What is yoga? As yoga practice spreads across the world, the concept of yoga has been equated to ideas such as physical exercise, coping method, or business opportunities. As a yoga practitioner, I found myself dazzled by new types of yoga springing up in the U.S. This phenomenon inspired me to debark on a journey of finding out what is the “original” yoga described in Indian classics, how has yoga adapted to different cultural contexts and what has changed in this process of acculturation. Since Fall 2015, I have conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Seattle and two cities in China, interviewed yoga practitioners in both countries and read Indian yoga classics as well as modern yoga guidebooks. The result of my research reveals how yoga has changed from a philosophical state of being to a way of coping with the postmodern lifestyle. This performance presentation contains three main parts: the first part is a visual presentation of yoga documented in Indian classics and its modern day equivalent in U.S. and China. Audience will be exposed to the process of how yoga changed across time and space. The second part introduces various interpretations of what yoga is by practitioners both in the West and the East. The interpretations will unravel how yoga embodied predicaments of the greater social-cultural context. The third part will concluded the performance by challenging viewers to expand their understanding of yoga without offering definitive answers to the question, “what is yoga?”

Alexandrium is a genus of dinoflagellate that produces saxitoxin, which is known to cause paralytic shellfish poisoning when shellfish contaminated with high concentrations of Alexandrium are consumed. Due to the possibility of toxicity and negative economic impacts, the presence of Alexandrium is regularly monitored throughout the Puget Sound. Alexandrium spends part of its life cycle as a cyst in the sediment before germinating to become a free-swimming dinoflagellate. Alexandrium cysts in surface sediments are used to determine the present spatial distribution of this organism. Cyst concentrations in sediment cores can be used to evaluate historical presence and temporal variability. A research project from 2005, funded by NOAA’s ECOHAB program, has shown that surface sediments in Quartermaster Harbor (QMH), a harbor with low flushing rates due to its geographical orientation, have the highest abundance of Alexandrium cysts in Puget Sound. In July 2010, sediment cores were collected from five locations in Puget Sound to determine the historical distribution of Alexandrium. The purpose of this study is to quantify Alexandrium cyst concentrations in a 202 cm Kasten core collected from the inner harbor of QMH. Sediments were prepared for by sieving material between 20 and 90 µm and staining with Primulin before being analyzed for Alexandrium presence under epifluorescence using an FITS filter on a compound microscope. Preliminary results show maximum cysts/mL sediment near the surface, regressing to 0 cysts/mL sediment below 30 cm. The core was characterized by analyzing the grain-size distribution and organic content of each sub-sample of the core in order to determine if there is a relationship between cyst abundance and these properties. 210Pb dating was completed in order to correlate cyst abundance and local changes to the harbor.

Plastic debris in the marine environment has been a growing concern due to its durability in the ocean environment and the potential to have a variety of impacts on marine organisms. Characterization of plastic debris is approached via size as macroplastics (> 5mm), microplastics (5-0.330mm), and nanoplastics (<0.330mm), all of which are located in surface waters, within the water column, on beaches and within seafloor sediments. This is a preliminary study on monitoring plastics debris in marine sediments in Puget Sound with the goal of establish a baseline to determine the concentrations of plastics in marine benthic communities and work to deepen our understanding of the impacts of plastic debris on marine ecosystems throughout the Pacific Northwest. In collaboration with the Washington State Department of Ecology’s, Marine Sediment Monitoring Team (MSMT) and the Puget Sound Ecosystem Monitoring Program (PSEMP), ten samples weighing 200 grams each were processed and analyzed from different stations around Puget Sound. Plastic fibers of various colors and sizes were found throughout the samples as well as white plastic shards; foam and film. After multiple density separations it was determined that Bellingham had the highest concentration of microplastics at 2.48E-03 milligram (mg) of microplastics per gram (g) of sediment. The lowest concentration was found at Sinclair Inlet with 4E-05 (mg/g) of microplastics. Further analysis was performed to determine whether there was a correlation between concentration of microplastics and particle size of sand, silt and clay at each of the ten stations sampled. When comparing percent of sand, silt and clay it was determined that there was no correlation with an R value of 0.04 for sand, 0.01 for silt and 0.1 for clay. Future studies include identifying each plastic fiber using infrared spectroscopy and processing/analyzing samples gathered from past years.

