For a community suffering from collective trauma, unity is vital for building community resilience, which is the capacity to withstand, recover from, and respond positively to a collective crisis. Both the Native American Tulalip community and the predominantly White Marysville community were affected by an October 2014 school shooting in which five students (3 Native American; 2 European American) died. We sought to identify factors that contribute to community resilience. We surveyed 597 employees of the Marysville School District and assessed perceptions of unity prior to and after the shooting, as well as personal experiences following the shooting (i.e., negative and positive feelings). My project focuses on the relation between people’s individual experiences and their perceptions of community unity following the shooting. I conducted a series of regression analyses predicting unity from personal experiences and found that people who had more positive feelings following the shooting perceived the communities as more united, while people who had more negative feelings perceived the community as less united. Furthermore, these relationships were magnified among people who knew at least one victim of the shooting compared to those who did not know victims. These findings suggest that in cases of collective trauma, projections of negative feelings following the event have the potential to hinder efforts to rebuild the community, whereas positive feelings may serve to aid this effort, especially among people who are closely tied to the traumatic event. These results highlight the importance of understanding how to foster positive feelings in the promotion of post-trauma healing. Given the frequency of mass violence in contemporary society, it is increasingly important to examine not only preventative measures but also understand how to promote healing for those affected by these tragedies. This work seeks to begin answering this question.

Alkanes, or saturated hydrocarbons, are the major constituents of natural gas and petroleum. Conversion of the chemically inert bonds of alkanes to more useful functional groups (like alcohols, aldehydes, and carboxylic acids) requires a great deal of energy and is often expensive. For this reason, functionality is often added using olefin precursors, or unsaturated hydrocarbons. Thus, more efficient and cost-effective conversions of alkanes to olefins, or alkane dehydrogenation, are highly desirable. Prior work shows alkane dehydrogenation may be achieved with iridium and rhodium pincer complexes. While significant success in this type of alkane functionalization has been achieved with Ir^I systems, these C–H bond-activating systems are inhibited by nitrogen and water, and can be self-inhibited by olefins. In contrast, Ir^III complexes have been shown to be tolerant to these inhibitors and are able to activate the C–H bonds of alkanes. Our experimental and computational results show usage of Brønsted acids to generate new Ir^III systems, in particular (^dmPhebox)Ir(OAc)(X) complexes, leads to an increase in the rate of C-H activation over the previously reported (^dmPhebox)Ir(OAc)₂(OH₂) system. The product of this activation and dehydrogenation reaction is olefin and (^dmPhebox)Ir(OAc)(H). Optimized conditions for this alkane dehydrogenation system and mechanistic studies will be presented.

From blood vessels to the small intestine to the spinal cord, tubes are an essential part of nearly all living organisms. The study of the formation of biological tubes, called tubulogenesis, is therefore indispensible in the understanding of the developmental pathways that, when impaired, cause many of the birth defects that afflict infants today. Our lab uses the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism to study these complex pathways. Recently, we discovered that a family of genes known as Imaginal Disc Growth Factors (IDGFs) are linked to tubulogenesis in fruit flies. However, the mechanisms by which these genes act, and their involvement in the tubulogenesis pathway, remain unclear. My project investigates the function of a specific IDGF, the gene CG5210, using a powerful new method for deleting genes known as the CRISPR/Cas9 system. With this technique, I created flies lacking the CG5210 gene by first designing highly specific plasmid vectors, which encoded RNAs that bound to the target DNA. When injected into fly embryos, these RNAs directed the Cas9 protein to cleave the DNA on either side of CG5210. Cas9 then replaced the gene with DNA that encodes a red fluorescent protein expressed in the eyes of the fly. The fluorescent red eyes served as a marker for a successful deletion in my later experiments. If my initial hypothesis is correct, I expect to see unusual phenotypes in these mutant flies that correlate with tube formation or growth pathways. From there, the next phase of my research will include further exploration of this genetic pathway, including determining what other genes and pathways interact with CG5210 to cause similar mutant phenotypes. This information will be an important contribution to our understanding of tubulogenesis and provide new insight into disease pathways that cause defects such as spina bifida in newborns.

