Stuti Raizada
Nuclear physics aims to understand the properties of the strong force which describes how quarks and gluons, the constituents of protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms, interact with each other. It is one of the four fundamental forces. This force can be understood by studying a state of matter known as the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) which is created by colliding nuclei at very high energies. My project aims to measure correlations between particles formed with the QGP. I will analyze data produced by the ALICE (A Large Ion […]
Andy Chen
There is evidence that body motion can either improve (Gallero-Salas et al., 2020, Gilad et al., 2018 ) or inhibit (McBride et al., 2019) performance during head-fixed behavior in mice. Therefore, it is important to understand how body movements affect sensory detection performance in behavioral tasks. My research project will look closely at the effects of body movement on a mouses performance in a whisker-based sensory detection task. From previous literature, we know that body movements modulate sensory signals in cortical areas of mice. My research will involve using behavioral […]
Emma Bellman
Recent reforms in STEM education argue for students engagement in disciplinary practices, such as the construction and communication of a mathematical proof. Researchers have argued that some of the difficulties students face with proofs in particular, may stem from their limited opportunities to engage in productive disciplinary practices, such as successfully employing multiple forms of reasoning when constructing a proof (Boero, 1999; Pedemonte, 2007). In this project, my graduate student mentor and I will explore how educators can support proof construction and communication in middle school that may encourage the […]
Amir Moayed
Filopodia are finger-like actin based extensions in migrating cells. These cytoplasmic projections are involved in perceiving the environment, interacting with extracellular particles for phagocytosis, anchoring the cell to the substratum, and responding to chemoattractants. In eukaryotic cells, proper actin organization and interaction with the membrane and binding proteins is crucial for filopodia function. Despite having a general understanding of the various functions associated with filopodia, there is not much known about how actin organization and interaction with the membrane at the leading edge allows the cell to carry out these […]
Jiyoon Lee
Korean diaspora archaeology: Early Korean diaspora sites in the United States Have you heard of Korean diaspora archaeology in the United States? If you havent, thats completely normal! While Chinese and Japanese diaspora archaeology have been actively researched in the US, Korean diaspora archaeology has been facing a lack of research within the country. Korean diaspora archaeology studies the dispersion of Koreans from an archaeological perspective, which gives voice to people who were silenced in historical documents. My project focuses on the early Korean immigrant population and their settlements in […]
Lexi Zhou
The Striatum plays a critical role in decision making and action outcome evaluation. It is primarily composed of two distinct pathwaysdirect and indirect that receive excitatory inputs from the cortex and the thalamus and are differentially modulated by dopamine signals from the midbrain. There has been a wealth of experimental and theoretical work on how the dichotomy of these striatal pathways mediates choice selection. The classic go/no-go model proposes that these pathways play discrete roles in choice selection, with the direct pathway fires to select a rewarding option and the […]
Sakina Isadibir
The molecular basis of adaptation and differentiation is one of the most important, yet least understood, areas in evolutionary biology. Color polymorphic systems are a valuable, visual tool for such studies, allowing allele numbers, identities, and population frequencies to be estimated directly. In the spider family Theridiidae, discernible systems of discrete color polymorphisms have evolved independently across multiple taxa (Cotoras et al, 2017). Notably, both the Hawaiian Happy Face spider, Theridion grallator, and its fairly distant Californian relative Theridion californicum, have convergently evolved color polymorphism. For these spiders, apostatic selection […]
Bryan Chavez Castro
By examining the intersection of sound and image, this research will trace the convergence of popular music and Salvadoran literary and artistic traditions both at home and in the diaspora, with a particular focus on its engagement with images of violence. Drawing from the cultural production of the years of the Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992) and the postwar, I will track emblematic cultural objects that affront the reality of repression of the years leading up to the war, the bloodshed of the war, and the reverberations in the years that […]
Karla Saracay
I will be comparing and contrasting data from across several different households that were excavated during the Upper Mantaro Archaeological Research Project (UMARP) in Jauja, Peru. My area of focus will be Pre- Inca households from the Umpamalca region. I will be comparing and contrasting findings from the inside area of the households against the patio areas of the households. Then, I would like to compare and contrast spatial distribution of artifacts and densities found across households in the area. This will give a clearer picture of what the activity […]
Anthony Dunn
Our lives are defined by the ability to make decisions. This fundamental function hinges on complex computations emerging from the integration of sensory, motor, and value information. Decision-making computations are thought to be strongly modulated by dopamine in the dorsomedial striatum. I will measure dopamine release in the dorsomedial striatum during decision making and test if it follows predictions made by two reinforcement learning models. The first model, Temporal Difference (TD) theory, predicts that dopamine activity in mice will be a function of reward prediction error, which is greatest when […]