Financial inclusion - the expansion of access to formal bank accounts, particularly to the poor - has recently moved up the ranks as a priority for development. After the unexpected success of M-PESA - a mobile phone based money transfer service started in Kenya - many quickly joined the camp of mobile money advocates believing that mobile money would be the solution to this newly minted UN sustainable development goal. However, with such nuanced characteristics in each country and even more distinctions within each financial system and economy, mobile money as a solution may not be applicable in every country aiming for financial inclusion. Therefore, this research aims to primarily understand the financial practices and needs of Ghanaians. To do so, I conduct surveys in five different cities ranging from small towns to large cities to evaluate an individuals current financial practices, existing and projected needs for financial services, and the role that mobile money may play in fulfilling either of those goals. 

Sex trafficking, the practice of transporting and coercing persons into commercial sexual exploitation, is a global problem that’s supported by our actions (or lack thereof) here in the U.S. The question this report seeks to answer is how international sex trafficking continues to be supported in the U.S. and in Washington State in particular. Sex trafficking is a difficult topic to research, as most data lies in illegal activities among hidden populations. If, however, people are able to inform themselves about the impact of sex trafficking on the sex industry in the U.S., they may demand reform on both a societal and governmental level to combat sex slavery. My prediction is that a large factor contributing to sex trafficking’s success is simply the public’s lack of knowledge on the subject. Additionally, it’s likely that laws and societal norms as well as lack of resources/funding for anti-trafficking efforts are also contributing factors. To answer my research question I’ve read through various encyclopedias, scholarly journals, organization websites, and even a report on human trafficking in Washington State. I’ve also conducted an interview with a survivor of sex trafficking who now volunteers with helping victims of trafficking. My research focuses on development of sex trafficking, who supports it, why it thrives in Seattle, and what needs to be done to stop it. Research shows that sex trafficking is prominent in Washington State due to location, proximity to the border, and client supply. Changes in societal attitudes in conjunction with revised laws that better protect victims and punish the traffickers and greater support/funding for organizations against sex trafficking will all serve to combat this problem. If the world decided to stop human sex trafficking, then millions of people could be spared from a very tragic fate.

Depression, anxiety, and other manifestations of distress are major causes of morbidity for cancer patients and contribute to a decreased quality of life. A combination of pharmacological, behavioral, and psychiatric interventions have been shown to lessen the symptoms of depression and improve patients’ quality of life. The Integrated Psychosocial Oncology Program (IPOP) at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) uses the collaborative care model to provide cancer patients with care and support to manage symptoms of distress while receiving treatment at the SCCA. This evaluation of the SCCA IPOP program aims to 1) illuminate barriers and risk-factors in the pathway to psychosocial services, including screening, referrals, and follow-ups; and 2) develop process interventions to improve outcomes in treatment. Preliminary analysis shows that of the patients referred to the IPOP between June 2015 and May 2016 (N=919), 83.2% were screened for depression and anxiety, but only 28.3% (N=440) of those found to demonstrate moderate symptoms of depression or anxiety received a follow-up screening. Without follow-up screenings, the SCCA is unable to evaluate the efficacy of its interventions provided by the social work team. In order to improve the frequency of these follow-ups, the SCCA Social Work team is introducing a patient roadmap to improve patient engagement and changing data-collection processes to improve the availability of population health metrics. These changes are expected to improve two-month follow-ups, and improve the outcomes of SCCA social work patients, which will be monitored over the next 6 months.

The Syrian crisis has become the defining humanitarian concern of the early 21st century. With over 400,000 dead and millions displaced, regional and international actors have been overwhelmed by the logistical and political strains of supporting Syrians. Because women and children comprise eighty percent of all refugees and Internally Displaced Persons across Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey, this Task Force elected to focus on the specific needs of this vulnerable population. Our report employs an inter-sectoral approach to identify both short and long-term gaps in women and children's rights and representation, economic opportunities, and their access to healthcare and education in Syria and the four major refugee-hosting countries. Data was collected through a a wide array of sources ranging from government reports to academic articles, the diversity of which enabled the report to look beyond the symptomatic issues facing women and children towards some of the more systemic cultural, political and historical factors which have influenced the conflict and the place of women and children within it. Our report concludes with policy recommendations for short-term relief, as well as the eventual reconstruction of Syria. This report was prepared for the Jackson School's capstone course, and has been evaluated by Ryan Crocker, former U.S Ambassador to Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Brain Drain, the global movement of medical doctors from developing to developed countries, has contributed to South Africa’s inability to supply its rural populations with access to medical care. The drivers of medical migration are generally attributed to economic, educational, and security-centered motivations; however, despite these conditions improving widely across South Africa, the number of young South African doctors who choose to emigrate annually continued to grow. Thus, it is important to understand what motivations for migration are uniquely salient to the Born Free Generation, South Africans who were born after the end of Apartheid. Using data collected from surveys and interviews, this study explores how Born Free Doctors interpret their national identity, and how this understanding contributes to their motivations to emigrate. This investigation of identity is characterized primarily by Rainbowism, the national project to create a common South African national identity around Nelson Mandela’s vision for an inclusive and diverse “rainbow nation”. Using common narratives from the collective memory of Born Free South Africans as ‘cultural tools’ for decision mediation, this study presents a framework to interpret motivations for migration based on common national narratives that reflect the conflicted national identity of Born Free Doctors, resulting from unfulfilled ambitions of the Rainbow Nation.

