IDA Mount Holyoke College Institutional Digital Archive
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Paper and Process
No full textMy art work is a personal exploration of motherhood and the domestic work involved in this role. The lack of value placed by society on mothers, in their roles as both caretakers and domestic workers, insidiously chips away at the idealistic expectations of motherhood and identity. Tangentially, the lack of a feminist theory on motherhood exacerbates the tension between this devaluation of motherhood and the mothers’ expectations. The social construct of the happy-mother-with-another-one-on-the way breaks down one load of laundry at a time, one dirty diaper at a time, one child after another, and one year after the next. My process of art making, as a mother, is an attempt to reconcile the sense of displacement and disconnection from society and oneself by creating a pause - to reflect, reclaim and rebirth the fragmented parts of one’s identity.
The intersectionality of the third wave of feminism focused on integrating different races, genders and classes from various geographies and socio-economic backgrounds into a common conversation while still maintaining their own strong and dynamic platforms. Mothers, however, were left out of the conversation. “It has been said that motherhood is the unfinished business of feminism” states, Andrea O’Reilly, a professor at York University, in a keynote speech, at the Museum of Motherhood in NYC, 2014. O’Reilly has spent her career as a professor and mother, pushing for a maternal feminist theory which she coined “matricentric feminism.” Both, O’Reilly and Samira Kawash, a professor in the Rutgers University PhD program of Women’s Studies, ask the same question: Why haven’t women’s studies’ programs embraced a feminism for the specific needs and concerns of mothers?
While the feminist academic world has not embraced the concerns of mothers, within the art world, the work of mothers has been visible. Mothers and their art have added voices to various phases of feminism. Mierle Laderman Ukeles is an artist, activist, mother and feminist working since the late 1960’s. She elevated the maintenance chores of mothers and service workers to that of art, thereby creating a community of mothers and workers that felt validated in their jobs. Her art has been a powerful tool in strengthening the agenda and agency of mothers.
My art installations explore women’s traditional work. The process of making handmade paper mimics the often tedious, mundane, and oppressive aspects of domestic chores like doing laundry or dishes. The soaking, beating, rinsing, and pressing of fiber into sheets of paper is labor intensive. The paper with its imperfections is used to create simple objects of domesticity like an apron or laundry basket or large panels of color that focus on process. This work has helped me to reconcile with the past twenty-five years as a mother. Art making creates a foundation from which to understand and reclaim oneself.Art Studi
How Much Can You Learn in Five Minutes?
No full textInternships are learning experiences that build up your professional skills and allow you to better understand direction in your future career path. For some, this means exploring fields that may seem intimidating and unknown at first. In my talk, I will walk you through the challenges and positive experiences that I encountered during my internship with New Sector Alliance. I will draw upon my experiences as a fellow with a nonprofit dedicated to affordable housing to explain how I enriched my knowledge in a previously unknown field, and strengthened my professional skill set in the social sector.Internships can sometimes be a tricky, overwhelming experience filled with new and scary responsibilities. Oftentimes students walk into a new internship opportunity either knowing little about their responsibilities or are placed in an environment that forces them to learn on the spot. This panel walks you through four unique, but rich and deeply hands-on internship experiences that were adventures just like this. All four of us were thrown into a new environment with little, if any, time to acclimate. We were all expected to perform incredibly important work and to self-manage in an area we were still trying to know more about. Each of our internship stories is unique and within our panel, there are a wide range of different, but equally challenging responsibilities to discuss, such as research in a neuroscience lab, work that blends finance and healthcare, a project that specially focus on affordable housing in Boston, and social service work at a Minnesota domestic violence shelter. With our strikingly different internship experiences, this panel seeks to demonstrate how to go about navigating a successful and rich internship within a new and demanding space
Shifting Paradigms Across Borders
No full textIn South Africa, the current teenage pregnancy rate is approximately 30%. Studies demonstrate that two primary reasons for this statistic are a lack of knowledge and a desire to prove femininity. In the early 2000’s, Life Orientation was introduced as a subject in the South African education system to teach learners topics such as sex education and career development. However, the curriculum is very theoretical and in some ways seems unattainable to high school students. Over a decade after Life Orientation was established, teenage pregnancy continues to be a challenge for the South African population. Therefore, this presentation will discuss a program launched in Athlone, Western Cape at Garlandale High School led by Principal Dawn Crowie. This program sought to empower female students by connecting them with existing resources in the community. By establishing partnerships with local businesses and organizations, the girls of Garlandale gained valuable experiences related to family planning, sexual health, self-defense, HIV awareness, and taking control of one’s own life.During an era of immense gender inequality, Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke in order to provide greater educational opportunities for women. She recognized the importance of education as a means of overcoming oppression. As an institution, Mount Holyoke has always stressed the importance of female empowerment. This past summer, we collaborated with different communities in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Cape Town, South Africa to further this vision. We worked with institutions and organizations that sought to empower women and challenge the limitations forced upon them. Though our work was in a range of fields, including the non-profit sector and technological training, we all sought to empower women through knowledge. By participating in education and activism, we offered a new perspective on women's roles and abilities and ultimately helped to change the way women view themselves
“Who’s There?”: Designing Sensor-Aided Wearable Assistive Technology for the Visually-Impaired
No full textApproximately 4% of the world’s population is visually impaired, with 65% of them over age 50; and an estimate of 90% of them living in low and middle-income countries. While these numbers are shocking, the bigger challenge is the reduced confidence and life satisfaction that the visually impaired experience as a result of loss in independence and diminished sociability. This project tries to mitigate the problem of dependence using low-cost, intuitive, sensor-aided assistive technology. Interacting with visually-impaired users, we identified 3 specific problems: difficulty recognizing those in their surroundings; inability to proactively greet persons entering their social space; and not knowing if the person they are interacting with is within hearing range as they move around. While previous research in assistive technology for the blind has largely focused on enabling smoother navigation, there has been less focus on improving their social interactions.
