TikTok成人版

 

Dr. Erica Slotter 

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Diversity of Representation in Media Consumed by Pre-School Aged Children

People鈥檚 identities are, in large part, constructed from their social world. This is especially true for the aspects of people鈥檚 identities that are uniquely relational. When people struggle to find representation for their identity in the social world around them, they feel less clarity about who they are, report lower self-esteem, and have worse relational outcomes. Understanding ourselves as we relate to others for both individual and relational well-being; however, certain relational identities are poorly represented within American society, and poorly understood by lay people, including those who hold the identity in question. Two such marginalized identities include stepparenting relationships and same-gender relationships; however, many relational identities qualify as marginalized (i.e., interracial relationships, adoptive parents, etc.). The current proposal for the University Summer Grant focuses on considering the representation, or lack thereof, of these marginalized relational identities in media 鈥� specifically, media aimed at preschool-aged children. Research and theory suggest that being exposed to media that represents one鈥檚 own identity is beneficial for well-being, and that this exposure is especially powerful in younger audiences. I am currently collecting media samples and developing a coding scheme for an exploratory study examining the extent to which marginalized parental/caregiver relational identities are present in books, television, and movies for 3-5 year olds. I am requesting the University Summer Grant to support my work finalizing the media to be coded, obtaining access to said media, and piloting the coding scheme under development so that the full study can be conducted in the fall semester.

 

Dr. Sarah Fritz

Department of Biology

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Mechanism of the RNA helicase UPF1 regulatory loop in RNA decay target selection

The control of gene expression is fundamental to all of life and involves the regulation of DNA transcription into RNA followed by modulated translation into protein. This path of gene expression (DNA --> RNA --> Protein) can be complex and coordinated by many molecular processes within a cell. RNA helicases are molecular machines that modulate many steps of the gene expression process by unwinding RNA secondary structure and remodeling RNA-protein complexes. This proposal aims to understand how the RNA helicase UPF1 selects RNAs for nonsense-mediated decay, a specialized RNA decay pathway associated with one-third of human genetic diseases. Using biochemical, genetic, cellular, and molecular techniques, this proposal will define the mechanism by which a conserved structural element known as the regulatory loop within the core of UPF1 controls nonsense-mediated RNA decay target selection. The results are expected to demonstrate the effect of this regulatory loop on modulating UPF1 binding to RNA and the significance of this interaction to nonsense-mediated RNA decay target selection in human cells. Importantly, the outcomes will serve as preliminary data for an NIH R15 grant and propel future research into the design of a system where the function of UPF1 can be precisely modulated to control the fate of specific RNAs for decay in human health and disease.

 

Dr. Christopher Kilby

Department of Economics

TikTok成人版 School of Business

 

Project Title: What makes some United Nations decisions important to the U.S.?

Since 1984 the U.S. State Department鈥檚 annual report to Congress titled Voting Practices in the United Nations has identified some United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as important to the United States. In principle, these decisions are 鈥渙n issues which directly affected important United States interests and on which the United States lobbied extensively.鈥� (Public Law 101-167) Yet not all outcomes for decisions listed as important appear consistent with extensive lobbying. Many are unanimous decisions without votes or, conversely, cases where the U.S. failed to garner significant support. This project will characterize and classify important votes to better understand the range of factors that drive State Department designations. Some designations may be for domestic U.S. audiences; treating these votes differently would allow researchers to better measure U.S. foreign policy goals in empirical analyses in economics, political science, and finance. I will explore the impact of this new classification through replication studies of major works in the field. My aim is to publish this research as an article in a leading journal and make these data available to other scholars via my website on UN voting.

 

Dr. Xiaoxiao Li

Department of Economics

TikTok成人版 School of Business

 

Project Title: Ability Bias, Human Capital, or Sheepskin Effects? A Factor Model-Based Decomposition of the Returns to Schooling

The relative importance of human capital and signaling frameworks in explaining the returns to schooling has been a subject of extensive research and debate due to their vastly different implications for education policy and society at large. Empirical resolution of the issue is complicated by the fact that both frameworks are consistent with a positive earnings-schooling nexus coupled with the challenge of controlling for ability bias which itself can generate such a nexus. This paper offers a new approach to decomposing the apparent returns to schooling into its human capital, sheepskin (i.e., degree attainment), and ability bias components. We adopt a flexible factor model framework that allows treating ability as an unknown multidimensional object that can be estimated using panel data on earnings and schooling. Our approach obviates the need to rely on inadequate ability proxies and does not depend on the sequence in which covariates are added to the model. Our results using data from the NLSY79 show that about 56% of the apparent returns to schooling can be attributed to ability bias while the sheepskin and human capital components contribute about 38% and 6%, respectively. The sheepskin contribution is found to be driven almost entirely by the college degree while the high school degree plays only a very minor role.  

