IDA Mount Holyoke College Institutional Digital Archive
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Ortega/Native Spirit 20
No full textAll building footprints were obtained from Facilities Management and are updated annually as necessary.201
On The Outside Looking In
No full textBreathtaking scenery, green as far as the eye can see, and horses in every field initially sparked my love for Ireland. My dream to travel to, and work in Ireland was realized this past summer when I received the opportunity to work in a research facility at Trinity College Dublin. My summer experience has not only changed me as a person and a learner forever, but also developed my people skills and skills in the lab farther then I ever imagined.
Ireland is a small european country with an even smaller population. In terms of genetics, this makes for an interesting mixing pot of very similar diseases brought on by the same or similar alleles and traits found amongst the Irish population. Age Related Macular Degeneration is a common genetic disease in Ireland affection the country's elderly. Through many scientific process and applications or lab worked towards solving the complex problems in this complicated disease. On a personal level, I not only became more excited about scientific reasearch, but I became aware of new strengths on my own, global curiosity, and the desire to explore many new avenues and countries.Across the globe, two seniors and two juniors worked with local communities with a larger goal in many different ways. Community engagement was conducted in several different ways: through teaching archaeology, mapping the Civil Rights Movement, focusing laboratory research on curing the blind, and fighting for the rights of transgender youth. Both seniors remained at “home” in the states in Portland, ME, and Washington, DC. The juniors, on the other hand, experienced different time zones living in Dublin, Ireland, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile. All of our encounters have the common theme of working with groups of people and working within their culture while not necessarily being a part of it. Join us as we discuss how we channeled our outsider perspective to create positive change and growth for the communities within which we worked. More importantly come hear about the immense personal growth we gained from learning within these different communities
Site-Directed Mutagenesis Study of the Alpha-Crystallin Domain in Human Small Heat Shock Protein HspB5
No full textSmall heat shock proteins (sHsps) are a family of ATP-independent molecular chaperones that exhibit “holdases” functions. Under cellular stresses including changes in temperatures, pH, or oxidation-reduction states, proteins can expose their hydrophobic regions and become partially unfolded. sHsps bind to these nonnative proteins to prevent aggregation, facilitate refolding, and maintain proteostasis. Flanked by the N- and C-terminal regions, the -crystallin domain (ACD) is conserved across different sHsps. It predominantly consists of antiparallel -sheets and contributes significantly to dimer formation. Although sHsps are known to populate at various oligomeric states, it is unclear how their dynamic conformations relate to chaperone activities. Therefore, it is important to gain more insight into the structural features of sHsps, in an effort to understand their mechanisms of action.
This study focuses on one of the sHsps, HspB5, otherwise known as B-crystalline. It is one of the major eye lens proteins, but is also found in other parts of the body such as muscles. This mutagenesis study of the full-length HspB5 aims to elucidate the key amino acid residues in the ACD, specifically on the strand at the dimer interface. The study includes some disease mutations such as D109A and R120G which are found in patients with myofibrillar myopathy and cataracts respectively. Other point mutations, namely F113Y, R116C, and R120C, introduce the possibilities of additional hydrogen bonding or disulfide bonds. Results from in vitro chaperone-like light-scattering assays reveal loss of chaperone functions of the mutants compared to that of the wild-type HspB5 and suggest changes in substrate-sHsp interactions. The extent of the reductions in chaperone activities are different among mutants and specific to the substrate proteins.Biochemistr
Crash Course: Student to Biochemical Research Scientist
No full textAt The Jackson Laboratory this summer, I studied aging in hematopoietic progenitor cells collected from mice. I was participating in the Summer Student Program, where I was placed in a lab with a research mentor, in addition to being provided a stipend and a place to live. My research focused on determining the relative expression levels of cell cycle genes in lymphoid primed multipotent progenitors (LMPPs). LMPP populations have been shown to decrease with age, leading to reduced numbers of B cells and T cells resulting in immune deficiencies. LMPPs are also shown to cycle more rapidly with increased age, therefore we hypothesize that cell cycle genes may be dysregulated with age. Relative expression of target genes was measured with reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). One of my most valuable summer findings unexpectedly came from an observation of skewed results with this procedure, which allowed me to identify an important change that needed to be made regarding our reference gene. Conducting research at The Jackson Laboratory provided an opportunity to explore a research topic different than my work at UMass Amherst in the Garman lab the last two years. My third summer diving into a new area of research was so much easier than the first because I was familiar with lab work and knew how to find information necessary to understand my project. I felt confident in the lab and ready to tackle new protocols. Immersing myself in laboratory research has allowed me to become a highly capable research scientist which will serve me well as I begin graduate school in the fall.Members of our panel explored various fields of Biochemical research outside the realm of Mount Holyoke College over the course of the summer. As undergraduate students of different backgrounds, we collaborated with PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows on projects ranging from legume symbiosis and yeast epigenetics to Alzheimer’s disease and aging in hematopoietic stem cells. Our members were associated with graduate school labs at the University of Massachusetts, Yale School of Medicine and the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), as well as labs such as The Jackson Laboratory in Maine. Though the environments and the sizes of the labs varied, we all learned many essential lessons on conducting ethical research and succeeding as scientists. Some of these included habits such as maintaining a detailed lab notebook with appropriate procedures and modifications, reading a plethora of papers linked to our fields, and asking our mentors questions whenever necessary. Since the nature of our research projects was unique, we cultivated different lab techniques and skills that we will share through individual presentations. We will also share the processes involved in securing the internships, using the Lynk funding, and adjusting to new lab environments
