Emperor and Physician: Plague, Politics, and Healing in the Justinianic Novels

The first bubonic plague outbreak, the “Plague of Justinian,” has been subject to scrutiny to determine how it impacted the cultural, political, and economic trajectory of the Byzantine Empire. Central to this debate is the question of the plague’s minimal mention in non-literary sources, particularly the “Novels,” a series of laws released by Emperor Justinian throughout his reign. In recent years, the emperor’s relative silence on the matter has been cited as evidence that the plague was not significant enough to merit a robust imperial response. While the Novels make virtually no explicit reference to plague, this paper identifies a shift in legal language during the early years of the pandemic wherein the emperor offered a series of allusions likening himself to a physician practicing his craft. These allusions are forceful in their comparative quality, declaring an equivalency of lawmaking and healing. It is the position of this paper that the emperor used his legislation as a vehicle to modify his public image, embodying the mindset of a physician to underline his virtuous philanthropy and offset criticism throughout the plague. Compared especially to his successors, Justinian’s language was uniquely deployed and represents an understudied political effect of the pandemic.Extension Studie

Bayesian and Spatiotemporal Modeling of Infectious Diseases and Population Health

Infectious disease outbreak detection is a critical component of public health surveillance. However, the data and methods available for this task vary, and there is limited guidance on which method to apply to a given dataset. Additionally, outbreak detection and public health rate estimation rely on accurate population denominators, yet in the U.S., it is unclear which data sources provide the most reliable estimates. This dissertation addresses both issues by evaluating outbreak detection methods for syndromic and wastewater-based surveillance and by developing a model to estimate U.S. county populations. In Chapter 1, we present a simulation study evaluating spatio-temporal models for syndromic surveillance in low-resource settings. Conventional syndromic surveillance methods face challenges in handling missing data and often do not leverage spatio-temporal structure. We compare a baseline syndromic surveillance model, a frequentist spatio-temporal model, and a Bayesian spatio-temporal conditional autoregressive (CAR) model. The Bayesian CAR model consistently achieves high specificity across simulations, underscoring the importance of spatio-temporal modeling in syndromic surveillance. In Chapter 2, we introduce the Spatially-Weighted Ensemble for Estimation of Populations (SWEEP), a Bayesian ensemble model that combines the American Community Survey (ACS), Population Estimates Program (PEP), and WorldPop (WP) to generate intercensal population estimates. SWEEP uses spatially varying weights that adapt to geographic patterns in product accuracy. Using 2019 product estimates to predict 2020 census counts, SWEEP improves population estimates, particularly for the American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) population, and reveals systematic geographic variation in data accuracy. These findings demonstrate the potential of spatially adaptive ensemble modeling to improve population estimates and support more equitable disease and mortality rate estimation. In Chapter 3, we develop a wastewater-based outbreak detection method using an exponential growth model and evaluate its performance relative to clinically-defined outbreaks. Applied to countylevel COVID-19 data, this method outperforms a reproductive number (Rt)-based approach. Detection performance improves with spatial aggregation yet declines in extreme temperatures, high humidity, and after 2021. These results suggest that wastewater surveillance can reliably detect outbreaks, though its performance varies with environmental context and its evaluation depends on the quality of reference clinical data.Biostatistic

Neutrinos as a Gateway to the Dark Sector

The existence of dark matter is one of the most important mysteries in modern astrophysics and particle physics. Although strong gravitational evidence supports its existence, the nature of dark matter, including its potential interactions with known particles, is still unknown. At the same time, the origin of the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory remains uncertain. Scotogenic models, in which neutrino mass generation occurs through interactions with the dark sector, are some of the leading theories that motivate dark matter and neutrino interactions. If dark matter and neutrinos interact through a non-zero elastic scattering cross-section, this interaction could leave an observable signal in the high-energy neutrino flux observed by IceCube. The interaction between astrophysical neutrinos and dark matter is strongest in the Galactic Center, where the dark matter column density is highest. This leads to a correlated signal between neutrino energy and arrival direction. In this work, we perform a profile-binned likelihood analysis using ten years of IceCube data. By searching for anisotropies in the energy and direction distribution of the observed neutrino flux, we aim to constrain or potentially detect signatures of dark matter-neutrino interactions. Our analysis offers new insights into the possible coupling between high-energy neutrinos and dark matter, providing a novel approach to understanding both phenomena.Physic

