Junior Fellows Projects
Gilbert Bernstein
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Don Fussell, Department of Computer Sciences
Major: Computer Science
Project Title: Fast, Robust Booleans for 3D Sculpting
Description: Can we make 3D modeling on a computer easier by analogy to sculpting? What does it take to create virtual clay or a virtual chisel? I'm looking at how to make the geometric computations underlying 3d sculpting faster and more reliable.
Allison Bullock
Faculty Adviser: Brian King, Department of Nursing
Major: Geography
Project Title: Evaluating the Economic and Environmental Effects of the Slope Land Conversion Program in Tianquan and Wuqi County, China
Description: In response to massive flooding along the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in 1997 and 1998, the Chinese government created the Slope Land Conversion Program (SLCP), which aims to reduce soil erosion and resultant flooding by requiring farmers to convert sloped farmland to forest in exchange for a subsidy. I am studying the implementation of the SLCP in Tianquan and Wuqi County to determine how economic and environmental motivations complement and contradict one another in environmental policy programs.
Dylan Bumford
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Lauretta Reeves, Department of Psychology
Major: Plan II
Project Title: The Texture of Text: Synaesthesia and Metaphor in Vladimir Nabokov
Description: Independently motivated revolutions in our understanding of synaesthesia (a rare perceptual experience) and metaphor (a universal linguistic construct) have revealed fascinating parallels between the two seemingly unrelated psychological phenomena. The novels and stories of well-known synaesthete Vladimir Nabokov provide a unique medium for the application, exploration, and comparison of these recent theoretical advances.
Blaine Caughron
Faculty Adviser: Debbie White, Department of Linguistics
Major: Chemistry
Project Title: The genetics behind deafness with emphasized analysis on the lineage of families with deaf members.
Description: I'm going to be taking a look at the genetic workings and trends behind deafness, both congenital and acquired. I would also like to look at some family trees of some of the families attending Texas School for the Deaf and of the families of the ASL teachers here at the university. Then I would like to see if they generally follow what I learned through my research of deaf genetics.
Min-Jeong Cho
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Andrew Ellington, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Major: Biology and Economics
Project Title: In vitro selection of aptamer for AKT1
Description: In vitro selection of synthetic nucleotides that bind to AKT1, an important regulatory protein of cell growth and death, and testing therapeutic potential of selected nucleotides.
Ashley Crooks
Faculty Adviser: Dr. George Christian, Department of English
Major: Government
Project Title: Making Sanity Female
Description: Postcolonial theorists posit that the category of "women" is determined not only by gender but also by class and race. This rejects the notion of a shared women's experience as conceived by Western feminists. In an attempt to reconsider a collective experience shared by women, I will analyze perspectives on sanity in South African, Indian and Pakistani women's narratives.
Daniel Dawer
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Alan Friedman, Department of English
Major: Plan II
Project Title: James Joyce's Urban Nomadism and the Rhizomatic Metropolis
Description: Using postmodern urban theory (Deleuze and Guattari and the Situationist International), I plan to reinterpret the Dublin of James Joyce's Ulysses as a smooth space in which urban features and individual identities become mutable. In addition, I will create a new map of Joyce's Dublin that illustrates the text's transformations of city and identity.
Lizzie Dupont
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Ronald J. Angel, Department of Sociology
Major: Humanities
Project Title: Meningitis Response, International Interventions, and Social Justice: Investigating the Needs of Meningitis Survivors Who are Deaf in Mali, West Africa
Description: Mali, a country in the African Meningitis Belt, is home to over 200,000 deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, most of whom lost their hearing as a result of childhood struggles with bacterial meningitis. Through a case study in Mali, this thesis explores whose responsibility is it to ensure that people are able to access their human rights to health via prevention, treatment, and disability support for survivors. It will also consider to what extent international organizations carry the responsibility for cultural competency and collaboration when implementing such necessary programs abroad.
Grace Eckhoff
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Andrew Ellington, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Major: Plan II and Biology
Project Title: A Retrospective Analysis of Rifampin-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Afghanistan
Description: Using molecular techniques to determine the level of resistance in the tuberculosis of Afghanistan. The DNA is obtain from archived Ziehl Neelsen slides.
