This dissertation is about people living with the ruins of an old city. It demonstrates that ruined cities can provide sources of cultural identity and community life, conditions that contribute to social revitalization in times of crisis. The case study for this dissertation examines the ancient Maya city of Ake,...
Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles are a class of highly abundant atmospheric constituents that represent a substantial fraction of carbon within the climate system. A subset of naturally-occurring SOA particles are formed through atmospheric oxidation of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), forming oxygenated products of lower volatility that can partition...
This dissertation is about designing learning environments that foreground students’ epistemic agency as they do science in a science classroom. I build on the prior work that combines two important strands in learning sciences - agent-based modeling of complex systems and constructionism to design learning environments. I call such learning...
The microtubule (MT) network and associated regulatory proteins play a critical role during viral infection from facilitating viral particle transport towards the nucleus upon entry to later mediating virion assembly and egress. Many of the precise mechanisms by which viruses commandeer the host MT network to propagate infection remain poorly...
Biological therapeutics have revolutionized the way we treat cancer due to their ability to target tumors discriminately, leaving healthy cells unaffected. However, our inability to tailor the structure of biologics may hamper their optimization for efficacy. This lack of programmability contributes to factors such as immunogenic responses, inability to penetrate...
Proprioception, or the sense of one’s body in space, provides critical feedback that the brain usesto generate controlled movements. When proprioceptive feedback is lost, people find it difficult
to perform even basic motor tasks. Despite its importance, proprioceptive coding of single
neurons in the cuneate nucleus (CN), the most peripheral...
In memory overgeneralization, details from negatively-valenced episodic memories become excessively generalized to unrelated neutral situations. This is a key cognitive distortion associated with major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Stress promotes memory generalization, and this process likely relies on stress-induced changes in dorsal...
Anthropogenic consumption of fossil fuels releases carbon into the Earth-atmosphere-ocean system at rates unmatched by geologic processes. Yet, some geologic time periods also show evidence of climate forcing related to rapid natural greenhouse gas emissions and can serve as tools to help understand the future trajectory of climate. Geologic events...
This thesis focuses on identifying structure-property-performance relationships in supported nanoparticle catalysts, where an active catalyst material is supported on a high surface area substrate. Identifying these relationships in supported nanoparticle catalysts can be quite challenging, as the complex structure of these catalysts results in numerous potential sources for changes to...
In modern electronics, thermal management becomes one of the most crucial factors in the determination of the performance, quality and lifetime of devices. Especially with the development of internet of things and the digitization of worldwide information, the need for storage of giant amount of data and processing with fast...