Honors Project Abstracts

This honors project has been an exploration of my relationship with time and memory. By studying old childhood photos, I translate them onto canvas, focusing on how my perception of specific memories affects my color composition and value structure. I explore the evolution of perspective by understanding how my adult self views these pictures. In turn, this captures time and impermanence. My paintings focus on specific details in the photos, while other sections appear faded. I use an oil glazing technique to represent how some moments are vivid, while others are fogged with emotion. This reflects how memory tends to be hazy, holding both truth and imagination.

When does improving local institutions increase the poverty-reducing effectiveness of transfers? This paper examines whether federal oversight strengthens municipal administration of anti-poverty programs in Brazil. I develop a governance model in which incumbents allocate resources across diversion, effort, and institutional investment under audits and incentives. Using exogenous variation from Brazil's random CGU audit lottery across 5,500 municipalities, I find audits reduce irregularities, strengthen capacity, improve nutritional monitoring and school infrastructure, and reduce extreme poverty — with effects largest in municipalities with weakest institutions. A marginal-value-of-public-funds analysis confirms the program is self-financing. Results show the poverty-reducing power of transfers depends critically on institutional quality.

This paper examines whether household non-farm enterprises (NFEs) in Nigeria function as coping mechanisms during drought shocks. Using monthly panel data, climatic water balance measures, and survival, linear probability, and staggered difference-in-differences models, I find that drought exposure is associated with increased persistence in NFE activity, reflected in lower hazards of enterprise closure and reduced monthly exit probabilities. These findings suggest that NFEs may be used as a tool by agricultural households to cope with agricultural shocks by reallocating labor, smoothing income, and maintaining economic activity

Ruby's is a human-driven workplace comedy focusing on the complex interpersonal relationships of the workers at a small town Nevada brothel. Each one of them is running away from something, looking for a second (or third) chance. Digo, a self-sabotaging man incapable of honest communication, falls into a one-night stand with Samir, who wears his heart on his sleeve. Meanwhile, Faun grapples with the death of her abusive mother which threatens to drag her back into a life she escaped. Meanwhile, the illustrious Ruby has her own secrets to hide. Ruby’s explores themes of personal identity, sexuality, disability, mental health, and intimacy.

Method:
My approach features conclusions drawn from network properties, clustering methods, and the DeltaCON similarity function. I examined footage of 13 professional fighters, spread over 4 different weight classes and a 30-year time period, as well as my own sparring footage.

Results:
Individual habits and favored techniques can be categorized using network properties. DeltaCON similarity on two different individuals' networks is a reasonable proxy for stylistic similarity. I was also able to find and learn applicable techniques to my own style via clustering methods.

Visible to near-infrared (Vis/NIR) reflectance spectroscopy offers a rapid, non-destructive alternative to traditional soil analysis, but the accuracy of globally trained models in underrepresented regions has not been widely researched. This study evaluated a locally calibrated Cubist regression model trained on Vis/NIR spectra from 775 soil samples collected across South Africa and Kenya, comparing its predictive accuracy against the globally-trained Open Soil Spectral Library (OSSL) estimation engine using comparative preprocessing, training, and validation procedures. The local model substantially outperformed the OSSL across all shared soil properties, achieving R² values up to 0.93 for clay compared to a maximum of R² = 0.26 for any OSSL prediction. The local model additionally predicted δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N (R² = 0.77 and 0.80) and environmental variables including vegetation indices and bioclimatic variables (R² up to 0.93). However, the OSSL predictions along with additional analyses revealed poor geographic transferability of the models. These results highlight the urgent need for regionally diverse spectral libraries and standardized operating procedures to make Vis/NIR soil spectroscopy a globally reliable tool.

This project examines how cosmic environments affect neutral hydrogen (HI) content in dwarf and giant galaxies. Observations from ALFALFA-SDSS and FASHI are compared with IllustrisTNG-100 simulations. Dwarfs are defined by log MHI ≤ 8.7 and W50 ≤ 175 km/s, with matched samples of dwarfs and giants constructed. Filaments are identified using DisPerSE, then galaxies are classified as filament or void members. Simulations overestimate dwarf–giant differences, underestimate HI and stellar masses in void galaxies, and predict more dwarfs per giant in voids than filaments, contrary to observations. These results emphasize environmental effects on HI content and constraints on galaxy formation models.

Somewhere Far and Somewhere Near is a short story collection that positions body horror, “where corporeality constitutes the main site of fear, anxiety and disgust,” alongside Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of la facultad, or “see[ing] deeper realities within surface phenomena,” which is heightened in the Latina body. Stories range from depicting realistic body horror like cancer and disordered eating to the grotesque and supernatural, like spirits and vampires. I draw on Latina speculative fiction writers, Tejana scholars and my own lived experiences to explore how location and identity presses upon the emotional and psychological stakes of my Latina characters

Urban heat exposure is unevenly distributed across U.S. cities, reflecting legacies of discriminatory housing policies. From the 1930s to 1960s, redlining maps graded neighborhoods from “A” (best) to “D” (hazardous), with “D” areas characterized by poorer environmental conditions and communities of color. Although banned in 1968, these patterns are argued to persist. While green infrastructure has been widely studied in this context, this thesis examines whether cooling from urban water bodies varies across historically graded neighborhoods in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Using Landsat imagery and field measurements, results show stronger cooling in “A”-graded neighborhoods, highlighting enduring environmental inequalities.