Mazen Elfakhani
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Christopher Ellison, Department of Sociology
Major: Sociology
Project Title: Explaining the Rise of Religious Nonaffiliation in American Society, GSS 1972-2006
Description: This paper aims to explain why an increasing proportion of Americans are reporting no religious preference. From 1972 to 1991, roughly 7 percent of Americans claimed no religion, and by 2006, 16.5 percent claimed no religion. Using pooled data from the General Social Survey, this study attempts to provide an explanation of this recent trend, considering factors such as cohort replacement, denominational variables, familial factors, education, declining social capital, declining religious authority, and increased disaffiliation among political liberals.<
Bibiana Gattozzi
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Kathleen Higgins, Department of Philosophy
Major: Plan II and Music Performance
Project Title: The Philosophical Antecedents to Modernism in Music
Description: Changes in Western classical music are preceded by philosophical changes. In particular, the revolutionary musical changes that took place in the early twentieth century with musical modernism were presaged by philosophical changes introduced by Kant and Hegel. Both the musical features and the philosophical foundations of modernism can be observed in the music of Arnold Schoenberg. Modernism in classical Western music prescribes an entirely different aesthetic and cognitive assessment of music by its listeners. I wish to explore the nature of this new aesthetic and how it allowed music to take on unconventional roles in the twentieth century, for example, as a vehicle for political messages and social movements.
Deniz Gerecci
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Wendy Domjan, Department of Psychology
Major: Plan II and Biology
Project Title: Treating Schizophrenia
Description: An evaluation and comparison of the medical treatment for schizophrenia, the social treatment of schizophrenics, and the relationship between the two as they have evolved over time.
Tim Grayson
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Thomas Palaima, Department of Classics
Major: Classics
Project Title: Songs of War: Homer, Dylan and Beyond
Description: Though written over 2500 years ago, The Iliad of Homer still has much influence and relevance in today’s world. My paper will compare and contrast the writings of The Iliad with the war-songs of Vietnam and post-Vietnam musicians, and use these comparisons as a basis for the discussion of the cultural evolution of war and violence.
Ashley Hecht
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Stephen Phillips, Department of Philosophy
Major: Humanities
Project Title: Yoga: A Recipe for Stress Reduction
Description: Exploring the thesis that the practice of yoga can make the mind, as well as the body, healthy and free of toxins such as stress. By calming the nervous system and releasing tension through focused breathing and mind/body awareness, the practice of yoga takes a holistic approach to treating stress and stress-related illnesses. I will research whether yoga may be beneficial in transforming stress and anxiety into energy that supports mental health and clarity.
Stephanie Hsu
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Scott Stevens, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
Major: Biology and History
Project Title: Protein interactome mapping of GTPBP9 to determine role in gene expression.
Description: Traditionally, protein function is determined through analysis of its folding pattern, primary amino acid sequence, and other characteristics unique to the protein. We will instead employ a novel technique of in vivo epitope tag expression of our protein of interest, GTPBP9. This will allow us to map its interactions with known proteins and infer its function based on commonalities of the associated proteins.
Cassandra Jacobs
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Harvey Sussman, Department of Linguistics
Major: Linguistics
Project Title: "Learning" Errors and Event Related Potentials
Description: Recent analyses of the characteristics of event-related potentials (ERPs, or electrical responses to unexpected stimuli) with regard to linguistic issues consistently ignore the syntactic response. I will attempt to clarify a couple functions of one specific event-related potential, the P600, especially as it relates to words with compact and functional meaning as well as with highly restricted syntactic distribution (words like anymore, someone, behind, above, etc.). I also plan to examine the P600's relationship to adult grammar learning and maintenance.
