GirlForward Mentor Internship Experience

GirlForward is a community of support dedicated to creating and enhancing opportunities for girls who have been displaced by conflict and persecution. Girls ages 14 to 21 who identify as immigrants, refugees, or asylum seekers are served by GirlForward. Amélie Malone worked as a GirlForward Mentor Intern for the academic year 2024-2025. The Mentoring Program engages girls in 4W activities (Wellness, Wisdom, Wallet, and World) by matching them with female community mentors. As a mentor intern, I tutor girls, organize safe space events, go on home visits to meet their families, and manage volunteers. GirlForward hours for girls to hang out or receive tutoring on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays after school

Epistemic Injustice: A Portraiture of Doctoral Socialization

The purpose of this study is to understand the socialization experiences of international women students from the Global South, pursuing doctoral degrees in Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) in the U.S. PWIs have a long history of marginalizing systems of knowledge (epistemology) of racialized populations while propagating for and universalizing the White, Eurocentric worldviews in curriculum and pedagogical practices. As a result, this exacerbates the marginalization, isolation, and exclusion of the epistemic capitals and worldviews of racialized students. Two research questions guided this qualitative study: 1) How do international women students from the Global South experience doctoral socialization in PWIs in the U.S.? 2) How do their experiences inform their agency and academic persistence? By focusing on the learning experiences of women students enrolled in doctoral programs in the humanities and social sciences fields, the study aimed to understand whether and to what extent these experiences were shaped by epistemic injustice and its facets of epistemic marginalization, exclusion, and violence. The study was also interested in understanding how women students from the Global South enact their agency to resist and push back against those forms of epistemic injustice perpetuated and deeply rooted in PWIs in the U.S. In doing so, the study adopted portraiture and pláticas as both rooted in Chicana Feminist epistemology: Portraiture as a humanizing methodology that informs the methodological design of the study and the pláticas as the main method of data collection. The findings of the study showcase how epistemic injustice manifests itself in doctoral education as a repressive apparatus of PWIs in the U.S., leading to worsening experiences of epistemic neglect, erasure, and marginalization for women doctoral students from the Global South. The study concludes by offering some viable recommendations for campus policy, classroom practice of pedagogy and curriculum, and research. The recommendations hope to make doctoral socialization, and the landscape of higher education at large, more globally conscious and culturally nuanced and relevant for an improved learning experience for international women students from the Global South in the U.S

Nahua Wrap-skirt from Acatlán, Guerrero, Mexico

This piece discusses the techniques used to create an embroidered Nahua wrap-skirt, specifically from Acatlán, Guerrero, Mexico, and the function that is typically attributed to it. In addition to discussing the function and technique, this piece also discusses three main contextual points about the textile, including the role of gender, labor/ class/economy, and globalization. The goal of this piece is to provide researchers with a better understanding of not only the technical process behind creating this skirt, but also to provide an overview of different points that are relevant to the skirt\u27s function and its journey through both time, and space

Enhancing Slum Identification and Definition Through Deep Learning and Spatial Data Integration

This research investigates key slum characteristics to enhance detection accuracy using deep learning models. Four databases were reviewed with BOOLEAN operations and keyword combinations, following PRISMA guidelines. The data was organized and synthesized in Excel for clarity. The results show that standardized slum definitions improve model performance. Additionally, integrating spatial datasets and remote sensing techniques refines detection accuracy. This work demonstrates how deep learning, combined with GIS tools and census data, can improve slum identification and boundary delineation. The findings highlight the potential of these tools to support more precise and effective slum detection strategies

Label-Free Elucidation of Mechanism of GabR Transcription Regulation with Compensated Interferometry

Considering the urgency to develop treatments to combat airborne infectious diseases, this project aims to address knowledge gaps to gain insights into the mechanisms of GabR transcription regulators that regulate key functions for bacterial survival and virulence. Specifically, the DNA-binding domain of GabR overlaps with sites of RNA polymerase (RNAP) binding, therefore, a biomolecular interaction between GabR, DNA, and RNAP is proposed. To investigate this, a label-free binding study using a free-solution assay combined with a recently developed Compensated Interferometric Reader is being assembled and used to detect changes in conformation upon binding in a way that emulates native conditions

Genetic and Biochemical Analyses Reveal LitR\u27s Role in Vibrio fischeri Biofilm Formation