Misrepresentation and Female Experience: Lady Gregory's Critique of the Irish Literary Revival
No full textLady Gregory is often read as a significant figure and proponent of the Irish Literary Revival. However, this thesis analyzes eight of Lady Gregory’s plays for the Abbey Theatre and examines the ways she critiques the Revival and anticolonial mainstream Irish nationalism. Chapter One analyzes Hyacinth Halvey, Spreading the News, and The Rising of the Moon. This chapter argues that Lady Gregory critiques the Catholic Church and colonial law’s distortion of reality through the ideologies that they perpetuate. Lady Gregory also demonstrates the problems with harnessing Ireland’s folk traditions and mythological past for political purposes. Chapter Two examines the plays Cathleen ni Houlihan and The Gaol Gate, which explore the ways that the Revival misrepresents and overlooks the narratives of Irish peasant women in order to promote a specific political agenda. In The Gaol Gate, Lady Gregory asserts the importance of representing peasant women’s material histories fairly and explores keening as a possibility for alternative female expression. Chapter Three investigates Lady Gregory’s representation of women in Grania, Kincora, and Dervorgilla and the ways that these plays represent the past. Using the theories of Eve Sedgwick, this chapter examines ways that Lady Gregory explores possibilities for Irish women to defy gender expectations. These plays also resist the Revival’s practice of idealizing women, instead recording the prioritization of the personal over the political. Ultimately, this thesis proposes that while Lady Gregory participated in the Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre’s nationalist agenda, she was critical of reviving a past that depended on misrepresenting and oppressing women.Englis
Cultural Responses to 9/11 and the War on Terror: Witnessing Trauma, Embodying Justice
No full textThis thesis is an investigation into cultural responses to 9/11 and the War on Terror. My primary subject matter consists of government documents, public speeches, print journalism, and an exhibit entitled Astro Noise, curated by Laura Poitras, that was on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in the spring of 2016. Using a framework of cultural trauma, I argue that each of these responses is an attempt to formulate knowledge about, or come to understand, the traumatic event, whether that be the 9/11 attacks themselves or the expansive war that has followed. Therefore, I analyze each response in terms of what kind of knowledge it produces, how it mediates that knowledge to an audience, and how the audience becomes constructed as a witness to the traumatic event. I bring together strands of literary, psychoanalytic, political, and anthropological theory in order to consider how these particular forms of knowledge production, mediation, and witnessing both depend upon and create normative subjectivities. I argue that state-sponsored responses, such as a speech from the President or a Supreme Court decision, rely on a strict separation and detachment between the subjectivity of the American self and that of the terrorist other. Even journalistic responses that aim to expose and push back against an ever-expanding field of executive power fail to disrupt this dichotomy. Contrastly, the artistic response of the museum exhibit constructs and makes obvious new relationships between the museum visitor and other implicated subjects in the War on Terror. Through the construction of embodied experiences, described in detail in the thesis, the exhibit can trouble the boundaries between the self and the other. This creates an awareness of intersubjectivity. I argue that a focus on the inherent relationality between subjects and events is necessary if we hope to reckon with the overlapping, complex consequences of the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror. Ultimately, this investigation leads me to a re-theorization of justice, not as a single act or an end result but as a particular way of coming to understand and relating to the (often traumatic) world.Sociology & Anthropolog
Does Democratization Help Growth? A Propensity Score Matching Approach
No full textI apply propensity score matching to estimate the average and individual effects of 65 democratizations in the 1965-2011 period on long-term growth. The matching successfully establishes balance between the control and treatment groups in terms of pre-transition democracy, economic development, wars and political instability, geographical characteristics, and time of transition. A democratization is estimated to raise long-term growth by more than 0.7 percentage points on average, but the individual effects of democratizations are highly heterogeneous. Counterfactual growth acceleration is nominal and even slightly negative, suggesting that prolonged autocracy harms growth. We, however, must be cautious in concluding that democracy benefits long-term growth.Economic
Shifting Identities in the Far Right: The National Front and Golden Dawn
No full textFar right political parties and social movements have been present in Europe since the beginning of the 20th century. After World War II, the far right dissipated into various individual movements on the political fringe and carried little to no electoral weight. However, the past two decades—marked by the sharp economic downturn of 2008, increased immigration, a refugee crisis, and social strains due to globalization—have ushered in unprecedented national and transnational electoral success for the far right. Two of these parties that fall under the “far right” umbrella are the National Front of France and Golden Dawn of Greece. Though the two parties run on similar party platforms and hold comparable ideologies, the extreme party Golden Dawn differs from the National Front in its relationship to violence as a means of achieving party goals and proposed policies, as well as in its promotion of fascist ideals. Despite these differences and years on the margins of politics, both of these parties are still enjoying electoral success today. My research focuses on analyzing the discourse used to frame the “self” and “other” in the National Front and Golden Dawn. Analyzing group identity in the far right gives insight into which identities are valued by the parties, how a shared identity is promoted, and how these parties are garnering continued electoral success over time. I maintain that the recent electoral success of far right parties—specifically, the National Front and Golden Dawn—can be further attributed to a successful fostering of collective identity within the movements.International Relation