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Tropical Homes: Housing, Urban Planning, and Politics in Northeast Brazil
No full textThis dissertation examines how housing policy and urban planning became tools for governance, sanitary reform, and economic restructuring in Northeast Brazil from the late nineteenth to the twentieth century. Instead of evaluating these policies’ direct impact on workers, this study foregrounds the symbolic power of public housing as a political and ideological project. Policymakers consistently framed mass housing as a means to instill hygienic practices, assert social control, and manage economic transformations. Across varying political regimes—from early sanitarians targeting mocambos (informal settlements) in Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte to developmental planners influenced by international discourses—housing remained a critical instrument of governance. Drawing from archival sources such as policy documents, correspondence, newspapers, and reports, this dissertation explores how politicians, sanitarians, urban planners, and social workers conceptualized housing programs. In the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, reformers in Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte sought to
eradicate mocambos (informal settlements), presenting them as obstacles to hygiene and economic development. During the Vargas era, the expansion of state-led housing through pension funds and regulatory institutions institutionalized housing as a governmental concern. By the mid-century, Brazilian authorities incorporated global development ideologies from organizations such as the United Nations and the Alliance for Progress, aligning national housing policies with international discourses on modernization and developmentalism. In the 1970s and 1980s, housing shifted toward financialized markets, prompting grassroots resistance demanding equitable urban infrastructure. This dissertation reveals authorities' persistent obsession with housing as a tool for governance across political and ideological shifts, unveiling broader transformations within the federal government itself and national and transnational networks of funding, experts and expertise. By placing Northeast Brazil within global debates on housing and urbanization, this research contributes to Latin American urban history, labor studies, and histories of technology and development, demonstrating housing’s centrality not merely as infrastructure but as a contested reflection of state ideologies and modernity.Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)2030-05-1
Efficient Bio-orthogonal Conjugation Strategies and Nanoassembly Platforms for the Targeted Delivery of Biologics
No full textBiologic therapy has emerged as a transformative approach in modern medicine, offering unprecedented precision in the treatment of complex diseases. However, the clinical translation of biologics, particularly cytosolic therapeutics, remains limited by physiological barriers, off-target effects, and rapid clearance. Recent advances in bio-orthogonal chemistry have revolutionized biologic conjugation by enabling fast, selective, and biocompatible reactions under mild conditions, allowing for efficient functionalization in complex biological environments. To overcome delivery challenges and enhance therapeutic efficacy, nanoscale systems offer a promising platform to modulate and monitor biologic transport. These nanoplatforms enable precise control over physicochemical properties, improving stability, targeting specificity, and cellular uptake. The integration of bio-orthogonal chemistry with nanotechnology thus provides a versatile strategy for the rational design of next-generation biologic delivery systems. This dissertation presents the development of novel bioconjugation techniques and nanoplatforms for the targeted and efficient delivery of cytosolic biologics. An antibody-directing nano-platform was established using orthogonal and bio-orthogonal click chemistries to enable the self-assembly of targeting and therapeutic components with high spatial and temporal precision. Complementing this approach, a combinatorial screening of membrane transport adjuvants identified synergistic pairs of cell-penetrating peptide mimics and fluorocarbons, which significantly enhanced cytosolic protein delivery and provided insight into the design principles of effective delivery vectors. Additionally, a modular self-assembly strategy was developed to create artificial immune complexes by leveraging built-in antibody recognition domains and polymer networks. Beyond intracellular delivery, biologic conjugates were anchored onto the plasma membrane using artificial lipid-based nanocarriers to modulate membrane protein signaling. These studies highlight the power of integrating bio-orthogonal conjugation with nanoscale engineering to address key challenges in biologic delivery. The findings contribute broadly to the development of advanced therapeutic platforms for targeted, efficient, and programmable biologic therapies.Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)2025-11-1
Northeast Friends of the Pleistocene 86th Annual Field Trip
No full textField trip guide for the 86th Friends of the Pleistocene conference, June 6-8, 2025.From Hadley, MA north to Turners Falls, MA, there is a broad lowland known to geologists as the Deerfield Rift Basin. The basin is formed by bedrock lithology and structure within the lower stratigraphic section of the Mesozoic Hartford Rift Basin. Sedimentary bedrock lies beneath the lowland while many of the higher ridges are capped by basaltic lava flows. The Deerfield Basin is topographically separated from the southern part of the Connecticut Valley Lowland (Hartford Basin) by the eastward bending Holyoke Range (fig. 1). The modern Connecticut River flows through a narrow gap in this ridge. In most places the preglacial bedrock surface in the basin is covered by thick glacial deposits, largely glacial lake sediments. The postglacial Connecticut River flows over these deposits in most places but has cut down to bedrock through the Turners Falls area and at North Sunderland. The modern river has been diverted from its preglacial course by the deposition of glacial lake deposits, and the paleo-river channel in bedrock is not beneath the modern Connecticut River in most places. Figure 1 shows the position of the paleo-river channel where it lies at altitudes below 25 m in the north and at about sea level as it exits the basin through the Holyoke Gorge. The bedrock valley cut into less resistant sedimentary rock has been glacially scoured and over-deepened in some places to below -50 m in altitude.Massachusetts Geological Survey, US Geological Survey, University of Massachusetts Amhers
ESSAYS ON CO2 PRICES
No full textThis dissertation comprises three essays on carbon dioxide (CO2) pricing policies focusing on its relationship with two key societal goals: environmental justice (EJ) and the clean energy transition.
