Megan Sousa
Research on bacterial antibiotic resistance evolution has primarily been carried out in liquid culture; however, many infections are in the form of biofilms. Biofilms are composed of bacteria embedded in a complex matrix that protects pathogenic bacteria making them highly virulent, much more difficult to treat in patients, and an important focus of medical research. One interesting characteristic of biofilm growth is that genetically-identical cells can differentiate into multiple cell types, such as motile cells, which can swim within the biofilm. It is unclear how much these swimming cells can […]
Andy Zhang
In our research, we will use toric geometry to study the cohomological structure of complex Grassmannians. The cohomology ring of a Grassmannian varieties is described by the Littlewood-Richardson rule. One of the main open questions in Schubert calculus concerns the generalization of the Littlewood-Richardson rule to flag varieties. Such a generalization is highly desirable, because it is a manifestly positive formula that can be applied to other areas: in algebraic geometry, it helps describe complicated intersections; in representation theory, it helps to find irreducible, direct-sum decompositions of tensor products; in […]
Noah Stevenson
Theoretical and experimental evidence suggests harnessing quantum mechanics to execute algorithms on qubit-based quantum hardware may allow for computation exponentially more powerful than is possible with classical computers. Characterizing how qubit states evolve in time is imperative for benchmarking quantum hardware; however, this has been difficult due to the inability to fully measure a quantum state without disrupting it. A solution is weak measurement, which recent work has improved for a single qubit by leveraging the data-processing power of a recurrent neural network (RNN). The time-evolution of qubits exchanging information […]
Jaime Zendejas
My research will focus on the development of a digital acoustic noise cancellation system. The system will be capable of taking recorded data, that has some amount of noise due to acoustic interference on it, and removing said noise from the data without affecting the data in any other way. This type of system is widely applicable to work done in many different STEM fields, but has particular importance in the field of physics. Many research projects in the field use some form of measurement of energy deposited into a […]
Miles Mellott
The complement system is a function of the innate immune system a group of proteins in the blood that target, mark, and destroy potential pathogens, as well as modulating the response of immune cells. Most viruses must interfere with its activity in order to infect someone, but the mechanism of interactions remains largely uncharacterized. My project seeks to specifically identify and characterize the interactions of Human Cytomegalovirus proteins with the complement protein MBL1 (Mannose-Binding Lectin) by use of a yeast-two-hybrid protein interaction assay. This assay can determine if a given […]
Fran Meyer
The paleoclimate of the Ordovician period (485 to 444 million years ago) is of particular interest to geologists and paleontologists because of a great biodiversification event followed by a mass extinction associated with a global glaciation. To answer why there was such a drastic change in climate, we must first understand when these trends began. While it is well-established that the beginning of the period was characterized by a warm climate and the end of the period by a major glaciation, the trajectory of cooling is poorly known. For this […]
Amy Zhong
Neurodegenerative disorders, caused by abnormal death of neurons, manifest in incurable and debilitating conditions. Ataxia, the loss of muscle coordination of voluntary movements, is a hallmark symptom of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinsons. Various genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have pointed to Tox3s crucial role in neurodegenerative diseases, but current knowledge on its relationship with ataxia is limited. Tox3 is a transcriptional coactivator that confers protective anti-apoptotic effects in the brain, with the highest level of expression in cerebellar Purkinje cells. Our preliminary data show that mice with Tox3 deletion show […]
Shaunak Modak
Observations have demonstrated that almost all large galaxies contain a supermassive black hole in their centers. Although supermassive black holes constitute only a small fraction of their host galaxys total mass, their mass correlates strongly with features of their host including morphology and galactic structure, so they have long been objects of interest for astrophysicists. The mass of a supermassive black hole can be estimated through studying stellar orbits within the galaxy. However, especially in the most massive elliptical galaxies, these dynamics can be extremely challenging to model. One promising […]
Mingyu Li
Neutrino-less double beta decay is a process that is forbidden in the current Standard Model of particle physics since it violates lepton number conservation. If observed, this type of decay can provide insight into fundamental neutrino properties, such as whether neutrinos are Majorana or Dirac fermions (i.e. whether they are their own anti-particles). This decay also provides information on the neutrino mass hierarchy and its mass scale. Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is a leading experiment in this search and its successor, CUORE Upgrade with Particle ID (CUPID) […]
Maryn Sanders
The unique site of Antelope Valley River near Williams, California has for a few years been a place of interest and research because of the distinct sedimentary layering and the very regular pattern of hills and hollows. In the winter of 2017, a huge storm came through the site and induced four hundred landslides. Another storm then followed in the winter of 2019 at a much lesser degree of strength compared to the 2017 storm; however, it caused only about a hundred landslides, but all in new regions. The seemingly […]