2015-16 Funded SRG Abstracts

Christopher Vollmers
Assistant Professor
Engineering School
Biomolecular Engineering
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $8000

High Throughput Analysis of Paired Antibody Heavy and Light Chains

Antibodies are an essential part of the immune system. Because of their characteristics antibodies are used in the diagnosis and therapy of diseases as well as a tool for molecular biology. Each antibody is encoded by 2 uniquely rearranged genes – a heavy and a light chain. Both the exact sequence as well as the pairing of the unique heavy and light chains has to be known to properly characterize an antibody. This makes the high throughput characterization of antibodies very challenging. Current methods to analyze antibody rely on the sequencing of the heavy and light chain genes in single B cells. Here we propose the development of a novel method enabling us to analyze thousands of antibodies without sequencing single B cells. We will accomplish this by using a modified high-throughput sequencing protocol that relies on the clonal nature of the B cells expressing antibodies.


Elizabeth Stephens
Professor
Arts Division
Art
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $4210

Here Come the Ecosexuals (a new documentary film)

"Here Come the Ecosexuals!" is a multi-media film researching the pleasures, politics and perils of water in California. The narrative arc of this documentary is an exploratory expedition that includes a diverse cast of characters not usually depicted in environmental films. This is the first environmental film made from an ecosexual perspective, featuring queer aesthetics and performance art in conjunction with scientific research about the current state of water. This film will reach new audiences, energizing environmental art and inspiring service on behalf of the Earth. 
My team of artist-researchers and I will travel throughout the state to shoot film, record sound, and take still photographs. Water performances by my long-time collaborator Annie Sprinkle and me will be included in the film. Confirmed meetings to discuss water with UC researchers at the Landal-Hills/Big Creek Reserve, Sagehen, and Yosemite are booked. Along the way, we’ll explore who the ecosexuals are and what they do – their art, ideas, activism, and visions for the future as we focus on the current health of water in our home state. Upon returning to Santa Cruz I will edit the footage, sound and photographs together to create the film. The finished work will screen at the Santa Cruz Film Festival, the San Francisco Doc Fest, colleges and cultural centers, and be distributed to film festivals. Distributor Kino Lorber, who is distributing my last film, is interested in this film too. Any ephemera resulting from the trip will be exhibited in art installations in art museums and galleries. 


I request funding to hire a student photographer to document the overall project, create movie stills, press photos, and images to use in the film, for social networking and in art exhibitions. This student will organize and archive some photos and video footage while on the road. I also request assistance to finish archiving and organizing the collected materials upon return to UCSC. Timeline is 2-3 years.


Evgenij Raskatov
Assistant Professor
Physical & Biological Sciences Division
Chemistry and Biochemistry
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $8000

Influence of serine chirality within Alzheimer's Amyloid beta on aggregation and neurotoxicity: a combined in vivo / biophysical approach

Aggregation of Amyloid beta 1-42 (Ab-42) is a hallmark feature of Alzheimer’s Disease. The Ab-42 polypeptide can form a variety of supramolecular assemblies, differing in size and conformation. Importantly, the different states have been demonstrated to have distinct neurotoxic properties. Although mammalian proteins are typically composed of L-amino acids, exceptions have recently started to emerge, and a distinct class of enzymes that can racemize amino acids (i.e. racemases) has been uncovered in humans. Of these, the serine racemase and the aspartate racemase play particularly significant roles in the human central nervous system. As such, D-aspartate was found to act as a novel neurotransmitter, whereas the function of the serine racemase has been implicated in neurodegenerative pathologies, Alzheimer’s Disease in particular. 