Traditionally, CO2 controls often apply uniform prices without accounting for their impact on the spatial distribution of co-pollutants, raising equity concerns.
The first essay theoretically examines CO2 pricing under EJ constraints that limit the worsening of the existing inequities in co-pollutant exposure. The analysis shows that uniform CO2 pricing is optimal if and only if co-pollutant regulation is also optimal, conditional on satisfying EJ constraints. Otherwise, optimal CO2 prices deviate from the standard uniform pricing approach.
The second essay empirically investigates whether regional carbon markets affect disparities in sulfur dioxide (SO2) exposure, particularly in low-income and racially marginalized communities. Focusing on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a CO2 cap-and-trade program launched in 2009 in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic United States, this essay finds that, while overall SO2 exposure declined in regulated areas due to RGGI, counties with higher Black populations and counties with lower incomes experienced relatively smaller reductions. Similar disparities in SO2 exposure co-benefits, based on race, were also observed in neighboring unregulated regions.
The third essay evaluates whether, in RGGI participating states, the CO2 market has accelerated the shift away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy. Findings suggest that RGGI significantly reduced fossil fuel-based electricity generation, primarily through declines in coal-fired generation. However, the program’s effect on renewable generation was positive but statistically insignificant.
Together, these three essays contribute to the environmental economics literature on CO2 prices by highlighting how uniform pricing intersects with EJ and clean energy transition goals.REAL Fellowship, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Dissertation Completion Fellowship, University of Massachusetts AmherstDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)2026-09-0
Navigating Double Oppression Online: How Alternative Content Creators Maintain Their Ideological Integrity under Algorithmic Bias and Turkish Authoritarianism
No full textThis dissertation, Navigating Double Oppression Online: How Alternative Content Creators Maintain Their Ideological Integrity under Algorithmic Bias and Turkish Authoritarianism, examines how marginalized digital creators in Turkey, particularly women and LGBTQ+ influencers, sustain their visibility and political voice under conditions of repression. It develops the concept of political precarity to capture the overlapping vulnerabilities creators face at the intersection of authoritarian state power and opaque platform governance.
Drawing on 33 in-depth interviews and two years of digital ethnography, I analyze the everyday strategies of what I call alternative content creators—social media users who blend cultural commentary with feminist, queer, and anti-authoritarian politics. These creators operate in an environment where dissent is criminalized, visibility is algorithmically suppressed, and harassment is routine. Their labor is both cultural and political: they navigate algorithmic bias, state surveillance, and digital violence while attempting to sustain livelihoods and communities online.
The empirical chapters trace three interrelated dynamics. First, creators adopt strategic visibility, calibrating their expression across low-, medium-, and high-risk practices that balance authenticity, safety, and political critique. Second, I show how networked harassment and misogyny function as state-enabled mechanisms of gendered oppression, disproportionately targeting feminist and queer voices. Third, I analyze how crises, such as the 2023 earthquake and elections, intensify both creators’ political engagement and their vulnerability, transforming them into key communicators of solidarity and accountability while exposing them to censorship, algorithmic erasure, and economic precarity.
This dissertation contributes to feminist media studies, platform studies, and digital activism research in three ways. Conceptually, it advances the notion of political precarity to account for the compounded risks of creative labor under authoritarianism. Empirically, it situates Turkish creators within global debates on digital resistance, showing how strategies such as algorithmic camouflage, coded speech, and platform migration emerge as tactics of survival. Methodologically, it models an intersectional feminist ethnography attentive to ethics, positionality, and affective labor in politically sensitive digital fields.