We employ a user-centered design approach and think-aloud protocol to gain insight into the user’s cognitive processes, comfort level and feelings while they are interacting with the device and performing various structured social interaction tasks. Furthermore, we use standard psychological instruments to measure changes in sociability, independence and technological comfort as the users use the device.
We developed two distinct prototypes with several iterations of the design-thinking process. The first relied on a smart-phone to notify the user. While it successfully performed the tasks, it was too cognitively overwhelming, frustrating and exhausting for a blind user because of the phone’s many notifications. Therefore, it was an ineffective way of augmenting their perception.
Our second prototype, and current solution, is threefold: building a smart environment; designing a single-purpose, wearable bracelet with sonifications and vibro-tactile communication; and creating a novel audio-haptic user interface. We evaluated this device and chose it as our current solution because it is a low-cost, low-energy, easy-to-use, intuitive device that was successfully used by potential users to identify and place potential interactors in their surroundings during usability testing and user feedback sessions.
This project presents a foundation for designing more intuitive audio-haptic interfaces and devices for not only visually-impaired, but also for aging populations and sighted individuals. It proposes future research avenues overcoming current limitations, exploring long-term effects of the assistive device on the user’s well-being, and enabling customization to an individual user’s needs.Computer Scienc
Women, Work, and Expectations: Putting it All Together
No full textThis longitudinal study examined the relationship between college women’s division of labor expectations and their actual division of labor outcomes, emphasizing expectations of and actual egalitarian marriages. A total of 202 undergraduate women were surveyed in 2003 about their attitudes surrounding work and family and their preferences for different division of labor scenarios. Out of these women, 67 married mothers completed this survey about their current divisions of labor, attitudes regarding work and family, careers, and spouses’ attributes, and data from 58 of these women were included in the analyses. Regressions showed that these women’s attitudes and expectations from college were largely not predictive of their current divisions of labor, but that their current attitudes surrounding work and family, their careers, and spouses’ attributes were predictive of their current divisions of labor. Findings indicate that promoting and supporting egalitarian marriages involves more than planning on egalitarianism.Psychology & Educatio
Modelling Current-Voltage Characteristics in Organic Photovoltaics
No full textThin film organic photovoltaics have the potential to meet the world’s growing energy needs cheaply and cleanly. However, organic photovoltaics have not yet been able to match the efficiencies of conventional silicon solar devices. The shape of the current-voltage (IV) curve provides information about where these efficiency shortfalls are occurring in a device. For instance, different regions of the curve can indicate whether the device is leaking current, whether shunting is present, and how far the device deviates from the ideal. However, extracting all of this information requires a model to fit the IV curve. Researchers have found that IV curves for these organic devices can be modelled by a power law. The higher the power law, the steeper the slope of the curve at the turn on voltage and the more the device behaves like an ideal diode. However, the origin of this power law value has been attributed to many factors, including injection, transport, or screening of charge. In this study, we propose a model for the IV curve of organic photovoltaics consisting of a bilayer heterojunction between an electron donor and acceptor. The model is based on the theory of space-charge-limited currents with energy traps laid out by Lampert and Mark and is extended to include the recombination rate of charges at the interface between the donor and electron acceptor. The theory predicts that the recombination rate should be limited by the difference in energy between the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of the donor and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of the acceptor. Devices fabricated using the same donor (SubPC) and a variety of acceptors with different LUMO levels yield a power law directly proportional to the HOMO-LUMO energy gap. The model is capable of fitting the full extent of the IV curve exactly, giving diagnostic information about leakage, shunting, transport, and recombination in existing devices. We anticipate that the model can also serve a predictive role based solely on intrinsic and measurable material properties.Physic
How Much Can You Learn in Five Minutes?
