Feinberg School of Medicine
Clinical Psychology
Erin Romero
Erin Romero is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Division of Psychology. She works with Linda A. Teplin, Ph.D. and Karen M. Abram, Ph.D. on the Northwestern Juvenile Project, a prospective longitudinal study of health needs and health outcomes of delinquent youth. Romero’s research focuses on the development and persistence of HIV/AIDS risk behaviors as youth age into young adulthood. For her dissertation, she is investigating how incarceration affects HIV/AIDS risk behaviors. For further information, please visit the Division of Clinical Psychology.
Feinberg School of Medicine
Integrated Graduate Program in the Life Sciences (IGP)
Greg Woodhead
Greg Woodhead, a doctoral student in the Integrated Graduate Program in the Life Sciences, investigates in his research the developing mammalian brain. Woodhead, also a student in the Medical Scientist Training Program, works in the laboratory of his advisor Assistant Professor Anjen Chenn. Using novel techniques that allow him to manipulate gene expression in embryonic brains, Woodhead explores how specific cell signaling pathways control the neural progenitor cells that generate the cerebral cortex. Woodhead has shown that the beta-catenin signaling pathway, implicated in many human cancers, is required for the proliferation and normal maturation of neural progenitor cells. Woodhead’s research on normal development provides new insights on how cell proliferation might be controlled in human diseases such as cancer and was highlighted as a paper of the week in the Journal of Neuroscience in November 2006. For additional information, please visitthe Integrated Graduate Program in the Life Sciences.
Interdisciplinary Programs
Interdepartmental Biological Sciences
Sarah Ledoux
Sarah Ledoux is a doctoral student in the Interdepartmental Biological Sciences Program in the Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology Department. Working under the mentorship of Professor Olke Uhlenbeck she studies the mechanism of protein synthesis. Her research has shown that while different aminoacyl-tRNAs function very similarly on the ribosome, small mutations in the tRNA sequence or esterified amino acid can lead to large increases in misincorporation at mismatched codons. This shows that the conserved sequences of aminoacyl-tRNAs are crucial not only for cognate codon reading, but more importantly also to prevent misincorporation in order to maintain the fidelity of protein synthesis. For more information, please visit the Interdepartmental Biological Sciences Program
Interdisciplinary Programs
Interdepartmental Biological Sciences
David Giljohann
David Giljohann is a doctoral student studying under Professor Chad Mirkin in the Department of Chemistry. David's work uses gold nanoparticles with DNA modifications for the control of protein expression in cells. The ability to systematically control DNA attachment on the nanoparticle surface has lead to several observations that make these "antisense particles" tremendous candidates for both basic scientific study as well as potential therapeutics. David's work has shown that the attachment of oligonucleotides to the gold nanoparticle surface creates cooperative properties that lead to enhanced target binding, less susceptibility to degradation by nuclease activity, and high efficiency of cellular entry of the antisense particles. These particles have been further proven to be an effective method for detecting mRNA in living cells. David is currently investigating the properties which contribute to the unexpected cellular uptake of these nanostructures. For more information, please visit the Interdepartmental Biological Sciences Program
Interdisciplinary Programs
Interdepartmental Biological Sciences
Sujit Jangam
Sujit Jangam is a doctoral candidate in the Interdepartmental Biological Sciences Graduate Program (IBiS) and works with Prof. David Kelso, Biomedical engineering. His work involves the development of a point-of-care DNA PCR test for HIV diagnosis in infants. DNA PCR is a recommended method for HIV diagnosis in infants but cost and complexity limit its availability in resource-limited settings. Dried Blood Spot based DNA PCR testing strategies have increased the number of infants being tested. However, the percentage of patients not being informed of the results has increased due to long turn around times. We are developing an inexpensive point-of-care DNA PCR test for infants so that results can be delivered while the caregiver waits. DNA extraction from blood has been reduced to 2 min and combined with real-time PCR can produce results in an hour. We have finished developing the DNA extraction method and the Real-Time PCR assay. Trials with adult blood samples from Northwestern Memorial Hospital have been promising. We are in the process of designing a cartridge for one step DNA extraction and PCR. We are also developing a portable, low-power PCR analyzer for field deployment. For more information, please visit The Interdepartmental Biological Sciences Graduate Program.
