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Active Transportation to Redefine a Commercial Center: A Study of the Hudson Square Business Improvement District
No full textThis thesis examines how Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) can evolve beyond their traditional service roles into active infrastructure leaders, focusing on the Hudson Square BID in New York City. Through a mixed-methods approach combining Citi Bike trip analysis, GIS mapping, commuter surveys, and stakeholder interviews, the research documents how the BID led efforts in planning, funding, and implementing active transportation infrastructure.
Findings reveal that strategic investment in pedestrian-friendly streetscapes and protected bike lanes attracted a younger, creative-class workforce and reshaped commuting patterns, transforming Hudson Square into a dynamic live-work neighborhood. The study proposes a hybrid governance model where BIDs act as localized stewards of urban infrastructure, offering a replicable framework for other districts seeking mobility-driven revitalization
Benchmarking Airport Ground Access: A Spatial And Policy Analysis Of Ground Transportation To New York City International Airports - John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Laguardia Airport (LGA), And Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
No full textNew York City is a major world-class destination served by three international airports: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), LaGuardia Airport (LGA), and Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), welcoming 62 million travelers and increasing every year. Airport ground access refers to the ways in which travelers get to and from airports. Due to the spatial distribution of these airports within New York City, ground access varies in travel time, cost, and overall accessibility.
This research aims to benchmark the travel accessibility of the three major airports by asking: How accessible are JFK, LGA, and EWR to neighborhoods across New York City, and what historical, policy, and funding barriers have shaped this access? A mixed methods approach was employed utilizing GIS, historical and policy research, and site visits. Travel time is the primary quantitative factor in assessing airport ground access across all neighborhoods in New York City.
The findings of this research reveal differences in accessibility to all three airports through both private and public forms of transportation, identifying neighborhoods where investments in transportation infrastructure should be made. Furthermore, research indicates that Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations on airport ground access projects greatly restrict how projects can be funded through the Airport Improvement Program (AIP), Passenger Facility Charge (PFC), and Airport Revenue. This research serves as a benchmark for airport ground access today, identifying gaps in transportation infrastructure and contributing to future planning that supports more equitable and efficient travel for future generations
The Effects of Adaptive Leadership and Stakeholder Engagement on the Strategic Planning Process: A Single Case Study
No full textAs the landscape of higher education continues to evolve, the findings from this dissertation underscore the necessity for institutions to adopt strategic planning processes that are reflective of their diverse communities and allow for leadership to be adaptable to changing circumstances. The emphasis on adaptive leadership and stakeholder engagement as crucial components of successful strategic planning highlights the importance of flexibility, inclusivity, and effective communication in navigating the complexities of higher education.
The challenges identified in this study, including difficulties in communicating the strategic plan, balancing stakeholder demands with institutional priorities, and avoiding planning fatigue by maintaining momentum and engagement, are critical areas that require attention. Addressing these challenges through best practices such as creating inclusive processes, ensuring clear communication, promoting adaptability, and managing stakeholder expectations can enhance the effectiveness of strategic planning efforts.
Future research in this area presents an opportunity to expand our understanding of strategic planning in higher education. By exploring strategic planning across different types of institutions, incorporating quantitative methods, conducting comparative studies, and focusing on the implementation phase, scholars can build upon the findings of this study. Such research can contribute to the development of strategic planning processes that are more effective, inclusive, and capable of adapting to the evolving needs of higher education institutions.
In conclusion, this dissertation contributes to the body of knowledge on strategic planning processes in higher education by highlighting the significance of adaptive leadership and stakeholder engagement. By embracing these elements, higher education institutions may be more able to develop strategic plans that both meet their goals and foster a sense of ownership and commitment among their stakeholders. As higher education institutions continue to face challenges and opportunities in a rapidly changing world, the insights from this study can serve as a guide for developing strategic plans that are resilient, inclusive, and forward-looking
The Formative Power of K-Content in North Korean Youth Human Rights Consciousness
No full textThis paper contends that North Korean youth live a Janus-headed existence, projecting ideological conformity to the brutal Kim Jong Un regime while simultaneously cultivating rich, autonomous inner worlds. Drawing on interviews with 28 North Korean youth defectors, this study borrows Erving Goffman’s formulation of two stages––the front stage and backstage––to examine how public displays of loyalty operate on the front stage of Korean society, while assertions of human dignity and self-determination are made backstage.
