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The Color of Spirits: Investigating Haint Blue in the American Lowcountry
No full text"Haint Blue" is believed to be a spiritually protective, or apotropaic, architectural finish said to have been initially created using indigo. The tradition of Haint Blue includes painting specific architectural elements, such as door frames and window frames, in varying shades of light blues, greens, and deep indigo-like shades. The color and its placement are believed to deter malicious spirits, known as "Haints," from a building's vulnerable areas. Such coatings are directly associated with the Gullah Geechee people of the American Sea Islands, who descended from enslaved African people. Despite Haint Blue's assumed history beginning with the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the color's story is rarely mentioned in historic writings, academic texts, and scholarly studies. Neither a succinct nor an elaborate history of Haint Blue exists.
The following thesis studies the history, myth, and composition of Haint Blue paint in the American Lowcountry, investigating the color's origins in Africa and its development in the American Sea Islands; the research walks through all existing descriptions of Haint Blue in literature, discovering when it became a well-known term in the 1970s.
Along with understanding the paint's spiritual significance, the thesis conducts a novel scientific study of Haint Blue, working to debunk the centuries-old assumption that the color was originally made with indigo. The study determines that Haint Blue's initial pigments were synthetic ultramarine and Prussian blue, not indigo.
Ultimately, this thesis indicates the importance of studying architectural finishes, which preserve the histories and humanities of people who have too long been erased and excluded from historic and architectural narratives
Pieces of a Park: Connecting Art, Cultural Heritage, and People at Mount Rainier National Park
No full textThe role of art in and about national parks is omnipresent, yet it remains a niche research area. This thesis seeks to further and nuance this area of research by placing the discourse within the purview of historic preservation. The primary argument of the thesis is that art helps socially construct the cultural heritage of national parks and ascribes values to them. These values then allow the public to connect, mentally and emotionally, to national parks, and, in that way, art advocates for their historic preservation.
The three primary research questions are: (1) How does art influence the social construction of national parks as cultural heritage? (2) What values are ascribed to national parks through art? (3) How does art affect advocacy and contribute to historic preservation decisions?
To allow for in-depth research, one national park is primarily focused on. Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state serves as the case study and was selected based on its influence, representativeness, and lack of prevalence in current historic preservation scholarship. After theoretical background and a historical analysis, the works of three different kinds of artists at Mount Rainier are examined. The writings of John Muir, the photographs of Asahel Curtis, and the sketches of Dee Molenaar, all provide insight to how art socially constructs the cultural heritage of Mount Rainier National Park, ascribes values, and, in turn, advocates for its historic preservation
a sky of carved birds: cartographic portraits of Japanese American life & loss in Seattle
No full textWhile there are archives that chronicle the wartime internment of Japanese Americans across the West Coast of the United States, less has been done to meso-spatially represent the magnitude of their dispossession in the cities they called home. This study first digitizes and transforms various pre- and post-war documentation detailing the Japanese American trajectory in Seattle's Nihonmachi enclave. These data include archival Sanborn maps, census microfilm scans at the enumeration district level, and community-derived mappings.
The displacive impacts of wartime incarceration on Nihonmachi's homes and businesses are then explored through qualitative cartographic techniques, geospatial analyses, and novel counter-maps. A dasymetric re-aggregation of Nihonmachi's residential fabric harnesses Sanborn map building footprints to paint a block-level picture of life before and after internment. Data overlays and collages of historical photographs are used to highlight the variegated semiotics and spatial contentions between this study's authoritative and community-drawn maps. By colliding, annotating, and reimagining Seattle's urban past according to a melange of imperfect representational forms, competing claims on knowledge are challenged.
This research celebrates and holds sacred practices of mapping and storytelling, while fully acknowledging that reality is unknowable. Here, Japanese American life and loss are emblematic of a larger interrogation; one that questions the production and portrayal of geographic information in organized space. If data is to have a role in equitable sociopolitical processes, it must in its own creation account for the plurality of our lived experiences. Thus, an invitation to spatial practitioners and beyond: the conventional epistemologies of geography and urban planning are movable; how might we critique and reshape them together
The Music of Placemaking
No full textThis thesis explores how performances of music can be used as a form of placemaking, in site planning for public spaces within cityscapes, advancing crucial planning projects of spatial justice, holistic urbanization, community participation, and public space recovery. This study will conduct a site specific analysis of the General Grant Memorial in uptown Manhattan in respect to the site’s historical significance and theoretical frameworks of: ephemera and engagement to examine how performative activations of music can create ‘invisible’ infrastructures of public space which enhance civic participation and spaces for collective memory building within the built environment.