Interdisciplinary Programs
Interdepartmental Biological Sciences Program
Matthew Massich
Matthew Massich is a doctoral student studying under the mentorship of Professor Chad Mirkin in the Department of Chemistry. Matt's research involves the use of gold nanoparticles that have been functionalized with a monolayer of DNA. Previous work by the Mirkin group has demonstrated that when DNA is attached to the gold nanoparticle surface interesting cooperative properties are observed. These properties have contributed to the development of the DNA-nanoparticle conjugates for various biological applications, such as intracellular mRNA detection and gene regulation. Matt’s research focuses on investigating the cellular response to the presence of the DNA-nanoparticle conjugates inside the cell, and characterizing the biocompatibility of this unique nanomaterial. Initial studies have suggested that the ability to detect foreign intracellular DNA is inhibited when the DNA is attached to the surface of a gold nanoparticle, and that the nanoparticle conjugates seem to have less of an effect on the cells than the DNA alone. For more information, please visit the Interdepartmental Biological Sciences Program.
Interdisciplinary Programs
Technology and Social Behavior
Andrea Tartaro
Andrea Tartaro is a Ph.D. candidate in the Technology and Social Behavior program and works with Dr. Justine Cassell. Her dissertation research involves designing, building and evaluating a new kind of "authorable" virtual peer that will allow children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) to learn about social interaction with peers by building their own virtual humans and observing how they interact with people. A virtual peer is a life-sized, computer-animated character that looks like a child and interacts with children using both speech and gestures. The authorable virtual peer will offer children with ASD a space to play with social communication, social interaction and imagination skills that come naturally to typically-developing children, but are the most challenging for children with autism. This research employs new methods in Human-Computer Interaction for designing and implementing interactive virtual characters, and improves our understanding of the educational and communication needs of children with ASD. For more information, please visit the Technology and Social Behavior Program.
Kellogg School of Management
Finance
Joseph Engelberg
Joseph Engelberg, a doctoral student in Kellogg's Department of Finance, explores how the cost of processing information affects stock price under reaction to new information. His research focuses on the difference between quantitative and qualitative information about firm earnings and he finds evidence that prices respond more slowly to qualitative, textual information. His research is part of a small - but growing - body of work, which borrows methods of language processing from fields like computer science and linguistics in order to better understand asset prices and corporate decisions. For more information, please visit
Kellogg School of Management
Management and Organizations
Maxim Sytch
Maxim Sytch is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management. His research, jointly with Professor Ranjay Gulati, explores the origins of social structure of interorganizational relationships and investigates how this social structure impacts economic exchange between firms. His current research projects focus on the evolution of complex social systems and also explore how firms navigate the social structure of both cooperative and conflictive relations. Using archival data on partnership and legal dispute networks among firms, in combination with econometric modeling, simulation, and network analytic techniques, Maxim Sytch investigates the role of network structures and firms’ positions in them on a variety of firms’ behavioral and performance outcomes. For more information, please visit Department of Management and Organizations
Kellogg School of Management
Managerial Economics and Strategy
Mallesh Pai
Mallesh Pai is a doctoral candidate in the Managerial Economics and Strategy department at Kellogg, a joint offering of the Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences & the Management and Strategy Departments. His research has focused mainly on bridging the gap between the theory and the reality of decision making under risk, both at the individual level; and at the corporate level. In one project with Prof Nabil Al-Najjar, he studies non-standard models of learning from data. They show that in these models, language profoundly influences decision making, and certain common features of natural languages can be explained as rational responses to learning constraints. In another (ongoing) project, with Pablo Montagnes, they look to study the gap between the theory of organization in teams and practice, by looking at how various restaurant chains provide service. The project focuses on finding disparities between the predictions made by theory and the actual best practices of restaurants; and hopes to be able to either refine the theory to explain these differences, or provide evidence that restaurant organization is sub-optimal. For additional inofmration, please visit the Managerial Economics and Strategy Department.
McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Biomedical Engineering
Vladimir Turzhitsky
Vladimir Turzhitsky is a doctoral student studying with Vadim Backman’s group in the biomedical engineering department. The group is dedicated to the exploration of novel methods for cancer detection. They have found that light scattering is extremely sensitive to nanoscale changes in cell and tissue architecture and have developed a technique that can detect these changes, which are otherwise invisible to conventional histopathology. Vladimir has been working on applying this technology in human studies with the focus on detecting colon and pancreatic cancer. Low coherence enhanced backscattering (LEBS) and elastic light-scattering fingerprinting (ELF) have shown the promise of being able to detect subtle alterations in healthy tissue that corresponds to precancerous changes located elsewhere in the organ. In the case of colon cancer, the goal of the technology is to be used by a primary care physician who would collect non-invasive rectal measurements in order to identify people who would benefit from a full colonoscopy. The technique can be used for population wide screening in order to reduce the number of people who are required to have a full colonoscopy. If successful, this would be a less expensive, less invasive, and faster way of screening for colon cancer. In the case of pancreatic cancer, the most deadly of all cancers, the goal is to improve the prognosis of patients through ultra early detection. The initial probe and biopsy studies, including over 400 colon patients as well as over 100 pancreatic patients, demonstrate the promise of light scattering spectroscopy to improve the ease and accuracy with which colon and pancreatic cancers are detected. For additional information, please visit the Biomedical Engineering Department.
McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Biomedical Engineering
Kunal Sur
Our group seeks to design innovative medical devices for resource limited settings within developing countries by taking a holistic approach that focuses on the patients, the healthcare providers and the public health environment within these targeted communities. Viral load testing is the preferred method for early detection of HIV-1 therapeutic failure; however, it is not widely available in resource limited settings due to the high cost and complexity of the assay. A bottleneck in the development of a viral load device for use in these markets has been the resource and labor intensive extraction and purification of viral RNA from plasma. My research focuses on the development of a novel nucleic acid purification system which eliminates pumps, valves, pipette tips and aspirators in automated processors and the need of a trained technician to aliquot liquids in a manual system. A disposable cartridge has been developed which integrates this purification method with on-board reagent storage. The versatility of the purification method has been demonstrated with blood, plasma, and urine in a laboratory configuration with quantitative detection of HIV-1 viral RNA, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and proviral HIV-1 DNA. The system can be readily integrated with real-time nucleic acid amplification and detection allowing for viral load testing universally. For more information, please visit the department of Biomedical Engineering.
McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Biomedical Engineering
Lynn Rogers
Lynn Rogers is a PhD candidate in the biomedical engineering department doing rehabilitation research on the downtown campus with David Brown's group in the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Science. Her research focuses on lower limb coordination following stroke and aims to identify specific combinations of movement and contralesional cortical command associated with altered timing of paretic limb muscle activity. To this end the Brown group utilizes a fully instrumented custom bicycle ergometer that allows biomechanical and eletrophysiological assessment of coordination during a variety of bilateral and unilateral movement tasks. Using neurophysiologic techniques such and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Peripheral Nerve Stimulation during functional movement, she investigates the involvement of cortical and spinal reflex pathways in bilateral coordination. In addition, in conjunction with Jim Stinear's group at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Lynn's research investigates candidate non-invasive stimulation techniques for modulating neural plasticity post-stroke. For more information, please visit Biomedical Engineering.
McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Chemical and Biological Engineering
Stacey Finley
Stacey Finley, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, utilizes a computational framework called BNICE to discover novel biodegradation pathways for toxic compounds that come from pesticides and industrial pollutants. This work addresses the information gap between the large number of compounds thought to be degradable and the specific reactions needed to carry out this biodegradation. Finley, under the advisement of her advisors Professor Linda J. Broadbelt and Professor Vassily Hatzimanikatis, generates novel pathways and characterizes the pathways to determine their feasibility. Here, she estimates the thermodynamic feasibility of the pathways and investigates how implementation of these pathways influences the existing metabolic network of a host organism. For additional information, please visit the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Materials Sience and Engineering
Daniel Perea
Daniel Perea is a Ph.D. student in the department of Materials Science and Engineering. Working with Professor Lincoln Lauhon, Daniel's research has focused on understanding the incorporation of intentional impurities (dopants) into semiconductor nanowires grown via the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth mechanism. The incorporation of dopants is used to engineer the electronic, optical, and magnetic properties of semiconductor materials. Daniel has adapted the use of atom probe tomography (APT) to provide a unique view into the nanowire structures, allowing him to mapping of the 3-dimensional composition and distribution of dopants with sub-nanometer spatial resolution and part-per-million chemical sensitivity. His research has provided the Lauhon group a direct route to understand the correlation between the synthesis conditions, nanowire composition, and the resulting nanowire electronic and optical properties. Moreover, by collaborating with Peter Voorhees in the department of Materials Science and Engineering, Daniel has begun to address the fundamental thermodynamic and kinetic factors which govern the incorporation of dopants into nanowires grown via the VLS process. For more information, please visit Materials Science and Engineering.
