This dissertation models and simulates optimization problems to find the optimal set of strategies to allocate network space (lanes or zones) to autonomous vehicles (AVs) in partially automated dynamic networks. This dissertation aims to develop a set of methods to determine the appropriate AV managed space strategies. Managed space strategies...
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heritable, neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social impairments and restricted and repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Tick, Bolton, Happe, Rutter, & Rijsdijk, 2016), with a subset of first-degree relatives demonstrating a constellation of subclinical traits that are qualitatively similar to the defining features of...
The advent of metamaterials—hierarchical structures that manifest properties beyond those found in nature through geometry rather than material composition—inspired new possibilities and research in many fields. In mechanics, periodic metamaterials exhibit behaviors ranging from unprecedented compressibility to extreme stiffness. Numerous geometric classes of metamaterials with these properties have been discovered,...
In reinforcement learning (RL), an agent aims to learn the optimal policy by interacting with the environment and collecting the reward for each action taken. With the aid of strong function approximators such as the neural networks, RL achieves tremendous empirical successes in various scenarios, including game playing \citep{silver2016mastering, silver2017mastering},...
A central theme in biological anthropology is investigating how the human body responds to interactions with the surrounding environment. The microbiome—the collection of microorganisms (and their genes) that live in and on the human body— represents one such pathway that mediates the environment’s influence on human biology, physiology, and health....
This dissertation explores the mathematics identities of early elementary school students. Throughout school, many students come to believe that mathematics is not for them or is not a part of who they are or want to be. Previous research has revealed mechanisms that lead to negative relationships with mathematics for...
The overall goal of this dissertation, comprised of three empirical studies, was to examine the role of social support as a source of resilience in the face of two chronic stressors: low socioeconomic status and first-generation college student status. Study 1 of this dissertation sought to examine neighborhood support from...
This dissertation considers how 21 trans and queer teenagers learned to create livable lives in unlivable worlds through routine participation on social media. Through a multi-year partnership with an interdisciplinary gender program in Chicago, I employed a humanizing qualitative design anchored by interview and participatory visual methods over three nested...
Nuclear receptors (NRs) are an important family of transcription factors that often regulate genes in response to ligands and by way of direct interactions with coactivator proteins. Many NR-coactivator pairs have been identified that cooperate to regulate transcription but fully understanding how NRs recruit specific coactivators involves learning which of...
Kidney transplantation remains the best and most cost-effective treatment for patients with end stage kidney disease, and the number of kidney transplants performed in the U.S. annually has increased steadily since 2015. To ensure transplant success, kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) are often prescribed lifelong, complex medication regimens that include immunosuppressants,...