The present project aims to investigate the influence of serine racemase activity upon Ab-42 aggregation propensity, as well as the resultant in vivo toxicity. Ab-42 possesses two serine residues (Ser8 and Ser26), at which racemization could potentially occur. The Raskatov lab will synthesize the chiral Ab-42 variants, whereas the Lee lab will create a novel transgenic fly that will express human serine racemase in addition to the Ab-42 relevant transgenes. The influence of serine chirality on Ab-42 aggregation in the biophysical setting will be compared with in vivo observations regarding amyloid plaque quantity and neurotoxicity. Isolated plaques will be analyzed for their Ab-42 content and chirality. Lipids are furthermore known to influence Ab-42 aggregation. The association between Ab-42 and different lipids is likely to differ for the chiral Ab-42 variants. Lipid composition of amyloid plaques will be investigated and corroborated by biophysical studies. 


Pradip Mascharak
Professor
Physical & Biological Sciences Division
Chemistry and Biochemistry
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $8000

Side effects of long-term use of NSAIDs in patients with chronic Inflammation

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) often induce hepatotoxicity and other high-risk pathological conditions in patients with chronic inflammation. Such toxicity arises partly from products generated in the reactions of NSAIDs with peroxynitrite (PN), a reactive nitrogen species derived from nitric oxide (NO) and superoxide (O2-) produced at the sites of inflammation. The macrophage-derived high levels of NO and superoxide raise the PN concentration at these sites and causes overwhelming oxidative damage and cell death. Because PN can also react with the NSAIDs and produce harmful nitrated products, we hypothesize that long-term use of NSAIDs could exasperate the outcome of the treatment. The transient nature of PN has so far eluded efforts to establish the nature of products formed in reactions of PN with NSAIDs at the sites of inflammation. We have recently designed a multi-well platform in which one can conveniently study the reactions of drugs with NO, superoxide and PN side by side under the total control of light. We plan to employ this platform to identify specific nitrated products of selected NSAIDs (aceclofenac, ketorolac, tolmetin, ibuprofen and naproxen) that are susceptible to nitration/hydroxylation by PN (and NO and superoxide). Following exposure to varying fluxes of PN, NO and superoxide at different pH and CO2 concentration in different wells of the platform, the well contents will be separated by HPLC and the nitrated/hydroxylated products will be identified by mass spectrometry, electron absorption spectroscopy and fluorometry. Finally, the products will be subjected to cellular toxicity studies with the use of liver cell line HepG2 to assess their harmful effects. The goal of this SEED project is to gather results to support the hypothesis that the elevated levels PN, NO and superoxide at the sites of inflammation promote generation of harmful side products that cause harm to patients under NSAID treatment. 


Kathleen Kay
Associate Professor
Physical & Biological Sciences Division
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $8000

Coastal prairie responses to climate change: Collaborative research into drought effects on biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and restoration success

Climate change is altering weather patterns globally, and threatens our ecological life support systems. The next generation of climate change studies will need to integrate results across sites, disciplines, and time. The funding requested here will support an experimental infrastructure at Younger Lagoon Reserve to evaluate the effects of altered rainfall on primary productivity, community composition, phylogenetic and functional trait diversity, soil nutrients, and decomposition rates. This infrastructure provides immense research and teaching potential. The design is based on an International Drought Experiment protocol being initiated in numerous countries during the coming year, enabling us to make global comparisons. Moreover, we are coordinating specifically with faculty at four other UC campuses who will set up similar experiments at other UC Reserves, thereby increasing our power to predict the effects of altered precipitation on different California vegetation types. Our experiment will be conducted adjacent to the UCSC Coastal Biology Campus, making it an ideal location for participation of a wide range of field ecology classes and independent research students who can bike to the site. Our proposal builds on many years of experience in coastal prairie and climate change ecology by Professor Holl and Assoc. Professor Loik, and will facilitate a novel line of inquiry into the utility of evolutionary history for predicting organismal climate change responses by Assistant Professor Kay. Funding from COR will provide a research and teaching platform that will seed multiple external funding requests.