Redlining, a discriminatory housing policy from the 1930s, shaped lasting urban inequalities that may extend to environmental conditions. This study examines links between redlining and urban water quality in the Twin Cities using algal communities as indicators. Across 28 water bodies sampled in 2022 and 2024, physical, chemical, and biological metrics were compared by redlining grade. Results show limited relationships between redlining and most variables, with only surface water temperature differing significantly. Nutrients and algal diversity were unrelated to redlining, instead reflecting present-day conditions. These findings suggest contemporary factors play a stronger role than redlining in shaping urban freshwater ecosystems.

Although 100% of Iceland’s electricity comes from renewable energy, it still relies on fossil fuels for transportation and industry. Understanding geographic oil use nuances is critical to achieving Iceland's 2040 carbon neutrality goal. As two thirds of Icelanders reside in one primary urban center, there is lacking information about oil use in non-Capital areas and a gap between state and municipal climate plans. Using newly available data of oil sales at the municipality-level in a Small Area Estimation model, I analyze drivers of oil sales across Icelandic municipalities. Iceland presents global lessons for what happens after a decarbonized electricity grid.

Vaccination rates have declined due to the growing hesitancy by many parents to vaccinate their children, signified by an increasing amount of non-medical exemptions. While there has been previous spatial analysis of exemption patterns as a threat to herd immunity, there has not been much post-COVID. This analysis provides a modern analysis of changing exemption clustering in Minnesota, while also considering the impact of public health being increasingly politicized. We used kindergarten vaccination data for 1475 elementary schools to analyze the evolution of clustering and predictors of NMEs across space and time in Minnesota, from 2014 to 2024.

We better understand the people who came before us through objects, images, and stories. Between Their Hands and Mine is a studio art honors project that connects wheel-thrown ceramics to the stories and experiences of the women in my life, known and unknown. Adorning the home with love and care through objects like cups with butterflies was common in my upbringing. My family’s Norwegian background inspired the florals and stripes that decorate the surface. This series of plates, bowls, mugs, and other dinnerware set amongst a dining room and ancestral objects is reminiscent of the homemaking women in my life.

The Arundel facies sauropod record is fragmentary and taxonomically complex, with the single accepted taxon, Astrodon johnstoni, considered a nomen dubium by some authors. Analysis and description of fourteen teeth, six vertebrae, two metapodials, and two ungual phalanges from the Maryland Dinosaur Park reveal a tooth morphology consistent with that previously described for Astrodon. A previously unobserved procoelous caudal vertebral morphology may indicate unexpected variation in the tail of Astrodon, or may indicate that the Arundel sauropod fauna is more diverse than previously hypothesized.

My Studio Art Honors Project engages the grid as a contradictory format: one that simultaneously represents empirical order (graphs and maps), and a domestic visual language that rejects a single point of view (weaving). Gradual Disordering exists within this tension; referencing cluttered interior space, non-linear organizations, and repetition as world-building. I layer materials–photos, archival images, and journal pages–into multiple woven, painted, and ceramic abstractions. Nest-like objects perch out of reach, viewed from below. Large-scale grids and paper weavings warp in space, looked at and looked past. With additions and deletions in each iteration, the grid continually changes.

One fall morning, Clarice, a woman in her mid-twenties, is getting ready for the day when she finds a black ground beetle crawling along her bedroom wall. The beetle consumes her, and throughout the day, Clarice undergoes a metamorphosis. Rendered in poetry and prose, After the Morning Light explores the cultivation of a self, questions the boundaries between humans and their environment, and portrays the fragile relationship between women and the act of being seen.

Within the context of the “family farm,” a symbol of heteronormative agriculture and traditional American values, this study investigates queer farming in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Archival research and spatial analysis yielded insights into the evolution of the family farm from a national project to a model for agricultural resistance and spatial patterns of queer, alternative, and conventional farming. Then, interviews with LGBTQ+ and family farmers explore queer farmers’ efforts towards more anti-capitalist relationships with land, work, and community; differing values and challenges between queer and generational farmers; and how all small farmers affect change across the agricultural landscape.

The Crimean Tatars exist within a framework of historical and modern Russian settler colonial oppression. By examining their preferred form of identification, this thesis argues that claiming indigeneity holds promise for combating this colonial structure. Further, it identifies the construction of collective memories of the Sürgün (1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars) in virtual museum project Tamirlar’s oral histories as a form of discursive decolonization—the reclamation of cultural, linguistic, and historical representation and primacy on the land. Novel analysis of fifty interviews with Sürgün survivors preserves indigenous Crimean identity and challenges the retrospective settler colonial construction of Crimea as “Russian.”

This case study offers insights into the ability of small-scale gardening to advance community-level food sovereignty by comparing the dietary diversity outcomes, livelihood outcomes and degrees of agency between 33 gardeners and 25 non-gardeners in Genadendal, Western Cape, South Africa. Dietary diversity scores were statistically significantly higher for gardeners compared to non-gardeners. Despite the continued prevalence of large-scale commercial agriculture in Post-Apartheid South Africa both in practice and development discourse, small-scale gardening in Genadendal is associated with better livelihood outcomes and offers an alternative to the dominant agrarian system that has persisted into South Africa’s democratic era.