Cellular growth and tissue elongation are critical features of development, but the mechanisms that regulate these processes remain poorly understood. Our lab, however, uses the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model organism to study these complex pathways and we recently discovered that a novel family of six growth factors may play a role in the development of the adult fly. IDGFs were first discovered by Dr. Peter Bryant in 1998 while attempting to culture individual cells taken from the wing imaginal disc. He found that the wing-disc cells secreted factors that would help cultured cells grow, but further experiments were not conducted to test their function in the wing disc. To begin to test whether these genes play a role in vivo, I am using in situ hybridization to localize the mRNA sequences. I found that IDGF 1, 2, 3, and 4 transcripts are present in the wing blade and hinge regions, and I am currently characterizing IDGF 5 and 6 expression. My long-term goal is to determine the function of the IDGFs; I will use a yeast transcription factor, Gal4, to drive expression of IDGFs from Upstream Activating Sequences (UAS) and examine whether over- or mis-expression alters the growth of the wing. I will also use Gal4/UAS to express RNA that interferes with RNAi in the same wing disc. Subsequently, I will measure potential abnormalities by examining outward defects and quantifying wing size relative to body size. These studies will contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms that regulate tissue growth during development. 

The psychology literature delves into understanding the role of men's self perception of masculinity in help-seeking behavior as well as help-seeking behavior in men with cancer. Help-seeking behavior is behavior that explains the utilization of healthcare of a population or group. What is the role of self perceptions of masculinity in help-seeking behavior of men with prostate cancer? This literature review focuses on understanding this role in men specifically with prostate cancer. The resources used for the review are MedLine, PsycINFO, PsycArticles, PubMed, and references within articles. The majority of the literature used were qualitative studies due to the availability in the literature. The literature suggests that men believe that prostate cancer affects their masculinity in both physical and emotional ways such as their physical aspects like strength, ability to provide for and protect their families, reaction to physical pain through peer pressure and social norms, and being viewed as unmanly. There are men that efficiently seek help from healthcare professionals for this disease to preserve their masculinity. Men also inefficiently seek help due to the potential embarrassment of those qualities being diminished by the disease. The limitations to writing the review included small sample sizes, support group participants, and participants that were already diagnosed. The review is also limited because there was no research on men that focused on how masculinity may have contributed to their help-seeking in the initial stages. Healthcare services, such as interventions or programs, should focus on the following indicators when promoting help-seeking behavior to men with prostate cancer: stoicism, privacy, family providing and protection, and being viewed as unmanly due to the physical effects on a man's body. If the healthcare system can overcome these barriers, it will be able to reach men more efficiently and prevent further advancement of diseases like prostate cancer. 

Phytoliths are microscopic silica bodies that are produced in the tissues of many vascular plants. Over the course of their lifetimes, certain plant cells become filled or encrusted with silica that the plants have absorbed from soil. Grasses produce a diverse range of phytolith shapes that distinguish them from phytoliths produced by other plants. We hypothesized that it would be possible to distinguish certain grass clades by the unique phytolith shapes they produce and the relative abundances of these shapes. We sampled a range of grass species across the grass-family phylogeny, including from grasses that diverged early on in the evolution of this clade. We isolated phytoliths from dried grass material and created permanent slides that were examined using a light microscope. For each grass species, we counted and categorized all phytolith shapes observed and calculated the relative abundance of each shape. These counts allowed us to identify grass clades based on the relative abundances of phytolith shapes they produced. Our results are a reference collection of phytoliths found in modern grasses that can be used as a key for identifying grasses in the fossil record. When applied to deep-time vegetation studies, this information can help identify grasses from ancient ecosystems. Because the spatial distribution of grass species vary depending on environmental factors such as temperature and humidity, our work can also help provide past climatic and environmental information. Studying grasses is important because they are an important part of Earth’s ecosystems and are a major food crop for humans.

Fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV) is an electrochemical method that measures and identifies in vivo brain analytes during behavioral tasks in rats. FSCV identifies analytes through a chemical fingerprint called a cyclic voltammogram (CV). When an unknown sample is collected, it is important to verify that the analyte being measured is the analyte of interest. To this end, five criteria have been proposed to identify an unknown analyte being measured in the brain, namely: electrochemical, anatomical, physiological, pharmacological, and independent chemical analysis. The brain analyte dopamine has been established under these five criteria, except for independent chemical analysis. We hypothesize that the reason for failing to establish independent chemical analysis is that tissue impedance leads to a discrepancy between in vitro calibrations (independent chemical analysis) and in vivo FSCV measurements. Indeed, recent work in our lab has demonstrated a 50 kOhm difference between the reference and working electrode, in vivo vs in vitro. This difference may cause a shift in the CV for dopamine, making it difficult to use for analyte verification. In order to test whether this 50 kOhm differential can explain the discrepancy between in vivo and in vitro dopamine, we added a 50 kOhm resistor to the circuitry between the reference and working electrode. We then measured a range of in vitro dopamine concentrations in the absence and presence of the 50 kOhm resistor. The CVs generated from these measurements are then statistically compared to in vivo dopamine CVs in terms of qualitative and quantitative agreement. Subsequently, dopamine along with pH measurements at zero and/or 50 kOhm resistance will be used to test the performance of a statistical calibration method known as chemometrics.