“I’m Already Channeled Out by the World, Lemme Go Ahead and Get Drinking”: Sex Offender Registration and Notification Policies as Social Determinants of Behavioral Health

As of 2017, there were approximately 861,000 people in the U.S. required to register under sexual offender registration and notification policies. While evidence indicates that these policies do not deter sexual offending or prevent recidivism, these policies do have significant effects on the wellbeing of registrants and their communities. Registrants face numerous policy and legal proscriptions, such as residency restrictions that prohibit them from living in proximity to schools or public spaces, exclusion from public housing and shelters, and ineligibility for federal funds directed towards reentry, vocational, or social services. Moreover, they experience intense stigma and alienation, which often manifest as abandonment by social networks, exclusion from community spaces, and overt discrimination and harassment. Many of the severely destabilizing collateral consequences of sex offender registration policies are also known risk factors for substance use. These policies and restrictions may therefore create or exacerbate a substance use risk environment and increase the likelihood of substance-use-related harms, including interpersonal harms. However, no public health research has directly examined relationships between sex offender registration policies and substance use related harms. This dissertation identifies and addresses this gap in knowledge through a rapid review of the collateral consequences literature, followed by studies based on 44 qualitative interviews with people required to register in Philadelphia and the 20 qualitative interviews with professional stakeholders who work with them. The rapid review yielded 42 peer reviewed studies and governmental reports documenting the collateral consequences of sex offender registration and notification policies. Consequences typically fell into the categories of housing, employment, education, relationships, mental health, criminal justice, stigma, and safety. Housing was the most frequently reported barrier, closely followed by employment and stigma. Only one study alluded to substance use, and no studies focused their attention on substance use related harms. Most studies were published in criminal justice and/or forensic psychology journals, and no literature was published in public health journals. Six key themes emerged from 20 qualitative semi-structured interviews with criminal legal, substance use, and forensic stakeholders who work with people required to register in Philadelphia. These themes described how 1) “sex offender” is an extremely stigmatized and villainized identity, 2 & 3) how sex offender registration related restrictions transform the social and material context of reentry, 4) how both the formal restrictions and the labeling have detrimental impacts on mental health and self-concept, 5) how these material and psychosocial consequences of SORN increase substance use risk and restrict access to court-referred drug treatment, and 6) how the overall landscape has dangerous and destructive implications, especially for overdose risk. Forty-four interviews with adult men required to register in Philadelphia yielded similar themes that broadly illustrated the challenging reentry landscape faced by people required to register, as well as the impacts of sex offender registration policies on health and wellbeing. These themes documented how 1) sex offender registration policies enact formal barriers—such as residency restrictions--that cultivate a restricted reentry landscape, 2) how registration policies and the sex offender label have wide ranging and significant interpersonal effects, 3) how both the formal and informal barriers impact the mental health of people required to register, and 4) how all of these consequences impact substance use related harms. Results suggest that sex offender registration and notification laws operate as social determinants of poor health for registrants and are previously unstudied collateral consequences of sex offender criminalization. These findings provide evidence for social service providers, funders, policy advocates, and officials on the need to reform harmful and ineffective policies and improve access to treatment services for people required to register

Law, Culture, and the Politics of Confucianism

A paper that deals with law, culture, and Confucianism is perhaps doomed to be a collection of vague and general platitudes. This is because all three of these terms are notoriously plagued with definitional problems. Legal theorists continue to disagree about the nature and scope of the concept of law, while anthropologists and sociologists constantly argue about the utility of the concept of culture. Similarly, philosophers, historians, journalists, politicians-indeed, almost anyone with a voice-seem to have different ideas about what Confucianism means. One of the main reasons for such disagreements, in my opinion, is an all-too-human tendency to want neat and simple categories that can encompass, represent, and take the place of the messy and intractable realities of life. We are all too familiar with the problem that "law" in modern life encompasses vastly different norms and institutions which cannot be easily grouped under the same rubric without in some sense straining the usefulness of the term "law."' The same is true of "culture" and "Confucianism"-with each term, it is often difficult to engage in any discussion beyond the most preliminary stages without being forced to ask, "culture in what sense of the term?" or, "Confucianism according to whose interpretation?' This shows that all these terms are very elastic and that different practices and ideas are often subsumed under the same concept, which in turn aggravates the lack of conceptual clarity

Black Science Teacher Attrition as Political Struggle in the United States during the post-Obama Era of 2017-2022