 

Dr. Paul Rosier

Department of History

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: "Between Two Worlds: Indigenous Activism in Post-War America"

I am applying for a 2025 USG to afford me time to begin a new book project, a prosopography featuring six Native women and men who illuminate Native Americans鈥� campaigns for civil rights in post-WWII America: Tom Two Arrows, a Lenni-Lenape/Onondaga artist and veteran; Helen Peterson, a Northern Cheyenne-Lakota activist who fought for farmworkers鈥� rights and Native people鈥檚 treaty rights; Joseph Garry, a Coeur d鈥橝lene activist and veteran who served as president of the National Congress of American Indians; Herbert Blatchford, a Navajo co-founder of the National Indian Youth Council; Lorelei DeCora, a Winnebago civil rights activist who co-founded Women of All Red Nations; and Wilma Mankiller, a Cherokee politician who became the first woman to serve as president of the Cherokee Nation.  During the USG period I will write the first of six planned chapters, focusing on the cultural diplomacy of Tom Two Arrows, who traveled throughout South Asia during the mid-1950s to extol the virtues of American life for the U.S. State Department.   I will also examine the ways in which Two Arrows鈥� dancing, music and paintings celebrated Indigenous traditions and highlighted themes of cultural resilience and political sovereignty to mainstream audiences.  鈥淏etween Two Worlds鈥� will highlight the contributions of six Native activists who are neglected in the historiographies of post-war Native American political history and post-war civil rights history.  Scholarship on Native Americans鈥� experiences fighting for treaty rights is extensive, but coverage of Native activists鈥� campaigns for civil rights is limited, especially those led by Indigenous women.

I will devote the summer to analyzing primary sources and conducting research in the Tom Dorsey (Tom Two Arrows) Collection at the Albany Institute of History & Art Library; submitting the manuscript to NAIS, and developing the bibliography for a study of the Northern Cheyenne-Lakota civil rights activist Helen Peterson.  

 

Dr. Janette Herbers

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Sleep Health and Parenting in Families with Infants Experiencing Homelessness

Young children experiencing homelessness face numerous risks, but positive parent-child relationships can promote their resilience, enabling healthy development despite adversity. Infants experiencing homelessness are underrepresented in the literature despite their prevalence in U.S. family shelters. Understanding developmental processes that support or hinder positive parent-infant relationships in shelter contexts can inform efforts to support well-being of all young children who stay in shelters. For the proposed study, I will examine parent sleep health as an aspect of parent wellbeing that is likely to affect parent mental health and parenting quality. Sleep health is also likely to be compromised in shelter environments. Procedures will take place on site in family shelters in Philadelphia, where I will recruit 15 parents with infants (ages 4-24 months). Measures will include structured interviews for parents, actigraphy as a behavioral assessment of sleep, and observations of parent-infant play to assess quality of relationships. Data collection for the proposed project will be feasible in the summer of 2025. This project will function as a pilot effort of actigraphy assessment in shelter settings to inform planning as I seek external funding to execute the work at a larger scale. The project will also provide opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to engage in community-based research, and findings have much potential to advance our understanding of resilience among the understudied and disadvantaged group of infants experiencing family homelessness. 

 

Dr. Raul Diego Rivera Hernandez

Department of Spanish

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: "Place, Belonging, and Homemaking: A Study of Mexican Immigrants in Philadelphia"

 

Title: "Place, Belonging, and Homemaking: A Study of Mexican Culinary Entrepreneurs in Philadelphia"

What is the role of food in the process of creating a home for Mexican communities in Philadelphia? What does it mean to enrich the cultural landscape of a city through food? Immigrant culinary entrepreneurs have made significant contributions to the food scene in the United States, including establishing restaurants, caf茅s, food stands, trucks, and catering ventures. According to food critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Craig LaBan, Mexican restaurants are currently one of the main dominant forces in the culinary industry in Philadelphia, and this is evident in the entrepreneurial spirit that has been raising in the past years with the emergence of new businesses owned by Mexicans (Flavors unknown 2022. Podcast. Episode 87). This study attempts to gather up a biographical profile o Mexican immigrants in the city of Philadelphia who have started an independent economic activity on the culinary market. Through individual food-centered life histories with 25-30 participants, this study explores how their migration journeys and culinary entrepreneurship have taken part in shaping their cultural identity, their sense of belonging, and their home-making practices in Philadelphia. 

 

Dr. Xue Qin

Department of Computing Sciences

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: From Errors to Solutions: Building an AI-Powered Feedback System for Voice Assistants

Making technology accessible to everyone is more important than ever, especially as new digital tools emerge daily and the digital divide widens. Among the 61 million disabled people in the U.S., those with visual impairments face significant challenges when using mobile applications. Voice Assistants (VAs), like Siri and Alexa, have become essential tools, allowing users to set alarms, create reminders, and perform other tasks using voice commands. However, these systems often struggle when users make mistakes. For example, if a person tries to delete an alarm that does not exist, the VA might simply respond, 鈥淪orry, I don鈥檛 understand,鈥� rather than offering useful feedback.