School of Communication
Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama
Christine Scippa
Christine Scippa is a doctoral candidate in the Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama. Her dissertation research examines the theatrical performances of cloistered women in 16th– and 17th–century Venetian convents. She seeks to understand how the convent's theatrical tradition complemented and/or diverged from popular dramatic traditions at the time and to challenge received histories that overlook women's participation in early modern public theatrical production. In order to reconstruct the role that theatre played in specific religious, social and familial Venetian networks, she investigates references to specific nuns, convents, and authors found on the title pages and in the dedicatory prefaces to printed plays, as well as in the prohibitive letters and documentation attesting to the anti-theatrical measures of the Counter-Reformation Venetian church. Evidence thus far points to a publicly presented dramatic tradition performed by the nuns for audiences of men and women, religious and lay, in the usually restricted space of the convent. Christine continues her research with the help of a Newberry Renaissance Consortium Grant for research at the Folger Institute and a Grant for Independent Research on Venetian History and Culture to be conducted in libraries and archives in Venice from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. For more information, please visit the department of Theatre and Drama.
School of Communication
Media, Technolgy, and Society
Brooke Foucault
Brooke Foucault is a doctoral student studying with Professor Justine Cassell in the Media, Technology, and Society Program. Her research focuses on the role that technology can play in understanding and reducing response bias in survey interviews. We know that for survey data to be useful respondents must give honest answers, even to sensitive questions. However, there is considerable disagreement in the literature about how survey interviewers can increase the chances that respondents will answer openly and honestly. On one hand, some researchers believe that when interviewers establish rapport with respondents, respondents will be less likely to lie about their sensitive behaviors. But, on the other hand, some researchers have demonstrated the opposite effect – in their studies rapport increases respondents' likelihood of distorting their answers to sensitive questions in order to get interviewers to like them. Until recently, it has been very difficult to conduct reliable empirical studies of the true effect of rapport in survey interviews because the behaviors associated with rapport are very hard for human interviewers to control. However, using highly-controllable virtual human interviewers who interact with respondents using both speech and gestures, Brooke aims to isolate and test different interviewer behaviors in order to identify precisely how various verbal and non-verbal behaviors contribute to interview rapport and affect survey responding. She hopes to use the findings of her research to develop training and interviewing tools that will help improve survey response validity. This work is sponsored by an Innovations grant from the School of Communication, and by a grant from the Charles Cannell fund in Survey Metholodogy. For more information, please visit the department of Media, Technology, and Society and the ArticuLab
School of Communication
Media, Technology, and Society
John Laprise
John Laprise is a doctoral candidate in the Media, Technology, and Society Program in the School of Communications exploring the history of computers in the White House during the 1970’s with Professors James Schwoch, Shane Greenstein, and Rick Morris. Extensive research at the National Archives, Nixon, Ford, and Carter Presidential Libraries, and other private collections are allowing him to explore how the White House began to adopt computers during the 1970’s and how the White House’s use of computers influenced US information and communications policy. His research provides a new historical perspective on the relationship between national security, privacy, and information by showing the pervasive influence of the Cold War during a period of great technological innovation. For further information, please visit the Department of Media, Technology, and Society.