Ecology and evolution of a dominant skin commensal and its phage

Poor predictability of stable microbial colonization undermines our ability to harness microbes in biotechnological and human health applications. How microbes colonize and evolve within ecosystems to create microbiomes with unique compositions, in which genetic variation occurs both within and across species boundaries is unclear. Bacteriophages are a likely determinant of colonization, as bacteria-phage dynamics are hypothesized to promote intraspecies diversity in microbiomes by generating strain-level population fluctuations. Human sebaceous skin offers a tractable model system to take a reductionist approach that combines metagenomics and culture-based whole genomics to extensively study the role of phage in microbial community colonization and intraspecies diversity in a natural ecosystem. This thesis studies the ecology and evolution of the highly abundant and ubiquitous skin commensal Cutibacterium acnes and its phage. The first chapter examines the role of phage-mediated selection in the assembly and structure of on-person C. acnes populations. We report findings that phage resistance is not a major determinant of C. acnes intraspecies diversity. As evidenced by widespread susceptibility to phage, resulting from weak selective pressure to maintain or diversify the limited pan-immune repertoire of C. acnes. Furthermore, despite the high prevalence of C. acnes phage in global facial skin metagenomes, the virus-to-microbe ratio is low, and phage-sensitive strains are the most prevalent and abundant members of on-person C. acnes populations. We therefore propose that the physiology and spatial structure of human skin buffers against strong phage-mediated selection and thus minimize the ecological relevance of encoding phage resistance. The second chapter examines the population structure and ecoevolutionary dynamics of C. acnes phage on human skin. We find strong evidence of one or more distinct phage lineages coexisting on individuals’ skin with person-specific genetic signatures that likely arose from independent colonization events. Within these lineages, closely related phage sublineages can coexist and diversify within the same individual, indicating stable phage engraftment and subsequent on-person evolution rather than transient colonization. Overall, this work enhances understanding of phage-mediated ecological and phylogenetic determinants of microbial colonization in human ecosystems, highlights the potential of viruses to colonize and adapt in individual microbiomes, and contributes to better design of microbial-based products with higher potential for durable colonization.Systems Biolog

Acts of God and Government: Evidence for Charitable Crowd-Out from Natural Disasters and Government Spending

Is the supply of charitable giving fixed? I explore this question in the context of natural disasters and President Biden’s announcement of student loan forgiveness, using data from the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. I find that Biden's announcement induces short-run crowd-out of both fundraising for and donations to tuition-related causes. I also measure the charitable response to severe natural disasters, estimating a short-term donation substitution rate of 54\% away from non-disaster fundraisers, and that this effect is driven largely by a decrease in fundraising for non-disaster causes in the immediate aftermath.Applied Mathematic

Radical Paternity: The Resistant Masculinity of Black Fatherhood from Anti-Slavery to Early Civil Rights

This dissertation traces a partly intellectual, partly social history of Black fatherhood in the United States from the mid-nineteenth through the early twentieth century. It examines how African American fathers were positioned within national debates on race, gender, and citizenship, and how those debates were shaped by and helped shape ideas about family, masculinity, and social order. Drawing on a wide range of source materials—including slave narratives, speeches, children’s literature, popular fiction, illustrations, and photography—it investigates the competing portrayals of Black fatherhood by White supremacists, formerly enslaved men and their families, and Black intellectuals engaged in abolitionist and civil rights activism. The project introduces the concept of “Radical Paternity” to describe the ways African American men resisted racist ideologies by embracing fatherhood as a site of dignity, responsibility, and political commitment. This concept also captures how fatherhood motivated acts of resistance and inspired alternative visions of masculinity that rejected domination and violence. By centering the lived experiences and intellectual contributions of Black men, this study challenges narratives of pathological Black familial dysfunction and overly celebratory accounts of heroic paternal figures. It argues instead for a historically grounded understanding of African American fatherhood as a dynamic and contested site of struggle, creativity, and care within a racist society. In doing so, the dissertation contributes to broader conversations in African American history, gender studies, and the history of the family.Histor

On the linguistic development of Irish Traveller Gammon-Cant (‘Shelta’) and other Gaelic-based argots

This dissertation explores the historical development of the language of the Irish Travelling Community (Mincéirí, Pavees). Known variously as ‘Cant’ or ‘Gammon’, and termed ‘Shelta’ solely within academic circles, the compromise form ‘Gammon-Cant’ is adopted here. This language is spoken exclusively by members of the traditionally nomadic Travelling Community and is largely unknown within the ‘Settled’ population. Well-known, however, is that a significant portion of the Gammon-Cant lexicon emerged via the historical application of deliberate phonological alterations (‘metaplasms’) to existing Gaelic wordforms (e.g. Ir. mac ‘son’ ⪢ GC. cam, via consonantal transposition or ‘metathesis’). Such is typical of ‘argots’, distinct varieties of speech that pertain to speaker groups of restricted membership, while maintaining a structural relationship with the language(s) of the wider community. This dissertation provides a detailed re-assessment of the evolution of the Gammon-Cant lexicon and suggests that a historical chronology of metaplasmic alterations can be inferred from the available data. Its methodological approach also highlights the equally central role of non-metaplasmic, ‘regular’ sound change in the language’s formation. The study further investigates the relationship between the Gammon-Cant language and other Gaelic-based argots, with particular focus on the Beurla Reagaird of the indigenous Scottish Highland Travellers and the Béarlagair na Saor jargon of the Irish peripatetic stonemasons, arguing that a direct phylogenetic connection to Gammon-Cant is probable for the former, but not the latter. In terms of the language’s ultimate origins, this dissertation challenges ‘antique’ theories which allege that Gammon-Cant has its roots in medieval cryptological practices. It also contests ‘recent’ theories that endorse a late date of formation following the spread of Irish-English bilingualism in Ireland to account for its present usage of English-based morphosyntax. Employing principles of the Comparative Method of Historical Linguistics, this study argues that there is no clear evidence of either phonological archaism or scholastic influence in the historical development of the Gammon-Cant lexicon, as maintained by ‘antique’ origin theories. Instead, it proposes that the language was most likely formed in a purely oral setting, among speakers who had native fluency in an Early Modern form of the (Irish) Gaelic language. Adopting analytical models from the field of Contact Linguistics, this dissertation further argues that the English-based component of modern Gammon-Cant can be satisfactorily explained as a secondary development following prolonged language contact with English. Extensive comparison with other mixed languages and argots is made throughout, with a view to demonstrating that the Gammon-Cant language has undergone a structural shift (in both its phonological and morphosyntactic character) from primarily Gaelic-based to English-based. Such parallels further support the claim that Gammon-Cant fits comfortably within a wider typology of argotic speech.Celtic Languages and Literature

