Andrew Chan
While Sylvia Plath has not customarily been considered an ecopoet, many of her poems describe exchanges between the individual and the natural world. Scott Knickerbocker demonstrates how Plath’s work “expresses the wildness and vitality she craved in nature through language itself,” focusing on what he terms “sensuous poesis”, which “enact[s] through formal devices such as sound effects the speaker’s experience of the complexity, mystery, and beauty of nature.” My research continues in this vein, focusing specifically on how Plath herself related to the natural world, and the role she saw […]
Ruoyi Yin
Probing core-exciton dynamics and its coupling behavior with carriers and optical fields by utilizing nonlinear wave-mixing spectroscopy can uncover the fundamental electronic and optical properties for materials and provide insights for electronic device manipulation. The nonlinear attosecond Four-Wave-Mixing (FWM) spectroscopy, using one extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light pulse followed by two optical pulses with controllable delays, has recently been used to evaluate gas-phase and condensed-phase materials. My project aims to use this technique to explore the core-exciton absorption in tungsten disulfide, a two-dimensional semiconductor and transition metal dichalcogenide. Photon energy range […]
Emmaline Jones
In the realms of primatology and animal science, it is generally considered that Old World monkeys possess greater cognitive powers than lemurs. I will be investigating this assumption through the observational analysis and testing of these animals’ cognitive abilities. This will include comparing skills such as memory and problem solving between populations of these primates at the Oakland Zoo, a leader in animal welfare and conservation. Species included will be red-tailed monkeys (Cercopithecus Ascanius), crowned lemurs (Eulemur coronatus), and ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta). Through the presenting of different types and […]
Zoe Carwin
Can preschoolers learn from metaphors? While many studies have shown that adults use metaphors to guide their thinking and reasoning, the question of whether young children can do the same remains unexplored. We use metaphors in our everyday lives (e.g. “Tourists flooded the popular beach town over break” or “A second wave of the virus is expected to hit after the holidays due to travel”), and they help us reason about abstract concepts (e.g. “I was surprised when she attacked my claim but I regrouped and defended my idea with […]
Audrey J McClish
What are the legacies of settler colonialism on American political development? Scholars understand settler colonialism as a “structure, not an event,” yet little attention has been devoted to understanding how settler colonialism has impacted the formation of the American state. To this end, this SURF-SMART project seeks to answer the question: How much legislative activity has been devoted to territory governance in the United States and how has this changed over time? To investigate this question, my graduate mentor and I will be constructing an original dataset tracking congressional activity […]
Jesus Duarte
The consonant /d/ in English and Spanish differs in its place of articulation: English has alveolar [d] while Spanish has dental [d̪]. Previous research has reported that Spanish-English bilinguals are able to produce both constrictions, resembling two monolinguals. Thus, this research will focus on two main questions: a) How do Spanish-English bilinguals acquire this distinction? and b) how late can they acquire this distinction? We will collect data through a series of tasks in which Spanish-English bilingual subjects will discriminate between manipulated /d/ stimuli, allowing us to identify which acoustic […]
Jovian Kan
Mountain snow is a virtual reservoir that stores water during the winter and releases it when it is most needed at the beginning of the agricultural growing season. Snowpack water storage, measured as snow water equivalent (SWE), is therefore important to track and predict. Most numerical models that try to predict snow use maps of forests from previous years, but major disturbances, such those caused by fire, make these older versions unreliable for the future. This project aims to improve our ability to observe and predict SWE in areas where […]
Genevieve Akponye
We will use wild-caught European starlings to explore where melatonin may be produced in the bird brain (outside of the pineal gland) by detection of enzymes involved in its synthesis. Generally, organisms strategically allocate energy among physiological processes, and these processes are highly sensitive to the environment. Species that reproduce seasonally utilize environmental cues to coordinate physiology at the proper time. These cues are translated into signals through neuroendocrine signals, leading to the production of melatonin in the pineal gland; however, the pineal gland has never been found to regulate […]
Anne Nakamoto