School of Communication
Media, Technology, and Society
Tom Ksaizek
Tom Ksiazek is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication Studies' program in Media, Technology, and Society. Under the direction of Professors James Webster, James Ettema and Noshir Contractor, his research focuses on mediated communication technologies and audience behavior. Through quantitative analysis across multiple media and audience segments, he studies the interplay between structures and agents in determining and predicting audience behavior, technology use and media environments, as well as patterns of polarization and fragmentation. Past projects have looked at the role of language in patterns of cultural polarization and multicultural fluency across television and radio (slated for publication in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Fall 2008), discourse surrounding the pre and post-9/11 role of United States government-funded international broadcasting, and the polarization of news consumption across six different media and the implications for civic participation. Current projects include an analysis of the structural and individual determinants of DVR time-shifting, predictors of successful online video news content, and a network analytic approach to studying the evolution of media environments through patterns of audience duplication across television and radio outlets over time. He values interdisciplinarity and regularly collaborates with both students and faculty from within his department as well as faculty from Integrated Marketing Communications, Medill and the Media Management Center. For further information, please visit the Department of Media, Technology, and Society.
School of Education and Social Policy
Human Development and Social Policy
Angela Valdovinos D'Angelo
Angela Valdovinos D’Angelo is a Ph.D. candidate in the Human Development and Social Policy program and a graduate research assistant at the Institute for Policy Research. Under the mentorship of Professor P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, she studies parenting in disadvantaged immigrant and Latino families to identify links to child wellbeing. Specifically, she is interested in the father’s role in these families and how his involvement with the child, relationship with the mother, and cultural values relate to the cognitive and behavioral development of his young child. Using both qualitative and quantitative data analytic approaches, Angela seeks to understand the influence of the family on the developing child and broaden the knowledge base about immigrants. Her research aims to inform policy recommendations targeted towards this rapidly growing population of children in immigrant families. For more information, please visit the department of Human Development and Social Policy.
School of Music
Music Cognition
Caroline Davis
Caroline Davis is a doctoral candidate working with advisor Richard Ashley in the Music Cognition program. She is currently researching the relationship between semantic knowledge systems and community affiliations in music. Drawing from disciplines of musicology, cognitive psychology, and anthropology, her work integrates the collection of quantitative responses to familiar music and qualitative interviews with professionals in local jazz and improvised music communities. Caroline’s dissertation project assesses associative and conceptual memory for 15 eminent jazz musicians (e.g. Miles Davis, Max Roach) and speculates upon the influence of social network connections on these systems. Preliminary results show slightly similar response patterns from participants who are connected to the same collaborative network, suggesting that musical collaborations bear an influence on some aspects of the conceptualization of music. Ultimately, this research may add to the larger issue of how culture, social group, and community play a part in the perception and cognition of music. For additional information on Caroline’s research and the Music Cognition program, please visit the Department of Music Studies.
School of Music
Musicology
Jennifer Myers
Jennifer Myers, a doctoral student in the Department of Music Studies, researches how the Negro units of the Federal Theatre Project (1935-1939) challenged foregoing tenets of black theatre and drama by ensuring the production of plays dramatizing black themes, exhibiting black talents before mixed-race audiences, and enforcing prohibitions against racial injustice. More specifically she examines works produced by the Chicago Negro Unit, such as Romey and Julie (1936)-an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Big White Fog (1938)-a social drama,and The Swing Mikado (1938)-an adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, The Mikado,and considers how they simultaneously reinforced and complicated the binary opposition between commercial entertainment and serious art to negotiate a greater freedom of expression for black actors, musicians, and dancers in the late 1930s. Given the multimedia aspects of these productions, she draws on musicological, ethnomusicological, anthropological, theatrical, historical, and performative theory and methodology in her work, under the supervision of her interdisciplinary dissertation committee. Unlike many previous studies that neglect critical dimensions of music and dance, her work engages discourse surrounding both to illustrate how relationships between the Negro units of the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Music Project, and social formations of leftist dance addressed the cultural front of the late 1930s. For more information, please visit the Department of Music Studies.
