50107 research outputs found
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Examining the Influence of TIES Teacher Training on Perceptions oF Self efficacy, Self-awareness and Student-Teacher Relationships Across Racial Lines
No full textTeachers are facing significant burnout and attrition rates due to evolving workplace demands and the growing mental health, social-emotional and behavioral needs of students. Teachers reduced persistence and optimism have been associated with factors such as low self-efficacy, with classroom management being identified as a major source of stress impacting their well-being. Several evidence-based classroom management strategies have been identified in the literature. Yet, pre-service teacher programs and professional development training have largely neglected classroom management training opportunities, resulting in teachers feeling unprepared to address the behavioral needs of their students (Freeman et al., 2014). Similarly, teaching in a diverse classroom setting poses unique challenges that undermines teachers' confidence, affecting their ability to effectively manage classroom behaviors and establish trusting, positive relationships with students whose backgrounds are different from their own. The purpose of the current study was to examine the impact of a culturally responsive, evidence-based classroom management training (TIES) on a sample of MA teachers reported self-efficacy, self- awareness and relationships with students across racial lines. A random effects linear regression model was used to evaluate the research questions. Results suggest that TIES may have positively influenced teachers perceived self-efficacy, student-teacher interactions, and self-awareness. Furthermore, TIES was found to be both practical and effective in meeting teachers' needs. Additional research with a larger sample size and sufficient statistical power is needed to yield significant findings and allow for the generalization of results. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.
Design of Mechanically Resilient Omniphobic Surfaces
No full textDeveloping mechanically resilient liquid-repellent surfaces has gained considerable interest for applications such as self-cleaning coatings, anti-fouling layers, wearable electronics, and biomedical devices. However, achieving long-term durability without sacrificing liquid repellency remains a significant challenge due to the fragile nature of the micro- and nanoscale features required to maintain low solid–liquid contact area.
This dissertation systematically addresses this challenge through the design of advanced surface architectures and scalable fabrication methods. First, a hybrid structure combining soft micropillars with rigid doubly re-entrant caps was developed, effectively balancing compliance and rigidity. This configuration preserved omniphobicity while withstanding large mechanical deformations, including compression, bending, and cutting.
Building on this, the study introduced purely soft, monolithic doubly re-entrant microstructures, geometrically optimized to avoid collapse and stiction. These structures achieved robust liquid repellency without requiring rigid elements or complex alignment, simplifying fabrication and enabling use on flexible or curved substrates.
To further enhance robustness and manufacturing compatibility, the doubly re-entrant geometries were replicated into thermosetting polymers using soft molds guided by theoretical collapse models. This scalable approach enabled high-fidelity replication across large areas, producing structures that retained omniphobicity while exhibiting superior resistance to abrasive and cutting forces.
Finally, inspired by springtail skin, a bio-mimetic hierarchical structure with solid fraction gradients was engineered by laminating micropillar films onto wavy substrates. This simple, alignment-free process produced directional, multiscale topographies that pave the way for advanced wetting control.
Overall, this dissertation presents a unified framework for designing and fabricating mechanically resilient, omniphobic surfaces, offering scalable solutions for future deployment in real-world applications.Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)2030-05-1
Data corresponding to “Antarctic meltwater alters future projections of climate and sea level”
No full textAs described in the publication Sadai et al. (2025), CESM and PSU-3D were run in an annual interactive coupling setup under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emissions scenarios. The output from PSU-3D was then run with a sea level model to understand the global spatial fingerprint of the Antarctic contribution to sea level rise. The sea level model output was used to generate the globe*.tif files which create the projected sea level maps.N
Three Essays on Reproductive Health Policy
No full textThe landscape of reproductive rights in the United States has undergone dramatic shifts in recent decades, culminating in the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which allowed states to impose strict abortion restrictions, including outright bans. This dissertation explores the impact of these restrictions on reproductive, maternal, and infant health across three essays, with a focus on racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities.
The first essay assesses state-level pre-Dobbs abortion restrictions from 2000 to 2020 using a custom county-level dataset and distinguishing between laws targeting providers and laws restricting abortion seekers. While all restrictions reduce abortion rates, demand-side laws—such as waiting periods—have a significantly larger effect, disproportionately affecting counties with larger Black and Hispanic population shares.
The second essay examines the impact of Texas’s 2021 Senate Bill 8 (SB 8), which banned abortion after six weeks, on reproductive and infant health outcomes. SB 8 led to increases in both infant morbidity and mortality, disproportionately affecting Black non-Hispanic infants, whose mortality rates rose fourfold relative to white infants. Geographic disparities also emerged, with counties farther from states with fewer restrictions experiencing worse health consequences. To explain these disparities, I construct an expanded abortion decision tree to measure unmet reproductive health needs, highlighting how various groups modified their fertility choices after the ban and the subsequent impact on health outcomes. The ban also shortened interpregnancy intervals—a known risk factor for adverse perinatal health outcomes. Furthermore, both unintended and intended births exhibited higher rates of infant health complications, highlighting spillover effects on the broader reproductive health system.
The final essay examines the long-run effects of abortion restrictions on prenatal care. Using birth data from 2000 to 2020, I find decreases in prenatal care utilization and increases in births with no prenatal care, with particularly large effects among those without a high school degree and Hispanic populations.
