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I am currently working on a photographic project in the antiquarian wet plate collodion process, which was predominately practiced in the mid to late 19th century. The photographs are in response to 21st century tourism in the city of Wisconsin Dells, located near near a geologically significant land form photographed by H.H. Bennett In the late 19th century. Bennett worked in the wet plate collodion process creating artistic landscape photographs that interpret how people of the time were to approach and interact with the landscape. By showing tourists being transported outside their everyday realities and enjoying the beauty of this exotic and pristine landscape in a safe manner, he was able to spark the interest of railroad travelers. The acceptance of this landscape, in Bennett’s photographs, as a place for city travelers to escape to, lead to the creation of the booming tourism industry known today as “The Dells.” By working in the same process and in the same area as H.H. Bennett I will be able to consider the implications of time and place while critiquing the cultural shifts that occurred during the 20th century. I will create a body of work consisting of about 20 wet plate collodion photographs, that will be supported by an artist statement and exhibited in the Mudd Gallery from April 18-28th, 2008.

Phytoplankton are a crucial component of almost all aquatic systems.  As primary producers they form the base of the trophic ladder by providing food for numerous forms of consumers. Besides playing an important role in aquatic systems, phytoplankton also influence global climate and ecology.  It has been estimated that close to 50% of all global carbon fixation is attributed to marine phytoplankters.  Further more, some genera of phytoplankters produce cooling agents, like dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which have a cooling effect on the atmosphere.  Together, the cumulative effects of marine phytoplankton on CO2 absorption and DMS emission are estimated to cool the atmosphere by up to 6o C.
            Within the last century there has been a trend of increased man-made ozone depletion in the stratosphere, the main absorbing body of UV-B radiation (315-280 nm), thus resulting in greater UV-B radiation at ground levels.  UV-B has been shown to severely damage DNA, proteins, and other cellular components within algal cells, potentially leading to cell death.  While there have been a number of studies assessing the impacts of UV-B on phytoplankton, very few studies have used freshwater phytoplankters.  In addition, most studies have used artificially high levels of UV-B and low levels of recovery light, thereby creating an unrealistic picture of the effects of UV-B on phytoplankton. 
            My independent study focuses on the effects of UV-B on two freshwater algal genera, Microcystis and Scenedesmus.  In my project I will monitor population growth, assess DNA damage, and determine nutrient concentration (Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus) within the cells.  In addition, I will be using levels of UV-B only slightly greater than ambient levels of UV-B.  Through this research I hope to obtain a more realistic picture of how increases in UV-B radiation will effect freshwater algae and how that will influence ecosystems that are dependent upon phytoplankton biomass.

Genetic and genomic analyses suggest the sup-9, sup-10, and unc-93 genes encode proteins of a potassium channel complex responsible for regulating muscle contractions in Caernorhabditis elegans. We have characterized a set of sup-9(mmd) mutations that suppress the paralyzed rubberband phenotype of unc-93(e1500) gain-of-function mutations but that leaves males with a severe mating defect.

To learn whether sup-9proteins interact similarly with SUP-10, we produced strains containing sup-9(mmd) and sup-10(gf) alleles. After finding these strains to be motile, we performed a mating assay by crossing recessive dumpy hermaphrodites with tester males. The percentage of non-dumpy progeny after five days measures the efficiency of mating by the tester strain. A new molecular approach is being introduced to examine the physical interaction of the proteins that make up the SUP-9n channel complex as suggested through our genetic analysis. We are using a split-ubiquitin membrane yeast two-hybrid system to assess the exact manner in which these muscle protein interactions occur.

I am working on using the ecological modeling programs Ecopath and Ecosim to create functioning representations of energy flow in the Green Bay ecosystems before and after zebra mussels were introduced to the bay. Current models incorporating zebra mussels into ecosystems suggest that after zebra mussel colonization, the water should become clearer and phytoplankton levels should drop.  However, this did not happen in Green Bay.  I hope to be able to create a model that accurately represents energy flow in such a way that explains the lack of change in water quality.

For our honors project, we are interested in learning how families help their children who have genetic conditions adjust to their condition. We will be focusing on family communication style about health-related issues as well as their general coping style and the support networks from which they benefit. We are interested in exploring relationships between these factors and the child’s adjustment. Medical research provides important information about medical treatment for these conditions (e.g., Egan, Pearson, Weiner, Rajendran, Rubin, Glöckner-Pagel, Canny, et al., 2004), but families’ perspectives are less well researched and provide equally important insights into living with genetic conditions (Peterson, 2004). Our study will provide unique insight because we will not merely be looking at how a diagnosis of a genetic condition affects the child; we will also examine what helps children cope with this diagnosis. We will be using a semi-structured interviews process that includes various questionnaires with families that have a child with a genetic condition. Genetic conditions that will be included in the study have onsets in childhood, do not cause significant cognitive delays, nor have high rates of infant mortality. Examples of such genetic conditions are muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, and hemophilia.

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In my project I am working with two poets, Canadian Robert Kroetsch (1927-) and Wisconsin native Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970). In a three chapter format, I am looking first at Kroetsch, then at Niedecker, and finally attempting to synthesize, compare and contrast my ideas about both. Both poets are, as I am calling them, “outsiders” for various reasons-- Kroetsch, by virtue of his Canadian identity, and further so because he hails from and is primarily interested in the Canadian prairies, a sizeable stretch of the country that is nonetheless outside the cultural centers of Canada and the American Northeast. Niedecker’s project is quite similar to Kroetsch’s, although they represent different nationalities and time periods. She too grounds herself in the outside, writing from and about her home in rural Wisconsin; and, although she is associated with the Objectivist movement in New York City, her style is dependent on her rural, outsider vantage. Neither Kroetsch nor Niedecker is separated from literary culture, however, as both retain close contact with “insider” peers and are highly influenced by high canonical writers.