School of Music
Musicology
Samuel Dorf
Samuel N. Dorf, a doctoral student in the Department of Music Studies, researches how discourses of gender and sexuality interact with fantasies of ancient Greece in Third Republic French musical and dance culture. Revisiting well known works such as Claude Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1895) and Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé (1912), as well as lesser known works by composers like Erik Satie and Louis Ganné, he investigates their reception by a group of prominent art patrons in turn of the century France. Under the supervision of his interdisciplinary dissertation committee, Dorf uses a variety of sources (diaries, musical scores, production photos, choreography notes, and contemporary popular periodicals) to explore what ancient meant to these individuals who brought musical and dance versions of the past to the contemporary stage or salon. For more information, please visit the Department of Music Studies.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Anthropology
Aurelien Mauxion
Aurelien Mauxion is a PhD candidate in the department of anthropology where he works with Professor Robert Launay. His research explores how local socioeconomic and political relations shape – and are simultaneously affected by – the practice of democracy in northern Mali, West Africa. During the 1990s a national reform of administrative decentralization provided the opportunity to all Malian citizens to elect their local representatives. The goal of this reform was to promote electoral competitions, the participation of the population in local politics, and the accountability of local officials. Aurelien Mauxion's research examines how this theoretical model is understood and practiced by the populations and explores the local reality of the Malian state that emerged from this appropriation. Based on long-term ethnographic research in Mali, this research advances understandings of local processes of democratization and regime transitions in Africa. For more information, please visit the Department of Anthropology.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Art History
Shalini Le Gall
Shalini Le Gall, a doctoral student in the Art History Department, studies nineteenth-century religious imagery, specifically paintings produced by the British Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt during his travels to Christian holy sites in Palestine. With the guidance of her advisor, Professor Stephen Eisenman, Le Gall examines paintings, drawings, and prints and traces the growing influence of Evangelicals in Britain and the Middle East and the increased demand for biblical imagery from "the Holy Land." Placed within this context, Hunt's paintings mark the development of a new type of religious imagery and signal the intersection between Britain's imperialist and evangelical agendas in the Middle East. For additional information, please visit the Department of Art History.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Economics
Aaron Sojourner
Aaron Sojourner, a PhD student in economics and a fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Education Science, aims to generate new insights by applying rigorous economic analysis to issues of importance across academic and policy communities. In one project, he works with a team of economists and human development experts to explore how investments in children at different ages pay off and what this implies for the optimal timing of public, early-childhood investments. The project uses a mix of experimental and non-experimental data. In a second project, he develops more credible ways to measure the social value of reducing public risks. Conventional methods rely on unrealistic, overly-strong assumptions and may misguide policy makers using them for cost-benefit analysis. Sojourner’s approach reveals the range of values consistent with the data under more credible assumptions. For additional information, please visit the Department of Economics
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
French and Italian
Annica Schjött Vonèche
Annica Schjött Vonèche is a doctoral student in the Department of French and Italian. She is working on a dissertation entitled “Reinventing the Past: Memory and Narration in 20th Century Literature on the Maghreb, under the mentorship of Professors Doris Garraway and Scott Durham. She focuses on representations of memory in four novels set in northern Africa written by Nadia Chafik, Assia Djebar, Albert Memmi and Claire Messud. Annica examines the relationship between expressions of collective and individual memory and the way in which narration serves both as the catalyst and the medium for this interaction. She argues that the novels are examples of ways of countering homogenizing narratives of the past. By exploring how these novels stage the very dynamics of memory creation in postcolonial societies, she shows how the use of various narrative techniques allows for the ambiguities, contradictions and inconsistencies of different representations of the past to clash and interact. In this manner, she contends, the novels illustrate how memory can be created beyond the lines of demarcation between the individual and the collective. For more information, please visit the
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Linguistics
James German