By centering the lived experiences of alternative creators, I argue that social media is not merely a space of distraction or empowerment, but a contested terrain where marginalized voices negotiate visibility, risk, and integrity under duress. Their practices illuminate the fragility and possibility of digital resistance in the 21st century and expand our understanding of how cultural workers sustain critique and community within increasingly surveilled and authoritarian contexts.Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)2026-09-0
Assessing the Ubiquitin Code with Novel Mass Spectrometry-Based Tools
No full textUbiquitination is a posttranslational modification in eukaryotic cells, where ubiquitin (Ub) is covalently conjugated to a protein substrate. Ub can form different polymeric chains by attaching Ub subunits to itself through its seven lysine residues or N-terminal methionine, forming a diversity of Ub chains on a protein substrate. The type of the chain modifying a substrate is known to correlate with the biological outcome of ubiquitination. However, even with some evidence present, it still poses a significant challenge to systematically assess the structure-function relationship. A major limitation is the lack of universal methods to characterize Ub conjugates. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based approaches are widely used in the characterization of Ub conjugates. With all the advantages of available MS-based workflows, there is still a challenge in capturing Ub chains with complex topologies and establishing their connectivity with a substrate.
This thesis describes the development of novel MS-based tools for analyzing intact free or substrate-conjugated Ub chains. First, the thesis discusses the application of ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) in the analysis of isomeric Ub chains. We developed an IM-MS-based deconvolution approach that enables the quantitation of the relative abundance of Ub isomers in a mixture. Additionally, by coupling IM-MS with collision-induced unfolding (CIU), we developed a deconvolution approach to assess the selectivity of deubiquitinating enzymes toward different isomeric Ub chains (DUBs) in a qualitative and time-dependent manner. Lastly, the thesis describes the application of top-down MS coupled with tandem MS (MS2) analysis in the characterization of Ub conjugates. We proposed a computational algorithm that enables the automatic annotation of MS2 fragmentation spectra and assigns probability scores for the analyzed Ub conjugates.NIH R35GM149532
NIH R01GM110543Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)2030-09-0
UNRAVELING THE ROLE OF LIPID PEROXIDATION PRODUCTS IN INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE
No full textLipids are essential components of the human diet, serving as an important source of energy and supporting key physiological functions. Major substrates for lipid peroxidation are found in common dietary lipids, such as fish oil, soybean oil, and corn oil, which are rich in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Lipid peroxidation of these fatty acids generates lipid peroxidation products (LPPs) such as 4-hydroxyhexenal (4-HHE) from omega-3s, and 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) and 4-oxo-2-nonenal (4-ONE) from omega-6s. LPPs are increasingly recognized for their role in inflammatory processes and have been associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). However, their direct contribution to IBD pathogenesis remains to be fully elucidated. This dissertation investigates the effects of three major LPPs, 4-HNE, 4-ONE, and 4-HHE, in the context of IBD. The first aim was to determine whether LPPs can initiate or aggravate IBD symptoms. A mouse model was used to simulate two patient conditions: one with pre-existing IBD-like inflammation and another representing a healthy intestinal environment. Mice treated with LPPs exhibited hallmark features of IBD, including shortened colon length, thinning of the mucosal layer, increased macrophage infiltration, elevated colonic inflammatory gene expression, and upregulation of systemic inflammatory markers. These results suggest that LPPs not only exacerbate existing IBD pathology but can also initiate IBD-like symptoms in previously healthy hosts. Together, the findings support the hypothesis that LPPs act as both aggravators and potential initiators of IBD. Building on these findings, the second aim focused on the mechanisms by which LPPs modulate cytokine production and drive inflammation. Given the extensive immune cell infiltration observed in Aim 1, RAW 264.7 macrophages were used to investigate whether LPPs contribute to IBD by inducing mitochondrial dysfunction. Experimental data demonstrated that LPPs increased production of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-6, IL-1β, and COX-2). Concurrently, LPP-induced depletion of glutathione (GSH) led to oxidative stress and elevated levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Mitochondrial dysfunction was evident through reduced oxygen consumption rate (OCR) and ATP production. Additionally, ROS and peroxynitrite produced as a result of LPP exposure further damaged mitochondria, promoting the release of more ROS, thus fueling a feedforward loop of chronic inflammation. These findings identify a novel mechanism through which LPPs drive mitochondrial dysfunction and inflammatory responses in IBD. Lastly, to understand the thinning of the mucosal layer observed in Aim 1, the third aim investigated whether LPPs impair epithelial barrier function. The hypothesis was that LPPs contribute to IBD by damaging tight junctions and increasing