Washington State is home to unique prairie ecosystems that have been invaded and degraded over the last several decades. A habitat restoration study is underway at 4 research sites in Western Washington. Areas at each site were prepared with solarization, burning, or herbicide, and plots were seeded with a diverse mixture of native species following site preparation. I am researching the effect of these treatments on the physiological profile of soil microbial communities and on available nitrogen (N) mineralization. Soil samples were collected from 5 locations at each site: the site preparation treatments, an unseeded herbicide area, and an untreated area. The samples were either inoculated into a Biolog EcoPlateTM containing 31 carbon sources and 3 water well controls, or used to extract a KCl solution for N mineralization amounts. The wells of the EcoPlatesTM contain tetrazolium, which changes color in response to microbial activity. The color development was recorded when plates were first inoculated using a micro-plate reader at a wavelength of 590nm, and were then incubated for 24 hours. Readings were then taken every 12 hours for 96 hours. The normalized data are analyzed using PCA and PERMANOVA.N Mineralization rates are obtained by subtracting the results of time 0 from time 1. PVC tubes were inserted into the 5 treatment plots on day 1 and removed to collect samples for mineralization. To obtain the second sample PVC tubes were left in the 5 treatments plots and collected after 40 days. Samples were mixed with a 2M KCl solution to extract NO3 and NH4 amounts. The resulting amounts of NO3 and NO4 from day 1 will be subtracted from day 40 to obtain mineralization rates. This research is important to the larger restoration project because it is examining how strongly the restoration treatments affect the soil microbial community.

Ubiquitin is a small post-translational signaling molecule. Its roles in repairing damaged DNA, apoptosis and protein degradation make it critical for tumor suppression. Genetic mutations affecting proteins in the ubiquitination pathway have been implicated in multiple inherited human cancers. The ubiquitination pathway attaches the protein ubiquitin (Ub) onto a substrate molecule with the help of three enzymes, ubiquitin activating enzyme (E1), ubiquitin conjugating enzyme (E2), and ubiquitin ligase (E3). Transfer of Ub onto the substrate requires the formation of a thioester bond between Ub and E2, denoted as E2~Ub. A catalytically active E3 ligase which can bind E2~Ub, but never directly binds Ub, is also necessary. E3’s catalytic mechanism is not fully understood. One function of E3 is to bring E2~Ub and substrate in close enough proximity to facilitate a reaction. However, E3 enhances the release of Ub from E2~Ub in the absence of substrate molecules. This suggests E3 plays a role in priming E2~Ub for transfer of Ub. Using site directed mutagenesis and protein-protein interaction assays visualized through western blotting, I have investigated what electrostatic properties of Ub are important for E3’s catalytic activity. Informative Ub mutations don’t stop formation of E2~Ub, but disrupt the catalytic activity of E3. I propose that polar/charged Ub residues in the contact region between Ub and E2 affect E2~Ub binding modes, promoting inhabitance of E2~Ub conformations favorable to Ub transfer upon binding of E3.

In 2011, over 18% of all international adoptions to the United States were from Ethiopia; an increase of over 1,000% in the past decade. Ethiopian adoptees have also shown to have better health outcomes and less behavioral issues than adoptees from other regions of the world. Even though Ethiopian adoption to the United States has become an increasingly prevalent phenomenon, virtually no research has been done to explore the complex and unique processes of trans-racial family building, attachment, and identity formation experienced by Ethiopian adoptees and their families. While adoptees are integrated into new social and cultural settings, adoptive parents are forced to navigate their family through a new social and cultural space within a heavily racialized society, and facilitate these complex processes for their children and themselves. Why has Ethiopian adoption become such a recent popular trend? How do adoptive parents of Ethiopian adoptees navigate the critical experiences of family building/attachment and identity making/re-making? What strategies and resources do they use or create to facilitate these processes? In order to explore these questions, this project has been developed to investigate and analyze the lived experience of Ethiopian adoption by Euro-American parents to identify and understand these complex and poorly understood processes. Six case studies have been generated through semi-structured interviews, narrating the adoption process from the perspective of adoptive parents living in the Seattle area who retrospectively examined the experiences they faced and continue to face as Euro-Americans adopting from Ethiopia. Key informants, such as a pediatric physician specializing in adoptive medicine, have been consulted to provide further input and direction in analysis and theory development. Data is qualitative and the analysis interpretive with a goal of understanding these complex, unique, and challenging processes of identity making/re-making, cultural reconciliation, trans-racial family building, parent-child attachment, and other critical fundamental transitions.

This project is aimed to examine the ways gender stereotypes are reinforced in sports. Particularly I wanted to investigate the impact this has on transgendered, intersex or otherwise gender nonconforming student athletes. This connects to current research published in the National Transgender Discrimination Study, examples of homophobia in women’s college basketball, the impact of genetic testing on athletes competing in the Olympic Games, the publication of the NCAA Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes, and the recent critical analysis of transgender legislation politics by Spade. For this I implemented the following methods: Literature review, focused analysis of data collected by Grant et al., social media analysis of internet blogs and websites, photo voice, critical discourse analysis and review of documentary films. These different approaches were intended to help me in the investigation of my research question by approaching the subject from multiple angles. With my research I hope to constructively contribute to the ongoing dispute of lingering discrimination based upon sexual orientation, gender politics and human rights in the United States and around the globe. Furthermore I aim to show how the struggle for acceptance of gender nonconforming students is still complicated by barriers raised on the grounds of biases and unfounded stereotypes. This project therefore shows how, despite the claims of policies aimed to end discrimination on the basis of race, creed, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or ability, not all students are treated equally. Finally it also connects to my undergraduate honors research project where I examine the transgender experience and quality of life in connection to gender reassignment surgery in the United States and Germany.

Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) frequently suffer from severe sleep difficulties of unknown origins. Sleep irregularities have been noticed as early as infancy and may serve as an early indication of increased risk for autism. Additional studies indicate that sleep difficulties in children with an intellectual disability can be a source of stress for families, particularly those with a child with ASD. Infant sleep problems can have an effect on parental mental health and consequently have strong correlations to postnatal depression. The infant sleep and maternal depression duality is important, not only because of its high prevalence, but also because of the potential to lead to further psychological distress for the primary care provider. This study investigates the relationship between infant sleep patterns and parental postnatal depression at 6 and 12 months. Participants were primary caregivers of infants at low and high risk (infants with siblings diagnosed with ASD) for autism. At both time points, primary caregivers reported their infant’s sleep patterns using the Sleep and Settle Questionnaire, and their own psychological symptoms on the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), which assesses depression and psychological distress. Based on previous findings, we hypothesize that infants at high risk for autism compared to those at low risk would have more sleep disruption, and would be related to a higher prevalence of self-assessed depression in their primary care givers/ parents (Quine, 1991). We also hypothesize that sleep disruptions and parental depression will increase with infant age. If these correlations are found, this information could expand understanding of how infant sleep and parental depression relate to early markers for autism, as well as inform resources to alleviate parent stress due to irregularities in infant sleep habits.