55453 research outputs found
Sort by
Exploring the STEM Career Identity Development of Black Women Across Their Lifespan
Get PDFAlthough STEM is the fastest-growing career sector, Black women are grossly underrepresented as they account for 2.5% of the workforce. Research highlights that this underrepresentation is due to racialized structures in K-12, postsecondary, and career settings that restrict Black girls’ and women’s STEM opportunities. While macrosystems such as hegemonic ideologies, attitudes, and social conditions shape Black girls’ and women’s opportunities in STEM, they continue to persist and achieve their career goals. To explore these barriers and Black women’s persistence in this industry, this study draws from the autobiographical memories of 10 Black women in the field or formerly in the field to understand how they formed their STEM identities, the barriers they encountered, and modes of persistence toward their STEM goals. Specifically, I focus on the role of mothers and othermothers in their career identity development. Three theoretical perspectives guide this qualitative study: Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST), intersectionality, and mothering to understand the system operating around the STEM identity. These three theoretical lenses form the Systems and Intersectionality Framework for Black Women’s STEM Identity Development and Networks of Support. Through this framework, the findings highlight the importance of K-12 education as the foundation of STEM identity development, STEM-efficacy, and persistence. The collegiate years are a time of personal growth, connections through “homeplaces,” real-world STEM experiences, and on-going STEM persistence. In their professional lives, Black women face tensions between assimilation and resistance, while support from Black mothers and othermothers empowers them to succeed in a White, male-dominated field. Findings from this study offer valuable insights for policy and practice—calling for equitable STEM access in K–12 settings, intentional support structures in higher education, and mechanisms of accountability that address systemic barriers to the professional advancement of Black women in STEM
Dissecting Evolutionarily Conserved Pathways of Aging: Tryptophan Catabolism and Mitochondrial Bioenergetic Function
No full textAging is a complex, multifactorial process characterized by a gradual decline in physiological function and increased susceptibility to disease. Although significant progress has been made, the molecular mechanisms underlying aging remain incompletely understood. This doctoral research focuses on two evolutionarily conserved pathways that play critical roles in aging: the tryptophan-kynurenine metabolic pathway and mitochondrial bioenergetics.
In the first part of the study, we investigated the role of the tryptophan-kynurenine pathway in aging using mouse models with whole-body knockouts of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (Ido1), Ido2, and Ido1/Ido2 double knockouts. This pathway represents the primary route for tryptophan catabolism and is essential for regulating immune function, oxidative stress, and NAD⁺ biosynthesis. Tryptophan-derived metabolites modulate neuroinflammation, immune tolerance, and metabolic signaling processes intimately linked to aging and age-related diseases. By utilizing these genetic models, we dissected the individual and combined roles of Ido1 and Ido2 in immune-metabolic regulation and stress adaptation during aging.
In the second part, we employed a novel yeast model to explore how mitochondrial bioenergetics and ATP homeostasis shape cellular aging. Mitochondria are essential for energy production, redox balance, and metabolic signaling. With age, mitochondrial function deteriorates, resulting in diminished oxidative phosphorylation, elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS), and reduced ATP levels—all contributing to cellular decline. Our research examines how cells maintain mitochondrial efficiency during aging and whether enhancing ATP homeostasis can delay age-associated dysfunction.
By integrating findings from both yeast and mouse models, this work identifies conserved molecular mechanisms that regulate immune balance, metabolic health, and cellular energy homeostasis. These insights not only advance our understanding of the biology of aging but also highlight potential therapeutic targets to mitigate age-related diseases
Queer-keying: Performing Video Processes as [Trans]gressive Resistance
Get PDFAs part of the 2025 VCUarts MFA Thesis Exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), I transformed the \u27Sponge\u27 gallery on the top floor of The Anderson, VCU’s historic thesis exhibition home, into The Green Room, a neon green, immersive video and performance space featuring mirrors, disco lights, a foam tile dance floor, makeup stations, and a functioning green-screen editing suite. This hybrid drag rehearsal and ‘Chroma-key’ green video production room deepened both my understandings of Queer performance art and process-based art making during the Spring of 2025, through two public performance activation events and daily interactions during my open studio residency
Lonely People Anonymous
No full textLonely People Anonymous is a collection of creative nonfiction essays and an excerpt from an in-progress novel bearing the same name. The collection of personal essays reflects on psychogenic illness, mental illness, Seventh-day Adventism, losing one’s faith, and making peace with a meaningless existence through connection with others. Lonely People Anonymous is a speculative fiction novel that follows Henry as he joins what he believes to be a support group for loneliness. When he’s offered the chance to take part in a three-month study, Henry discovers that the group’s leader, Rich, has created a device that allows users to experience the memory of others. While this device initially helps Henry connect with other members, Rich’s darker intentions for the technology are gradually revealed throughout the course of the novel, making Henry have to choose between his loyalty to Rich and his loyalty to another member, Julia, who he has fallen in love with. The novel explores loneliness in America and the need for community despite its dangers
Growth to beginning of gill formation.
No full text\u27Growth to beginning of gill formation.\u27 explores constructions of knowledges by tracing Western music theory\u27s dissonant wolf interval through non/chronological time. Sound waves are used to demonstrate an abiding material underlying collective value, and language, constructions. The thesis installation this text accompanies is addressed in four categories: translations of Hz to silent video; the language development stage of babble and image; tension and mediated patterns of the unheard, unseen, or unknown; and air pressure.