Through their engagement with banned “K-content,” media products made in South Korea, North Korean youth begin to awaken to their inherent human rights––freedom of thought, expression, and cultural access––and in some cases, are impelled to fully reclaim their rights by defecting. To deepen the analysis of their covert resistance, James C. Scott’s concept of a hidden transcript and Roland Barthes’ theory of semiology are applied to the interviewee data. By building on the research of Youna Kim and Ahlam Lee and situating the stories of North Korean youth within the broader framework of international human rights, this paper argues that K-content consumption can function as a quiet but impactful mode of political resistance by way of raising rights consciousness within a totalitarian system
African American Male Students' Engagement with Science: Insights from General and Special Education Participants
No full textThis qualitative, narrative study employed dis/ability critical race theory (DisCrit) and Elite Capture to examine the science learning experiences of five African American male high school students, three in general education and two in special education, who participated in a summer sports program in East Brooklyn.
The study also incorporated the perspectives of one parent of the special education students and two special education teachers. By focusing on individual narratives, this research aimed to illuminate the challenges and successes these students encountered as they navigated science education across diverse learning environments. Semistructured interviews and focus groups provided rich insights to address the following key questions:
How do African American male high school students, both in general and special education, perceive their science education? What factors shape their engagement and success in science?
How do their experiences influence their decisions to pursue science-related fields after high school?
The findings revealed that teacher-student relationships, access to engaging and relevant science curricula, and structural inequities significantly shaped students’ perceptions and engagement in science education. Systemic barriers, including limited access to advanced science courses and inadequate classroom support for students with special education needs, posed substantial obstacles to success. However, positive influences, such as effective pedagogical practices, supportive teacher-student relationships, and a personal passion for science, emerged as critical factors fostering optimism about STEM careers.
This study contributes to broader discussions of equity and inclusion in STEM by addressing systemic biases and stereotypes faced by Black male students, particularly those in special education. It also highlights how these students’ science education experiences shape their aspirations and pathways toward future engagement in STEM fields.
Keywords: African American males, science education, equity, inclusion, dis/ability critical race study, elite captur
Desert Developmentalism: Infrastructure, Agriculture, and the Colonization of Southern Palestine, 1850-1950
No full textSince the mid-nineteenth century, the desert of Southern Palestine—today the Negev/Naqab desert in Southern Israel—has been the focus of various developmental projects aimed at transforming its landscape and inhabitants. Palestinian desert dwellers, Ottoman and British imperial officials, and Jewish settlers have been advancing water canals, railways, urban centers, and agricultural schemes. Even so, the image of an empty desert continued to circulate, justifying the endeavor to “make the desert bloom” through modern science and technology.
Desert Developmentalism examines how developmental plans shaped the desert of Southern Palestine from the late Ottoman period, through the British Mandate, until the 1948 War, the Nakba, and the establishment of the State of Israel. Based on a historical analysis of archival materials, contemporary press, memoirs, and publications in Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, English, and Hebrew, along with interviews with members of the Bedouin communities in Southern Israel; and drawing on insights from environmental history and science and technology studies, the study examines not only the construction and use of infrastructure but also their disassembly and disintegration.
By tracing the planning, execution, and failure of infrastructural and agricultural projects, this research highlights how local and imperial actors shaped the desert environment. At the same time, it shows how the process of desert development produced the desert as empty of particular forms of technological infrastructure that were conceived as the signifiers of progress and the preliminary condition for self-government and self-determination in the post-World War I international system. This image of an empty desert facilitated the displacement of the majority of the region's inhabitants during the 1948 War and the following decades. By excavating the conceptual and material foundations of the effort to “make the desert bloom,” Desert Developmentalism exposes the racialized power dynamics that shaped the desert of Southern Palestine and continue to influence the politics of the Negev/Naqab desert today
Scalable Approaches in Optimization, Preference Modeling, and Predictive Simulation for Decision-Making
No full textIn an era where data-driven decisions increasingly influence high-stakes outcomes, from financial risk assessment and healthcare resource allocation to AI model alignment, the demand for algorithms that are both statistically principled and computationally scalable has become increasingly urgent. Classical methods grounded in probabilistic modeling and statistical inference offer strong theoretical guarantees, including unbiasedness, consistency, and well-calibrated uncertainty estimates. However, these methods often struggle to adapt to the scale, complexity, and heterogeneity of modern machine learning tasks. In contrast, contemporary machine learning models are highly expressive and flexible, but frequently lack transparency, reliability, and rigorous control over uncertainty.