This research project inspects the ways in which race and gender are portrayed in People magazine and how these representations contribute to internalized identities, specifically focusing on women’s lived experience, and how these internalized identities manifest into real socio-economic life outcomes. This research uses a cultural studies framework to examine the ways in which power operates within societies, and specifically how power is embedded within the images of People magazine. My preliminary data has been collected using critical visual analysis. This method is used to contextualize images through its rooted historical placement as well as its image production and consumption. This process has involved collecting data on over 800 images per magazine edition and reorganized based off of perceived gender and race. This magazine is central to my research due to its capacity to reach over 12.3 million users, according to their published statistics, and its inherent message “People Magazine” to cover all people, including diverse populations. The majority of people in this magazine, over 6 months, has been White women. It is imperative to understand how diverse audiences actually read media texts and to what extent these texts impact or influence the audience. One focus group is comprised of approximately ten, 13-15 year old females and the second group is comprised of approximately ten 18-21 year old females. Questions asked of these groups are focused on the lived experiences they have with popular media in general and specifically with People magazine. However, this research is focused on People magazine, I claim that (mis)representation of race and gender happens throughout all forms of popular media. Primary sources include People Magazine and the testimonies of those involved in the focus groups. Secondary sources include works focused around popular media, identity and race and gender studies.

Despite the various health and wellness interventions available to Mãori and Pasifik peoples, their health outcomes tend to be worse off than the Pakhea (White majority) living in Aotearoa (New Zealand). As a part of the Māhina: International Indigenous Health Research Training Fellowship, Solana Rollolazo, Rachael Tamngin and I engaged in health research internships with Māori and Pasifik communities and participated in the Digital Storytelling process that aided us in developing the qualitative research lens required to engage in community based and community informed research with Indigenous peoples. In a word, we “indigenized” our research approaches in order to support communities in bettering their own health on their own terms. Interning within the Epidemiology department at the University of Auckland my research dissected the ways that “fizzy,” sugary-filled drinks are disproportionately advertised to children in low socio-economic communities of Auckland—demographically including a majority of children of Pasifik and Māori descent. To understand the origins of the elevating health disparities plaguing Pasifik and Māori communities of Aotearoa, particularly that of obesity and diabetes, my intern supervisor, Gerhard Sundborn, shared with me the histories of unjust deportations of Pasifik immigrants known as the “Dawn Raids,” and the Māori’s ongoing struggle for sovereignty of their lands and resources. Culminating the knowledge amassed throughout my internship my digital story speaks the quieted histories of Pasifik people. It tells the story of how structural racism and systemic inequities plague the health of Pasifika and how before we reach medical diagnoses and population health disparities, before prescriptions and medication are given, we must first disseminate a wellness in honoring culture, family, and spirituality in order to guarantee health. We must honor histories that have passed.

Through my internships at Toi Tangata and Hapai Te Hauora, two Maori health care providers in New Zealand, I sought to understand the methods in which health services can successfully integrate cultural understanding into health promotion in order to create better health outcomes for indigenous peoples. With Toi Tangata, I worked alongside specialists in positive health, fitness and nutrition who understand the unique relationship between our culture and the way we move, eat, drink, think and behave. Toi Tangata's youth physical education curriculum founded in Maori legends and traditions like haka and mau rakau (Maori martial arts) is one example of a successful culturally-based and community-driven health program. I also learned about the structural interventions of health advocacy through Hapai Te Hauora, a health provider that utilizes multi-tiered health research initiatives to advocate for Maori health via workforce development, public health planning, information technology solutions and policy development. Through participant observation and informal interviews with health care providers, community members receiving care and Maori academics researching indigenous health, I was able to able to learn about the implementation of effective, ethnic specific approaches to health care. My findings were summarized in a digital story, a digital narrative of my personal experience paired with academic findings, which was presented back to the Maori community. My digital story shares my personal devotion to indigenous health to honor the hardships, and more importantly the resilience, of my ancestors.This research could be valuable informing local health policy about effective cultural health approaches that can and should be employed to improve the health and wellbeing of underserved, marginalized communities.