Existing research efforts for error handling in VA primarily focus on conversation repair, where the assistant keeps listening to the user to collect the follow-up conversations that may correct mistakes from the earlier dialogs. In the industry, Amazon Alexa adopts the recommended system to suggest a similar task for unrecognized and error commands. Although many studies have shown that error recognition or correction improves the interaction satisfaction between the user and robot agent, little has been done to provide reasonable and customized feedback and solutions when a user's request fails. 

Based on the human-robot interaction taxonomy, VA errors may come from three aspects: command mistakes, missing data, and incorrect logic. In this project, the researcher aims to explore the Large Language Model (LLM) 's ability to identify the VA error types, and provide potential solutions. In particular, to handle the first two types of error, the researcher plans to 1) first use LLMs to match the logic between the user commands and the VA tasks to identify the error type, and 2) then build an interpretation tool that describes all the VA task methods (written in programming code) in natural language by specifying the goal and needed information to complete the task. Moreover, to handle the type 3 error, the researcher will design an approach to automatically construct the logic dependency graph between all tasks to correct the logic loophole in the user's request. The findings in this project will help improve the VA task design and inspire more logical feedback and solutions research for the voice assistant.

 

Dr. Sarah Cooney

Department of Computing Sciences

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Understanding the Impact of Spirituality on Technological Imagination and Design for Sustainability

The proposed projects for the USG will focus on the intersection of two areas of ongoing study in human-computer interaction (HCI) scholarship, sustainable HCI and design for techno-spirituality.  The USG study will consist of two parts.  First, an ongoing analysis of mobile apps for both sustainable habit building and for Christian spiritual practice will be continued.  The analysis will look at both sets of apps in light of theological principles such as ongoing conversion and eco-conversion, and will assess how these concepts can be used to guide the design of new applications.  Second, materials will be prepared for workshops that will be conducted in the future with university and community partners to understand how shared ethical and spiritual values impact the technological imagination of participants.  Drawing on the results of these studies, the overarching aim is to assess the efficacy of technology for sustainability that incorporates ethical and spiritual value systems as a foundation, as well as to respond to current challenges in sustainable HCI by providing a framework for moving beyond targeting disjoint, individual behaviors to help users build an ethos of sustainability.

 

Drs. Vaswati Chatterjee and Theodore Arapis

Department of Public Administration

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Voices for Change: Examining Citizen Participation in Pennsylvania's Local Climate Action Program

Citizen participation (CP) is recognized as a cornerstone for climate governance. However, with associated costs and uncertainty in the outcome of participatory initiatives, public managers may offer only limited means of engagement, that can hinder community empowerment, obstruct ambitious climate goals, and fail to address equity and justice issues in climate action. This research aims to examine CP in the Local Climate Action Program (LCAP) in Pennsylvania. With lack of empirical research that addresses the relationship between CP related perceptions among public managers and non-governmental stakeholders, participation strategies adopted, and program effectiveness, we aim to answer three research questions: (1) What are the attitudes towards CP in climate governance among local government (LG) managers in Pennsylvania? (2) What is the state (such as, extent of participation, and administrative, technological, and financial resources employed) of CP in LCAP? (3) How do LG managers assess the effectiveness of CP in LCAP? We are also interested in assessing the impact of public manager attitudes, socio-economic, institutional, and political factors on participation strategies employed, and program outcomes. Data will be collected through interviews of LG managers participating in LCAP, from the U.S. Census, and qualitative analysis of climate action plans. Mixed-method analysis will be used to answer the various research questions and objectives. Results of this study will be used to support the second phase of the research that will interview non-governmental stakeholders of LCAP, to capture their attitudes towards engagement, satisfaction with the program, and develop a multi-pronged approach to assess effectiveness of participatory programs in Pennsylvania.

 

Dr. Lance Hannon

Department of Sociology and Criminology

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Assessing Colorism in Philadelphia Traffic Stops: Applying the Veil of Darkness to Variation in Black Skin Tones

The veil-of-darkness test is one of the most widely used tools for uncovering racially discriminatory policing. The test exploits natural variation in sunlight throughout the year and is based on the premise that officers who are engaged in bias-based policing will be less capable of quickly discerning a driver鈥檚 race when it is dark. If stops made under poor visibility conditions have a significantly smaller percentage of Black drivers than normal, there is evidence of racial bias. Despite the centrality of skin tone in the underlying logic of the veil-of-darkness method, existing research has not examined whether variation in skin tone within racial groups matters for the likelihood of being pulled over (e.g., dark-skinned Black drivers compared to light-skinned Black drivers). This is an important omission, especially considering that skin tones vary markedly within the Black population in the United States and that Black people can face colorism in addition to racism. Shifting the veil-of-darkness methodology from a between-race to a within-race emphasis, the proposed study uses a Philadelphia-based dataset to investigate whether darker-skinned Black people are significantly more likely to be pulled over than lighter-skinned Black people. In addition to policy implications, the findings will speak to a theoretical debate regarding the nature of outgroup homogeneity effects.

