Diverse lines of evidence indicate that humans have come to dominate many environmental and climate systems across the globe, prompting some researchers to declare the present part of a new geologic age known as the “Anthropocene.” Since plants form the base of many biological ecosystems (including those to which people belong) and agriculture alone covers approximately forty percent of land surface, studying how humans appropriate Earth’s plant production allows us to explore one of the most significant ways people have come to dominate Earth systems. Previous work has mapped the global distribution of plant growth supporting humans but failed to fully link this production to specific populations. To understand these connections, we begin by tracing global agricultural and forest production through a simplified representation of the global economy (containing about sixty million economic flows). To do this, we use global economic data collected by the Global Trade Analysis Project, enabling us to connect fields and forests with the often distant human populations whose lives they eventually support. Our model accounts for indirect plant consumption (for example, factory products require plant consumption by laborers) as well as plant materials people consume directly. Mapping these results and transforming them through Geographic Information Systems (software which can visually and computationally manipulate the results in diverse ways) allows us to describe major intersecting processes of globalization linking distant peoples and lands. For us to respond effectively to the increased human domination of Earth systems, improving our understanding of these socioecological relationships will be critical.

The purpose of this research is to investigate hidden health narratives on campus regarding the use of tobacco products to contextualize the legitimacy of smoke-free and tobacco-free university initiatives. This academic endeavor will also reveal the structural and institutionalized violence of the tobacco industry which targets marginalized communities to entice the uptake of regular smoking habits. An analysis of biopolitical power, structural violence, and social theory will help to reveal the hidden narratives of these populations, twice-targeted by the social stigmatization of tobacco use and the manipulative advertising of the tobacco industry. By exposing, analyzing, and deconstructing patterns of profit-driven tobacco marketing directed at student demographics, it is possible to examine geographies of blame regarding tobacco use, impact of tobacco use on non-smoking populations, and the misleading agendas behind the dominant narratives of tobacco industry advertising. By identifying and bringing to light these messages, it is possible to legitimize the anti-smoking and anti-tobacco movements happening at the University of Washington, and U.S. universities at large, with a critical analysis of the health risks involved.

This project examines the role of gender inequality in HIV/AIDS and how this inequality perpetuates the susceptibility of women to contract the virus. Focusing on Ghana and Brazil, I explore how culture and society shape an imbalance that potentially increases risks to women in becoming sick through analysis of the relationship between social determinants of health, risk factors and vulnerability. I argue that preventative measures intended to fight against HIV/AIDS have failed to consider the social circumstances that place women at greater risk than men. In my analysis, I draw on and interpret Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics using feministic critique and gendered perspectives. I reference anecdotes from Stephanie Nolen’s “28: Stories of AIDS in Africa” to present personalized perspectives of the painfully multifaceted reality of the HIV/AIDS outbreak, while Silvana Paternostro’s personal accounts of sexual culture in Brazil in “In the Land of God and Man: Confronting Sexual Culture in Latin America,” serve as a framework for my examination of gendered social constructs in Brazil. I examine gender relations and the dynamic of marital relationships that often disproportionately allow the male greater power over the female, and how a male dominant ideology is reinforced by politics, culture and social norm. Distinguishing between gender and sex, I look at how gender inequality, the inequality of opportunities and power that follow being a certain sex, may expose mothers, daughters, sisters, and other women at risk in ways we may not have imagined.

Recently King County Metro has announced plans to cut 17% of its transit service due to a $75 million deficit. Assuming that no sufficient transportation financing package is developed, Metro will have to proceed with these cuts by the end of this year. Taking this as a case study, this project develops and compares different transportation network models for optimizing equity and efficiency in the distribution of bus service in King County. Extending upon previous work, this project aims to produce a new model for optimizing decision-making and critique current methodologies for equitably allocating public transit resources. The research question is: How can we develop a transportation model in which route cuts and reductions will be designed to minimize the impact on equity and efficiency of service? An origin-destination network model will be produced using ArcGIS software and Python scripting to analyze spatially aggregated need for transit within King County. Data include 2012 ridership statistics from Metro as well as transit corridor data. Also, demographic data for identifying and locating marginalized populations will be obtained from King County census blockgroups. I predict that results will show that no self-purported objective transit network model is truly unbiased with respect to the different demographic groups it impacts.

This project examines the ethical and social frames which facilitate environmental conditions that fuel the rampage of tuberculosis in India. Three key components of the basic biomedical outbreak narrative that are often overlooked will be brought forth to attention: the tuberculosis outbreak as more than just a bacterial spread, social constructs which shape the bacteria’s accessibility to victims, and socioeconomic determinants of treatment (and lack thereof). India accounts for approximately one-fifth of global tuberculosis occurrences, and with over 2 million cases in the country, tuberculosis is a continuously growing health concern, posing a major threat to the well-being of the population. Due to India's developing health care system, pollution, and poverty, these conditions amplify the ease of transmissibility and rate of infection. As treatment regimens are abandoned due to social stigma, medical side effects, and overwhelming price tags, the bacterium which causes TB (mycobacterium tuberculosis), tends to mutate and become drug-resistant to varying degrees; increasing the difficulty of containment and scientific development of effective medicines. Furthermore, the capitalist structure of the pharmaceutical industry contributes to the financial challenges which prevent the eradication of tuberculosis. Drawing on the theory of biopolitics while using sources of statistical information and analytical discourse,  my presentation seeks to explore various properties of the disease and discover how the complex interconnectedness of these underlying issues attribute to forms of structural violence, perpetuating the growth of tuberculosis in India.