While rheumatic fever has been eradicated throughout majority of developed countries in the world, it continues to be a health disparity in the developed country of Aotearoa. Why is this relatively preventative illness and disease virulent in Aotearoa? In Aotearoa (New Zealand), health and wellness conditions among the Maori and Pasifika populations are similar to that of citizens from underdeveloped countries. In order to find out the causes of the disparities within these communities, interviews were conducted in both individual and group settings. Physicians, nurses and public healthcare workers were interviewed individually while families, Maori and Pasifika, were interviewed in multi-person settings. In addition, district health boards were contacted to insure that the research conducted within each region of Aotearoa was appropriate and within official guidelines. Poor housing conditions and limited access to healthcare among these populations have led to excessive exposure to group A streptococcus bacterium. When not treated, this illness develops into acute rheumatic fever (ARF), rheumatic heart disease (RHD), and eventually results in either cardiac failure, stroke or endocarditis, and/or death; although this strain of strep can be easily treated with Penicillin V or Amoxicillin. This disease has been observed mainly in young children and young adults. The health disparities occurring in this age group can be attributed to the close contact they experience within the schooling system, which results in high transmission rates. Findings reveal that the best medicine for this disease is prevention.

Multiple strains of rats and mice are used to evaluate differences in response after exposures to various toxicants at the molecular or cellular levels. However, neuronal toxicity in different strains of species has received much less attention. Therefore, the objective of our research was to compare and characterize fetal mouse micromass culture system using two different strains of mouse—C57BL/6 and A/J—which may be used to screen and prioritize variety of neurodevelopmental toxicants. Our mouse midbrain micromass culture system, a high-density in vitro cultures of primary midbrain cells, is an alternative method to in vivo neurodevelopmental testing because of the ability of cells within the cultures to differentiate in vitro without additional stimulants. Differentiation is purely driven by high cell density. For our 3D in vitro micromass culture system, we isolated the primary midbrain cells from fetus at gestational day 11 (for C57BL/6 mice) or 12 (for A/J mice). The embryos were surgically removed, and midbrain cells of fetal mice were digested into single neuronal cells. These primary in vitro neuronal cells were plated onto plates and cultured up to 22 days in vitro. When morphology was examined throughout 22 days in culture with a 400x phase microscope, cell proliferation, differentiation, and migration were observed for both strains of mice. Proliferation (PCNA, Nestin) and differentiation (B-tubulin, EN1, MAP-2) related protein expression levels were examined using western blot for both C57BL/6 and A/J mouse strains. Dynamics of protein expression levels in western blot indicated that proliferation may be at its highest point between DIV 4-6 while differentiation is between DIV 8-14. If midbrain cells from multiple mouse strains can be harvested at similar neurodevelopmental stages, differences in response due to genetic variability may be studied using our 3D fetal mouse micromass model.

In several studies regarding the history of colonialism, an analogy between female bodies and land has been made. Many scholars have discussed how an Empire exploits its colonies as well as sexually objectifies and claims ownership of colonial women. The main evidence of eroticization can be most manifestly observed in colonial dances among many other cultural phenomena, mainly due to the fundamental physicality of the art form. In this research, I aim to reveal how colonialism affected traditional dance forms of Hawaii and Korea, which had suffered from the rule of the United States and Japanese Empire for decades. Notable changes in the way female bodies were presented in Hawaiian Hula and Korean Shin-muyong (Korean neoclassical dance) are studied, as well as the trace of eroticization that still lives today. In order to identify characteristics of the colonial Hula and Shin-muyong, I shed new light on the lives of two most prominent Hawaiian Hula and Korean Shin-muyong dancers, Kini Kapahu and Choi Seung-hee. I draw on scholarship and archival resources indicating that they had one common strategy for success in the United States and Europe: colonial exhibition. Understanding of the power relation between colonial women and imperial audience of the time can be inferred from the literature analysis. In addition, I take warning against the undying specter of colonialism by illuminating how modern tourism sells the descendants of Kini Kapahu and Choi Seung-hee, or Hawaiian and Korean female dancers of the 21st century, as exotic commodities that satisfy the sexual aspiration of tourist conquerors.