Sari Rickansrud
Relatively recently there has been a surge of interest in investigating the social value of fiction. For example, some researchers claim that fiction fosters the development of perspective taking abilities by serving as social practice as the reader mentally simulates narrated events. By perspective taking abilities I mean the capacity to understand another persons thoughts, feelings, and point of view. Extending upon such research, I plan to investigate via an experimental study with young children whether or not the narrative point of view from which a story is told (i.e. […]
Sayaka Ri
The Syrian civil war is approaching its fifth year of conflict and has been labelled the worst humanitarian disaster of recent times. Since the beginning of the conflict, the Al-Assad regime has systematically targeted health-care facilities and personnel as a weapon of war. In international criminal law, these attacks are a war crime and documentation is important to preserve evidence for purposes of accountability. Despite the increasing number of attacks on health-care systems in the twenty-first century, data on attacks are lacking and there is no standardized method for reporting […]
Eena Kosik
We live in a world of noise and therefore, one of the most important functions in the brain is the ability to make predictions. Prediction is the result of using previous expectations of our surroundings to create possible interpretations of this noise. Because of the complexity of prediction, it makes sense that it has very complicated neural correlates in the brain. The literature shows mixed understandings of the neural mechanisms of prediction when paired with other factors, such as behavioral relevance. Some scientists argue that there is a prediction suppression […]
Alex Mabanta
Indian Muslims, a recent UC Berkeley study discovers, are more likely to elect politicians who use Islamic symbols in campaign materials. This stands in contrast to Indian Hindus, who have no preference for candidates who appeal to their vote through Hindu symbols. Asymmetric outcomes, therefore, permeates how religious identities are politicized between India’s two largest religious populations: Hindus and Muslims. India, however, is a nation of enormous religious diversity. In consideration of religious politicization among Indias numerous religious minorities there is little to no research in the field of political […]
Dana Rosen
Imagine two hot air balloons that leave the ground at the same time. As they rise, one of them moves faster than the other and the distance between them grows as they get higher. Proportionality is everywhere in our world, as are many other mathematical concepts that we dont consider day-to-day, which teachers often refer to real-world situations in the math classroom. However, educational reformers debate whether students should begin learning concepts from abstract producers or concrete situations. The embodied cognition approach reconciles these two approaches, suggesting that we should […]
Libby Perfitt
I am investigating the effects of singing on speech in geriatric voice. In my work as vocal coach I have perceived changes in students speaking voices alongside their advancements as singers. Scientifically, it has been noted that the voice undergoes many changes with age, most of which occur more intensely after 65 years of age in men and after menopause in women. Academically, I hope to build on existing research to discover more specifically what scientific factors of speech can be improved through singing. To this end, I am conducting […]
Elizabeth Juster
My research concerns El Lissitzky’s Proun artworks produced in the 1920s. Lissitzky was working in a very politically charged time amidst the Russian Revolution, and hoped to use art as the foundation for a new and better society. Purely geometric, evoking three-dimensionality, and in some instances architecture, the Proun artworks represent Lissitzky’s attempts to express new ideas, such as the fourth dimension and abstraction, through art. I hope to gain insight into Lissitzky’s own theoretical understandings of how space, time, and the viewer interact through the medium of artwork in […]
Maleah Fekete
Formula fiction is a literary structure in which narratives within a genre are predictable, varying only in details, and therefore, rather than reflecting the real world, reflect a reality constructed by the formula itself. This allows works within a formula to appeal to readers’ emotional, as opposed to aesthetic, tastes. I am investigating the relationship between groups of individuals who read certain types of formula fiction (primarily romance), the emotional fulfillment specific formulas provide, and the social structures producing a deficiency of emotional fulfillment that causes readers to seek out […]
Ross Mattheis
Rising inequality and falling economic mobility may be the defining economic and social challenge of present-day developed economiesand the US in particular. Recently, many have observed that inequality is associated with social discontent, slowed growth, and the spread of far-right populism. But economic mobility in the US has not always been dismal; in the late nineteenth century, mobility in the US was truly exceptional, higher than the US and the UK in the late twentieth century. My work investigates the effect of the western frontier on American economic development in […]
Sy Bocalbos Jordan
Filipinos living in the Philippines today are made of of more than 175 ethnic groups, and are an amalgamation of its indigenous populations, migrants from neighboring countries and the descendants of distant colonizers. For my research, I will use a critical race and gender lens to examine Filipino Identity. What was the process of racialization for the indigenous peoples of the archipelago into Filipino nationalists? How do the colonial legacies of the country persist in the Filipino identity? How and why are Filipinos imagined as a mono-ethnic group? The framework […]