 

Dr. Xun Jiao

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

College of Engineering

 

Project Title: LLM-Guard: Enhancing Robustness of Large Language Models Against Hardware Errors

Large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, are a type of AI model designed to understand and generate human language. LLMs have gained tremendous popularity since their inception. For example, ChatGPT reached 1 million users in just 5 days after its launch in November 2022, making it the fastest-growing application in history. Since then, LLMs have been transforming various facets of our society, including the economy, healthcare, finance, education, and security. As these models become increasingly integral to modern life, ensuring their trustworthiness and robustness is of utmost importance. One significant threat to the robustness of LLMs is the occurrence of errors in the AI systems. This project aims to address the following question: How to enhance the robustness of LLMs against system faults? This comprises two key components: (1) detection of errors in LLMs and (2) recovery of erroneous computations in LLMs.

 

Dr. Adam Langley

Department of Biology

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Searching for a causal link between microbial community structure and function

We have known for centuries that microbes (mostly bacteria and fungi) carry out many of the most important ecosystem processes such as decomposition, methanogenesis. However, it remains highly controversial to what extent microbial community composition (the particular microbial species present in an ecosystem) controls ecosystem function (the fluxes of energy, nutrients and organic matter through an environment). I propose a simple but cutting experiment to answer the question: does the community composition of soil microbes really matter for ecosystem function? I will employ an iterative manipulation of microbial inocula from a natural ecosystem and a highly modified ones to determine the long-term consequences for ecosystem functions like carbon dioxide and methane production. If the make-up of microbial communities does matter after multiple generations of serial passage, then we need to factor it into projections of future ecosystem function and worry more about conserving, and even manipulating, microbial species to counteract the effects of climate change. If not, we need to focus on mitigating change in environment conditions that control microbial function. 

 

Dr. Julia Mansfield

Department of History

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: The Disease of Commerce: Pandemic Yellow Fever and the Early Political and Economic Development of the United States, 1790-1820

Yellow fever was once the most terrifying disease in North America. This mosquito-borne viral illness exploded in the late eighteenth century and became pandemic in the North Atlantic for twelve years. My book project is the first comprehensive study of the 1793-1805 pandemic seen through the eyes of Americans at home and abroad. Examining its effects on sailors, merchants, politicians, and diplomats, I cast fresh light on maritime and wage labor, commercial diplomacy, and state-building through public health.  This yellow fever pandemic provides a new framework for understanding the geopolitical upheavals and commercial realignments that occurred during the Age of Revolutions.

 

Dr. Peter Spitaler

Department of Theology and Religious Studies

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Mystical Tempests: Seafaring and Supernatural Storm Imagery in the New Testament and Ancient Mediterranean Cultures

The project explores the theological and symbolic meaning of maritime storm imagery in ancient stories. Focusing on New Testament sea crossings of Jesus and his disciples (especially in Mark, Luke, and Matthew), it compares these with similar accounts from ancient Mediterranean traditions (Homer, Vergil, Apollonius). The book examines how storms reflect divine power, human courage, and the chaotic yet life-giving nature of the sea in first-century CE Israel and Palestine. By situating New Testament storm narratives within broader Greco-Roman and Jewish maritime traditions (including Homer, Aristotle, Josephus, and others), the study highlights shared themes of divine intervention, tests of faith, and the sea as a transformative space. It addresses questions about how these narratives engage ancient views of the sea, influence theological ideas of faith and courage, and reflect historical seafaring practices. This work contributes to biblical studies and ancient cultural history by revealing the complex role of storm imagery in early Christian identity.

 

Dr. Kimberly Takahata

Department of English

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Literary Rematriation and Imagining Ancestral Futures

鈥淟iterary Rematriation and Imagining Ancestral Futures鈥� is a chapter from a larger book project, The Care that Remains: Returning Ancestral Narratives in the Early Atlantic. The book explores how settler texts from the long eighteenth century 鈥渃ollected鈥� Native ancestors by objectifying them into symbols of colonial progress. Its central claim is that these scenes鈥攄esigned to depict Native death and disappearance鈥攊n fact attest to Indigenous life, for relatives always care for ancestors who have passed on, looking after them for generations. My analysis shows how these sacred practices narratively mark settler texts despite colonial attempts to erase them. In turn, this textual genealogy of Native kinship reveals literature as a place where Indigenous ancestors can be both violated and cared for, objectified away or narratively returned to stories of their communities. This chapter analyzes two plays critiquing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), bringing historical analysis in conversation with contemporary legal frameworks.