Dhananjay Jagannathan
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Paul Woodruff, Dean of Undergraduate Studies
Major: Plan II
Project Title: Plato's Protagoras: A Philosophical Interpretation
Description: My work explores a single dialogue of Plato, the Protagoras, and centers on providing a compelling interpretation for the author's use of disparate philosophical subjects and styles. In other words, I am searching for an organic unity that arises from the philosophical content of the text. I then take up the views Plato raises on the questions of the best way of conducting deliberation, the proper education for citizenship, and the nature of virtue and the good life. I am also interested in Plato's engagement with the sophists and what the dialogue can tell us about Plato's own philosophical development. Finally, to support and enrich my research, I am writing a translation of the dialogue into a comfortable register of American English, which respects both the philosophical and the dramatic genius of Plato.
Zane Martindale
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Bill Winsdale, Department of Philosophy
Major: Plan IIProject Title: A Historical Analysis of Indigent Health Care Services in McLennan County
Description: I will begin by researching general indigent health care principles, focusing on historical trends in several locales throughout the United States. Then I will collect demographic data from Waco records, discuss the issues with a variety of public health officials in throughout the state, and finally analyze the efficacy and reliability of the systems in McLennan County.
Nadia Mavrakis
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Michael Brandl, Department of Finance
Major: Finance/Business HonorsProject Title: The Moral and Capitalist Influences of Islamic Banking
Description: Islamic law prohibits collecting or paying interest fees. Interest is the foundation, however, of modern Western financial systems. This research project will critically examine how effective the current Islamic Banking industry is from both a religious/moral perspective and a capitalist perspective to determine if these two influences can successfully work together.
Tyler Merceron
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Andrea Gore, Department of Pharmacy
Major: Plan II and BiologyProject Title: Sex, Aging and the Brain
Description: I will be quantifying and comparing the expression of progesterone and estrogen receptors in aged versus young female monkeys to better elucidate their roles in menopause. Insight into the change in functionality and/or profundity of these two receptors in the aging female brain may provide a better understanding of how to minimize the symptoms of many women experience as they undergo this cessation of fertility.
Janice Pai
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Sonia Seeman, Department of Music
Major: Plan II, Music, and RTFProject Title: Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan, 1947-88
Description: Following an outbreak of riots now known collectively as the "228 Incident" in 1947, Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek placed the island of Taiwan under martial law. Thus, the era "White Terror" began and did not end until until 50 years later after the death of Chiang's successor and son, Chiang Chingkuo. Cultural policy instated at this time sought to do two things: instill a sense of Chinese nationalism in the people of Taiwan and wipe out a budding "Taiwanese Consciousness" that had begun to form. I will be specifically looking at Peking opera--an art form not indigenous to the island yet heavily funded by the government--and its affect on the idea of Taiwanese identity during the martial law years.
Mark Reitblatt
Faculty Adviser: Dr. J. S. Moore, Department of Computer Science
Major: Computer ScienceProject Title: Oh Yeah? Then Prove It: Formal Verification in LabVIEW
Description: Formal Verification is the application of formal mathematics to prove the correctness of software and hardware. My project is centered around adding a framework to the LabVIEW/G Programming Language to allow formal verification using the ACL2 automated theorem prover.
Margaret Sanders
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Wendy Domjan, Department of Psychology
Major: Plan IIProject Title: Aphrodite’s Many Faces: Does Beauty Have a Single "Self"?
Description: Beauty is elusive and easy to identify but more difficult to define. Fields such as psychology, anthropology, philosophy, art history, and biology interpret it dramatically differently. In my research, I will learn how these disciplines define beauty and seek the underlying characteristics that unite these definitions. My goal is to develop a more unified, encompassing, and ultimately more true, understanding of beauty.
Xiaofan Shen
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Katherine Brown, Institute of Cellular and Molecular Biology
Major: Biochemistry and HistoryProject Title: Generation of RNA Aptamers for Improved Diagnosis of Melioidosis
Description: In vitro selection will be used to select for potential diagnostic and therapeutic RNA aptamers against putative virulence proteins identified in Burkholderia pseudomallei. The bacterium, a potential bioterror agent, is the causative agent of melioidosis, a tropical disease endemic to South Asia and northern Australia.