Quorum sensing controls numerous processes ranging from production of virulence factors to biofilm formation. Biofilms, communities of bacteria that are attached to one another and/or a surface, are common in nature and, when they form, can produce a quorum of bacteria. One model system to study biofilms is the bacterium Vibrio fischeri, which forms a biofilm that promotes colonization of its symbiotic host. Many factors promote V. fischeri biofilm formation in vitro, including the symbiosis polysaccharide (SYP), cellulose, and the LapV adhesin but, so far, only a handful of studies have probed connections between biofilm formation and quorum sensing. In this work, I was able to further our understanding of quorum sensing’s contribution to biofilm formation, primarily through studying the quorum sensing-dependent transcription factor, LitR, and its downstream biofilm inhibition pathway. I first showed that LitR negatively influences V. fischeri biofilm formation in the context of a biofilm-overproducing strain. To better understand the importance of LitR, I then identified conditions in which the impact of LitR on biofilm formation could be observed in an otherwise wild-type strain. With these conditions, I investigated LitR’s role and the roles of upstream quorum regulators in biofilm phenotypes. In static conditions, LitR and its upstream quorum regulators, including autoinducer synthases LuxS and AinS, contributed to control over biofilms that were SYP-, cellulose-, and LapV-dependent. In shaking liquid conditions, LitR and AinS contributed to control over biofilms that were primarily cellulose- and LapV-dependent. LitR’s contribution to static pellicle formation also held true in an alternate isolate of V. fischeri, KB2B1, indicating that quorum sensing’s control over biofilm formation may be conserved. To understand how LitR affected the production of these biofilm components, I assessed the dependence of the ∆litR mutant biofilm on their known regulators and if LitR controlled the transcription of their genes. Of the syp regulators, LitR was dependent on the histidine kinase RscS and the Hpt domain of SypF for its pellicle phenotype. However, LitR did not substantially affect rscS or sypA transcription. LitR modestly inhibited cellulose transcription in a manner that depended on the transcription factor, VpsR. LitR induced transcription of the c-di-GMP degrading enzyme, PdeV, which is responsible for inhibiting the presence of surface-associated LapV. The gene upstream of pdeV, rpoQ, shares an intergenic region with VF_A1016, a histidine kinase with similarities to a known negative regulator of biofilm production. I showed that VF_A1016 also inhibited biofilm formation and that VF_A1016 was transcriptionally upregulated by LitR. Based on phenotypic assays, LitR appeared to control VF_A1016 and pdeV transcription to inhibit cellulose- and LapV-dependent biofilms, respectively. Chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing revealed that LitR directly interacts with the rpoQ/VF_A1016 intergenic region to control their expression. Additionally, peaks were identified within the coding regions of other biofilm-relevant genes such as sypO, bcsA, and lapV, suggesting that LitR may bind within these genes to impact their transcription, and, thus, protein production. These findings expand our understanding of LitR and the quorum sensing pathway in the physiology of V. fischeri and illuminate negative control mechanisms that prevent robust biofilm formation by wild-type V. fischeri under laboratory conditions

The De Mau Mau Conspiracy: The Specter of Black Vietnam Veterans in the Exercise of Police Power, 1968-1976

A forgotten and bizarre event encapsulates the violent decay that characterized the pivotal years the United States endured in the wake of the Vietnam War. Black veterans—guerrilla combat-trained, politically awakened by war, and disillusioned with the entrenched racial order at home—emerged as totems in a fearful, cynical political culture wracked by violence. Men overrepresented in the projection of American power abroad now stood as symbols of its fragility within, potential vessels of retribution for centuries of domestic and global oppression. This anxiety, merging with widespread protests and political upheaval, intensified the belief that American cities stood on the brink of insurrection. This dissertation deploys microhistory to sit-uate the De Mau Mau Conspiracy (1972-1976)—when black Vietnam veterans and their associates were accused of wantonly murdering whites—and its contexts, as representative of the post-1968 unraveling in American society before the consolidation of the War on Drugs regime. In this moment of fracture, a multifaceted specter of the re-turning black veteran was central to several discourses on the racial and civil order of the United States. Structured as a layered political, intellectual, and policing history, the dissertation moves from an examination of media hysteria and electoral manipulation to microhistorical treatment of the forensics of the murder cases at the center of the conspiracy, concluding with a close reading of the accused men’s writings. Through a detailed analysis of police records, court documents, print and television media coverage, and an array of periodicals, including GI journals, the study explores two parallel developments: how law enforcement and public officials weaponized fear of black veterans to consolidate carceral power; and how the profound demonization, alienation, and neglect of these young men effectively radicalized a small segment of the population. It concludes that the De Mau Mau Conspiracy functions as both a cautionary tale and a political instrument—illuminating broader strategies of racial containment and the enduring consequences of war, both for those conscripted into imperial folly and for the nation that disavowed them upon their return

Teaching Since 2020: Inhabiting Professionalization, Autonomy, and Classroom Teaching

This study explores teacher professionalization Since 2020 by examining control over teachers’ work as constructed by classroom teachers. Using a conceptual framework combining the teacher disempowerment perspective, inhabited institutionalism, and professionalization, I focus on the question: Given the recent years of upheaval the profession of education has sustained, how are teachers inhabiting the role of professional teacher, particularly regarding control over their own work? This qualitative study utilizes semi-structured interviews with fourteen teacher participants in an Indiana public school district. This study finds that participants are constructing a new Since 2020 teaching reality. Participants converged on professional challenges including disruptive technology, consumerist mindsets, and increased parental/public involvement in an image-conscious, referendum-driven context. Participants experienced growing disempowerment in their teaching, often due to invisible structures of control and jurisdictional creep. Participants valued a balance of autonomy and authority but overall found teachers’ level of autonomy to be below what professionals should experience in society at large. These findings have implications including re-empowering teachers through inhabited institutionalist concepts, recharging collective action to better meet the challenges of Teaching Since 2020, and rethinking the definition of professionalization in the situationally constrained context of the Since 2020 environment