Alexandra Langer

Present-day residents of St. Croix (Crucians), many of whom are descendants of enslaved Africans, regularly endure droughts and lack reliable and safe drinking water. Moreover, several of the islands natural aquafers have become contaminated with salt water, while siltation from the islands eroding landmass continues to harm nearby critical coral reef ecosystems. More recently, it has also been made clear that this small Caribbean island is highly susceptible to intense tropical weather events, with many Crucians today still suffering from the extensive water damage caused by the two category 5 […]

Marina Norfolk

Interactions between infectious diseases and their hosts underpin a vast array of ecological and evolutionary dynamics. These host-parasite interactions are thought to contribute to the maintenance of genetic diversity in animal, plant, and insect hosts. One important factor in this is called the monoculture effect where genetically homogenous host populations may select for more virulent pathogens. This project seeks to test the monoculture effect in the Boots labs Plodia interpunctella (Indian Meal Moth) and granulosis virus model system.

Irene Liang

A provisional list of beach flies from Hawaii has been collected over this past summer. Improvement upon the phylogeny across Canacidae can be used as a hypothesis-testing framework on how flies have adapted to multiple ecological niches from saline environments to freshwater ecosystems. While many of these flies are found around the world, one lineage in the Hawaiian Islands has lost the ability to tolerate saline habitats and currently occupies high elevation freshwater streams. Organizing collection information, examining DNA sequences, and developing identification keys to this important group will bring […]

Emma Tao

Are you excited by Virtual Reality (VR) and Immersive Experiences (IE)? Do you like 3D modeling and simulations of the built environment? How about preparing content to set up a lab experiment involving aspects from all of these? Virtual Reality (VR) is an interactive three-dimensional computer-generated experience that takes place within a simulated environment that can be explored through a variety of peripheral devices such as VR headsets. We will use an evidence-based design (EBD) approach, of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best […]

Ashley Elizabeth Bendl

You may have heard the phrase You look just like your mother, but how often have you heard You look just like a bacteria? The former is an example of the type of genetic inheritance most of us are familiar with, vertical, or inheritance from parents to offspring. This project, however, involves horizontal inheritance: that is, the exchange of genes between species, otherwise known as horizontal gene transfer (HGT). The project involves investigating how and why a horizontally transferred gene was transferred from viruses to insects several million years ago.

Connor Geudeker

Laboratory seismology uses a scale-model approach to complement the wealth of research on in situ earthquakes that cannot be observed directly. A simple mechanical system applies shear stress to two blocks with a roughened interface, such that it produces stick-slip behavior with energy signatures matching in situ earthquakes. Lab scale seismic sensors allow us to apply typical seismological analyses. Additional instruments provide measurements not available in the field, which are used to expand our understanding of the underlying processes as well as the results and limits of the seismological methods.

Maple Wang

Mussels have the ability to adhere to wet surfaces through the byssus, a collection of protein-based threads, that are formed by the mussels foot. My graduate student mentor and I will investigate the use of mussel-inspired adhesive moieties to enhance contact and retention of polymers on mucosal tissues. In particular, I plan to use our mucoadhesive drug-loaded particles to explore the new concept of drug-induced regenerative medicine, wherein adult mammals are able to regenerate tissues in a scarless manner. The resulting mucoadhesive polymers will be useful in the future for […]

Takao Kakegawa

While hybridization has historically been thought to hinder evolutionary processes, the idea that it might sometimes drive evolution instead has been gaining momentum in recent years, even in modern-day humans. Hybridization can sometimes result in extreme traits not observed in the parental species that allows hybrids to occupy new environments or eat new things. My graduate student mentor and I will address questions about how hybridization has impacted a group of Caribbean pupfish that have specialized on weird diets, like fish scales.

Savannah Cragin

Privacy is one of the central issues of our time. All things being equal, we assume that most people prefer privacy; it is a foundational right enshrined in the penumbras of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 14th amendments of the U.S. constitution as well as in several state constitutions (including those of California, Massachusetts, and Washington) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Despite our appreciation of privacy, police officers wear body cameras, customer loyalty programs track purchases, and the Transportation Safety Administration performs full body scans. This […]

Meire Mehare

Arsenic is a toxic carcinogen causing multiple forms of cancer and low IQ in children. In California, about 55,000 people are exposed to high levels of arsenic via their community water systems. As current technologies are too costly or complex to implement, the Gadgil lab is developing an affordable and effective technology, called Air Cathode Assisted Iron Electrocoagulation (ACAIE) at community scale. In this project, to test ACAIE outside of the lab, my graduate student mentor and I are working with an elementary school in Central California that is currently […]