Sarah Stanford-McIntyre
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Janet Staiger, RTF Department
Major: Plan II, American StudiesProject Title: Movement into the Mainstream: The Changing Face of Media Culture and Derivative Works
Description: ŒFandom‚ is used to describe the community of fans that surround a particular movie, television show, book or graphic novel. Of particular interest are fan-created fiction, art and video that exist in a legal grey area, violating copyright laws, but ignored by media companies. I will look at the growing movement for mainstream recognition by some groups of fans. This invites both acceptance in mainstream culture and lawsuits from the media companies that had overlooked them. I will examine groups like the Organization for Transformative Works that seek legal protection for fan-created media as well as document many fans that are opposed to being Œouted.
Rachel Tepper
Faculty Advisor: Mr. David Shields, Department of Art and Art History
Major: DesignProject Title: Typecasting
Description: Why do people choose different typefaces to express different ideas? My design senior thesis will create an interactive art installation that allows people to explore their own subjective visual relationships with fonts and plays with the question of whether fonts live up to expectations of expressing emotions and ideas.
Shailie Thakkar
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Stephen Phillips and Dr. Adam Pautz, Department of Philosophy
Major: Plan II, Pre-MedProject Title: Attention and perception according to the Nyaya school of philosophy and its implications for modern perceptual science
Description: Classical Indian philosophy has a tradition of sophisticated discourse in the philosophy of perception. As we know from modern perceptual science, perceptual systems like audition and vision do not only receive raw sensory input; they make "decisions." In my research project, I will explore the nature and implications of these perceptual decisions from a philosophical standpoint, specifically the Nyaya school of classical Indian philosophy. In a crowded room, there may be dozens of voices engaged in conversation at the same time, but you can attend to one of the voices at a particular moment. This example of attention in auditory perception is significant in the classical Nyaya work, the Epistemology of Perception by Gangesa, a primary source for my research project. Key questions in my research project are: How is attention understood in connection with perception according to classical Indian philosophy and in particular the Nyaya school? And, how can that shape modern ideas about the philosophy and psychology of perception?
Krutie Thakkar
Faculty Advisor: Mr. Dan Sutherland, Department of Art
Major: ArtProject Title: Discovering Style and Substance through Figure Painting
Description: Using figure painting as the immediate thread of my project, I plan to create several large paintings that together portray a unique perspective both in subject matter and use of materials.
Yuxuan Wang
Faculty Advisor: Andrew Ellington, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Major: Plan II, Biochemistry Project Title: Overcoming Glial Inhibition of Axon Regeneration
Description: Engineering therapeutics to promote nerve growth after injury.
Bryan Wilson
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Andrew Dunn, Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Major: Electrical Engineering, Math Project Title: LSCI Calibration via Microfluidic Flow Phantoms
Description: Laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) is an optical method for measuring flow rates, such as blood flow in the the body's microvessels, with applications ranging from neurological research to the treatment of burn victims. This imaging technique is limited to comparative flow rates and currently incapable of providing discrete values of flow. My research project aims to design and construct microfluidic flow phantoms (microscopic flow channels embedded into a polymer substrate) to calibrate the LSCI technique and allow it to provide quantitative flow values. By providing discrete values for flow, LSCI's value as a clinical and scientific tool will be greatly enhanced.
Krista Young
Faculty Advisor: Dr. John McDevitt, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Major: Biochemistry Project Title: Development of a Lab-on-a-Chip System for Measurement of Liver Function for HIV Patients in Resource Scarce Settings/ Ethics of Introducing Biotechnology into Resource Scarce Settings
Description: As HIV antiretroviral drugs become more available in resource scarce settings including Africa, a missing link remains relative to the determination of which patients need these life saving drugs. Deciding the right combination of drugs for each patient and monitoring their treatment is currently costly. Further, delays in obtaining testing results complicate the treatment of these patients. By using a point of care CD4 test developed by the McDevitt laboratories combined with newly evolving companion tests, a patient in the not too distant future may be able to obtain such results in minutes. My research activities will strive to utilize a lab-on-a-chip bead assay system to develop a novel liver function test that is transportable, easy to use, cost effective, and time efficient. I will also investigate the ethical issues to consider during implementation of such new products in resource constrained settings.