How do readers learn to engage with novel forms of written language that fall outside of their established linguistic repertoire? And how do texts themselves facilitate this process? This thesis looks for answers to these questions in literary theory, multilingualism studies, applied linguistics, and a diverse corpus of literary works. I propose a comprehensive descriptive vocabulary of novel language use in literature, and then observe how these frameworks work in concert in an exemplary text by analyzing Christine Brooke-Rose’s multilingual novel Between. I conclude by discussing how the “exceptional” cases explored in this thesis can change our understanding of “typical” language use in literature.

Topographic heterogeneity structures Arctic plant communities, impacting broader ecosystem responses to climate change. The role of topography in shaping leaf physiological, nutritional, and structural traits in the Arctic is not well characterized. We examined plant community composition and measured leaf traits in representative species along a heath-slope-valley gradient in Varanger, Norway. We found valleys are more biodiverse, driven by higher numbers of forbs and graminoids, and physiology and leaf traits varied amongst species. This work shows that topography can create oases of biodiversity in the low Arctic, and adds complexity to studying this rapidly changing landscape.

The recent rise of far-right leaders, from Donald Trump challenging democratic institutions in the United States to Viktor Orban's fifteen-year autocratic reign in Hungary, has led me to my main research question: Why are some far-right parties stronger than others? Conducting process tracing analysis of Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, and Czech far-right politics from 2005 to 2025, I argue that far-right parties are stronger when they utilize the surveillance state to limit democratic institutions and actors. My findings clarify how far-right parties use the surveillance state and other tactics to maintain power within their nation.

Emergency department (ED) wait times remain a persistent bottleneck in the United States healthcare system, impacting patient outcomes, hospital efficiency, and equitable access to care. This study analyzes nationally representative data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), a complex, multi-stage probability sample. Using survey-weighted analyses and predictive modeling, we examine the effects of patient characteristics, triage acuity, and visit timing. Results indicate that operational and system-level factors, including hospital capacity, geographic region, and temporal variation, are among the most influential predictors of ED wait times.

This project explores the relationship between kept objective record and fictionalization through an application of Wolfgang Iser’s Reader Response Theory to Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Maggie Lee’s Mommy. I argue that through an analysis of Plath’s novel with her diaries and Lee’s film with my interview with her, we see reader involvement in the text and textual openness to the reader create an active dynamic that is particularly heightened when discussing feminine, diaristic, or otherwise personal stories. I conclude that the gaps in both works reflect a direct relationship between artwork and recipient that powerfully implicates the audience.

This project explores the role of cinema in the establishment and rupture of “Franco-American triangulation” through representations of the United States in French cinema. Through an analysis of films by Jacques Demy and Jean-Luc Godard, I apply theories of the definition of the nation, the image, and the spectacle to analyze the relationship between the French nation and the cinematic image of the United States in the Nouvelle Vague. Ultimately, this paper uses technical and visual analysis to understand the powers and limits of film both to facilitate Franco-American triangulation, and to represent and critique French national ideology.

The synthesis of various novel Pt(II) complexes of the type [(PC)Pt(amine)Me] (PC = benzyldi-tert-butylphosphine; amine = aniline, diethylamine, pyrrolidine) is described. The stability of these complexes is monitored via NMR spectroscopy. While the aniline and diethylamine complexes display limited stability, the pyrrolidine complex is more robust and its reactivity with O2 was explored in coordinating and non-coordinating solvents. Evidence is presented for O2 insertion into the Pt-Me bond and formation of methanol. Lastly, the product of an O2 pressurization reaction in methanol-d4 is characterized via NMR and single crystal XRD as the platinum dimer [(PC)Pt(µ-OCD3)2]2.

The mundane is defined as lacking interest; dull, unimportant. My honors project aims to find the beauty in the mundane moments that linger in the domestic spaces that hold meaning to me. My desire to amplify the figures, spaces, and belongings that formed my childhood home and current apartment inspired me to create numerous highly detailed, overlapping works that act as portals into rooms in these spaces. In Shaving Cream, 2008, my 6-year-old self is shaving my older sister’s legs in the bathtub. In Down in their Nest, posters, trinkets, and stuffed animals act as easter eggs for my childhood.

Martin Tawney’s Guide to the Middle of Nowhere is a portion of a novel that parodies Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 samurai film Yojimbo. Yojimbo is a trickster narrative which drew influence from the noir genre and went on to influence other Westerns. This project turns that story into one about a travel writer who visits a town with two feuding hotels. The travel writer escalates the feud to create the story he wants to tell, but he loses control over it. The project explores what a trickster narrative looks like when the trickster cannot maintain their power over the story.

Many understand personal pro-environmental behavior (PEB) to be necessary, yet fewer engage in it, prompting a need to investigate psychological factors responsible. The present research investigates the influence of cognitive dissonance, outcome efficacy, and self-efficacy on PEB. Study 1 investigates the relationship between cognitive dissonance and PEB with outcome efficacy and competence as potential moderators. In Study 2 we further examine competence and outcome efficacy, adding a self-efficacy manipulation dimension. Results indicate strong positive associations between both competence and self-efficacy and PEB, suggesting that feeling capable of behaving sustainably is significantly related to individuals’ intention to do so.