These essays illustrate how abortion restrictions extend beyond access to the procedure itself, shaping broader reproductive, maternal, and infant health outcomes. The findings suggest that the post-Dobbs policy environment may further exacerbate existing health disparities, particularly for marginalized communities.Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)2025-11-1
Exploring the effects of excipients on complex coacervation
No full textComplex coacervation is an associative liquid–liquid phase separation phenomenon that takes place due to the electrostatic complexation of oppositely-charged polyelectrolytes and the entropic gains associated with the release of bound counterions and rearrangement of solvent. The aqueous nature of coacervation has resulted in its broad use in systems requiring high biocompatibility. The significance of electrostatic interactions in coacervates has meant that studies investigating the phase behaviors of these systems have tended to focus on parameters such as the charge stoichiometry of the polyions, the solution pH, and the ionic strength. However, the equilibrium that exists between the polymer-rich coacervate phase and the polymer-poor supernatant phase represents a balance among attractive electrostatic interactions and excluded volume repulsions as well as osmotic pressure effects. As such, we hypothesize that it should be possible to tune coacervate phase behavior via the addition of non-electrostatic excipients which would partition between the two phases and potentially alter both the solvent quality and the osmotic pressure balance. In particular, our work focuses on small molecule excipients such as sugars, amino acids, and other additives that have a history of use in vaccine formulation. We quantified the ability of these excipients to partition into the coacervate phase, and their potential for destabilizing the phase separation. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these additives can be combined with complex coacervation in the context of a virus formulation
Fueling Communities into the Future: A Survey of Firewood Banks To Identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats To Organizational Sustainability
No full textSupplement 1: A list of resources about and for firewood banks
Supplement 2: The Firewood Bank survey instrument
Supplement 3: Complete survey resultsFirewood banks are community-driven initiatives that aim to reduce fuel poverty by providing firewood to households facing heating insecurity. As firewood bank expansion continues, there is an emergent urgency to understand their operations, processes, capacities, and challenges. We formally surveyed known firewood bank leaders and evaluated the results through the framework of a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis to better understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of firewood banks more broadly. Further understanding of firewood bank attributes within a SWOT framework will provide leaders, policymakers, and outreach professionals with valuable insights to assess support needs and ensure long-term organizational sustainability in fuel-poor communities. The results of this research underscore the successes these organizations have achieved, the challenges they may face in the future, and highlight critical areas for future research.Funding for this project came from the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station agreement number 22-DG-11132544-029, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station agreement number 22-DG-11132544-048, and USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture McIntire-Stennis (ME041707) through the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station. We thank Christine Crago, Mindy Crandall, and Emmalyn Terracciano for considerate reviews that improved the manuscript, as well as the firewood bank leaders who responded to the survey. Procedures for parts of this study that involved human subjects were approved by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Institutional Review Board (UMass IRB No. 4291). We honor with gratitude the Indigenous Peoples whose ancestral homelands all U.S. firewood banks occupy; we will continue to work as allies toward Indigenous community access and self-determination in natural resource management on these lands
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Access to Contraceptives: A Systematic Scoping Review
No full textBackground
The COVID-19 pandemic was a disaster that had far reaching effects on healthcare services, one of which being sexual and reproductive health. By disrupting the majority of in-person healthcare services, as well as the function of many supply chains, people across the globe faced difficulties in accessing the goods and services they relied on. This review is attempting to answer the question, what were the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s access to contraceptives?
Methods
Web of Science was searched on February 26, 2025 for studies reporting on participants’ ability to access contraceptives during the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to before and/or after. Studies must have been conducted exclusively in people who identify as women, and who were engaged with contraceptives at the start of the pandemic. Data were narratively synthesized and grouped based on changes in use of contraceptives attributed to pandemic, and unintended pregnancies.
Results
This review includes 7 included studies which represent 9 countries and 84,562 people. Women’s ages range from 12-50 years. Study size ranges from about 200 to over 70,000. Available data suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic had deleterious effects on reproductive health. Fear of becoming infected prevented many women from accessing contraceptives as they were able to pre-pandemic. COVID-19 related economic losses have also been linked to changes in fertility intentions, in turn changing contraceptives and family planning for some women. There was a reduction in dispensing of pharmaceutical contraceptives, such as the hormonal pill. There was an increase in unintended pregnancies. However, widespread use of long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) eliminated some risks that arise from disruptions in services.
Conclusion
The current structure of the health care delivery system does not support equitable access to contraceptives. COVID-19 is one of many factors that can exacerbate this. Globally, interventions to address gaps in sexual education have the potential to improve access to and knowledge of contraception; this may be particularly critical during disruptions such as COVID-19 which can impact supply chains and access to healthcare providers.Master of Public Health (MPH
From Barriers to Access: Making OER Accessible to All
No full textRecent federal regulations (Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act) are changing how colleges select course materials to ensure all students can access and use them effectively. While traditional publishers offer detailed documentation about their materials' accessibility features, OER materials often lack this crucial information. OER is often seen as financially accessible, but how can we make sure the OER we are creating and adopting in our classrooms are digitally accessible to students with disabilities? This session breaks down the new accessibility requirements in plain language and explores practical ways to evaluate and remediate OER materials. You'll learn how these regulations affect choice of course materials, simple techniques to make your materials more accessible, and how to add an accessibility statement to your OER to help others confidently adopt your work
Paying Twice to Learn: How Higher Education Students May Be Forced to Sacrifice Privacy for Digital Learning Tools
No full textPrivacy Rights Clearinghouse released a report in late 2024 revealing how vague data practices and limited legal protections leave student privacy vulnerable. Compared to K-12 students, college learners have access to few privacy safeguards when it comes to the digital instructional materials they are often required to purchase and use. The presentation will cover the report’s findings, the current legal and regulatory landscape surrounding higher education digital privacy, and suggestions for improvement. Panelists will discuss how a combination of education and awareness, policy development, and advocacy approaches have the potential to better protect students’ data privacy while enhancing their access to educational tools and materials