From Integration to Isolation: Xinjiang Cotton and Commercial Networks (1759-1890)

This dissertation examines the transformation of Xinjiang from the mid-eighteenth to the late nineteenth century within the broader context of global capitalist expansion. Following the Qing conquest in 1759, cotton and cotton textiles produced in Altishahr (southern Xinjiang) and Turpan became highly sought-after commodities in transnational trade, positioning Xinjiang as a central hub within the Eurasian commercial network. However, by the mid-nineteenth century—amid warfare, Russian expansion, and industrialization—Xinjiang gradually became isolated from surrounding markets and, by the early twentieth century, was relegated to a peripheral role as a supplier of raw cotton within the global capitalist system. Adopting a commodity chain approach, this study analyzes the production, transportation, and distribution of cotton and textiles to illuminate the changing institutional, political, and socio-economic landscapes of Qing Xinjiang. Drawing on Manchu, Chinese, and Chaghatay sources, it examines Qing economic governance and frontier policies through the lens of local production, a perspective that remains underexplored in existing scholarship. While historians have often argued that the rise of maritime trade in the early modern period led to the inevitable decline of overland Eurasian trade networks, this dissertation challenges this narrative. It reveals the persistence—and transformation—of a new kind of Eurasian commercial network during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, characterized by merchant capitalism: the dominance of merchants in conducting long-distance trade in bulk commodities without altering the production process. Therefore, Qing China remained deeply integrated into both overland and maritime networks. However, restrictive Qing policies on the mobility of Altishahr merchants ensured that this trade was largely dominated by actors outside of the region, namely Central Asian and Chinese merchants. As a result, Xinjiang functioned primarily as a production site, leaving it especially vulnerable to external market fluctuations. As this interconnected Eurasian commercial system underwent reorganization beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Xinjiang experienced significant economic dislocation and political instability. In this way, the dissertation contributes to a more nuanced understanding of a connected Eurasian world undergoing profound transformation amid the global expansion of capitalism.East Asian Languages and Civilization

Ultramodernism in Global Musical Thought, 1900–1950

I cast a new critical perspective on music theory’s pre-World War II avant-garde, revealing an integrated intellectual network spread across Russia, Central and Western Europe, North America, and Latin America. In the early twentieth century, I show, teleological music theories divergent from that of Arnold Schoenberg proliferated in experimental and atonal music, only to be suppressed in later reception, largely because of Schoenberg’s perceived continuity with music’s “Great German Tradition.” I recover these alternative music theories through a mixture of global historiography and archival research: In the US, Henry Cowell forged an international coalition with his theories of dissonant counterpoint and acoustics; in Paris as a Russian émigré, Ivan Wyschnegradsky developed alternative axioms for atonal music; and in Mexico, Carlos Chávez and Julián Carrillo negotiated discourses surrounding modernism and Indigeneity, both with each other, and in dialogue with the dissertation’s other protagonists. By taking a transnational approach, I destabilize conceptions of the pre-war avant-garde’s intellectual locus in the Second Viennese School—conceptions ascendant at least since Theodor Adorno’s mid-century writings—in favor of a rich and heterogenous global network.Musi

Dear Father: A Memoir on Love, Family, and a Complicated Paternity

The epistolary form provides a unique way for the author to shorten the narrative distance by creating a level of intimacy with the reader that one can’t quite achieve with other forms. By using this form, the author allows the audience to peer into the world they are painting in a such a way that removes the veil of distance and invites the reader to fully submerse themselves within the text, the subtext, and the story itself. Dear Father addresses a complex relationship between a daughter and her adoptive father, while using the epistolary form to create a certain intimacy that would be difficult to achieve otherwise.Extension Studie