In the United Republic of Tanzania, school farm and garden programs have been promoted to address low student attendance rates and food insecurity. Using the case study of four primary schools near Nyamuswa, Tanzania, I explore how the technological shifts of the New Green Revolution for Africa have impacted students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes towards different methods of agricultural production. I seek to answer the questions: how are primary schools a conduit for the dissemination of agricultural knowledge? In addition, what type of agricultural information is being shared and why?

Absolute pitch (AP), colloquially known as “perfect pitch,” is the ability to identify or recreate any musical note without an external reference tone. While many believe AP is an exceptional, innate musical talent, I argue that AP is a continuous ability influenced by experience. Using a mixed-methods approach that combined behavioral tasks with interviews, I examined AP memory in AP possessors and non-possessors with varying musical backgrounds to understand how experience-based factors, such as language, primary instrument, and the onset and style of musical training, might influence individual performance on established AP measures.

Standard development theory holds that recovery requires institutions first: courts, fiscal systems, the rule of law. Rwanda in 1994 had none—and rebuilt a state. The state must extract to build capacity, deliver to build legitimacy; when both collapse, no entry point remains. Somalia's three-decade failure confirms it. Rwanda broke it—through gacaca, umuganda, imihigo, and ingando—because it possessed enabling conditions Somalia did not. This thesis argues Rwanda is not an exception to the good governance consensus: it is a refutation, introducing convergent impossibility, negotiation-based capacity, and the gray zone framework—where ambiguity is medium, not defect—at a cost this thesis also names.

As Large Language Models (LLMs) begin to produce text on the internet, the same repository from which training data for LLMs are scraped, LLMs will start to train on data they produced. What will happen to future models when LLMs are trained on their own text? Scholars have raised concerns about the possibility that LLMs homogenize language and discourse. These concerns are further exaggerated as LLMs begin to infect their own repositories, marking a turn from human-produced training data sets. In this paper I simulate a recursive training loop by prompting a popular open-source LLM with 1000 prompts and using the output to train the same LLM, creating Model-1. I repeat this process 5 times. I then analyze these outputs through the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), a methodology which attempts to analyze discourse in terms of genre (social action), discourse (topic representation), and style (authorial identity). I argue that recursive training results in an increase in homogeneity, in which later outputs tend to resemble each other in terms of both vocabulary (measured through Type-Token Ratio and Self-BLEU) and format (later generations unilaterally adopt features like extensive footnotes and institutional affiliation).

This study aims to improve cross-linguistic understanding of the production of contrastive phonation by investigating sources of variation within vocal fold vibration. Individual glottal pulses were selected from electroglottographic recordings of speakers of eight languages across five language families. To determine dominant dimensions of variation, pulses were analyzed using functional principal component analysis. One dimension correlated meaningfully with contact quotient, an electroglottographic measure. Interpretations of the other dimensions were revealed only through statistical analysis. Results were mixed regarding the extent to which information provided by the functional principal components is novel and meaningful in the context of cross-linguistic phonation classification.

In this work, sterically hindered poly(pyrazoyl)borates are shown to adopt an unexpected κ2-N,N coordination mode, yielding three novel 14-electron homoleptic four-coordinate iron complexes of the general formula Fe[RR’Bpz*2]2. Simultaneous functionalization of substituents on the pyrazole rings and non-pyrazole R-groups enforces the high-spin (S=2) state and the rare pseudo-tetrahedral bidentate coordination mode adopted by the supporting ligand structure in the resultant complexes. Investigation of the structural and electronic composition of this new family of iron-based complexes, via paramagnetic 1H NMR spectral analysis and numerical coordination-geometry classification, reveals significant metal-ligand spin interactions and structural characteristics that further define the systems.

Spaces of healing are designed to fulfill the physical and spiritual needs of vulnerable individuals. For this reason, the material culture that remains from these spaces is extraordinarily effective in communicating about the lives and the deaths of ordinary individuals from the past. This project examines the archaeology of spaces of healing in one such civilization. King Jayavarman VII reigned over a vast swath of southeast Asia, the Khmer Empire, from 1181 to 1218. This honors project is an archaeological survey of the 102 hospital sites constructed across the Khmer Empire during his reign. Through analysis of the material culture of hospital sites, ranging from architecture and statuary to epigraphy, while taking into consideration the dynamic historical context they are situated in, the lives of the ordinary people of the Khmer Empire are revealed.