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It is a study of the Negritude literary movement and how Leopold Senghore, Aimé Cesaire, Birago Diop and Leon Damas interpret the movement in their works.

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I'm investigating the dissolution of individual identity under the Soviet regime as depicted in the poetry of Yevtushenko and later, in the settings of that poetry that Dmitri Shostakovich incorporated into his 13th Symphony. Additionally, I'm looking at a significant portion of Russian literature and music since Pushkin to trace the representations of individual identity in those works. I'm focusing especially on literature Shostakovich is known to have read and even more so on literature he set in some form.  I hope to be able to describe the devices through which Shostakovich and Yevtushenko depict the Soviet identity crisis and also place them in the context of Russian art--was what Shostakovich and Yevtushenko trying to illustrate a new thing in Russian art, or something within the tradition?  In either case, how does the work of Shostakovich and Yevtushenko interact with prior work?

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For our honors project, we are interested in learning how families help their children who have genetic conditions adjust to their condition. We will be focusing on family communication style about health-related issues as well as their general coping style and the support networks from which they benefit. We are interested in exploring relationships between these factors and the child’s adjustment. Medical research provides important information about medical treatment for these conditions (e.g., Egan, Pearson, Weiner, Rajendran, Rubin, Glöckner-Pagel, Canny, et al., 2004), but families’ perspectives are less well researched and provide equally important insights into living with genetic conditions (Peterson, 2004). Our study will provide unique insight because we will not merely be looking at how a diagnosis of a genetic condition affects the child; we will also examine what helps children cope with this diagnosis. We will be using a semi-structured interviews process that includes various questionnaires with families that have a child with a genetic condition. Genetic conditions that will be included in the study have onsets in childhood, do not cause significant cognitive delays, nor have high rates of infant mortality. Examples of such genetic conditions are muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, and hemophilia.

Gender is culturally constructed and performed differently depending on the situation. The purpose of the present research is to examine gender role pressures in a sexual situations and mental health, sexual satisfaction and sexual assertiveness. Research has shown that examining the impact of endorsing gender role norms is best understood by looking at each gender separately because the masculine and feminine gender role stereotypes prescribed to have different privileges and limitations (Sanchez, Croker, & Boike, 2005). Females are expected to be more negatively affected than males by conforming to gender role norms in all situations because their gender role prescribes for submissiveness and silencing their opinions. Females generally report feeling more pressure than males to conform to gender roles and more strongly internalize cultural expectations for their gender (Egan & Perry, 2001; Kiefer & Sanchez, 2007). Therefore I want explore whether female participants who prescribe to traditional gender role norms will show more depressive symptoms, more negative self-concept, and in a sexual situation less sexual satisfaction and less sexual assertiveness than females who feel less pressure to conform to feminine gender role stereotypes.

Males can also be negatively affected by conforming to gender role norms because their gender role norm prescribes for them to be dominant and unemotional, which can lead to the inability to create strong interpersonal relationships (Chu, Porche, & Tolman, 2005). Males that endorse traditional masculine roles and feel gender typical may report fewer depressive symptoms and a more positive self-concept, and in a sexual situation report higher levels of sexual satisfaction and sexual assertiveness. In comparison males that feel they are not gender typical or feel pressure to conform to male gender role norms in general may repot higher levels of depressive symptoms, lowered self –esteem and in a sexual situations report less sexual satisfaction because they are performing a gender role and basing their behavior and self-esteem on an external source. There have been multiple studies that have looked at females and males conforming to gender roles, but this study is important because it examines perceptions of conforming to gender roles by situation and as something that can affect mental well being, sexual satisfaction and sexual assertiveness.

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The proposed project includes a packet of three empirical studies in psychology conducted from autumn 2006 through spring 2008.  Our research examines the effects of both gender and mental illness on perceptions of statutory rape offenders.  Specifically, we question how paternalistic attitudes towards women can produce lenience in court cases, and how mental illness and other factors moderate this phenomenon.  Interestingly, because some mental illnesses (e.g., bipolar disorder) are linked closely with emotionality, gender stereotypes can influence perceptions of mentally ill men and women.

In Study I, participants read about a male or female teacher accused of sexual relations with a 14-year-old student, and completed a questionnaire assessing blame attributed to the perpetrator, sympathy for the perpetrator, perceived sincerity of the perpetrator in his or her account of the situation, and perception of the perpetrator’s future threat.  Perpetrator emotional instability was manipulated by including bipolar and non-bipolar versions of the stimulus materials.  Participants also completed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI; Glick & Fiske, 1997) to measure their level of benevolent sexism.

Study II differed from the first in stimulus presentation (audio-visual replacing text), and the addition of another independent variable (perpetrator attractiveness).

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I'm investigating the dissolution of individual identity under the Soviet regime as depicted in the poetry of Yevtushenko and later, in the settings of that poetry that Dmitri Shostakovich incorporated into his 13th Symphony. Additionally, I'm looking at a significant portion of Russian literature and music since Pushkin to trace the representations of individual identity in those works. I'm focusing especially on literature Shostakovich is known to have read and even more so on literature he set in some form.  I hope to be able to describe the devices through which Shostakovich and Yevtushenko depict the Soviet identity crisis and also place them in the context of Russian art--was what Shostakovich and Yevtushenko trying to illustrate a new thing in Russian art, or something within the tradition?  In either case, how does the work of Shostakovich and Yevtushenko interact with prior work?