Prejudice based on a person’s low socioeconomic status (SES) has been largely understudied in social psychology. In my dissertation research, I argue that understanding a perceiver’s mental model of SES is crucial to explaining anti-poor prejudice. I borrow from work in anthropology to characterize two main mental models of SES—ascribed...
Makerspaces have become explosively popular in recent years. Many believe they hold promise as contexts for integrated STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) learning, meta-disciplinary skill learning, and promoting interest and equity in STEAM. However, we still know relatively about what is actually learned in these spaces, how interest...
The development of targeted therapies has revolutionized cancer treatment and markedly increased patient survival time and reduced mortality rates. Yet, some cancers still have few treatment options and remain deadly. In these cases, the development of targeted therapy is critical. Here, we investigated two cancers that lack effective targeted therapies...
Worldwide, youth living with perinatally-acquired human immunodeficiency virus (PHIV) are at increased risk for cognitive dysfunction and developmental delay. Effects of the virus, chronic inflammation, and combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) during critical periods of brain development may disrupt normal cognitive development. Neuroimaging studies using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) allow...
Using interviews and friendship mapping with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and ally (LGBTQ+) community members as well as ethnographic observations, this dissertation analyzes post-gay LGBTQ community in River City, a small, Midwestern city. My findings reveal a formation I call ambivalent community: even as participants express a desire for...
Responsibility is a central political concept, yet the dynamics of contemporary political life call into question commonsense accounts of individual moral responsibility; it is difficult to ascribe responsibility to individual agents when faced with political dilemmas like global climate change. In response to this dilemma, this project engages two questions....
Online platforms for learning to code such as Coursera, CodeCademy, and CodeSchool attract millions of learners and significantly expand the pool of self-starting developers, yet critical gaps in knowledge and experience remain between inexperienced learners and professionals. With vast amounts of professionally-authored source code made readily available by the client-server...
Spindle formation in mammalian cells requires precise spatial and temporal regulation of the kinesin-5 motor proteins which generate outward force to establish spindle bipolarity. A growing body of work suggests that phosphorylation of kinesin-5 motor domains is an important regulator of their motor characteristics and function in cells. My thesis...