Previously, scholarship on the Mediterranean catacombs has focused on isolated sites or on the religious significance and iconography of regional groups. By contextualizing the archaeological data through comparison and recentering the discussion on architecture, this research offers a contextualized, secular picture of ancient Mediterranean catacombs. This architectural comparison between the Roman catacombs and those of St. Paul and Abbatija Tad-Dejr in Malta reveals significant Roman and Punic influence, suggesting a high degree of cultural continuity under Roman provincial governance on Malta (218 BCE - c. 5th - 6th centuries CE). This, paired with the emergence of several tomb types unique to Malta within the catacombs, leads me to suggest the development of a truly local burial tradition.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, relies on riboflavin biosynthesis to support essential redox reactions and cellular metabolism, making this pathway a potential therapeutic target. To assess the functional contributions of riboflavin biosynthesis genes to bacterial growth and viability, we investigated the effects of CRISPR interference (CRISPRi)-mediated repression of ribA2 and ribH in M. tuberculosis. Single-guide RNAs (sgRNAs) of varying predicted repression strengths were designed to enable partial gene knockdown while maintaining bacterial viability. CRISPRi strains were generated, and gene repression was induced with anhydrotetracycline (ATc). Repression of ribA2 resulted in a modest but reproducible reduction in bacterial growth, whereas ribH knockdown produced minimal and variable effects. Quantitative RT-PCR confirmed decreased transcript levels for both genes, although the extent of repression was limited. Antibiotic susceptibility testing using dose-centering assays revealed only small changes in MIC50 values for first-line drugs, and MIC90 values could not be reliably determined, preventing further analysis. Overall, these findings suggest that ribA2 plays a more critical role in maintaining bacterial fitness than ribH, but that partial repression of riboflavin biosynthesis is insufficient to significantly impair growth or enhance antibiotic susceptibility. This work supports further investigation of riboflavin biosynthesis, particularly ribA2, as a potential target for improved tuberculosis therapies.

This paper explores the horror film as a site of self-creation. Using Michel Foucault and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I argue that the horror genre primes the viewer for an embodied, affective experience, and the resulting interaction between self and screen constitutes and redefines the self. By engaging with Jordan Peele’s Get Out, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and The Fly, and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, I explore how horror films engage our physical bodies and rework our experience and understanding of race, disability, and collectivity. These interactive experiences of spectatorship allow us to conceptualize the cinema as a tangible site of identity creation, positioning filmgoing as a political practice of community.

This project investigates the relationship between gendered family roles and the construction of masculinity among gen Z in Mexico. I examine how young adults reflect on their upbringings and conceptualize their future families. I ask: How do gendered distributions of household labor, power, and roles within the family influence constructions of masculinity, emotion, and responsibility for young adults in Mexico? I identify contradictions in how young adults understand versus feel about gendered familial roles, and in how they understand versus reproduce traditional gender roles. My findings show how the family in Mexico reproduces patriarchal ideology, even as cultural expectations evolve.

This paper examines Italian composer Giacomo Puccini’s processes of thematic development in three operas, La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), and Il Tabarro (1918). Puccini’s thematic development has been a point of contention for many musicologists and critics. Critics of his own time found his thematic development style to be inconsistent; some regarded his melodies as fragmented and lacking cohesion. Since then, biographers and critics such as Michele Girardi, Mosco Carner, and Alexandra Wilson have reiterated and re-examined these claims. Taken together, my three case studies conclude that Puccini’s multivalent style of thematic development is meant to depict the various effects of structural power on people representing a range of socio-economic positions.

Opioids are the most effective treatments for severe acute and chronic pain, but their use is limited by deleterious effects such as respiratory depression. To develop safer analgesics, it is critical to understand the mechanisms of opioid receptor signaling in the respiratory circuitry. This study investigates the role of the Gβγ-SNAP25 interaction in the context of opioid induced respiratory depression. We show that inhibiting the Gβγ-SNAP25 interaction genetically enhances morphine suppression of breathing and amplifies opioid suppression of glutamate release in the lateral parabrachial nucleus. This suggests that mu-opioid receptors in the respiratory circuitry signal, in part, through Gβγ-SNAP25 binding.

The neurotensin system influences many physiological functions and pathologies and could potentially be targeted pharmacologically. Prior evidence shows sex differences in neurotensin pathways and estrogen-mediated upregulation of β-arrestin, which may accelerate receptor desensitization. To ensure that developing therapeutics are effective for both sexes, sex differences in compound effects should be investigated. This thesis investigates sex differences in the hypothermic effects of systemically administered PD149163, a neurotensin receptor 1 agonist, and the possible role that β-arrestin plays in observed sex differences. This thesis provides evidence of sex differences in the magnitude and duration of PD149163-induced hypothermia that may be influential for neurotensin-related therapeutic development and dosing strategies.

Worker effort-supply is influenced not only by rational expectations but also biases such as framing and numerical presentation of incentives. Identifying these effects is essential for designing effective incentives. To study left-digit manipulation, loss aversion, and loss aversion prediction, I conducted an experiment in an online labor market. Participants completed a real-effort typing task, a willingness-to-pay (WTP) task, and a self-reported loss aversion survey. Loss framing and left-digit manipulation had no statistically significant effects on effort, with no interaction effect, suggesting their influence on effort-supply may be overstated. Despite null treatment effects, behaviorally elicited loss aversion aligned with theory on average (λ = 2.41), but showed large between-subject variation. Importantly, self-reported loss aversion had a near-zero correlation with observed loss aversion, indicating a disconnect between perceived and realized attitudes towards losses. As a result, there was no evidence of loss aversion prediction as an indicator of higher task valuation. In fact, participants who overestimated their loss aversion made suboptimal WTP decisions. Finally, exploratory analyses revealed gender-based differences in the self-perception of loss aversion. In whole, this research highlights the complex array of factors that influence effort-supply heterogeneously by individual. It also demonstrates difficulties with allowing individuals to self-select incentive structures, due to the instability of stated preferences compared to true behavior.