Brief asides from Gigi, the narrator of a video within the installation, interject. Here, she touches on enforced secrets, blacksmithing as a tool to question the fictive and non-fictive binary, extinction and cyclical time, and maintenance
You go, I will wait
Get PDFOn the other side of the coast, a hand is waiting. On the other side of the shore, someone is waiting for you to come. This space between you and them is an asymptote. The more you wait, the colder the pan is to the hand. But the salt of the sea will cover and warm your hand. There’s much to play with while you wait. The destination is only a promise, a figure disillusioned. Waiting spaces are enchantingly altering
in their premise. A bureaucratic fantasy with no avail and no ending. Systematically accumulated levels of power and control lies within a — post post-soviet reality that a home is actively surrounded by. In this case, to share a moment is to take it back. To diffuse a residue until it’s spread out thin.
At this moment, this document’s purpose is to explore a two year conversation with objects, spaces, people, emotions, places, and memories. Through alternating collections of images, writings and extracurriculars, a waiting room is slowly built in this duration. With or without another person, these two books are to be simultaneously read with its pair. Apart but always linked. Always holding. There is no specific order
Buried In Pixels
Get PDFThis book is an accumulation of design fragments, personal memory, research, and reflection. It explores how design participates in shaping what is seen and unseen—especially in contexts of war, media, and displacement. Through image, text, and installation, the work questions representation, visibility, and the aesthetics of documentation. The book does not follow a fixed narrative structure; instead, it invites nonlinear reading, mirroring the fractured nature of memory and the politics of archival form
Targeting Interactions Between Tumor-Associated Macrophages and Tumor Cells to Enhance Chemotherapy Response in Murine Models of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
No full textAmong women in the United States, breast cancer (BC) is the most diagnosed malignancy, and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Approximately 15-25% of all breast cancer cases are classified as triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). TNBC is the BC subtype with the worst prognosis, which is driven by high rates of metastasis and recurrence and lacks targeted treatment options. As a result, there is an urgent unmet clinical need for the development of more effective pharmacological interventions for TNBC. In this work, we seek to address this need by targeting tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), as they are the most abundant immune infiltrate in the TNBC tumor microenvironment (TME), and high TAM abundance is associated with worse patient outcomes in TNBC. This association between abundance and patient outcomes is also present when observing alternatively activated, anti-inflammatory, M2-like TAMs. We sought to target the interactions between TNBC cells and TAMs by inhibiting the CSF1/CSF1R axis, as well as the CD47/SIRPa axis. To inhibit CSF1R, we selected pexidartinib (PLX) given its translational potential as the only FDA approved CSF1R inhibitor. We sought to block the CD47/SIRPa axis using an anti-CD47 mAB because TNBC cells express high baseline levels of CD47, and this expression is further increased upon exposure to many chemotherapies, including gemcitabine (GEM). Increased levels of CD47 is associated with evasion of phagocytosis, increased cancer stemness, and lower metastasis free survival (MFS) and overall survival (OS). To test the efficacy of treatment, we utilized a highly sophisticated survival surgery murine model, thus allowing us to recapitulate the clinical setting by administering (neo)adjuvant therapy and track the development of metastases and record both MFS and OS. The combination therapy PLX+GEM significantly depleted total and M2-like TAMs compared to vehicle and GEM monotherapy, while shifting the M1/M2 ratio towards an M1-like dominant phenotype. PLX+GEM also greatly impacted tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) populations by significantly increasing B cells, CD4+, and CD8+ T cells. These drastic changes in the TNBC TME resulted in significant prolongations in MFS and OS compared to all monotherapies. Similarly, the combination of anti-CD47+GEM significantly depleted total and M2-like TAMs compared to vehicle and GEM monotherapy. However, while anti-CD47+GEM did not drastically affect TIL populations, it did lead to significant depletions in myeloid-derived suppressor cell (MDSC) populations, and significant increases in dendritic cell (DC) populations. These shifts in myeloid cell populations resulted in combination therapy significantly increasing MFS and OS to all monotherapy approaches. When all three monotherapies are combined into a triple combination (PLX+anti-CD47+GEM), the result was the greatest depletion of total TAMs and the greatest magnitude of M2-like TAM reduction. Triple therapy also retained the myeloid cell effects demonstrated by anti-CD47+GEM, with it significantly reducing MDSCs while leading to the greatest infiltration of DCs. However, while triple therapy had significantly lower TIL abundance compared to PLX+GEM, it still demonstrated the ability to partially overcome anti-CD47 mediated TIL reductions. As a result of the aforementioned TME remodeling, triple therapy resulted in the greatest prolongation of MFS and OS. These results suggest that PLX+GEM, anti-CD47+GEM, and triple therapy are all promising therapies that warrant further investigation and optimization
Developing Bioinformatics Expertise Through the Annotation of the Gut Microbiome of Odontotaenius disjunctus
Get PDFNext-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have revolutionized biological research by generating unprecedented volumes of genomic data, necessitating advanced bioinformatics tools and specialized expertise to fully interpret complex microbial communities. This study outlines an integrated workflow to characterize the gut microbiome of the wood-feeding beetle Odontotaenius disjunctus. Prokka is employed for functional annotation to identify protein-coding genes and other genomic features, while Kaiju is used for taxonomic classification. DIAMOND is then applied to locate and validate the taxonomic assignments generated by Kaiju by aligning sequences within the contigs to a comprehensive protein database, proGenomes. Functional analysis revealed that the contigs encode proteins involved in essential cellular processes—such as DNA replication, transcription, translation, and cell division—as well as specialized metabolic and stress response pathways. Taxonomic analysis identified known lignocellulose-degrading taxa. Together, these findings validate the multi-tool bioinformatics approach and underscore the importance of robust computational methods for leveraging NGS data in microbial ecology studies