Sharon Daniel
Professor
Arts Division
Film and Digital Media
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $6000

Coexistence Curve - an interactive documentary based on interviews conducted with former paramilitaries, prisoners, prison guards and restorative justice practitioners in Northern Ireland

A solo exhibition of my work in at the STUK Kunstencentrum in Belgium presented a body of new media documentary work, produced over the last 14 years, that addresses the troubled intersection of criminal and social justice. Each of the five works in this exhibition, titled CONVICTIONS, examined various aspects of the criminal justice system through first hand testimony and evidence given by impacted individuals. The most recent of the works in the exhibit was the result of a two-year research collaboration with professors at KULeuven’s Institute of Criminology, the Belgian national mediation service Suggonome, and STUK Kunstencentrum. This project, titled INSIDE THE DISTANCE, is an interactive installation and web documentary about victim/offender mediation in Belgium, where Restorative Justice is institutionalized within the criminal justice system. It includes interviews I conducted over the two-year period with Mediators, Criminologists, Victims and Offenders in Leuven and Brussels. Members of the European Forum for Restorative Justice attended the launch of the project and invited me to present and exhibit the work at their annual conference in Belfast in 2014. A cohort of Criminologists at Queens and Ulster University in Belfast who work with police, prison guards, community workers and former paramilitaries in the use of restorative justice practices subsequently invited me to develop a work documenting their attempt to address the social trauma in Belfast that has resulted from 30+ years of religious/nationalist sectarian violence and terror, colonization and economic inequality. I seek funding for travel to begin fieldwork for this project. Documenting alternatives to retributive justice systems in different contexts is a central focus of my current research. The history of sectarianism, the “reluctant peace” and the current state of separatism in Belfast today mirror forces that are at play globally. What can we learn from “the Troubles”?


Ju Hee Lee
Assistant Professor
Engineering School
Applied Mathematics and Statistics
2015-16 Special Research Grant 
Award: $8000

Novel Bayesian Inference for Bacterial Community Studies Using DNA-Sequencing Data

I propose to develop novel Bayesian models for statistical inference on the association between the marine diatom, Pseudo-nitzchia and bacterial communities. Pseudo-nitzschia blooms are known to produce the neurotoxin domoic acid (DA) whose compound may cause serious ocean and human health problems. Dr. Sison-Mangus in Ocean Sciences, UCSC has studied microbial assemblages for Pseudo-nitzschia bloom/non-bloom events. Her research group has collected phytoplankton samples at the Santa Cruz Wharf for the study with measurements of the DA production. 

Recent breakthroughs in biotechnology such as the availability of the DNA sequencing provide new tools to investigate bacterial communities at the species level. The key mathematical challenge lies in the incorporation of Pseudo-nitzschia abundance levels and DA production levels in estimating bacterial community structures in samples and clustering them. To meet the challenge, I propose research as follows: I will develop a Bayesian model based on OTU count data to simultaneously reconstruct the structure of bacterial communities in samples, and conduct clustering of samples based on the constructed bacterial communities. The proposed model will consider possible dependence of bacterial communities on covariates, the Pseudo-nitzschia abundance levels and the DA production levels. This allows us to directly answer the question of whether the covariates have a significant effect on changes in bacterial communities. Nonparametric Bayesian models are developed to implement flexible clustering of samples with the covariates using phylogenetic distances among taxa. 

This proposal integrates current research in statistics and ocean sciences at UCSC to generate scientific advancement that will broadly impact understanding of relationship of Pseudo-nitzschia with bacteria. The successful achievement of this proposal will also advance statistical inference for a 2-dimensional data matrix by introducing new concepts of clustering.


David Dunn
Assistant Professor
Arts Division
Music
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $2000

The Role of Sound in Integrating Art, Science, and the Environment

UCSC is well established as having one of the most outstandingly beautiful university campuses in the world. Besides its natural splendor, it is home to hundreds of diverse animal and plant species, including invertebrate species that occur nowhere else on earth. Furthermore its direct proximity to the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains and the spectacular marine ecology of the Monterrey Bay, make it one of the most unique and appropriate locales for researching the role that sound communication and phenomena have in integrating complex natural and human ecologies. It has a near infinite potential for both research opportunities and creative projects involving student participation in creating new approaches for environmental sound research, creative performances and art/science collaboration. 