I examine the impact of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion on maternal and fetal health outcomes using National Center for Health Statistics Natality data from 2006 to 2023. I exploit staggered state adoption as a quasi-experiment, and the staggered differences-in-differences estimates indicate an increase in the share of Medicaid births but broadly no impact on maternal prenatal care, maternal health, and fetal health. The absence of statistically significant effects is consistent across heterogeneity groups. These null findings indicate that expanded insurance access through the Affordable Care Act may be insufficient to improve health outcomes. I do find a statistically significant increase in High Weight Gain after expansion, which could indicate some moral hazard behavior related to insurance access.

Invasive tree species can alter fire regimes and threaten biodiversity. We investigated the spatio-temporal dynamics of Melaleuca quinquenervia in the Agnalazaha Forest reserve, southeastern Madagascar, using Sentinel-2 imagery and Random Forest classification. In 2024, M. quinquenervia occupied 264.5 ha (11.4%) of the reserve. A binary Random Forest model trained with 2024 data and applied to 2017 and 2021 imagery showed a decline from 110.2 ha in 2017 to 99.2 ha in 2021, followed by expansion to 153.8 ha in 2024. dNBR analysis indicated that M. quinquenervia-dominated areas were about twice as likely to burn than non-invaded areas across the reserve.

This paper examines trading reactions to quarterly earnings reports and the impact of recent monetary policy announcements by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). It argues that the market, as a product of rational and irrational investor behavior, interprets firms’ financial performance information within a broader macroeconomic context, affirming the causal channels found in similar studies. This study differs from prior research by looking at the recent, not simultaneous, monetary policy announcement for each earnings announcement in order to understand if the two types of information remain complementary. By conducting an event study model, this study confirms that the interaction of firm-level and market-level information creates greater market efficiency, shown through a significant immediate reaction in the stock price and insignificant post-event price drift. However, this study reveals that the farther separated the two announcements are in time, the smaller the increase in market efficiency and level of complementary interaction between the two announcements.

The Miracle in Maybe is a young adult novel confronting themes of grief, queerness, and religion. The book employs a dual narrative, following 16-year-old best friends Asher and Delilah. Everything changes when Delilah’s mom dies–Delilah’s music enters a drought, Asher struggles to keep Delilah afloat, and grief uproots everything they knew themselves to believe. That June, Asher’s cousin comes to stay the summer. As Delilah is pulled closer to her and drifts further from Asher, the secrets all three hold threaten to change everything, bringing them closer to what it means to love, to believe, and to be a friend

Microbioerosion is the process by which microorganisms break down hard substrates and decompose organic matter. Evidence of this process is sometimes preserved in bone. This study aims to document the microbial traces within Cretaceous marine fossils from the Dakota Rose Bonebed (DRB) near Milbank, South Dakota. More than 450 cross sections of bone were documented through 1,021 micrographs using petrographic microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The bones contained two distinct tunnel morphologies, spongiform porosity, framboidal pyrite, and secondary apatite. These physical and chemical traces, some of which are definitively indicative of microbial activity, record changes in environmental conditions during early diagenesis that ultimately facilitated preservation.

The research investigates the tourism industry in Cuba as a case study for dependency theory as articulated by Milton Santos’s Toward an Other Globalization. The research examines interactions between tourists and locals, and how Cubans navigate the contradictions of a socialist project embedded in a capitalist economy. Through an analytical macrosociological lens, the research contributes to wider considerations of dependency, economic sovereignty, and the uneven impacts of globalization. I argue that the case study of tourism in Cuba expands Santos’ theories to demonstrate how a country that refutes neoliberal ideology still finds itself trapped within the dynamic of dependency.

How scientific knowledge grows and organizes itself is a central question in the study of science. This thesis uses tools from topology and network science to detect and characterize knowledge gaps—places in a field’s literature where related concepts do not co-occur. We develop a metric to quantify the degree of interdisciplinarity of each gap, using the community structure of the underlying network as a proxy for subfields. Across a wide range of fields, gaps reliably span multiple subfields and evolve in recognizable temporal patterns, highlighting new insights into how scientific fields are structured and their stage of development.

Burn survivors often continue to live with chronic pain, itch, and altered sensation long after wounds appear healed. These symptoms reflect not only skin injury, but also the incomplete and poorly understood recovery of the skin’s sensory nerves. This thesis applies a histologic workflow used in neuropathy to study how cutaneous innervation changes after thermal burn injury and grafting. Using immunofluorescence, confocal imaging, and nerve analysis, it compares healing wounds with normal skin and follows grafted wounds across healing and scar maturation. Together, these studies create a framework for understanding post-burn sensory dysfunction and improving approaches to pain and itch.

