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 […]
Gregory Devine
Musics ability to evoke and communicate emotion seems intuitive and universal, but the cognitive and psychological processes that underlie musics emotive inductance still remain largely a mystery. Investigating how people perceive and engage with music ultimately reveals the complexities of emotion regulation. In this study, I compose music that targets various emotions and have participants evaluate changes in their mood state upon listening. By targeting and inducing emotions such as happiness, sadness, or anger in a lab setting, I can assess how effectively music either augments or diminishes the experience […]
Nicholas Pingitore
On October 24, 1648, Europe signed The Peace of Westphalia. This marked the end of the Thirty Years War, one of Europes bloodiest conflicts, which claimed the lives of more than eight million people. But perhaps more importantly, The Peace of Westphalia is remembered as the birth of what political scientists, politicians, and even your morning paper would come to know as modern international relations: a system of states, in which sovereign and independent nations exist in a chaotic realm of constant competition, locked in a balance of power in […]
Keren Lev
We propose to conduct research exploring potential cognitive adaptations in children who come from less wealthy and/or educated homes (low socioeconomic status, SES). Previous research indicates that lower-SES environments expose children to stressors including neighborhood crime and loud, crowded home environments. Such stress has been associated with academic struggles and poor health. We explore whether children coming from low SES households may, in fact, have particular strengths; specifically, adaptive auditory abilities allowing them to learn from multiple stimuli at once. In the study, we will have both low- and high-SES […]
Isabella Franchesca Shipley
With well established evidence of the nuanced social and political aspects of environmentalism, it has become apparent that there is a need for a more compelling and holistic approach to discussing these issues. My research will document how art contributes to these conversations and explores the more human elements of environmental justice. The extent to which visual art can impact the formation of individuals’ opinions, motivations and curiosities with respect to the environmental movement will be explored through art practice. Informed by past works, this project will draw from art […]
Pablo Paderes
The rise of mass incarceration and punishment over the past 4 decades in the U.S. is largely understood as a black issue, while immigrant incarceration and punishment are largely understood as brown problems. These analytical borders segregate rich bodies of theory and analysis from each other. My research will use in-depth interviews of formerly incarcerated people and black and brown social justice movement leaders to create an integrated, bottom-up analysis serving to guide archival research of current statistics and recent trends in order to understand the mass incarceration and punishment […]
Mieko Kurata Anders
My project will explore the ideological implications of racialization through gothic tropes in William Faulkners The Sound and the Fury (1929) and Kazuo Ishiguros first two novels, A Pale View of Hills (1982) and An Artist of the Floating World (1986). Specifically, I will reframe Faulkners use of the Southern Gothic genre to configure a postwar Asian Gothic through Ishiguros early work, generating a new cross-racial, trans-historical perspective on literary representations of racial melancholia. Why, I will ask, did the historical contexts of the postbellum American South and postwar Japan, […]
Elizabeth McCullough
Direct cash transfers, often termed ‘basic income,’ are an emerging trend in contemporary development interventions. This form of poverty alleviation depends upon a particular form of social contract between state, civil society, and citizen. While influential thinkers from across the political spectrum have long supported a basic income, including economists such as Milton Friedman and activists like Martin Luther King, Jr., I will investigate why basic income is taking hold in this specific moment across the development industry. To whom is this form of poverty alleviation attractive and why? How […]