James German, a doctoral student in the Department of Linguistics, investigates the phenomenon known as "focus", whereby speakers use pitch and stress to partition the information conveyed by a sentence into two parts: that which is already in the set of the beliefs shared by the speech participants (i.e., the presuppositions), and that which is not (i.e., the assertions). Through a series of experiments involving analysis of recorded speech as well as measurements of listeners' responses to auditory stimuli, German explores how focus influences the way that pronouns are interpreted in spoken discourse. A previous study, which German conducted in collaboration with his advisor, Janet Pierrehumbert, and Stefan Kaufmann (also on his committee), explored the tendency for certain classes of words, such as prepositions, to interfere with a speaker's ability to express focus. The study appeared in the March 2006 issue of the journal Language. For additional information, please visit the Department of Linguistics.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Philosophy
Emilie Prattico
Emilie Prattico, a student in the Department of Philosophy, examines the problems raised by relying on experts in democratic decision-making. With reference to Habermas’s theory of deliberative politics, she elucidates the precise nature of these problems, showing that the self-government of citizens is sometimes thwarted when experts are given predominant roles in certain areas of politics. She argues, thanks to a close analysis of the different kinds political issues, that these problems can be solved while accommodating the contributions of experts. For more information, please visit Department of Philosophy
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Physics and Astronomy
Tassos Fragos
Tassos Fragos is a Ph.D. Candidate in the department of Physics and Astronomy, and recipient of a Northwestern Presidential Fellowship. He is member of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group and his thesis advisor is Professor Vicky Kalogera. His research focuses on the formation and evolution of binary stellar systems which include a black hole or a neutron star, known as X-ray binaries. He performs simulations of whole populations of X-ray binaries in order to interpret observations from space-based X-ray observatories and to understand how the properties of the host galaxies affect the formation and evolution of these populations. For more information, please visit http://www.astro.northwestern.edu/ and http://www.astro.northwestern.edu/Theory/.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Physics and Astronomy
Sourav Chatterjee
Sourav Chatterjee is a doctoral candidate at the Physics and Astronomy department. He is interested in dynamics in astrophysical systems. His current focus is on different dynamical processes in dense stellar systems like globular clusters. He studies how dynamics affects the global properties of the cluster as well as the properties of the stellar population producing exotic stars, e.g., the so called blue straggler stars that are impossible to create from isolated single stellar evolution. He is also interested in how planet-planet interactions in multi-planet systems can change the orbital properties of these planets. For more information, please visit the department of Physics and Astronomy.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Plant and Biology Conservation
Diane Huebner
Diane C. Huebner is a graduate student studying with Dr. Nyree Zerega in the Plant Biology and Conservation Program. Her thesis work investigates the putative hybridization of Great Lakes sea-rocket, a locally threatened dune plant (Cakile edentula, Brassicaceae), with an introduced congener. Sea-rocket is a pioneer species that holds sands around its roots, enabling grasses and other plants to take hold and begin the process of dune formation. Diane is investigating whether locally adapted populations are cross-pollinating with Atlantic congeners accidentally brought to the Great Lakes in ships' ballast tanks over 100 years ago. Preliminary molecular investigation found that genetic diversity is greater between populations comprising the native and introduced species than it is between the different species, such that genetic diversity seems to be more strongly correlated to location than to taxonomic classification. This suggests that natural dispersal in sea-rocket may be limited, but also that genotypes of Atlantic origin do co-occur in the Great Lakes. For more information, please visit the Graduate Program in Plant Biology and Conservation.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Plant Biology and Conservation
Rebecca Tonietto
Rebecca Tonietto is in the graduate program for Plant Biology and Conservation, a joint venture with The Chicago Botanic Garden. Her work is a study of native bees in urban green space, conducted in and around Chicago with Dr. Jeremie Fant and Dr. Dan Larkin. In light of the recent, well publicized pollinator decline, it is important to survey the current status of native bees in the Chicago region. Her survey sites include green roofs, city parks, and restored prairies in the greater Chicago area. She found native and adventive bees are present on green
roofs in Chicago, ranging from 2nd to 15th floor rooftops, as well as within city parks. She found some urban sites have levels of bee biodiversity and abundance greater than restored prairies in the area. Over 68 bee species were recorded in the first field season, six of which are new records for the state of Illinois, and one is a new bee species to the Midwestern United States. Survey results will be compared to historic data for the region, and presented in the context of urban habitat conservation. For more information, please visit Plant Biology and Conservation.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Psychology
Destiny Peery