 

Drs. Marina Cozac and Beth Vallen

Department of Marketing and Business Law

TikTok成人版 School of Business

 

Project Title: When Cold Meets Warm: How Competence and Warmth Combine  to Influence Trust and Prosocial Behavior

This research investigates the impact of collaborative messaging on trust and prosocial behavior, focusing on the interplay between competence and warmth in message sources. High-competence sources (such as scientists) are seen as experts but often not relatable. Conversely, high-warmth sources (e.g., non-profits) are assumed to care more about other parties but might lack perceived expertise. This presents a critical challenge for designing effective communication strategies. Competence without warmth may lead to skepticism, while warmth without competence risks misplaced trust or inaction. Collaborative messages鈥攃ombining the strengths of both high-competence and high-warmth sources鈥攐ffer a potential solution to address these challenges.

Through a series of experiments, we examine whether collaborative messages outperform single-source messages in fostering trust and encouraging prosocial behaviors.

This research contributes to the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) by exploring its application in collaborative messaging contexts and examining how warmth and competence jointly shape trust and behavior. It offers actionable insights for organizations aiming to enhance public engagement and drive meaningful pro-social outcomes. By addressing critical gaps in the literature, this work has implications for public policy, social marketing, and consumer well-being, helping to design more effective campaigns for societal impact.

 

Dr. Leah Pires

Department of History

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Finessing the Frame: Art and Power in Postmodern New York

Finessing the Frame recovers the critique of representation developed by feminist and Black American artists from 1975鈥�82, which craftily eschewed the timeworn strategies of the Black Arts Movement and second-wave feminism. Instead of figurative images, they opted for visual opacity; rather than seeking a utopian exit from the art world, they challenged its power imbalances from within by curating incisive exhibitions and creating site-responsive artworks. I call this approach finesse. Focused on the experimental New York galleries Artists Space and Just Above Midtown, my book uses exhibition histories and close readings of artworks to offer an intersectional account of the emergence of postmodernism and the cultural effects of neoliberalism. 

 

Dr. Mauricio Gouvea Gruppi

Department of Computing Sciences

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Using Lexical Semantics for Zero-Shot Learning of Entity Roles in Online News

The rapid proliferation of online news has amplified the spread of disinformation, posing significant challenges to public trust. Analytical tools are crucial to identifying the producers of false information. One recently proposed tool is the task of entity framing. This task consists of the automatic detection of the roles associated with an entity referenced in a news piece, such as a public figure. I propose a novel method for characterizing entity roles in online news using lexical semantics, enabling effective detection of disinformation in a multilingual setup. By leveraging word embedding models, the proposed approach facilitates zero-shot learning, allowing for entity role detection without the need for extensive training data. This method addresses the scarcity of annotated data in non-English languages and enhances the transferability of learned models across different linguistic contexts. My goal is to develop computationally efficient algorithms that can identify entity roles in news articles, contributing to the broader efforts of mitigating the impacts of disinformation. The outcomes of this project will foster advancements in media literacy and further support the understanding of online narratives in multiple languages.

 

Dr. Eliza Gettel

Department of History

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: A Federal Cursus in Roman Hellas

I will be writing an invited book chapter entitled 鈥淎 Federal Cursus in Roman Hellas鈥� for the edited volume Epigraphy and Public Life in the Graeco-Roman World. The chapter uses evidence from ancient Greek texts inscribed into stone to investigate public life at a federal level after the Greek mainland became part of the Roman Empire (1st to 3rd centuries CE). It establishes a federal ladder of offices鈥攁 cursus鈥攖hrough which privileged men moved during their political careers. Establishing this cursus is significant because one has not previously been identified in the eastern Mediterranean under Rome, and it elucidates how the survival of koina (federations) within the Roman Empire concentrated power in the hands of a few. The publication connects to my current monograph project about the survival of Greek federalism within the Roman Empire. 

 

Dr. Stephanie Campos

Department of Biology

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Impacts of the hormone arginine vasotocin on chemical communication in spiny lizards

Chemical signaling is the most ancient and widespread form of animal communication. In lizards, chemical signals are secreted from specialized scent glands or incorporated onto the surface of skin that convey information about an individual鈥檚 competitive abilities or reproductive status. Both competitive quality and reproductive states are highly regulated by hormones. The hormone arginine vasotocin (AVT) influences social dynamics and the neural processing of social odors. While the precise mechanisms used by AVT to influence competitive interactions remain enigmatic, recent work in my lab suggests AVT may enhance chemical signals in lizards by modifying the production of odors. To test this hypothesis, we will experimentally elevate AVT levels in scent-producing individuals, then collect and present their odors to different individuals (scent-responders) to measure behavioral responses. This behavioral work will be followed by the analysis of hormones and chemical composition of odors in scent-producers, as well as neural activation analysis in scent-responders. This work will inform our understanding of the hormonal regulation of chemical communication in reptiles and provide a comparative reference for similar work in other vertebrates.