This research agenda will focus upon creating diverse opportunities to investigate new methods for increasing the necessary monitoring of our environment through sound, facilitate an increase in our collective environmental sensitivity, discovery of unknown natural and human-made sound phenomena, facilitate the design and construction of novel inexpensive audio tools for both artists and scientists, and contribute towards practical environmental problem solving. The project has been chosen as the primary research project for the Mechatronics research group of DANM for 2015-2016. 


Flora Lu
Associate Professor
Social Sciences Division
Environmental Studies
2015-16 Special Research Grant 
Award: $4350

Contrasting Cases of Indigenous Resistance to Extractivism: The U'wa of Colombia and the Waorani of Ecuador

Throughout South America, rising levels of resource extraction are changing landscapes, placing local livelihoods and communities at risk, and catalyzing collective action and social mobilization in response. In this proposal, I seek to undertake preliminary research among the U'wa of the Colombia to enable me to compare and contrast their struggle for territorial rights and self-determination with the Waorani of Amazonian Ecuador, with whom I have conducted research since 1992. My proposed research explores a key difference between these two cultures: while both the Waorani and U'wa face cultural annihilation as a result of resource extractivism, they respond to the threats in disparate ways. The Waorani have a history of spear killing outsiders, and have in recent years attacked oil company and governmental representatives. In contrast, the U'wa have met oil development in their lands through peaceful resistance, using non-violent tactics such as roadblocks and sit-ins, even in the face of brutal treatment by the Colombian military and police. The U'wa have even threatened to commit collective suicide if their lands are desecrated. Through key informant interviews and library/archival research, I seek to begin situating the efficacy of these forms of indigenous resistance to extractivism in relation to the political climate of the national government, whether left leaning (Correa's Ecuador) or conservative (Santos' Colombia).


Bruno Sanso
Professor
Engineering School
Applied Mathematics and Statistics
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $7679

Scalable statistical emulators for complex simulators

We will develop statistical approaches to emulate the output from simulators of complex systems. Sophisticated computer programs that produce realistic simulations of, for example, physical or biological systems, often require large amounts of computer power and take long time to produce results. Such programs usually depend on inputs that are subject to uncertainty. Due to the computational burden of running the code for each set of inputs, a full exploration of the impact of input uncertainty on the model output may be unfeasible. A popular alternative is to develop a surrogate model, based on statistical methods, that provides a fast to compute approximation to the computer model output. This is referred to as a statistical emulator. The most popular emulators are based on Gaussian processes (GP). GPs are very flexible but become computationally unfeasible when the number of inputs is very large. In this project we plan to implement, as an alternative, a Bayesian version of a multivariate adaptive regression splines model (B-MARS). MARS models represent multivariate response functions using linear combinations of basis functions that are obtained from simple components. A recursive approach to the estimation of the components allows the emulator to adapt to local complexities in the surface. As a result, the estimation of the emulator has computational requirements and can be performed on high dimensional input spaces. The Bayesian version. B-MARS, incorporates all the estimation uncertainty and provides a probabilistic quantification of the variabiliy. We will develop a B-MARS for the emulation of computer code for the simulation of wind intensity in an open field. This application will be developed in collaboration with scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.


Kimberly Jannarone
Professor
Arts Division
Theater Arts
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $6500

Odyssey 2016

"Odyssey 2016" is a collaborative research project into the Western world's oldest extant epic. A team of investigators will research Homer's "The Odyssey" from multiple perspectives--historical, archival, archaeological, literary, and creative--over a year-long process. The group project will culminate in a multi-site production in Spring 2016 that will test our findings in the realm of live performance. Audiences will be invited to engage with the ancient text in new, embodied ways, through a combination of theatrical arts and new media technologies. 

