2022 - 2023 Research Conference

In 1986, landmark United States Supreme Court case Batson v. Kentucky highlighted the problematic nature of the American peremptory challenge: if attorneys are allowed to remove jurors without cause, attorneys may still discriminate on the basis of race to achieve a favorable verdict at trial at the expense of non-white defendants. Only rough 2% of cases nationwide will make it to trial. Throughout this project, I examine the racist and racial weaponization of peremptory challenges in cases... Read More

Unique health needs and various forms of discrimination prevent queer people from getting adequate healthcare. Legal restrictions, social stigma, and ignorance from healthcare professionals can negatively affect access to things ranging from hormone replacement therapy to preventative HIV medication. To circumvent these obstacles, queer people rely on underground networks to disperse vital information and resources. Today, nonauthoritative actors like drag queens and sex workers can be more... Read More

As the climate crisis looms on the horizon, many governmental and scientific authorities agree that it is time to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels toward renewable energy. In the U.S. where fossil fuels generated 60 percent of the electricity in 2022, this change is sure to cause major ripples throughout the country's economy. This paper aims to analyze the potential economic impact of such an energy transition, specifically on employment. Using quantitative data from libraries and... Read More

Genetic manipulation of organisms important to human society and survival has been an intrinsic part of our history since humans transitioned from being mainly hunter-gatherers to establishing permanent groups which remained in one geographic location. The advent of molecular biology and biochemistry in the 20th century laid the groundwork to accelerate the methods used by generations of agriculturalists by many orders of magnitude. This paper examines the CRISPR/Cas9 system’s ability of... Read More

Hook-up culture on the college campus simultaneously offers young women a venue for sexual liberation, while reproducing gender inequities observed throughout much of society. Thus, women are subjected to power imbalances, sexual dissatisfaction, and restrictions in their own bodily autonomy in the pursuit of casual sex. Given this bind, I set out to evaluate hook-up culture from the framework expressed through lesbian separatist practice. Specifically, I analyze The Furies Collective, a... Read More

Peer respites are a community based behavioral healthcare program designed by and for people who experience mental health crises or extreme states. The peer respite model has become known as an alternative to hospitalization because it offers short-term, overnight, and voluntary care in a residential, non-traumatizing, and comfortable environment for recovery. In response to the national rollout of 988 as the three-digit number for suicide and mental health crisis, many states passed... Read More

Palestinians have been suffering under Israeli occupation since the creation of the Zionist state in 1948. Despite their suffrage, the Palestinian people have been resisting occupation. There have been two distinct mass resistance movements among Palestinians, known as the first and second intifadas, meaning “uprising,” in Arabic. The first intifada of the late 1980s and the second intifada of the early 21st century were both extensively covered across a variety of media outlets. Foreign media... Read More

Gun violence is a major public health concern in the United States. According to the CDC, firearm injuries are the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in 2020. This violence can have a substantial impact on children and adolescents' health and well-being. Prior research links direct exposure to gun violence and negative mental health outcomes, including depression and post-traumatic stress among adults. However, limited research has evaluated the effects of indirect exposure... Read More

The most obvious genre that death seems to permeate is horror. The tales we tell in the dark about ghosts and bloodshed seem, on their face, to be a confrontation with our fear of dying. But what is actually going on when we create horror? This paper will analyze an important genre of storytelling through the psychoanalytic framework of Ernest Becker and the philosophical frameworks of Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. It will look through horror tropes, specific cases,... Read More

In prescribing racial reality, there is a pervasive belief linking phenotypic associations to genetic reality. Although widely accepted, this approach, referred to as biological realism, fails to provide a framework for clear and distinguishable racial categories. Competing approaches within biological realism suggest that any conclusion derived from such data is merely heuristic, and thus should not be regarded as a wholly, if at all, accurate means of racialization. This thus posits race... Read More

The ability to vote is foundational to the establishment of the United States, and yet access to voting continues to be one of the most controversial topics in the country. This paper will examine the voter suppression tactics employed throughout the history of the United States, and the realities of voter suppression today. I argue that there exist both formal and informal barriers to voting within the American electorate system. Formal methods include those identified throughout American... Read More

The recent "Burn the Cape" movement, which gained momentum in 2020 and spread through Twitter and other social media platforms, encourages Black women in America to stop being martyrs for every other demographic's political and social fight, including men of all racial backgrounds and non-Black women. This paper pinpoints the origin and promoter of the 'cape', which new generations of Black women claim to burden them with the task of being a self-sacrificing superhero to others while receiving... Read More

During a freshman year project for my Introduction to Latino Studies class, one of my interviewees referred to Puerto Rico as one of the world’s last colonies. This comment, alongside the stories told to me by my Abuelita and Abuelito, inspired me to embrace my Puerto Rican heritage through this project. This paper summarizes and examines a condensed history of Puerto Rico after it was ceded to the United States by Spain in 1898. This analysis is used to inform my recommendation for the... Read More

Democracies in transition usually rely on authoritative sources of power, leaders that can be colloquially described as benevolent dictators or authoritarian leaders. After these authoritarian leaders are deposed, they have a tremendous sociological impact on the citizens and the generations of citizens afterward. There is a version of “memory politics” that plays into how these authoritarian leaders are seen. These leaders are almost humanized by memory politics and seen as leaders who acted... Read More

From former President Donald Trump’s permanent Twitter ban in early 2021 to more recent developments of sites de-platforming polemic celebrities like Kanye West, fiery disputes centered on social media and free speech have characterized some of the twentieth century’s most combative cultural spectacles. Whether arguing it promotes or limits online speech, American citizens interested in navigating their online free speech rights have since implicated the First Amendment of the U.S... Read More

Twitter discourse has gained a more influential role in shaping public attitudes in the past few years. The platform continues to be known as a site of worsening polarization and heated culture wars that gives public figures a strong level of influence. Its largely written corpus form also means that it can be analyzed for linguistic features that indicate emotive or persuasive language. Prior research by Christopher Potts and Florian Schwarz has identified that increased use of the... Read More