. This process is regulated by many transcriptional and translational changes, including the expression of longer, meiosis-specific mRNA isoforms. Superoxide dismutase 1 is a highly conserved and vital enzyme that fights against oxidative stress. During meiosis, budding yeast cells (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) produce a non-canonical mRNA isoform of SOD1 that is four times as long as the canonical mitotic mRNA, one of the largest differences in isoforms observed. The expression of the longform mRNA also correlates […]