Migration from the Northern Triangle in Central America – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – to the United States and Mexico spiked dramatically in 2014 due to an unprecedented influx of unaccompanied minors and families. In partnership with El Rescate, a non-profit immigrant rights organization based in Los Angeles, our research aims to shed light on the deepening cycle of human rights abuses that migrants face in their countries of origin, transit, and destination (prior to deportation and post-deportation) due to pervasive government negligence that violates international and domestic laws. Through secondary-source gathering, as well as analysis of demographic data from El Rescate, our findings indicate that these abuses become more pronounced as individuals repeat their journey, resulting in circular migration patterns. This signifies a collective failure of policy responses to this humanitarian crisis due responsibility being deflected among all of the involved governments. Our team analyzed the quantitative and qualitative data extrapolated from their Northern Triangle and Mexican clientele by manually digitizing the hand-written intake forms from El Rescate’s legal assistance clinic from 2013 to 2016 though a digital survey form. From our sample size of 1,269 case files we identified key trends in migrant demographics, the forces which compelled them to flee, and the rates of specific types of violence that many experienced. Our research culminates in a call to action for governments and authorities to uphold international and domestic laws to protect Central American migrants fleeing violence, and to process them as asylum seekers.

This study asks what are the lived experiences of two refugee women who have resettled in Portland, OR regarding their acculturation, adaptation, and resilience. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the successes and challenges of their resettlement process, the power of their resilience, and their cultural experience. The ethnography provides a glimpse into what assistance refugee women receive in regards to cultural adjustment in the United States, their experiences with Portland refugee resettlement, and provide reflection on how both the state agencies and community programs could better benefit and support women refugees in Portland, Oregon. This study explores the needs of women refugees during resettlement. Preliminary findings reveal anticipatory anxiety, a devaluing of refugee women’s prior experiences, and high stress. Oftentimes the needs and life histories of women are overlooked and generalizations made about experiences do not always reflect the experiences of female refugees. Through the individual's explorations of their histories and personal paradigms, the ethnographic interview will allow the refugee women to be a primary resource and provide a greater understanding of the Portland, Oregon resettlement. In conclusion, the final part of this research briefly discusses the four Portland-based community organizations and government agencies designed to assist in resettlement and evaluate the competencies critical to interacting and providing effective resettlement.

My research focused on the question: What can be learned about 19th century Middle Eastern and European medical practices from the personal diaries of Joseph Mattias Svoboda, a European resident in Iraq from 18?? to 1908? Joseph Mattias Svoboda’s diaries document a very detailed account of daily life and information in the Basra and Baghdad regions of modern day Iraq. Joseph himself suffered from a chronic gastro-intestinal disease and frequently wrote about the medication prescribed to him by doctors and self-selected which he then self-administered. I used this information as a basis to piece together common medical practices and medications utilized in the 19th century. Using digital transcriptions of the diaries, my fellow interns and I used data-mining techniques to extract references to medicines, dosages, and usages. Then, using contemporary European newspapers, medical journals, advertisements, and historical records I traced these medicines and their ingredients back to their origin. I examined modern research on these medicines’ ingredients to look at the effect these medicines had on the body compared to the expected results of the time period. I found the medicinal practices of the time, especially in relation to patent medicines generally stem from Europe with many medications being produced and sold there. This allowed me to identify some of the ingredients and usages. However, some of the ingredients and medications were not native to Europe, indicating a larger trade system and medical practices from around the globe influencing medicine in Iraq. Future projects stemming from my research could look into the influence of Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American herbalism and indigenous practices on 19th century medical practices and medicine trade. Regardless, I hope my work encourages others to explore beyond the Eurocentric narrative of developing medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Led by students in the Jackson School of International Studies, this task force proposes a course of action that the United States, under the new presidential administration, should pursue to address the salient maritime security concerns in East Asia. The task force developed a comprehensive research report that not only analyzes the breadth and scope of East Asian maritime security concerns, but also recommends the appropriate course of action the United States should take to preserve both its own interests and the greater security of the region. This report makes direct policy recommendations within the framework of the prevailing issues that dominate both traditional and non-traditional concerns in East Asia, particularly security concerns including Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOCS), the increased militarization of the region, and the rise of conflicts in the South and East China Sea. In addition, competing interpretations of international law and claimant perspectives in the South China Sea are also assessed. The report also analyzes the nontraditional security concerns such as resource scarcity (i.e., hydrocarbons and fisheries), competition and depletion, climate change and environmentalism (and the lack of a comprehensive international policy thereof), as well as piracy and human trafficking. The report completes its analysis through exhaustive review of primary and secondary sources that include think-tank and Department of Defense reports, Congressional hearings, joint governmental statements, interviews with foreign policy experts, tribunal decisions on international law, news sources and periodicals, and academic journals. The report recommends that the United States develop a course of action that balances destabilizing forces in the region and encourages cooperation. To achieve that end, the report recommends ratifying the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas, developing a clear environmental policy towards the South China Sea, and strengthening multilateral ties with Japan, India, and ASEAN.