Mouth, Sex, and Hungry Heart: Anatomy of the Short-Form Fairy Tale Retelling traces the past fifty years of short-form fairy tale retellings authored by women, identifying formal and thematic continuities that define the mode. Building on Adrienne Rich’s concept of “revisioning,” it argues that the political work of these intertextual tales has evolved alongside feminist and queer theory, the emergence of fairy tale studies, and the cultural dominance of children’s fairy tale media. It delineates the short-form retelling as a distinct genre, highlighting its subversive feminist tendencies, and draws on affect, aesthetic, and queer theory, and genre studies to show how these texts reshape narrative expectations and cultural norms.

This study aims to improve cross-linguistic understanding of the production of contrastive phonation by investigating sources of variation within vocal fold vibration. Individual glottal pulses were selected from electroglottographic recordings of speakers of eight languages across five language families. To determine dominant dimensions of variation, pulses were analyzed using functional principal component analysis. One dimension correlated meaningfully with contact quotient, an electroglottographic measure. Interpretations of the other dimensions were revealed only through statistical analysis. Results were mixed regarding the extent to which information provided by the functional principal components is novel and meaningful in the context of cross-linguistic phonation classification.

This paper examines how a cash transfer program in Malawi affects the intrahousehold allocation of domestic work. Using survey data, I employ intent-to-treat (ITT) models to analyze whether cash transfers alter daughters’ participation in household domestic labor and whether these changes are associated with mothers’ and sisters' labor supply in paid and unpaid activities, and pay types. I find that for treated schoolgirls, mothers shift labor toward domestic work while sisters reduce participation in paid work, suggesting that household labor demands are reallocated primarily toward women. In contrast, there is a modest shift in fathers' domestic labor and no comparable changes for brothers, highlighting a gendered reallocation of household responsibilities.

Therapeutic proteins are used to treat or prevent a wide variety of diseases, with shielding polymers often attached to help prolong circulation. In recent decades poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) has been used as the main shielding polymer, however, increasing amounts of anti-PEG antibodies have been observed. My research has focused on examining polysarcosine (PSar), a promising PEG alternative, in conjugation to asparaginase, a clinically used therapeutic enzyme, to determine how the catalytic activity and rate of proteolytic digestion compares to that of PEG conjugates. These data will help evaluate the viability of PSar as an alternative shielding polymer to PEG.

Bone cancer pain is extremely intense– sometimes unbearable. 58% of cancer patients report intolerable pain. The combination of inflammatory pain, neuropathy, and nociception-enabling tumorigenic factors causes severe bone cancer pain. The complexity of the tumor microenvironment leaves many questions about the nociceptive mechanism, one of which is the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in cancer-induced pain, as cancer-derived EVs cause pain in animal models, and are secreted in greater abundance by cancer cells than their parent cells. The present study established that fibrosarcoma-derived EVs directly sensitize dorsal root ganglia neurons in vitro, by increasing membrane excitability.

Access to environmental amenities is distributed unevenly across urban areas, often due to discriminatory institutional practices such as redlining and racial covenants. Urban blue spaces (lakes, streams, rivers) can serve as either an environmental amenity or dis-amenity, depending on development and investment strategies. This paper explores how institutional racism, measured by variables such as historic redlining and racial covenant practices, shapes access to blue space as an amenity in the Twin Cities. Our results show that access to large, well-maintained, and well-invested blue space is distributed unevenly. Studying this relationship shows how cities continue to promote environmental injustice in interstitial spaces.

While gender has been largely debunked as a form of performance, biological sex remains an irreducible point of departure. This essay challenges biological sex as a category through the Foucauldian lens of bio-power and technologies of the self. It merges findings from interviews surrounding intersectionally marginalized experiences with menstruation with trans and disability studies. Utilizing Mel Chen’s theory of animacies, and Margrit Shildrick’s human-technology amalgamation theory, this essay blurs the biological-artificial binary. While there are obstacles, limiting what is biologically possible for humans, the body can be significantly augmented through imagination, body modification, and the invention of newly gendered practices.

This thesis examines the changes and adaptations Antoine Galland made to the original manuscripts for his French translation of the series of Arabic folktales known as A Thousand and One Nights (Mille et Une Nuits). These include the addition of original stories, censuring of illicit subject matter, and omission of song and poetry. They helped the collection achieve widespread success in France, greatly informing western imaginings of the locations depicted in the tales. In addition to identifying his adaptations, this project analyzes the influence of Galland's portrayal of "the East" on Orientalist art and literature in subsequent centuries.

This study analyzed the physical and microtextural characteristics of tephra from episodes 19–23 of the Kīlauea eruption that began in December 2024. Measured densities were used to calculate the vesicularity and gas-to-melt ratio (VG/VL) of individual clasts. There is a positive correlation between fountain height and clast density, in agreement with past studies. However, the VG/VL values for these samples are higher than those of previous Kīlauea eruption tephras. A vesicle microtextural study of one clast each from episodes 20 and 23 revealed bubble number densities (BND) lower than those of tephras from previous Kīlauea eruptions, implying that the specific clasts studied here experienced lower explosivity processes. Nevertheless, both bubble size distributions (BSD) show evidence of growth-dominated environments with low rates of bubble coalescence, suggesting rapid magma ascent.