The five-year period following the 44th presidency of Barack Obama has been marked by increased anti-Black violence, neoliberal capitalism, and U.S. imperialism and the continued deterioration of the social and political working conditions of the Black masses. In the years following the Department of Education arguably continues to fail to retain an adequate number of Black science teachers in the growing need for equitable and accessible public science education. This study collects and interprets the narrative-biographies of Black former science teachers by exploring their political experiences through storytelling of their life histories, educational experiences, and professional development before, during, and after leaving the classroom since the academic year of 2017-18, characterized here as the post-Obama era. Interviews and their transcriptions were analyzed using an anti-oppressive research methodology of self-thematization alongside a hermeneutic of a-priori codes that reflected political consciousness, identity, and activity in Black former science teacher’s decision-making throughout their teaching career that may have led to their early retirement. Through a critical Marxist perspective of historical materialism and antiblackness in science education, the resulting narrative-biographies add to the expanding literature of science teacher attrition and Black political resistance in the United States

A higher Hida cuspidal Siegel Eisenstein family for GSp₄

We consider cuspidal Siegel Eisenstein series on GSp₄ and define explicit rational Λ-adic families of Eisenstein cohomology classes on Siegel 3-folds. Under standard assumptions, we prove that these rational families are integral in the context of higher Hida theory. This provides the first example of an explicit integral family of Eisenstein cohomology classes in higher degrees

Prioritizing Intent in Judgments of Intergroup and Intragroup Harms

Researchers in moral psychology often investigate harmful behaviors at the interpersonal level but rarely consider how moral processes might play out in group contexts. Meanwhile, researchers studying intergroup processes rarely consider mechanisms rooted in moral cognition. Integrating work on moral psychology and intergroup relations, five studies examined how Black and White adults (and, in the case of Study 5, children) view intent when making moral judgments about intergroup and intragroup harms. We presented participants with a series of vignettes describing intergroup harms (e.g., a White person refusing to sit next to a Black person) or intragroup harms (e.g., a White person refusing to sit next to another White person). Participants then responded to questions about how the behaviors should be punished (Studies 1, 3, 4, and 5), the morality of the behavior (Studies 2, 4, and 5), and the degree to which the transgressor's intent mattered (all). White participants prioritized transgressors' intent more than did Black participants when evaluating intergroup harms (Studies 1, 3, and 4) and punished these harms less (Studies 2-5). These results did not emerge for intragroup harms, suggesting that White individuals may reason about harms that implicate their in-group members as perpetrators differently from harms that do not carry this implication. Taken together, these studies suggest that the difference in the emphasis placed on intent in intergroup contexts versus intragroup contexts originates in later childhood, continues into adulthood, is distinct from strict ingroup preference, and highlights the importance of considering morality and intergroup bias in concert

Investigating the contributions of eIF3 subunits to translation initiation

The transfer of genetic information is a necessity for all life on earth. The final step in this information flow is the translation of messenger RNA (mRNA) into protein by the ribosome. The molecular machinery responsible for translation includes the ribosome itself and a suite of factors responsible for getting the ribosome onto the mRNA at the correct time in a process called translation initiation. In addition to correct timing, translation initiation must also both be highly accurate and begin at the correct location (called the start codon), otherwise the incorrect protein product will be made. This process involves several factors across all domains of life. In eukaryotes, these factors are called eukaryotic initiation factors (eIFs). There are over a dozen eIFs that are all required for the process of translation initiation. The primary focus of this thesis is on the molecular mechanisms used by one of these factors, a protein complex called eIF3. However, because eIF3 makes extensive functional and/or physical interactions with other eIFs and functions throughout many of the mechanistic steps of translation initiation, the insights gained into eIF3 function inform the understanding of the process of translation initiation broadly. Generally, when studying molecular mechanism, it is often necessary and always desired to have the most control of the system under study as possible. In the case of eIF3, a large fraction of our knowledge about its function over the previous decades has come from in vivo genetic or cell-extract-based studies, which inherently lack precise control over components. While these studies have provided immense information regarding the impact of eIF3 across translation initiation and are the foundation for all future work, they lack information regarding the molecular mechanisms eIF3 employs. Therefore, to develop a system capable of interrogating such mechanisms, Chapter 2 of this thesis presents a recombinantly reconstituted eIF3 complex that is functional in vitro and is used as a basis for site-specific fluorophore labeling of an individual eIF3 subunit. This biochemically active, reconstituted eIF3 is used throughout the rest of the thesis as it allows for enhanced control over the composition and identity of the eIF3 species under investigation. In Chapter 3, the mRNA-binding activity of eIF3 is explored. The mRNA-binding activity ascribed to eIF3 is shown to be largely driven by a single eIF3 subunit, with the other subunits modulating this activity. Specifically, the largest eIF3 subunit, eIF3a, is shown to be the primary driver of mRNA-binding by eIF3 and the interactions of other subunits are shown to alter the observed binding. Following up on the study of mRNA-binding by individual eIF3 subunits, Chapter 4 expands to the study of eIF3 subunits and their coordination in additional biochemical activities, including the ability to bind to the ribosome itself. Lastly, the involvement of eIF3 in the attachment of mRNA to the ribosome is investigated. Specifically, Chapter 5 investigates the role of eIF3 in the process of loading the mRNA into the ribosome, a process that necessitates the handoff of the mRNA from the eIFs responsible for initial recognition of the mRNA to the ribosome. Collectively, this thesis establishes a toolkit for studying the mechanistic roles of individual eIF3 subunits throughout translation initiation and uses this toolkit to describe how a single factor can accomplish such a wide range of biochemical activities