 

Dr. Vincent Lloyd

Department of Theology and Religious Studies

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Race Crucified, Race Resurrected

In what ways ought Christian theologians to speak about race? While this would seem to be a major, pressing question, there is surprisingly little scholarship that answers it systematically. There is scholarship on racism as an ethical problem that Christians ought to address, scholarship on how Christians have historically thought about race, and scholarship on how the Christian tradition ought to be approached from the perspective of specific racialized groups, most notably Black Americans (鈥淏lack theology鈥�). My proposed research project, in collaboration with my Duke Divinity School colleague Jonathan Tran, examines the strengths and weaknesses of previous attempts by Christian theologians to speak systematically about race, it draws on new resources from critical cultural studies, liberation theology, and post-liberal theology to respond to the shortcomings of previous efforts, and it draws on these resources to offer a model of how Christian theologians should speak about race.

 

Dr. Gabriel Rodriguez Rivera

Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

College of Engineering

 

Project Title: Impact of hydrogels charge and conductivity on cardiomyocyte activity and bioelectrical signaling

This research aims to design new biomaterials to investigate the impact of hydrogel charge and conductivity on cardiomyocyte (CM) activity and bioelectric signaling, addressing a critical gap in cardiac tissue engineering. Hydrogels, as versatile biomaterials, exhibit ionically conductive properties influenced by their charge density and composition, which may interact with bioelectric cues governing CM behavior. We hypothesize that hydrogel charge and electrostatic interactions affect cellular adhesion, action potential propagation, and activity. To test this hypothesis, we will fabricate and characterize hydrogels with controlled charge profiles (cationic, anionic, zwitterionic, neutral) and matched mechanical properties using interpenetrating network strategies. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and mechanical testing will evaluate hydrogel conductivity and stiffness. Concurrently, we will differentiate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into CMs, creating a cryopreserved bank of cells to ensure timely and reproducible testing of biomaterial-cell interactions.

This summer research will generate foundational data for a National Science Foundation Early Career Research Initiative (NSF-ERI) proposal. Outcomes include the successful development of hydrogel platforms with myocardium-like stiffness and diverse charge profiles, alongside iPSC-derived CM banks for functional assays. Beyond the immediate goals, this work has broader implications for regenerative medicine, bioelectronics, and tissue engineering. The study aims to advance biomaterials and scaffold design and open new avenues in cellular engineering and clinical applications by elucidating the relationship between biomaterial properties and bioelectric signaling.

 

Drs. Kelly Welch and Allison Payne

Department of Sociology and Criminology

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: How Latin American and Asian Regional Ancestry Impact Disparities in School Security and Punishment

Summary Abstract: Our two proposed studies would be the first to examine the degree to which Latino and Asian student composition and national/regional ancestry influences school security and discipline, expanding the scope and direction of our scholarship by using newly available secondary datasets that would enable us to assess the effect of specific (1) Latin American national ancestry of students and (2) Asian national ancestry of students on school social control policies and practices. While we intend to publish these studies and present the findings at an international criminological conference, the most significant anticipated outcome is that these studies could have a tremendous impact on how we understand the racial and ethnic subordination process and long-term effects of harmful social control in educational institutions and beyond. The answers to our research questions will provide information necessary for school district personnel and policymakers to modify school security and disciplinary practices in ways that defend equality, promote social justice, and uncover hidden pathways that national and regional ancestry may be facilitating the racial and ethnic disparities in the school-to-prison pipeline.  

 

Dr. Jiafeng Xie

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

College of Engineering

 

Project Title: Securing Hardware Acceleration for Post-Quantum Cryptography

This project follows the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standardization process to carry out the proposed research. Specifically, in this project, we propose to conduct a novel investigation on securing hardware acceleration for the promising NIST round 4 code-based PQC candidate. Overall, this project focuses on the following two aspects: (i) investigate novel countermeasure strategies; (ii) implement the developed countermeasures.

 

Dr. Yumi Lee

Department of English

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: Soft Power, US Empire, and Asian/American Cultural Production

This project critically examines two recent critically acclaimed television adaptations of major works of Asian American literature, Min Jin Lee鈥檚 Pachinko and Viet Thanh Nguyen鈥檚 The Sympathizer, in relation to the concept of 鈥渟oft power.鈥� The idea of "soft power" supposes that culture and cultural products can exert a geopolitical influence on global audiences. How does soft power operate? And how has global circulation of works across borders changed the way we understand culture and global power?