No full textI completed my summer internship at the Davison Lab of Neural Circuit Function in Boston University’s Neurobiology department. The lab’s research was based in mouse behavior as related to the olfactory system, otherwise known as the sensory pathways that govern the sense of smell. I arrived ready to take on the challenges that my first independent lab experience would throw my way, but quickly ran into an obstacle; namely, that I had never studied the olfactory system in any way. The internship involved development of an entirely new vocabulary and skill set, all while keeping up with the biweekly journal clubs and weekly lab meetings. The pinnacle of this learning curve came when I had to present a piece of recently published primary literature to my lab-mates, all involving concepts I had been completely unfamiliar with mere months before. The presentation allowed me to reflect on how much I had learned over those few months and the amount of knowledge I would be bringing back to Mount Holyoke in the fall. I hope my experience at Boston University can demonstrate the sheer satisfaction of looking back on an internship and realizing just how far you’ve come.Internships can sometimes be a tricky, overwhelming experience filled with new and scary responsibilities. Oftentimes students walk into a new internship opportunity either knowing little about their responsibilities or are placed in an environment that forces them to learn on the spot. This panel walks you through four unique, but rich and deeply hands-on internship experiences that were adventures just like this. All four of us were thrown into a new environment with little, if any, time to acclimate. We were all expected to perform incredibly important work and to self-manage in an area we were still trying to know more about. Each of our internship stories is unique and within our panel, there are a wide range of different, but equally challenging responsibilities to discuss, such as research in a neuroscience lab, work that blends finance and healthcare, a project that specially focus on affordable housing in Boston, and social service work at a Minnesota domestic violence shelter. With our strikingly different internship experiences, this panel seeks to demonstrate how to go about navigating a successful and rich internship within a new and demanding space
DACA and its Economic Impacts on Undocumented Immigrants
No full textThis study focuses on how the introduction of legalization impacted DACA eligible undocumented immigrants in comparison to the ineligible group. DACA is expected to increase wages and the propensity of the eligible immigrants to join the workforce but to also decrease school enrollment. A residual method is used to differentiate undocumented immigrants from legal immigrants. DACA eligible recipients are further identified by education, residency, and age requirements. I use OLS regression to analyze the change in labor market outcomes and use logistic regression to find the propensity of undocumented immigrants to be enrolled in school or to be in the labor force. I compare the results from 2011, before DACA was implemented, to results from 2016. I find that DACA eligibility improves wages and labor force participation for both men and women. School enrollment does drop, but there seems to be increased college enrollment, especially in states with in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.Economic
“Sardonic Humor is My Way of Relating to the World”: Audience Interaction With Teen Television, 2007 - Present
No full textThere is a lengthy history of teenagers on television, and of teenagers as a television viewing audience. Over the past decade, developments in how technology allows audiences to interact with television have affected both the structure and content of television that features and caters to teenagers. Using specific texts (most notably Gossip Girl (The CW, 2007-2012), Riverdale (The CW, 2017-), and Heathers (Paramount, 2017)) and the paratexts formed by audience members in their interaction online with the original texts and their creators, this thesis seeks to understand how teen television has adapted itself to fit the models created by the internet and its users and the nature of its potential repercussions for the genre and for television in general.Film Studie
Asthma-induced ASD-like Behaviors in Offspring of Maternal Allergic-Asthma Dams: A Model of the Double Hit Hypothesis
No full textAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by social and communication impairments and restricted repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). While ASD is based exclusively on behavioral symptomology, many reports note immune dysregulation as a common underlying feature. These immune alterations are thought to begin early in fetal development and population-based studies suggest a link between ASD severity and maternal incidence of allergies and asthma. This project examined the effects of maternal immune activation, via a maternal allergic-asthma (MAA) model, in conjunction with offspring asthma on severity of ASD-like behaviors in mice. It was hypothesized that MAA offspring exposed to repeated asthma inductions throughout juvenile development would exhibit more severe ASD-like behaviors. To test this, female C57BL/6J (C57) mice were sensitized to the egg protein ovalbumin, OVA, or phosphate buffered saline, PBS, and pregnant females were exposed to either aerosolized OVA (i.e. MAA) or PBS- vehicle (i.e. Control), respectively, throughout gestation to elicit allergic-asthma episodes. Following parturition, mice from both MAA and Control dams were randomly assigned to undergo either subsequent OVA sensitizations and inductions or be exposed to PBS sensitizations and inductions. The resulting four groups, (Control-PBS, Control-OVA, MAA-PBS, and MAA-OVA) were then assessed for ASD-like behaviors following acute asthma inductions using a series of well-validated behavioral tasks. Results indicated that allergic-asthma exposure, either during gestation or in the juvenile period, elicited species atypical behaviors in social and anxiety-associated tasks.Neuroscience and Behavio