We seek support from COR for the unique opportunity to collaborate in both the research and the creative processes. As our fields of research are performative as well as literary, "The Odyssey" provides an extraordinary entry point to embodied creative research. We will commission new music, create new staging, and discover contemporary analogues to the work which Homer sang to audiences over two and a half thousand years ago. 

The questions the epic raises resonate deeply with today's society: What does it mean to be a hero? What do we aspire to with our society, and how do we view those outside of our cultural norms? "The Odyssey" entwines in its storytelling its culture's history, nostalgia, fears, aspirations, violence, and moral values, and our project will wrestle with the ways that these issues still charge today's art and literature.


Giacomo Bernardi
Professor
Physical & Biological Sciences Division
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $7500

How will surfperch cope with climate change?

The goal of this proposal is to study the effects of global climate change on gene expression in black surfperch. 

There are two major forces that shape the genetics of an organism. Neutral forces, that are random, and adaptive forces that are the result of natural selection. For the latter, scientists have looked for a long time at the signature of selection in organisms live in particular environments, such as hot springs, the Antarctic and other unique places. For marine organisms, things are different than terrestrial organisms because they usually have larvae that travel long distances, thus preventing parents to predict the environment the babies will end up with. 

In California, a group of fishes, the surfperches, do not have larvae. Instead, they have internal fertilization, and the female keeps the babies in a uterus, and later gives birth to young fish that look and behave like adults. This gives an opportunity to these species to predict the environment the babies live in (the same as the adult) and a chance to locally adapt via natural selection. It is also a burden in what fish can't "escape" their environment. 

In addition to the specifics of an environment (e.g. water temperature in Monterey is different than in San Diego by an average of 7 degrees celsius), the recent increase in temperature and acidity due to global climate change is an additional challenge that species have to contend with. Until recently the genetics of organisms was very difficult to study when focusing on anything but model organisms such as Drosophila and yeast. Now, with the advent of the genomic era, it is possible to gather a very precise understanding of the genetics of any organism. For this proposal, we plan to challenge California black surfperch juveniles to high temperature and low pH to mimic various scenarios of future ocean conditions and asses the performance and genetic response of the fish in those conditions.


Rita Mehta
Assistant Professor
Physical & Biological Sciences Division
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $4990

The functional implications of “slicing, piercing, and crushing” prey

Teeth capture, retain and fragment food for ingestion. The shape of vertebrate teeth should be viewed in the context of the prey?s material properties. Animal muscle, skin, and armor are mechanically tough materials that resist fragmentation unless energy is continually supplied directly to the tip of the fracture by some device such as a blade edge or cutting surface. Despite the diversity of the vertebrate diet, specific tooth shapes have evolved repeatedly over the course of evolution. Two examples are a blade-like tooth and a somewhat flattened molar-like tooth. Despite the variety of tooth morphologies (shape) in vertebrates, few studies have experimentally examined the effects of tooth shape on cutting or crushing efficiency. We propose to test the effects of different blade and molar-like tooth shapes on the force and energy required to fracture raw, unprocessed biological tissues (fish, shrimp, and snail) using a double guillotine device. Tooth shapes from a variety of vertebrate species spread across the major vertebrate clades, will be manufactured in the lab using a 3D scanner and 3D printer. 


Janette Dinishak
Assistant Professor
Humanities Division
Philosophy
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $4840