Destiny Peery is a joint degree graduate student in the PhD program in the Department of Psychology and the School of Law. Her primary research in social psychology focuses on the perception and categorization of racially ambiguous (e.g., multiracial) people. Using tasks that capture both more spontaneous and deliberative judgments, she has been able to uncover evidence of the lasting legacy of strict racial categories at the spontaneous level but an explicit recognition of the changing nature of racial categories at the deliberative level. This work, done in collaboration with Dr. Galen Bodenhausen, suggests that while the conceptions of race may be changing, our past conceptions of race linger and may influence how we interact with others. Current work in this program of research is examining the implications of the application of racial labels for multiracial people in terms of subsequent likelihood of experiencing stereotyping and prejudice. Destiny’s interests in law overlap with her work in psychology and focus on the role the law plays in shaping society’s understanding of social categories, such as race and gender. For more information about Destiny's research and the research conducted by other graduate students in psychology, please visit the Department of Psychology for additional information.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Psychology
Paul Eastwick
Paul Eastwick is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology. His research examines how people initiate romantic relationships and how relationships develop over time. In one line of research, Paul has explored how people's vision of an ideal romantic partner impacts their decision to pursue or not to pursue particular romantic relationships. Of course, people differ when reporting the characteristics that they ideally desire in a romantic partner: Some people express a desire for a partner who is physically attractive, for example, whereas others express a preference for someone who is ambitious or perhaps dependable. But do people reliably pursue those potential romantic partners who most closely approximate their stated ideals? Using speed-dating and intensive longitudinal methods, Paul Eastwick and his collaborator Dr. Eli Finkel have discovered that the answer to this question appears to be "no". That is, people are unlikely to consult their ideals when initiating a romantic relationship, and Paul's current research explores the implication of this finding for the health and longevity of relationships. For more information about Paul's research and the research conducted by other graduate students in psychology, please visit the Department of Psychology for additional information.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Slavic Languages & Literatures
Nina Wieda
In her dissertation entitled “The Aesthetic Wastefulness in Russian Literature: How the Russian Soul is Made” Nina Wieda investigates the role that wastefulness plays in fictional and non-fictional writings by Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Limonov. Wieda defines “wastefulness” as spending resources, including time, money, opportunity, and human life itself, in a way that the spender and others deem useless and harmful for the spender, and that derives satisfaction from feeling wasteful towards a resource, rather than from reciprocity. Under the mentorship of her advisor, Dean Andrew Wachtel, Nina Wieda explores how the Russian culture considers wastefulness ethically and aesthetically valuable, and claims it as a feature of the Russian national character. For more information about Nina's research and the research conducted by other graduate students in Slavic, please visit Slavic Languages & Literatures Program
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Katherine Bowers
Katherine Bowers explores the influence of the 18th century British Gothic novel on Russian Realism in her dissertation, entitled "The Gothic and Russian Realist Prose." Although there was no widespread Russian Gothic movement, Gothic fiction from abroad was extremely popular in the country, a fact that indicates a broader level of cultural import. Katherine's project charts the evolution of Russian Gothic elements to see how a closer understanding of Gothic influence changes our interpretation of Russian Realist works by canonical authors like Dostoevsky, Turgenev, and Chekhov. Throughout the evolution of Realism, the Gothic appears in many guises, from landscapes highlighting social injustice to psychological mechanisms of repression and transgression, finally being reappraised as the underlying irrational side of the human psyche. Katherine's study not only illuminates the impact of the Gothic on Realism, but also the larger scope of the Gothic in nineteenth century Russian literary tradition. For more information, please visit the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Lisa Yountchi
Lisa Yountchi is a doctoral student in the Slavic Languages and Literatures department. Working under the mentorship of Andrew Wachtel, Lisa studies Soviet Tajik literature. Her research focuses on the formation and transformation of Tajik Soviet literature from the early 1920s to the fall of the Soviet Union. Beginning in the 1920s, Tajik intellectuals and writers were encouraged to create a national literature which defined and fostered a specific Soviet Tajik identity. As ethnic Persians, Tajik writers found it especially necessary, in embracing their new Soviet identity, to redefine their relationship with Iran. Lisa's research explores this relationship, and the effects of its continual redefinition, in Tajik poetry and prose. During the 2008-2009 academic year, Lisa is conducting research in Dushanbe, Tajikistan through a Fulbright grant. Utilizing literary journals, periodicals, and archival materials, her research examines how Tajik writers blended Soviet ideology with Persian-Tajik poetry, and the role of Tajik Soviet literature in fostering national identity. For more information, please visit the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.