Essays in Finance and International Macroeconomics

This dissertation is composed of three essays in finance and international macroeconomics, which share a common focus on sovereign debt markets, capital market development, and cross-border financial linkages. The first essay provides causal evidence that government debt plays a crucial role in facilitating the development of corporate bond markets. Using micro-level data from Brazil, it demonstrates that at early stages of market development, government debt complements corporate debt issuance by providing pricing benchmarks and facilitating price discovery, though this relationship shifts toward substitution as markets mature. The second essay empirically characterizes China's approach to internationalizing its bond market through the staggered entry of different types of foreign investors and develops a dynamic reputation model to explain this strategy. This analysis reveals how China attempts to build credibility as a safe issuer while simultaneously minimizing the risks of capital flight. Building upon these findings, the third essay documents China's dramatic rise in offshore capital markets, showing how Chinese firms use global tax havens to access foreign capital

Essays on the Economics of Education

This dissertation is composed of three chapters. Each chapter is a paper in the field of economics of education. Together, they examine the impact of three educational interventions aimed at improving student outcomes, using experimental methods across diverse settings. The first chapter estimates the impact of partially substituting instructional time for the use of computer-adaptive learning technology. To examine this, a field experiment was conducted randomizing the use of the software for two weekly hours among 38 9th grade classrooms. In addition to this, a tutoring component targeted to 20 percent of students was randomized among treated classrooms. Results show that partially substituting instructional time for the use of the adaptive platform led to large improvements in students' test scores. However, classrooms that received the tutoring component in addition to the adaptive learning software, performed worse than those that only received the latter. These differences seem partially explained by implementation challenges and lower use of the platform in tutored classrooms. The second chapter examines short- and long-term impacts of attending urban and nonurban charter schools in Massachusetts. Using randomized admission lotteries, we find that urban charter schools increase test scores and college attendance and completion; whereas, nonurban charter schools decrease test scores but increase college attendance and graduation, even more so than urban charters. Results suggest that both urban and nonurban charter schools increase college preparation but via different paths. Urban charters increase AP and SAT outcomes, as well as the completion of MassCore, a state-recommended college-prep curriculum. Nonurban charters decrease AP-taking but have a large positive impact on MassCore completion. These findings suggest that there is more than one path to college success, and test score impacts do not always predict longer-term gains. Lastly, the third chapter examines the impact of a comprehensive reading intervention using a randomized field experiment. The intervention, implemented over two years in a sample of Haitian public schools, provided a combination of teacher training, coaching, supervision, and school supplies. By endline, 18 months after the start of the intervention, we find large positive effects on student reading outcomes. Notably, our results suggest that a model relying on school principals for teacher coaching can be as effective as a costlier and more logistically challenging version involving external coaches. These findings highlight the potential for using existing school leadership to deliver scalable and sustainable pedagogical support in low-capacity settings

It’s Not Just a Phase: Development, Evolutionary History, and Consequences of the Free-Living Gametophyte Phase in the Life Cycles of Ferns

