Leslie Lang

Irene Chemtai Mungo

This summer, I am interested in understanding and highlighting how a local community in Mombasa, a small coastal town in Kenya is responding to the HIV/AIDS threat that is facing its members. I want to understand the role that community support groups, gatherings, church meetings, and community celebrations such as skits and dances are playing in molding dialogue about HIV/AIDS. With an understanding of the historical role of organizing in traditional African communities, this project will study how organizing and dialogue is playing a part in the education and empowering […]

Caroline Akiko Yamamoto

The Sannai Maruyama site, located in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, is currently considered to be the largest Jomon Period settlement in Japan. While ongoing excavations have significantly contributed to our understanding of Jomon hunter-gatherer lifeways, there is still much to learn about Sannai Maruyamas functionality. My research will focus on analyzing the charred seed remains gathered from soil samples collected during an excavation of a Middle Jomon pit-dwelling this summer. This will allow for a preliminary assessment of the pit-dwellings functions, depositional sequences, and activity areas. More importantly, a comparison of […]

Samma Ishaq

My particular interest for this summer is to explore whether the ongoing violence in Kashmir have inspired women to lead movements or organize petitions against the government in the last decade. I wish to study specific examples of resistance that have been attempted in the past, and to analyze the types of initiatives organized particularly by females, who seldom receive any acknowledgement for their efforts. Women in Kashmir are generally written into history as submissive and marginalized figures, who due to their social suffering, cannot bring themselves to oppose either […]

Sharyn Hall

Habitus is the acquired expression of personal taste in art, dialect, comportment, zip code, literature, entertainment, etc. established by the wealthy (unconsciously) as a means to set themselves apart from the working class. Yet mere expression of habitus by the lower economic strata changes their social class (Bourdieu, 1976). The Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) is best captured by the colloquialism pull yourself up by your bootstraps and is the belief that anyone can achieve wealth and success if s/he is willing to do the hard work. Notwithstanding, the social cues […]

Miriam Alvarado

This summer, I will be in Mumbai, India, researching the effects of behavior change approaches to public health issues. As a member of Haath Mein Sehat (HMS), a water and sanitation-based student organization, I will be an active participant in the creation of an intervention intended to increase rates of handwashing amongst children in slum communities. My research will focus on assessing the consequences of HMS focus on behavior change, and how this approach is perceived by the communities in which HMS works. Through this analysis, I intend to address […]

Saba Zariv

Michael Edward Komorowski

Ashley Nicole Lipps

Age-related bone loss and osteoarthritis have been exhibited in several mammalian species, and both are especially common in humans. However, the etiology behind age-related bone loss is highly complicated and osteoarthritis is especially unstudied. Previous studies have relied on rodent models and have primarily investigated changes in BMD (Bone Mineral Density); however several weaknesses are associated with both approaches. I will be using Macaca mulatta, a similar species to humans with analogous bone remodeling processes in both cancellous and cortical bone. I will be using two methods: 1) histomorphometric analysis […]

Bryan Joseph Welch

After the Meiji Restoration opened Japan to the West in 1868, many of the traditional Japanese martial disciplines (budo) were reinvented, incorporating modern Western concepts of mass education and competitive sport. However, some disciplines resisted these reforms in an attempt to preserve their traditional method of individualized apprenticeship. Through participant observation at a large gymnasium in Tokyo, I will explore school structure, pedagogy, and power relationships between expert and novice within several budo communities. I will look for correlation between these elements and the degree to which each style has […]