This dissertation consists of three studies related to parental employment, maternity leave policy, and early care and education. In study 1, my coauthor and I evaluate the impact of parenthood on men and women’s job performance and career advancement using detailed data from the U.S. Marines. For parents who remain...
This dissertation explores the poetry and culture of the late-Soviet era of Stagnation (1964-1985) through a broadly conceived cultural metaphor of stagnation. The five Russian poets and one American poet in this study- Viktor Krivulin, Alexei Parshchikov, Aleksandr Eremenko, Ivan Zhdanov, Elena Shvarts, and Lyn Hejinian- each engage with a...
This dissertation argues that silence played a fundamental role in the Victorian novel and in Victorian novel writing, operating as a productive force in service of sympathetic exchange and creative labor. It examines Charles Lamb's and Thomas Carlyle’s foundational roles in detaching silence from its traditional Romantic associations with solitude,...
This thesis proposes a robust multi-pronged approach to study the effect of nanoparticles on cells. In the first place, this work is focused on investigation of the protein corona that accumulates on the surface of nanoparticles internalized by the cells and their poly-pathway effects on protein availability and messenger RNA...
Mitochondria-lysosome contacts are recently identified sites for mediating crosstalk between both organelles, but their role in normal and diseased human neurons remains unknown. We used super-resolution and live-cell microscopy in human iPSC-derived neurons to demonstrate that mitochondria-lysosome contacts can dynamically form in the soma, axons, and dendrites of human neurons,...
The prevalence of obesity within the US continues to rise, and many individuals elect to involve supportive others in their weight loss. Social support is generally helpful in weight management, but its mechanisms are less understood. One construct that deserves further attention is homophily, or the notion that “birds of...
The question of how native species diversity affects a community’s ability to resist invasive species has inspired decades of research. One of the oldest invasion biology hypotheses is that more species rich ecosystems are less invaded. While there has been strong support for this hypothesis, there is also strong evidence...
Recent estimates indicate that 21 million US adults live with Type II Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). The management of the condition often requires patients to take multiple prescription medications to prevent disease progression; yet prescribed regimens themselves can become burdensome. Studies have shown that for patients with T2DM, the average regimen...
This dissertation is a collection of three papers on synthesizing and translating statistical evidence in education research. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction and executive summary, and Chapters 2 - 4 contain the three substantive papers respectively. Chapter 2 presents methods for pooling sample variances across studies to improve properties...
How we remember, narrate and teach the past is an inherently political and ethical act. This is especially true when teaching about race and racism within the context of United States history. In this dissertation, I ask: how do young people narrate the durability of racial inequality in the United...
Recent developments in research concerning organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have overseen massive increases in device performance and the ascension of electron acceptor materials that outclass the preeminent acceptor compounds, buckminsterfullerene (C60) derivatives. New design strategies in the molecular structure of perylenediimides (PDIs) and fused-ring electron acceptors (FREAs) have increased single-junction photovoltaic...
The prospect of being evaluated by others is oftentimes psychologically crippling. At the core of feeling evaluated is perceiving other minds capable of possessing (judgmental) thoughts and feelings. While research on mind perception in evaluative situations oftentimes examines positive aspects (e.g., increased prosocial behavior), this dissertation looks into how mind...
In nearly all Eukaryotes, the membrane-enclosed nucleus contains the vast majority of the cellular genome. Within this sub-cellular compartment, the nuclear architecture facilitates genomic chromatin organization. Controlling chromosomal loci’s spatial positioning relative to subnuclear structures and each other can have local and global effects on gene expression. Moreover, chromatin organization...
Noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) have shown promise as imaging agents, drug delivery platforms, and plasmonic sensors. Anisotropic gold NPs, such as gold nanostars, have particularly received attention due to their shape-dependent optical and spectral properties. With their 3D anisotropic structure with branches protruding into different directions and high surface areas,...
The ubiquitous role of water in biochemical, electrochemical, and geochemical systems has driven scientific interest in studying the fundamental hydrogen-bonding interactions that water molecules exhibit in the presence of different materials.Specifically, we focus on the interactions characterizing water at the interface between two bulk media, as these are essential to...
In an era of personalized medicine, the clinical community has become increasingly focused on understanding diseases at the cellular and molecular level. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful imaging modality for acquiring anatomical and functional information. However, it has limited applications in field of molecular imaging due to low...
Proteins are known to have diverse biomedical functions and excellent catalytic performance; however, they are also fragile outside living cells, challenging their use in industrial applications. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are highly porous crystalline materials that consist of metal cluster nodes and organic linkers. With their rigid structures, MOFs can effectively...
Like many diseases, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is driven by the activity of inflammatory cells. Using molecular imaging to target and analyze populations of inflammatory cells is one promising strategy to non-invasively assess atherosclerosis progression. However, current molecular imaging contrast agents are not suited for such targeted imaging applications. Nanomaterial-based strategies...
Human complex diseases such as common cancers and diabetes are characterized by high molecular heterogeneity contributed by both genetic and non- genetic factors. This molecular heterogeneity can not only complicate diagnosis, risk stratification and patient care, but also lead to differential therapeutic response and treatment efficiency. Therefore, understanding the molecular...
In this thesis, we aim to develop efficient algorithms with theoretical guarantees for noisy nonlinear optimization problems, with and without constraints, under various different assumptions. Apart from Chapter 1 which provides relevant backgrounds, the remaining of thesis is divided into four chapters. In Chapter 2, we establish the theoretical convergence...