In his 1947 autobiography, the Korean anticolonial nationalist Kim Gu stated his desire for an independent Korea to grow into not the world鈥檚 most powerful nation, but a nation widely recognized and respected for its 鈥渂eautiful鈥� and 鈥渘oble鈥� culture. In 2019, RM, the leader of the Korean pop group BTS, cited Kim Gu as an inspiration for BTS鈥� work, and in 2021, BTS鈥� visit to the UN General Assembly as special envoys of the South Korean President was dubbed the 鈥淜im Gu Project." BTS have been lauded for spreading awareness and appreciation of Korean culture throughout the world, and their popularity has been widely described as one channel for South Korea鈥檚 鈥渟oft power,鈥� exerted not through might or domination but, in keeping with Kim Gu鈥檚 ambitions, through the draw of culture. The contemporary South Korean cultural wave, encompassing forms and products from pop music to television dramas to film to cosmetics to food, attempts to export the attractiveness of Korean culture not only to the (former) imperial centers of the U.S., Europe, and Japan in the face of longstanding civilizational and racialist discourses, but also throughout the Global South, in which South Korea now stands as a subimperial power of its own. South Korean culture has become a billion-dollar industry and cornerstone of the nation鈥檚 economy, and its cultural 鈥渟oft power鈥� is broadly understood to be key to establishing its national profile on the world stage.

The concept of 鈥渟oft power鈥� was introduced by the neoliberal political scientist and statesman Joseph Nye in the late 1980s, as the Cold War era was giving way to a unipolar, US-led liberal world order. Nye explains that soft power is a method for one country to influence others in order to gain results through attraction, or what he calls 鈥渃o-optive power,鈥� rather than coercion. One of the ways that he believed a country could wield soft power is through the realm of culture. His example from an article laying out this concept in the journal Foreign Policy in 1990, is the popularity of American culture: 鈥淎merican popular culture, embodied in products and communications, has widespread appeal. Young Japanese who have never been to the United States wear sports jackets with the names of American colleges. Nicaraguan television broadcast American shows even while the government fought American-backed guerrillas.鈥� Of course, what is striking about both of the sites he names 鈥� Japan and Nicaragua 鈥� is that the so-called soft power of American popular culture went hand in hand with the hard power of US military occupation and intervention. To use Gramscian terms, his vision of soft power in the wake of the Cold War describes a way to secure American hegemony through cultural influence. How does this vision translate to the contemporary moment, after several decades of neoliberal globalization and technological innovation have changed the way that culture circulates?

My research for this article on soft power and Asian/American cultural production has two aims. First, it traces the origins of the concept of 鈥渟oft power鈥� and theorizes this concept as a discourse and practice of US empire. Drawing on theoretical work by scholars of culture and postcolonialism, including Edward Said, Simon Gikandi, and Dionne Brand, who have argued that the heights of Western culture and aesthetics simultaneously depend on, obscure, and justify the racist violence of colonial extraction and oppression, I will examine the coloniality of soft power. The idea of culture has long served as a marker of civilizational superiority and a way to assert what Johannes Fabian termed the 鈥渄enial of coeval-ness鈥� between the metropole and the colony. As colonial and Cold War global orders have given way to globalization and neoliberalism, such dynamics of unequal power have taken new forms. What kind of geopolitical power does culture carry now? How can we understand the 鈥渟oftness鈥� of culture as a conveyor of power in the present day?

Second, the article analyzes the evolution of soft power as geopolitical conditions have transformed over the past three decades, focusing on two linked examples that I argue help us think through the concept: the television adaptations of Min Jin Lee鈥檚 Pachinko and Viet Thanh Nguyen鈥檚 The Sympathizer, two major Asian American novels of the past decade. Both of these works take place in historical settings in 20th century Asia, and both television adaptations became joint productions that incorporated Asian and US capital and creative labor. The bestselling novel Pachinko tells the multigenerational struggles of a family of Korean immigrants living in Japan, and its adaptation stars prominent Korean actors and was helmed by Korean American creators and directors who shot on locations in Korea, Japan, and North America. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer narrates the survival of a Vietnamese double agent during the Vietnam War, and its adaptation stars rookie Vietnamese actors alongside American celebrities and was directed by the celebrated South Korean film director Park Chan-wook in Thailand and Los Angeles. If these works are a part of Korea鈥檚 鈥渟oft power,鈥� what are their material or ideological aims or effects? How can we place South Korea鈥檚 cultivation of soft power against the material history of what we might call 鈥渉ard power,鈥� or overlapping eras of Japanese and U.S. colonial and military domination, on the Korean peninsula?