Perceiving Competence in Nonverbal Autistic Children

Autism is a lifelong, neurodevelopmental condition thought to affect about 1 in 68 individuals. There is enormous variability in how autism manifests itself, but a difficulty relating to others in the typical way is one of its criterial features. The vast majority of research on autism (and especially on nonverbal autistics, who make up about 25% of autistics) is deficit-oriented: it describes things that autistics cannot do. In this interdisciplinary collaboration across the humanities (Philosophy) and social sciences (Psychology), we take a radically different approach. Some parents describe interactions with their nonverbal autistic children that lead them to experience a powerful sense of connection, a feeling one might not expect given the social and communicative difficulties their children are thought to have. To begin to understand this phenomenon, we propose to conduct a series of phenomenological interviews with 10-12 such parents of young nonverbal autistic children, identifying and characterizing what aspects of their child’s behavior they think contribute to these positive interactions. This research is important for at least two reasons: 1) Parents who believe that their children have the social and communicative competence to connect with them, albeit in unconventional ways, are likely to encourage their children to do so, which will have cascading positive effects on the relationship; and 2) Parents who perceive their relationship with their children in a positive light experience less parenting stress than those who do not. Understanding how some parents come to attribute social and communicative competence to their autistic children despite their children’s documented difficulties in these domains has the potential to help others see these competencies as well. Perceiving competence in an individual leads to patterns of interaction that generally foster development; failing to perceive competence may lead to patterns of interaction that do not.


Su-hua Wang
Associate Professor
Social Sciences Division
Psychology
2015-16 Special Research Grant 
Award: $7520

Children on the Move: The Effects of Physical and Media Play on Children’s Executive Function

Growing up in the digital world, children are provided with opportunities to play with devices at home or in school, which can be linked to decline in physical activity. Indeed, data from school districts suggest such a trend exists in many places in the U.S. However, to the best of my knowledge, there has not been any psychological research that compares the immediate effects of physical and media play on young children’s cognition. The proposed research seeks to fill this gap, by comparing young children's cognitive control after they had just participated in physical play, slow-paced media play, or fast-paced media play. Past research on TV-watching suggests detrimental effects of watching fast-paced (but not slow-paced) TV shows on children's cognitive control. Thus, contrasting slow- and fast-paced media play is crucial and will be a key contribution of the proposed research. I will test two hypotheses: (1) Children who engage in physical play will outperform those who engage in media play on cognitive control; (2) children who engage in slow-paced media play (allows active responding) will outperform those who engage in fast-paced media play (permits mostly passive responding). Children at 2 and 4 years of age will be tested. They will first engage in physical or media play for 9 minutes and then immediately received a series of executive function tasks designed to assess their cognitive control. Data will be analyzed to test the above hypotheses and examine developmental changes. The findings will bridge the research on TV-watching and playable media, and clarify the mechanisms underlying the potentially detrimental effects of fast-paced media. In addition, the proposed research will shed light on public health issues regarding the societal shift towards technology and the shift away from physical activity. Investigating the effects of these shifts will have strong implications for parents and educators in selecting activities that promote school readiness.


Megan Thomas
Associate Professor
Social Sciences Division
Politics
2015-16 Special Research Grant 
Award: $7880

Eighteenth-Century Sepoy Deserters and their Descendants: The Record in the Philippines

In the 1762, Indian soldiers (sepoys) were sent by the British overseas in a bid to expand British empire, the first instance of the British using this a strategy that would become a significant part of their nineteenth-century empire. In this first such use, the British sent sepoys as part of an operation to seize Manila from the Spaniards during the last years of the Seven Years War. Though the British occupation of Manila was nominally successful, the sepoys caused trouble for their commanders and defected in significant numbers. Many settled in a specific municipality which is now on the outskirts of Metro Manila, whose people are thought of to this day as having a unique origin and history. This project aims to trace who these sepoys were, where they were from, why they defected, and what kind of community they formed when they settled. With this data, I will evaluate how their presence changed local history in the Philippines, and more broadly what this episode illuminates about British empire. More specifically I seek funds to conduct a research trip to the Philippines that would allow me to use archival documents and oral history sources that are only available there. This specific project is part of a major research project about the 1762 occupation of Manila and what it illuminates about British empire, but it also will result in a stand-alone piece about the sepoys who defected from the British during the Manila occupation.


