Paralysis resulting from spinal cord injury (SCI) is devastating, dramatically reducing the independence of affected individuals. Currently, functional electrical stimulation (FES), controlled by a patient’s residual movements, is used clinically to restore a limited range of voluntary movement. However, if FES could be controlled using signals recorded from the brain,...
Mounting public concern about a school-to-prison pipeline has put schools and districts under increasing pressure to reduce their use of suspensions, expulsions and arrests. Many are turning to restorative justice practices (RJP) as a promising alternative for addressing school discipline and improving school climate. However, implementing RJP in a high-quality,...
The electronic materials research driving Moore’s law has provided several decades of increasingly powerful yet simultaneously miniaturized computer technologies. As we approach the physical and practical limits of what can be accomplished with silicon electronics, we look to new materials to drive innovation in future electronic applications. New materials paradigms...
Supported metal catalysts find many important uses in areas including chemical production, petroleum refining and emission control. The catalytic behavior of a supported metal catalyst is influenced by size and type of reaction sites on metal nanoparticles. For many structure insensitive reactions catalyzed by the supported metal catalysts, smaller metal...
There is a need for alternative biomanufacturing solutions to produce novel medicines and help solve long-standing issues regarding difficult-to-treat diseases. Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) provides scientists with a new paradigm for producing proteins with an unprecedented freedom and control over the biomolecular machinery involved. In this document, I describe my...
This dissertation uses the case of Putin’s Russia to examine how authoritarian regimes build relationships with their societies in a way that strengthens authoritarian rule. In contrast to the existing scholarship, which concentrates on redistributive politics, that is, on the autocrat’s capacities to buy the loyalty of the masses, I...
How do creative producers make their works, and how do their social interactions within creative industries shape the creative process? This study addresses these questions by drawing upon two years of ethnographic fieldwork and over 100 interviews with artists, dealers, curators, collectors, and art advisers in the New York City...
Education policy and funding increasingly foster the creation of school partnerships with external stakeholders, such as parents, neighborhood organizations, school district offices, and universities, as a strategy in improving student outcomes. In three independent but related studies, this dissertation sheds light on the specificities rarely addressed by the rhetoric championing...
The brain has a remarkable ability to rapidly adapt behavior. On the scale of development, the brain learns to control the complex dynamics of our limbs by forming and pruning synaptic connections. However, the motor system also learns on much shorter timescales, such as when learning to hit the bullseye...
Plasmonic chemistry is an emerging field of research that contains great promise for new chemical reactivity, but thus far has been improperly observed. The goals of using plasmonic chemistry typically revolve around the use of nonequilibrium charge carriers that migrate to the surface of a plasmonic substrate to perform redox...