In offering a dense methodology, new interventions in urban planning emerge that incorporate musicality into placemaking, as a potentially citywide project of public space recovery after 2020, with potential implications of cultivating civic culture throughout the rest of the city and community building within these third spaces that are audiovisual by design. Through referencing theoretical, historical, and participatory approaches, this study advocates for greater institutional support of performance initiatives in public spaces, revitalizing civic culture within the city
Patterns of Urban Sprawl Without Zoning Regulations: Focusing on Houston Metropolitan Area
No full textUrban sprawl, often viewed negatively due to its association with uncontrolled urban expansion, should not be evaluated solely through a binary lens of whether it is good or bad. Instead, the focus must shift toward how urban areas can be managed more efficiently. As urban populations grow and the demand for wide scale, comfortable living increases, the emergence of multiple urban cores drives for stronger connectivity with existing central business districts (CBDs). These developments should be supported by encouraging mixed land use in surrounding neighborhoods. In zoning free urban environments, like Houston, market-driven development tends to prioritize residential, office, and retail uses. However, this often results in inadequate accessibility to essential public services such as educational, recreational, and medical facilities.
This study examines the patterns of urban sprawl in Houston from 2002 to 2022, and proposes the need to adopt more flexible zoning policies or targeted planning interventions to ensure balanced spatial development and improve accessibility to public amenities. Ultimately, the goal is not to prevent urban sprawl, but to manage it in a way that enhances livability, connectivity, and inclusiveness across metropolitan areas, rather than the complete absence of zoning regulation. Moving beyond traditional zoning, flexible planning strategies that encourage spatial efficiency and land use diversity while ensuring equitable access to public services.
Keywords: urban sprawl, urban expansion, zoning, land use, Houston MS
When I Say….Intuition
No full textIntuition is the primary engine of human reasoning, fuelled by experiential knowledge that provides an instant grasp of the situation, even before reflection springs into the dance
Essays in Startup Governance
No full textThroughout the last four decades, scholars studying VC-backed startups have sought to rationalize the way they are structured and financed. Startups' governance and capital structures are often described to reflect not merely the arbitrary equilibrium point between the bargaining powers of entrepreneurs, investors, and other stakeholders involved. Rather, they are viewed as means for maximizing the startup's enterprise value by helping it attract capital and talent optimally. While earlier, seminal works in this field have laid the foundations for understanding VC financing in this way, more recent works continue this effort by examining the capital and governance structures of startups from new angles and through evolving market circumstances.
This dissertation seeks to contribute to this important line of work and expand it by addressing three distinct questions.
The first chapter observes the fit of the Delaware corporation for structuring VC-backed startups, making the case that Delaware’s corporate law does not support the corporate operating systems they require. Startups are exit-driven, short-term ventures. Their shareholders care from day one about the exit strategy that the startup will finally pursue (i.e., how and when it will be acquired or go public). Startup shareholders often have differing views in this respect, and to allow them to collaborate efficiently nonetheless, startups have developed unique governance structures. These structures rely substantially on giving prominent shareholders the power to force their desired exit strategy on other shareholders and startups’ managements. At the same time, however, startups are practically required to organize their businesses as corporations, which strictly undermines these governance structures. Corporate law compels shareholders to entrust almost all exit-related powers and discretion to the board of directors. The board, in turn, is obliged to serve the interests of the shareholders as a whole, disregarding particular shareholders’ needs. This tension burdens startups by making their carefully crafted governance structures unreliable and difficult to enforce. Currently proposed solutions, whether based on sophisticated contracting or using non-corporate business entities, prove inadequate for resolving this fundamental clash. Instead, the chapter calls for policymakers to introduce the “venture corporation,” a new business entity designed to answer startups’ unique governance needs.
The second chapter is focused on the way startup’s investors use of control rights changes through the startup’s lifecycle. Startups’ earliest investors frequently compromise on the extent of control rights they possess. Their investment terms do not afford them the same degree of contractual controls that later-stage investors have, and the securities that they hold often exclude them, at least temporarily, from shareholder status and the statutory control rights and protections it entails. This inclination to cede control contrasts the practices of later-stage startup investors, who rely more heavily on strong-form control rights to mitigate firm-specific risks. The chapter introduces a novel framework for understanding early-stage startup governance structures. It emphasizes the distinctive factors that make investor control more costly and less valuable for startups’ earliest investors than their later-stage counterparts despite the greater risks and uncertainties associated with earlier investments. These factors include the substantial information imbalance favoring entrepreneurs during the very early stage and the complex interplay between control and entrepreneurial incentives. Collectively, these elements shape the rationale behind early investors' tendency to grant entrepreneurs more flexibility and contribute to the widespread utilization of deferred equity instruments in early-stage financing.