intestinal epithelial permeability. In vivo, real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis of mouse mucosa revealed reduced expression of tight junction proteins following LPPs treatment. In vitro, Caco-2 cells treated with LPPs exhibited a significant decrease in transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER), indicating compromised barrier integrity. Immunofluorescence staining showed decreased expression of Claudin-1 and Occludin, and Western blot analysis confirmed a marked reduction in tight junction protein levels on day 14 of Caco-2 culture following 48-hour LPPs treatment. Collectively, these results demonstrate that LPPs impair epithelial barrier function by disrupting tight junctions, a process that contributes to the development and progression of IBD. Together, these findings provide novel insights into how LPPs contribute to IBD pathogenesis and highlight their potential as therapeutic targets, while advancing our understanding of the molecular mechanisms linking dietary lipid oxidation products to inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and epithelial barrier disruption.Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)2026-09-0
Local Contexts: Restorying Sovereignty with Plant Relatives
No full textSix panel comic sharing collaboration between Shinnecock Nation, Local Contexts, and New York Botanical Garden around reconnection and sovereignty with plant relatives.This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science under Award No. 2243258. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation
Unwriting the Future: Anticolonial Speculation in Anglophone Caribbean Print and Performance 1930-1939
No full textThis dissertation examines the speculative imagination that Anglophone Afro-Caribbean writers exercised in the 1930s, as they sought to dispense with the systemic inequalities of early twentieth-century imperialist capitalism in the British West Indies. Building on scholarship theorizing unthinkable histories and unimaginable futures in Afro-diasporic studies, I contend that writers analyzed here experimented with genre, narrative content, and method of composition to advocate for as-yet unrealized ways of living and being in community for the Caribbean. They also speculated about such potentialities while leaving that future largely undescribed, instead mobilizing their analyses of Caribbean pasts and presents to generate calls to action that could only be answered by “the people” in a collective project of sociopolitical (re)imagination. This Afro-Caribbean stance contrasted with that of commentators on the British left, including Fabian socialists such as W.M. Macmillan, who argued Caribbean conditions could only be improved by continued colonial rule and externally-imposed reforms. To this end, chapters analyze the 1938 International African Service Bureau pamphlet The West Indies To-day, co-authored by the organization’s Afro-Caribbean leaders and focusing on current affairs in the region; C.L.R. James’s 1934 playscript Toussaint Louverture, which fictionalizes the Haitian Revolution in order to echo 1930s debates about Caribbean self-rule; and Una Marson’s advocacy for an Afro- Jamaican activist vocation in her 1937 play London Calling. These texts advance an open-ended anticolonial politics by refusing to define future liberation with the political vocabularies of hegemonic societies that continued to perpetuate colonial violence in the region. Further, James and Marson’s experimental engagements with Haitian history and Afro-Jamaican performance traditions (respectively) demonstrate that many writers generated this open-ended vision by drawing upon and reinventing specifically Afro-Caribbean cultural practices, from histories of rebellion to creolized language and syncretic spiritualities. Thus they participated in a dynamic politico-aesthetic tradition of resistance ongoing since the advent of colonialism in the region. In addition, Caribbean anticolonial speculation has transformed and persisted into the neocolonial present, which I trace via Louise Bennett’s Patwa poetry in the wake of Jamaican independence (1962) and Nalo Hopkinson’s futuristic sci-fi novel Midnight Robber (2000).Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)2026-09-0
The AI Music Problem Why Machine Learning Conflicts With Musical Creativity (Chapter 1)
No full textMusic poses unique and complex challenges for artificial intelligence, even as 21st-century AI grows ever more adept at generating compelling content. The AI Music Problem: Why Machine Learning Conflicts With Musical Creativity probes the challenges behind AI-generated music, with an investigation that straddles the technical, the musical, and the aesthetic. Bringing together the perspectives of the humanities and computer science, the author shows how the difficulties that music poses for AI connect to larger questions about music, artistic expression, and the increasing ubiquity of artificial intelligence. Taking a wide view of the current landscape of machine learning and Large Language Models, The AI Music Problem offers a resource for students, researchers, and the public to understand the broader issues surrounding musical AI on both technical and artistic levels. The author breaks down music theory and computer science concepts with clear and accessible explanations, synthesizing the technical with more holistic and human-centric analyses. Enabling readers of all backgrounds to understand how contemporary AI models work and why music is often a mismatch for those processes, this book is relevant to all those engaging with the intersection between AI and musical creativity today.UMass SOAR Fun