Himalayan adventure travel is a burgeoning industry in some mountainous regions of Nepal. The development of a trekking and expedition mountaineering infrastructure has created vital employment opportunities in remote areas and allowed visitors to embark on life-changing explorations. However, with the rapid, uneven, and largely unregulated growth of this industry have come environmental and resource challenges, the creation of new economic and social arrangements, and renewed questions of equity and safety. This intersectionality revealed itself dramatically on April 18, 2014, when a serac collapsed on Mt. Everest’s Khumbu Icefall and killed 16 Nepali high altitude workers. After several contentious days of deliberation and protests at Base Camp, the climbing season effectively ended when rumors began to circulate that attempts to continue climbing would be met with violence by individuals purportedly associated with the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist). In this investigation, I combine the theoretical framework of James Scott’s transcript theory with the interpretive frame of Susan Birrell’s treatment of Everest as a text to be read and analyzed to show how rumors of Maoist involvement, though unsubstantiated, encapsulated specific anxieties and dominant preconceived notions about the structure and function of the Himalayan adventure travel industry. A traumatic and seemingly incomprehensible event created an ambiguous space where dominant discourses could be anonymously engaged with and challenged even as they shaped events in real time, a process of recontextualization that blurred the boundaries between a jointly-constructed public transcript of heroic adventure and hidden transcripts that portray far more polarized and nuanced views of sociopolitical orderings. My research reveals how spread of this particular rumor at a particular moment in time betrays both the discursive power of Everest itself and reveals quite unconsciously the essential structural features that order the social, economic, and political life of the remote Himalaya.

UW offers an excellent research environment. But is there a way to further improve undergraduate experience in research? What is a way to put greater emphasis on student growth while achieving the faculty’s research agenda? We, the interns of Newbook Digital Texts, have sought a new model of undergraduate research model that would answer this question. The core of this interdisciplinary research model is undergraduate leadership. It divides teams into different specialties. In each team, one or more undergrads work as team leads to plan the research project, assign tasks, and gain feedback—not leadership—from research professors and/or advisors. It also gives students opportunities for outreach activities, where they present their research project at regional and national symposiums and grant committees for funding. This model hypothesizes that undergraduates can learn interdisciplinary communication, the skill which would become increasingly important in any career. It also teaches students to autonomously choose a topic, plan, and lead a project with independence and creativity for any kind of post-undergraduate work. How do we know that this model of research works? We have sent out a survey to all of our former and current interns to ask their opinions and experiences with the model. Based on the survey, the remarkable result of this new model is as follows: by showcasing the skills that they learned from this research framework at Newbook, our past interns have obtained notable scholarships and awards such as Mary Gates and McNair, and after their graduation, have secured jobs at Dell, Amazon, digital start-ups, and several NGO’s. The key implication of this model is its applicability to any other fields of study. We believe that this model of undergraduate research carries many positive implications for undergraduate education and helps incorporation of technology into humanities studies.