This thesis aims to bridge this divide by developing hybrid frameworks that integrate the scalability and adaptability of modern machine learning with the foundational strengths of statistical methodology, preserving properties such as unbiasedness, (local) consistency, and uncertainty quantification while enabling practical performance across complex real-world applications. The work spans three major threads: black-box optimization, preference-based fine-tuning, and simulation-based evaluation.
In Chapter 2, we propose Pseudo-Bayesian Optimization (PseudoBO), a general-purpose framework for black-box optimization that extends beyond Gaussian processes. By decomposing exploration-based black-box optimization algorithms into modular surrogate predictors, uncertainty quantifiers, and acquisition functions, and formalizing their interaction via a set of axioms, PseudoBO provides convergence guarantees for a wide class of functions using non-Bayesian models such as neural networks and local regressors.
In Chapter 3, we introduce MallowsPO, a novel generalization of Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) that explicitly accounts for heterogeneity in human preferences through dispersion modeling. By leveraging Mallows ranking theory, MallowsPO adapts the training objective of language models based on how consistently users agree on different types of prompts, enhancing robustness, generalization, and controllability in LLM alignment tasks.
In Chapter 4, we develop Prediction-Enhanced Monte Carlo (PEMC), a hybrid estimation method that combines cheap, parallelizable simulation features with machine-learned predictors to reduce variance while preserving unbiasedness and valid confidence intervals. PEMC offers a drop-in enhancement to classical Monte Carlo workflows, demonstrating substantial runtime and sample efficiency gains across domains such as ambulance diversion policies evaluation and exotic financial derivative pricing.
Taken together, these contributions advance a new paradigm in statistical machine learning that embraces a stronger interplay between predictive modeling and uncertainty quantification. By designing learning-augmented algorithms that remain grounded in theoretical rigor, this thesis lays the foundation for more trustworthy, scalable, and efficient decision-making systems in uncertain and high-stakes environments
Towards a Richer Model of Social Perception: Evidence from Crowd Perception, Social Categorization, and Impression Dynamics
No full textThe social world is wildly complex and multiply determined. In the present dissertation, I present a series of experiments and future directions that attempt to incorporate more of this complexity into how we think about and study social behavior.
Chapter 1 begins by studying the perception of groups, rather than individuals, demonstrating our perceptual ability to extract group-level estimates of high-level social information from quick glances of a group. These estimates occur in just 500ms of presentation and impact decision-making in a trust game.
In Chapter 2, I investigate biases in the categorization of Multiracial individuals, showing a reliance on more traditional monoracial categories. Using MouseTracking, I find that categorizations that ultimately end in a Multiracial judgement still show a systematic deviation towards more traditional monoracial categories.
In Chapter 3, we establish the neural basis of face-based impressions, illustrating two complementary systems working in tandem to represent social face-based information.
Finally in Chapter 4, we present preliminary results from a novel paradigm for studying impression formation, one that leverages natural language elicited by dynamic videos to explicitly study the timeseries-dependent nature of impression formation. I conclude with a synopsis of all work, theoretical contributions, and future directions
Ubuntu-Informed Culturally Relevant Dance Instruction: (Re)membering the Unique Pedagogical Strategies of Baba Chuck Davis
No full textThis dissertation explored the intersection of three tenets of Ubuntu and the three criteria of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP)—student learning, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness—embedded in Dr. Charles Randolph Davis’s DanceAfrica dance pedagogy. Dr. Davis, also known as Baba Chuck (“Baba” being an affectionate term meaning father), has profoundly influenced the growth and development of both the Afro-Diasporic dance community and the dance community on the African continent. By analyzing Baba Chuck’s pedagogy through archival data, this dissertation sought to understand how he interpreted CRP and Ubuntu to foster self-identity, cooperation, and community-building.
Ubuntu serves as a framework for dance educators, providing a method to encourage self-identity, cultivate cooperation, and build community in their classrooms. Baba Chuck’s pedagogical approach, deeply rooted in CRP and Ubuntu, emphasizes individual growth as an integral part of community development. His methods align with the three core criteria of CRP: student learning, by using dance as a tool for academic and artistic excellence; cultural competence, by fostering pride in African and Afro-American diasporic identities through dance traditions; and sociopolitical consciousness, by using movement and storytelling to engage students in critical discussions about history, identity, and social justice.