The last chapter considers whether there is merit to building startups with alternative strategic goals in mind. In recent years, two high-profile AI startups – OpenAI and Anthropic – have introduced innovative business structuring models that turn startup structuring conventions on their heads. Most startups, as mentioned, seek to optimize their governance and capital structures to help attract investments and talent. The primary motive behind these new models, conversely, is to help align startup managements’ incentives with those of society. They strive to ensure that protecting society from the risks that their technology may pose guides startup managers’ discretion, keeping managers insulated from pressures to maximize enterprise value instead. The chapter examines the following question: are “aligned” business architectures likely to be adopted by other startups that care about the societal implications of their technology, and would society benefit from their broad-based adoption? The chapter concludes that the likely answer to both parts of the question is negative. In most startups, these models are not expected to achieve the promised alignment of incentives, and society’s interests may not be well-served even if they did. At the same time, startups implementing these models incur the inevitable costs of a suboptimal allocation of their control and economic rights, making Aligned Structuring too costly for most prosocial startups to consider seriously
Factory Automation, Labor Demand, and Market Dynamics
Get PDFThis study provides micro-level evidence on the labor market effects of historical automation technology by studying early 20th century powerloom adoption in Japan’s silk-weaving industry. Relative to non-adopting factories in the same area, adopting factories employed more male mechanics but did not reduce female weaver employment. Meanwhile, wages rose only modestly despite large productivity gains. At the industry level, however, the exit of low-wage, low-productivity plants led to substantial net job losses—“technological unemployment”—and stronger overall wage growth. Nature of the technology, monopsony power, and market competition were all important in shaping these outcomes
UNI: TGNB in Kazakhstan Data
No full textData from UNI study: extract of TGNB participants who have complete HIV and STI status information.
Associated paper abstract:
Introduction: Trans and gender expansive (TGE) individuals around the world are at increased risk for contracting HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), yet the combination of stigma, accessibility challenges, and a lack of trans-specific, trans-affirming interventions perpetuates rates of infection. Due to the severe paucity of data on TGE communities and HIV in Central Asia, this study describes HIV infections (both known and newly detected) and STIs among TGE in a multicity Kazakhstan study.
Methods: This study utilized behavioral and biological assay data collected in a NIDA-funded clinical trial of a behavioral HIV preventive intervention for substance using cis and trans gay and bisexual men who have sex with men (GBMSM) across three Kazakhstan cities (Almaty, Astana, and Shymkent). We specifically focus on HIV infection, as well as three other STIs (chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis), among 68 TGE individuals who participated in the trial from August 2018 to March 2022.
Results: Findings reveal that while the majority (69%) of TGE participants have undergone HIV testing in their lifetime—with 32% having completed an HIV test in the prior 6 months—over a third (37%) of participants did not know their current HIV status. Fourteen (21%) of the participants were confirmed to be living with HIV, and 11 (79%) of these confirmed infections were reportedly unknown prior to testing. STI testing revealed that 47% of the TGE sample tested positive for chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis, with almost 10% testing positive for more than one of these STIs.
Conclusions: Findings from this study demonstrate high rates of HIV and STIs among TGE individuals in this sample population in Kazakhstan, as well as a discrepancy between HIV status awareness and confirmed HIV diagnosis (with higher rates of confirmed HIV diagnosis). Additionally, the HIV testing rates fall short of the 90-90-90 and 95-95-95 UNAIDS targets for 2020 and 2030, respectively. These results underscore the need for additional research, interventions, and services to address HIV and other STIs and increase testing—concomitantly redressing the conditions leading to marginalization—among TGE in Kazakhstan.
Clinical Trial Number: NCT0278661
SELebrate to Elevate: A Two-Day Parents Workshop for Emotional Intelligence, Cultural Immersion, and Raising Resilient Global Citizens
No full textThis project presents SELebrate to Elevate, a two-day workshop designed to support parents and caregivers in nurturing social-emotional learning (SEL) and fostering global citizenship within their family systems. Developed through the lens of the Spirituality in Education coursework at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the workshop responds to the needs of families navigating educational transitions and multicultural environments. Drawing from qualitative insights gathered at International House New York, the project integrates reflective practices, experiential learning, and culturally responsive strategies to strengthen emotional intelligence, intergenerational connection, and cross-cultural empathy. By centering spirituality, developmental psychology, and holistic education, the initiative offers a replicable model for family-centered learning that empowers caregivers to cultivate resilience, awareness, and compassion in themselves and their children.
Keywords: social-emotional learning (SEL), caregiver education, cultural competence, emotional intelligence, global citizenship education, experiential learning, spiritual psychology, family systems, intergenerational communication, holistic curriculum developmen