United Methodist Children\u27s Center Playground Improvements

The project consists of multiple pieces that were done as a team to improve the outdoor areas of the United Methodist Children’s Center. The scope of the work consists of placing gorilla hair mulch, making a bench for the kids, removing, grading, and placing artificial turf, and replacing the canvas of a shade structure. There are a few other smaller pieces that will be completed as well but those are the main pieces of the project. The project was executed by teaming up with multiple companies and getting teams of students together to construct the pieces of the project in the timeline we were given. Being a children’s center, there was a challenge with working around their schedule and not interfering with the kids. This project began in February of 2023 and was completed on June 4, 2023. The children’s center was left with a cleaner, safer playground for their students to enjoy during their recess, and the members of the project team left with a new understanding of what goes into placing turf, mulch, building benches, and replacing a canvas shade structure

Knot theory of holomorphic curves in Stein surfaces

Thesis advisor: John A. BaldwinWe study the relationship between knots in contact three-manifolds and complex curves in Stein surfaces. To do so, we extend the notion of quasipositivity from classical braids to links that are braided with respect to an open book decomposition of an arbitrary closed, oriented three-manifold. Our main results characterize the transverse links in Stein-fillable contact three-manifolds that bound smooth holomorphic curves in Stein fillings. This characterization is made possible by new techniques in the theory of characteristic and open book foliations on surfaces in three-manifolds. We also explore the Seifert genera of cross-sections of complex plane curves, minimal braid representatives of quasipositive links, and the relationship between Legendrian ribbons in contact three-manifolds and strongly quasipositive braids with respect to compatible open books.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Mathematics