Over the years, states have implemented Science of Reading (SoR) frameworks to address low literacy levels. The Early Literacy Grant (ELG) in Arizona funds and supports such frameworks for schools serving low-income students. This paper is the first to explore the grant through interrupted time series modeling to evaluate effectiveness and text analysis to understand its implementation. We do not find clear evidence of positive effects caused by the grant, other than some cases, such as Yuma County. Schools typically allocate funds toward salaries and hiring instructors. These findings raise questions about whether its allocations should be closely monitored.

This thesis explores stories about how people farmed and learned about farming on the Great Plains from 1880-1920 through three inter-connected narratives: the Allotment system, agricultural education programs at federal Indian Boarding Schools, and the rapid rise and fall of the Dry Farming movement. These systems were built on stories about how people should live with and on the land that promoted unsustainable, destructive ways of farming and knowledge production. This scholarship places Assimilation Era agricultural education for Native and non-Native farmers within the context of the increasing reliance on systems and science and the institutionalization of agricultural knowledge.

We study the poset structures for two families of pattern avoiding permutations. An n-permutation is a list of the numbers [n]={1,2,...,n}. A permutation is 321-avoiding when it does not contain a decreasing subsequence of length 3. A poset (partially ordered set) is a set such that some elements can be compared with one another. Using Lehmer codes, we define a poset for 321-avoiding permutations. We then fully describe the six lowest levels of this poset. We then consider the analogous poset for 123-avoiding permutations (which don't contain an increasing subsequence of length 3) and fully describe the three lowest levels.

Research in role theory has generated insufficient knowledge about how role conflict and role strain intersect, leaving questions of how actors navigate and manage these phenomena in real time. Drawing inspiration from cultural sociology and contentious politics, I theorize that individuals use repertoires of action to mitigate role challenges. Empirically, I investigate how undergraduate teaching assistants manage conflicting and contradictory social roles at a small liberal arts college, given their extensive contact with students outside of the classroom. Analysis of over 15 interviews and ethnographic shadowing of key participants of this population demonstrates the multifaceted, yet recurring, ways that teaching assistants navigate role conflict and strain within student relationships. These repertoires include positioning, role re-establishing, and boundary making, while some combine or leverage these techniques. Leveraging brings forth an expanded understanding of Shamus Khan’s concept of ease, as seamlessness within these social interactions comes from one’s ability to leverage the repertoires.

The Franciscan Complex of California is a Jurassic–Cenozoic accretionary assemblage formed during Farallon Plate subduction beneath North America. The Pacific Ridge Complex at Goat Mountain is a relatively high-grade outlier of uncertain age and origin. U-Pb detrital zircon analyses constrained depositional ages of associated clastic rocks. Two samples were deposited after ca. 97 Ma, with a third after ca. 144 Ma. This significantly older age suggests that local accretion began ~20 Ma earlier than previously thought. These results indicate multiple unrecognized Franciscan subunits at Goat Mountain.

Renaissance art historical scholarship has largely ignored the political and cultural significance woven into the representation of textiles, as well as their communicative potential in paintings. In this study, I examine how textiles in their various forms carry the potential to go beyond their normative categorization as decoration. Through a comparative analysis of the paintings produced in two politically distinct polities—Florence and Venice—during the sixteenth century, I integrate Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology and Michael Baxandall’s period eye to elucidate how painted fabric was not the representation of a passive decorative ornament. Rather, it was an active and legible proxy for State power and influence, mediating subliminal ideological messages and materially evoking the interpellation of individual as subject.

Within Midwest floodplain forests, there is a lack of long-term studies focusing on native tree recruitment post removal. With interacting threats such as emerald ash borer, invasive earthworms, and white-tailed deer, land managers need particular information about these ecosystems in order to better understand how to protect them. This study aims to explore the efficacy of the removal of Rhamnus cathartica and Lonicera spp. in promoting native tree recruitment within a Minnesota floodplain forest along the Mississippi River. Results revealed that post removal ash seedling abundance increased, enhancing recruitment. Additionally, evidence showed moderate deer impacts on overall vegetation community structure.

From 1919 until 1962, the American Sugar Refining Company (ASRC), oversaw an empire, stretching from two Cuban sugar estates (centrales) to its Brooklyn refinery. The relationship between workers at both poles of the ASRC’s empire constituted a transnational labor hierarchy. Divergent management programs at the Brooklyn refinery and the centrales Jaronú and Cunagua confined the workers to distinct social positions. Brooklyn workers pursued labor-management collaboration in support of the sugar industry’s exploitative system, while workers in Cuba reimagined the sugar empire's power structure. The transnational workforce of the ASRC maintained a disunified relationship, which fractured the possibilities of working-class solidarity.

Blind box consumption is a format for purchasing packaged toys without knowing the specific item in advance. It has become a global trend and is often viewed as irrational or gambling-like behavior in past literature. Drawing on ethnographic observations and interviews conducted in retail settings, this study examines how consumers make sense of uncertainty through social interaction. This study proposes a two-layer model of consumption. In the first layer, social interaction during the consumption process helps consumers negotiate risk, generate meaning, and become more skilled buyers. In the second layer, consumers engage in moral and value judgments that involve distancing themselves from imagined others, allowing them to frame their participation as reasonable and socially acceptable. Together, these findings show that blind box consumption is sustained through both relational closeness and relational distancing, challenging rational-choice models and highlighting the moral and relational work underlying contemporary consumption.