 

Dr. Monika Pogorzelska-Maziarz

Department of Nursing

College of Nursing

 

Project Title: Environmental Scan of Federal and State Telehealth Regulations in Long-Term Care

The regulatory landscape governing telehealth in long-term care (LTC) settings has evolved rapidly, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Temporary federal waivers facilitated widespread telehealth adoption, enabling improved access to care for vulnerable populations in LTC facilities. However, as these emergency measures are phased out, significant gaps remain in understanding the impact and variability of state, regional, and federal telehealth policies on care delivery. LTC facilities serve increasingly diverse populations with complex health needs, and telehealth is emerging as a vital tool to address disparities in care access and quality.

This study aims to examine the evolution of the regulatory framework for telehealth in LTC settings across the United States. Building on our expertise in public health law and previous research in acute care, we will conduct a comprehensive environmental scan of telehealth-related policies at the state, regional, and federal levels. This work will catalog the scope and variation

of telehealth regulations, identify key changes implemented during the pandemic, and analyze the potential implications of policy shifts on telehealth utilization in LTC.

The findings from this environmental scan will provide a critical baseline for the development of an R01 grant application to the National Institutes of Health aimed at evaluating the impact of telehealth policies on care quality, access, and outcomes in LTC facilities. By addressing these knowledge gaps, this project will inform the development of evidence-based strategies to optimize telehealth services and support equitable care delivery for diverse and underserved LTC populations.

 

Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer

Department of Theology and Religious Studies

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

Project Title: There's Something about Mary: Unraveling the Mysteries of a Third-Century Catacomb Painting

This University Summer Grant project hopes to answer the central question of whether a third-century fresco archway painting in the Greek Chapel of the Priscilla Catacomb was altered in its depiction of Lazarus鈥檚 sisters, Mary and Martha. Was one sister or two painted by the original third-century artist? If a second sister was added to the painting, when did this take place? To answer these questions, hyperspectral imaging as well as technical analysis of the pigments must be undertaken. Permission has been given by the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology (PCAS) to undertake imaging in the Priscilla Catacomb. I have made contact with an Italian researcher named Dr. Massimiliano Guarneri at the Agenzia nazionale per le nuove tecnologie, l鈥檈nergia e lo sviluppo economico sostenibile (ENEA), as well as his supervisor Dr. Francesco Colao, who have previously conducted laser interferometry and imaging on the entire Greek Chapel. With the proposed University Summer Grant, I will collaborate during the summer of 2025 with both the ENEA and Dr. Anthony Lagalante in TikTok成人版鈥檚 Chemistry Department to scientifically analyze the Lazarus fresco. Dr. Lagalante has the necessary expertise to conduct additional scientific measurements about the dating of pigments, and he can provide his own pXRF spectrometer to provide pigment identification. We also plan to examine the 鈥淔ractio Panis鈥� painting in the arch directly opposite the Lazarus fresco, as a comparanda for pigments used in their early composition. The ENEA will supply the camera equipment. After Dr. Lagalante interprets his findings and the images procured by the ENEA, he will formulate conclusions and provide me with information to inform the broader field of New Testament and Early Christianity. Our efforts would likely only require one day of experiments in Rome; the bulk of the work would take place afterward, in the data analysis.

 

Dr. Bing-Bing Qi

Department of Nursing

College of Nursing

 

Project Title: Osteoporosis Prevention In Chinese Immigrants: An Acceptability and Feasibility Pilot Study

Recent Chinese immigrants in Chinatown, particularly those who immigrated at age 65 or older with low education and income levels, face a high risk of osteoporosis and low bone mineral density (BMD). Language barriers and limited access to care hinder their awareness of preventive lifestyle changes. Tailored interventions that address Chinese culture, language, and specific needs are crucial to reducing these disparities.

This study will test the three-month Self-Efficacy-Enhanced Osteoporosis Prevention Educational, Nutrition/Exercise Follow-up intervention (SEOPE-NEW) program, a social ecological and self-efficacy-based intervention, aimed at improving confidence and adherence to exercise, calcium-rich diets, and medication use.

The study hypothesizes that foreign-born Chinese immigrants participating in SEOPE-NEW will demonstrate greater confidence and adherence to osteoporosis prevention behaviors at three months compared to an attention control group. A total of 104 participants (52 per group) from two senior housing facilities in Philadelphia will be recruited for this experimental, repeated-measures study. Eligibility criteria include Chinese immigrants aged 50 and older, fluent in Mandarin or Cantonese, and meeting cognitive and physical health requirements.

The intervention group will receive supervised exercise sessions, food record reviews, and ongoing education, while the control group will attend general health education classes. Both groups will meet weekly for three months, with two sessions per week during the first two weeks. Outcomes will be assessed using mobile apps to track daily activity and diet, validated questionnaires, and BMD measurements.

Findings from this pilot study, designed to assess acceptability and feasibility, may inform the development of rigorous group interventions and culturally sensitive, language-appropriate care for vulnerable Chinese immigrant populations. This research could lay the foundation for larger longitudinal studies and external grant applications aimed at reducing osteoporosis prevalence and improving health equity in this high-risk group.