Kathy Foley
Professor
Arts Division
Theater Arts
2015-16 Special Research Grant 
Award: $3000

Intangible Cultural Heritage, Theatre, and Changing Islam in Southeast Asia: Exhibit of Wayang Kelantan and Wayang Golek Purwa

Support will result in a touring exhibit designed for the East-West Center Gallery in Hawaii that will highlight dichotomies in contemporary Southeast Asian Islam in relation to the intangible cultural heritage form of wayang (traditional theatre of puppet, mask, and dance drama) in Kelantan, Malaysia and West Java, Indonesia. While UNESCO and cultural departments in the national governments dub the wayang as a "Masterpiece of World Heritage," fundamentalist forces in state government (i.e. Kelantan), the department of religion (Indonesia), or through fatwas of local iman preachers have attack such performance practices that date to at least the 10th century in Indonesia and 17th century in Malaysia, both majority Islamic nations. Accusations of shirk (worshipping other gods than Allah) have been leveled at wayang kelantan since the 1990s due to use of Hindu-Buddhist iconography, impersonation practices, unveiled female bodies, and animist connections. While all these are part of indigenous Islamic practice, the Islamic Revival has bought new branding to religious practice that challenges this cultural heritage form. Yet Malaysia and Indonesia have responded differently. Research grows from my 2014 Fulbright Senior Scholar work in Malaysia and recent collaborative performance with artists from the School of the Arts in Bandung Indonesia at the Freer Gallery (Smithsonian Institution) in October 2014. I will visit Kelantan to finish interview with artists and cultural officials, get quality photo images, and additional artifacts for the exhibit.The exhibit will be first mounted at UCSC (Porter Faculty Gallery) in 2016 and then result in a touring exhibit (East-West Center Galley in Hawaii, Yale and UConn in Connecticut), a journal article, on-line publication for the Smithsonian Asian Art Museums, talks for international presentation, and be part of in progress book project on politics and performance in contemporary Southeast Asia.


Lewis Watts
Recall Teaching
Arts Division
Art
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $8000

Black Presence in France (Paris Noir)

I am researching the presence and impact of people of color in France. I have been photographing new emigrants and the large group of residents who have been in the country for multiple generations, who are products of the heritage of the French colonial period and new global economy. I am also interested in traces of the legacy of African American artists and other expatriates and in the fascination that the French have in aspects of contemporary African American culture. I am looking at parallels and differences between the place that people of African and Arabic descent have in French society as compared to the role of people of color in the US. This work is an expansion of my long-term investigation of the “cultural landscape” in African American communities that has traced visual history, contemporary experience and the evidence of migration. That research has taken place in West Oakland, Harlem, New Orleans as well as Jamaica and Cuba. 

I plan to continue traveling to France to expand on prior research. I have been building networks of artists, scholars and people from all segments of French society. They have been very helpful in directing me to sources for my research and they have been enthusiastic in response to the work I have done to date. Last year, I participated in an exhibit “Great Black Music” at the Citè de La Musique in Paris. I showed work from my book “New Orleans Suite” and the exhibit was seen by over 80,000 people. The grant wild allow me to spend extended periods of time in France and also help to support a possible artist’s residency that I have applied to from the Camargo Foundation. 


Jennifer Derr
Assistant Professor
Humanities Division
History
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $8000

The Making of an Epidemic: hepatitis C in Egypt

This project explores the history of hepatitis C in Egypt. With an infection rate of between 14 and 22% percent of the total population, Egypt’s incidence of the hepatitis C virus is the highest of any single country in the world. The Making of an Epidemic: hepatitis C in Egypt consists of four different sections: The first section of the book project explores the spread of hepatitis C through treatment campaigns targeting schistosomiasis infection in rural Egypt between 1960 and 1987. The second section of the project traces the understandings and experiences of hepatitis C among Egyptian patients and doctors in the period before the disease had been identified by the global scientific community. The third section of the project will chart contemporary experiences of hepatitis C in light of the recent development of a highly effective treatment by Gilead Sciences and the Egyptian state's negotiations with Gilead. The fourth and final piece of the project will explore the history of the Egyptian state's entanglements with hepatitis C, beginning with the treatment campaigns that resulted in its spread and ending with the state's recent and widely criticized claim to have developed a device to cure for both hepatitis C and HIV infection. I am requesting funds from a Special Research Grant to cover five months of fieldwork in Egypt and two weeks of archival research at the archives of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. 