Community-building has been central to the survival of Afro-diasporic people, primarily expressed through the ‘love’ of celebrating existence. Dr. Davis was a pioneering researcher in Afro-Diasporic dance who educated the public on African cultural dances and demonstrated an unwavering love for the African diaspora identity. He employed Ubuntu’s structure to teach communities about the legacy and heritage of the African continent and the African diaspora. Through this approach, he engaged, motivated, and educated youth, connecting them to their ancestry and fostering a deep appreciation for their culture. His teachings incorporated communal rituals and symbolism, reflecting customs and ideas generated by the African diaspora community. Moreover, he developed a unique teaching style that gave voice to the African American experience, fusing African and European concepts into a new artistic expression.
This qualitative research investigated how Baba Chuck’s teachings can enhance self-identity through CRP and strengthen a sense of belonging through community-building, as reflected in Ubuntu principles. Employing an ethno-historical approach within the framework of Endarkened Feminist Epistemology and Cynthia Dillard’s concept of (Re)membering, this study documented and codified instances of Ubuntu’s three tenets in Baba Chuck’s teaching. These findings provide an additional resource for dance educators, positioning Baba Chuck’s methods within the CRP paradigm as articulated by Ladson-Billings, who is a pioneer in CRP scholarship.
After I reviewed the selected DanceAfrica artifacts chosen for this study, I confirmed that Baba Chuck used the intersection of CRP and Ubuntu in his teaching as well as in his organizational methodology for DanceAfrica, the African American, and African Diaspora communities
Navigating Long-Distance Caregiving for Elderly Parents: Lived Experiences and Needs of Female Informal Caregivers from China's One-Child Generation
No full textChina’s rapidly aging population, combined with the long-term consequences of the One-Child Policy (OCP), has significantly reshaped caregiving dynamics—particularly for married, only-child daughters. Traditionally, elder care was the responsibility of sons and daughters-in-law. Today, however, demographic shifts and evolving gender norms require many daughters to care for up to four elderly parents—their own and their in-laws—while simultaneously managing careers and raising children. These challenges are further amplified by international migration, as geographic separation complicates the fulfillment of filial piety norms rooted in physical proximity.
This study explored the caregiving perceptions, lived experiences, and unmet needs of female One-Child Generation caregivers residing in the United States, with a particular focus on the role of technology in supporting long-distance caregiving. Forty-seven married Chinese women, aged 30–45, were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling. All participants were raised with strong Chinese cultural values, were the sole children in their families, and had provided remote care to their aging parents for at least one year while living in the U.S.. Data were collected through sixty-minute semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis with both deductive and inductive coding approaches.
Guided by Leininger’s Transcultural Nursing Theory, this study revealed a transformation in filial norms—from rigid, one-sided obligations to more reciprocal and negotiated caregiving relationships. Traditional gender roles are being redefined, prompting clearer boundaries as daughters balance responsibilities between their own parents and in-laws. Elders are also adjusting their expectations in response to these evolving norms. Religion and spirituality emerged as important cultural and emotional resources, providing caregivers with strength and resilience amid complex caregiving arrangements.
Integrating the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping, this study illustrated how interpersonal relationships, cultural pressures, and limited support networks shape the psychological landscape of transnational caregivers. Many caregivers experience a mix of guilt, anxiety, and love, compounded by uncertainty about future obligations and the challenges of managing care from afar. Informed by Sociotechnical Systems Theory, critical gaps in caregiver support were identified. While technology offers promising tools for addressing issues such as healthcare access, emergency coordination, and financial management, it often functions as a supplement—not a substitute—for in-person care. Emotional connection, peer support, and culturally attuned resources remain essential.
These findings call for a reimagining of caregiving models that reflect the realities of a globalized world. By introducing concepts like parallel caregiving, anticipatory caregiving, and inverted abuse, the study challenges traditional filial norms and highlights the emotional complexity of transnational care. It underscores the critical role of spirituality, emotional reciprocity, and personal autonomy in shaping caregiving dynamics. While technology supports logistical tasks, it cannot replace the emotional depth of in-person connections, social engagement, or the comfort of companion animals. Ultimately, this study advocates for culturally responsive, holistic, and cross-border support systems that empower caregivers and address the full spectrum of caregiving needs