For our Jackson School of International Studies capstone class, Task Force, we created a strategic communications plan tied with a digital story to create a social media campaign. The goal of this campaign is to communicate Tribal Treaty Rights between tribal and non-tribal millennials in the Puget Sound area. The Treaty Rights target issues in the Puget Sound caused by climate change, including decreasing salmon populations and managing non-tribal fishing rights around the region. Most millennials are unaware of these rights, or these issues in general, despite living in the Puget Sound. Our research, primarily self-hosted surveys and focus groups, show a trend in millennials to be sensitive to cultural diversity and climate change acceptance, making them a prime demographic for a marketing campaign. After data collection, we created social media groups, including Facebook, Instagram, and a digital story for potential use in the Tulalip Tribes website. We worked closely with the Tulalip Tribes in Marysville, and visited their location, supervised by Tulalip Tribes' Public Affairs Coordinator Francesca Hillery. UW campus resources will be invaluable in our pursuits; we will contact the school newspaper "The Daily", as well as collaborate with various departments, such as the Intellectual House, to spread awareness and to set up relevant lectures. Millennials are apt to be interested in this topic, therefore, one of our main campaign goals is to create the knowledge in the first place. If successful, our social media campaign will grow towards increasing implementaion on campus and for the tribes themselves. Overall, this can lead to future, independent student involvement and efforts to make a change for themselves, for the tribes, and for all in the Salish Sea region. 

Inflammasomes are one of the key components of the innate immune system. They sense pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) in the cytosol of the cell and are responsible for the activation of caspase-1 to induce processing of the inflammatory cytokine IL-1β and pyroptosis. Activation of caspase-1 cleaves pro-IL-1β to its active form, IL-1β. Pyroptosis is programmed and inflammatory cell death that occurs upon intracellular pathogen infection. Pyroptosis can be triggered by the cytosolic detection of lipopolysaccharides (LPS) and their main toxic component, lipid A, which are large molecules found on the outer membrane of gram negative bacteria. LPS and lipid A are also detected by Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) on the membranes of immune cells. To further characterize the function of inflammasomes, we transfected human monocytic THP-1 cells with LPS and lipid A to deliver these components to the cytosol. We then quantified the inflammatory response of the cells by quantifying IL-1β and pyroptosis. To quantify IL-1β, we performed ELISA in cell supernatants. To quantify pyroptosis, we measured release of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), a cytosolic enzyme that is released upon cell lysis. We found that – in contrast to simple stimulation of the cell with LPS or lipid A – delivery of LPS and lipid A to the cell cytosol induced IL-1β release and pyroptosis, suggesting caspase-1-dependent inflammasome activation. In addition, we found that different transfection reagents were variably cytotoxic. Future experiments will investigate whether delivery of other bacterial PAMPs, such as flagellin or TLR2 agonists, to the cytosol activates a similar inflammasome response as LPS/lipid A. Our findings will have important implications in understanding the immune response to bacterial infections and could help to develop more effective treatments.

This research explores what role the U.S. should adopt in the new nuclear era to ensure that the expansion of nuclear energy capabilities proceeds safely, securely, and without further proliferation of weapons. Does the U.S. need to expand its own reactor fleet, using advanced reactor technology, to maintain a position of influence? What policies and measures should it take, if any, with regard to Russia’s plan to become a nuclear superpower? Through a broad literature review and interviews with world-renowned experts, this research answers these questions, as well as provides key policy recommendations for the U.S. going forward. Ultimately, our findings make it clear that expanding nuclear energy is critical to meeting U.S. climate objectives, buffering national energy security, and becoming a leader in critical energy technology.

Aging is characterized by time-dependent deterioration of cellular functions and increased risk for disease and death. The onset of age-related diseases including cancer, Alzheimer's, and other neurological disorders decrease the healthspan of humans. Healthspan is defined as the period of life without infirmity. My research focuses on understanding the basic biology of aging and determinants of healthspan within the emerging interdisciplinary field of geroscience. I use the model system Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a unicellular fungus, to study aging at the cellular level. To analyze cellular aging, I focus on replicative lifespan (RLS), which quantifies the number of daughter cells produced by individual mother cells before they reach replicative senescence and cease to divide. Our replicative lifespan team is composed of a group of undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral scientists at the University of Washington who use light microscopy and manual micromanipulation to quantify the RLS of hundreds of yeast mother cells each week. There are four important steps to analyze RLS in yeast: assay setup, incubation to outgrow cells, dissection of daughter cells from mother cells, and quantification of the number of daughter cells produced prior to replicative senescence. Using the replicative lifespan assay, I investigate genetic, environmental, and pharmacological treatments to determine their impact on cellular aging. Research produced by our RLS dissection team has led to a better understanding of evolutionarily-conserved factors that modulate aging, as well as potential treatments for certain human mitochondrial diseases.