Shaowei Chen
Professor
Physical & Biological Sciences Division
Chemistry and Biochemistry
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $7852

Enhanced Antimicrobial Activity by Structural Engineering of Silver/Copper Alloy Nanostructures

This study aims to elucidate the structural basis for the antimicrobial activity of silver/copper alloy nanostructures as well as their mechanisms of action. These nanostructures will be synthesized through facile wet-chemical methods, and evaluated on the basis of their ability to inhibit bacterial growth in solution and on solid surfaces. By analyzing the response of bacterial colonies to silver, copper, and silver/copper nanostructures with varying metallic composition, shape, and surface functionalization, the optimal silver/copper alloy nanostructure will be identified. The unique optical properties of these nanomaterials will allow for the utilization of the surface-enhanced Raman effect, which will provide evidence for the biochemical targets of each nanostructure. This evidence can then be used to differentiate between the mechanisms of silver and copper ions/nanostructures, establishing a foundation for more in-depth biochemical analysis.


Grace Delgado
Associate Professor
Humanities Division
History
2015-16 Special Research Grant 
Award: $6273

Sex and State: Morals Policing and Immigration Control in Early Anglo North America

Women have been the victims of sex trafficking for decades but it has only been in the last few years of the twentieth century that this topic has gained scholarly attention. Since then researchers, in particular those concerned with present-day human rights abuses among women and children, have made us far more aware of the intricacies of sex trafficking rings, the coercive practices of smugglers, and reform projects of the international community. Yet, the history of sex trafficking in Anglo North America remains vastly understudied by scholars. We therefore do not fully understand that policing against modern-day sex trafficking has its origins in the early-twentieth-century history of white slavery and immigration exclusion, specifically in the experiences of prostitutes—and those presumed to be such—who attempted to enter Canada and the United States. Furthermore, historians have yet to account for the manner in which early border control structured immigration bureaucracies and constructed racial, gender, and sexual identities throughout North America, including Mexico (however, this grant proposal does not include research or content that addresses Mexico). Reading bodies in Anglo North America for sexual non-conformity is central to our understanding of race making, nation building, and the construction of gendered identities. The Anglo North American context is important because it allows us to see that the project of guarding against the entry of sexual contaminators was an Anglo imperial endeavor comprised of U.S., Canadian, and British immigration-control projects to build national and colonial borders against the entry of sexual contaminators. My proposed research may begin to offer significant insights into the history of white slavery, prostitution, sexuality, and immigration control in that may link the past to the present.


Deborah Letourneau
Professor
Social Sciences Division
Environmental Studies
2015-16 Special Research Grant
Award: $5525

New perspectives from the underground: Growing pesticide alternatives

Alternatives to insecticides are being investigated for root-boring cabbage fly pests in Scandinavia, Canada, and Oregon while California growers rely on drenching young transplants of broccoli, cauliflower, and other cole crops with dangerous organophosphate insecticides. A team of researchers in Environmental Studies is tackling this problem with teams of motivated students to test the effectiveness of non-pesticide pest control alternatives. With COR support, Letourneau has identified a diverse array of natural enemies for biological control of cabbage maggots in CA, but field predation levels on farms varies from almost none to 100%. Letourneau and Shennan are requesting funds to compare natural enemy abundance in relevant cropping practices and levels of early colonization of naturally occurring ground-dwelling predators and parasitic wasps. We propose field experiments on local farms with farmer-collaborators and at our own Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) to provide critical data on enhancing biological controls of cabbage maggots in key coastal agricultural production systems.