An alteration to the life cycle was a fundamental early step in the evolution of land plants. The ancestors of land plants likely spent most of their lives as a multicellular haploid organism, known as the gametophyte phase, and entered a single-celled diploid zygote phase only rarely. This changed in early land plants, which developed a multicellular diploid embryo that grew into a multicellular diploid body called the sporophyte phase. Since then, land plants have evolved the full spectrum of relative dependence between phases, i.e. they exhibit sporophyte-dominant, gametophyte-dominant, and co-dominant life cycles. Such foundational changes to the plant life cycle were critical for the establishment of early plants on land and have remained a central aspect of land plant evolution, but beyond this, little detail is known about the early steps in land plant evolution. Ferns are the only extant land plant lineage in which both life phases are independent and photosynthetic. They also occupy a key phylogenetic position as sister to the most diverse group of land plants (seed plants), thus both their life cycle and their evolutionary history is intermediate between those of the other major plant lineages. Ferns have been historically underutilized in genomic studies due to the difficulty of sequencing their genomes. However, with advances in sequencing technology and reduction in costs, it has recently become feasible to develop genomic resources in ferns. Additionally, the fern gametophyte – once thought to be relatively unimportant, or even a “handicap” in the fern life cycle – has been an overlooked, but consequential, aspect of land plant evolution. The free-living gametophyte is a salient feature of the fern life cycle and more broadly the life cycles of early-diverging groups of land plants, while the fern sporophyte is similar to the sporophyte of seed plants, which predominate in botanical research. Thus, research in ferns bridges a gap in existing data from disparate lineages. In this dissertation I utilize ferns, and the fern gametophyte in particular, to address open questions about the origin, evolution, and development of land plants. In Chapter 1, I develop a computational tool called shadie for simulating genome evolution under realistic plant life cycle models to explore the evolutionary consequences of co-dominant fern life cycles compared to those with less independent stages. Simulations using this tool demonstrate that fixation probability of new mutations and patterns of linkage change due to life cycle alone, suggesting that the relative dominance of phases in plant life cycles has likely influenced the long-term evolution of the major lineages in different ways and may be a key characteristic for understanding why they are so distinct from one another. In Chapter 2 I focus on a key trait of the gametophyte, the gametangia (sex organs), to generate testable hypotheses about this aspect of the evolution and development of land plants and larger trends in land plant evolution. I review 150 years of botanical literature on the subject of gametangia morphology and development to generate an eight-stage ontogenic framework that unites the development of the female and male sex organs of land plants and proposes homologies across all land plant lineages. This review synthesizes data from diverse fields and sometimes elusive sources to identify clear future research directions. In Chapter 3 I collect the first high resolution transcriptomic time series dataset of gametophyte development in the model fern, Ceratopteris richardii. I use this dataset to characterize differential gene expression changes throughout the fern life cycle, identify transcription factors specific to developmental stages, assign gene specificity to one phase or the other, and test a century-old hypothesis about the origin of land plants. In Chapter 4 I extend this pipeline to a comparative study utilizing 11 species of field-collected sporophytes and lab-reared gametophytes and implement the McDonald-Kreitman test to measure selection. Results from these chapters reveal a consistently high degree of gene expression overlap between the gametophyte and sporophyte, adding to growing evidence that ferns may experience a high degree of pleiotropy between life phases. We also discover that phase-specific genes experience higher rates of adaptive evolution than genes that are shared by both phases, which could suggest that gene-sharing between phases causes selection to act with less efficiency. Finally, in Chapter 5 I reconstruct the evolution of an ancient family of homeodomain proteins called TALE, incorporating sequences from ferns, lycophytes, and gymnosperms, which were not available for use in earlier reconstructions. I then use in situ hybridization to characterize the spatial gene expression of all fourteen copies of TALE genes in C. richardii in both gametophyte and sporophyte tissues. This study contributes to resolving the TALE phylogeny, which has proven difficult to reconstruct, and assigns previously unidentified TALE genes to their respective clades. This study clarifies evolutionary relationships between TALE genes in land plants, characterize their expression patterns in ferns, and results suggest that at least some copies of ferns retain their ancestral functions. This study is also the first to demonstrate clear evidence that TALE proteins are involved in gametophyte body plan patterning in land plants

The Duty to Make Contracts Understandable

So what if consumers can’t understand contracts? They don’t read contracts. They can’t negotiate contracts. All their contracts have the same unfair terms. And nowadays businesses use algorithms, artificial intelligence, and social scientists to craft individualized contracts that hack consumer’s minds. Choice is an illusion. Consumer understanding is a pipedream. Even so, contracts should still be understandable. The opportunity to understand a contract is essential to contract formation’s integrity. While much contract literature focuses on how nonnegotiable contracts cause consumers to make bad deals, this Article challenges the concession that a deal has been made. Contract formation requires consumers have an opportunity to read the contract, which in turn requires consumers have an opportunity to understand what they read. Even if consumers do not exercise this opportunity, and even if exercising that opportunity only reveals how unfair the contract is, this opportunity must exist. The Article proposes that the Uniform Law Commission pass a statute requiring consumer contracts to be understandable to the average intended consumer. Such a law benefits sellers and consumers alike, removes the biggest and oldest impediment to contract innovation (lawyers), incentivizes using machines and science to improve contracts, and might just save transactional lawyers from having their jobs poached by technology