My research focuses on how inspiration porn articles perpetuate the Medical Model of Disability, and specifically, on how those articles objectify and devalue people with Down syndrome. Inspiration porn refers to the representation of disability as a form of disadvantage that can be overcome; it often celebrates disabled people simply for living with a disability. This “overcoming” narrative stems from the Medical Model of Disability, which defines disability as an individual defect and personal tragedy. While many Americans have not heard the specific term “inspiration porn,” most have been exposed to inspiration porn articles. I conducted a qualitative content analysis to explore my research aim; this methodology allows for the investigation of the underlying, context-dependent meanings of a text. My unit of analysis was individual articles. I identified these articles through use of the search engine Access World News. These articles have been published in the USA between the dates of 1/1/16 and 12/31/16, and have the words “Down syndrome,” “Down’s syndrome,” “Downs’ Syndrome,” or “Downs Syndrome” in the headline. After I created my coding frame, I analyzed every 10th article, and then interpreted the findings to ascertain the prevalence of inspiration porn, and how inspiration porn perpetuates the Medical Model of Disability. I initially anticipated the results of my content analysis would indicate that inspiration porn articles, in perpetuating the Medical Model, reinforce limiting and unrealistic stereotypes of people with Down syndrome. This result would show how the growing popularity of inspiration porn is troubling. This new phenomenon does not promote inclusion and diversity – rather it encourages interactions between those with disabilities and those without, in a superficial, condescending manner. My research is important because it draws attention to disability as a sociological topic, and further expands upon media studies by examining the role of mainstream media in perpetuating stereotypes.

Sexual assault is a prevalent issue on college campuses in the U.S. today as they invest in implementing sexual assault prevention programs and centers to support survivors. At the center of this work is training of students, faculty, and students who are third parties or bystanders to sexual assault and can be allies in prevention and response. The purpose of this study was to understand how perceptions of campus environment (including a sense of one’s influence on campus and peer norms related to helping) affect bystander behavior to address sexual assault among first year college students. Participants were 948 students at two different universities (one a rural, primarily residential campus and the other an urban, mostly commuter campus) in the northeastern United States. Individuals who had greater confidence, were aware, took responsibility, and did not accept rape myths, were associated with more proactive bystander behavior. Bringing awareness to college communities about sexual violence will ultimately decrease the frequency of sexual assaults.

Over the past century, the United States has seen many large changes in immigration patterns. One important change has been the emergence of new immigrant destinations within the past thirty years. While many traditional destinations (e.g., New York, NY) continue to draw immigrant populations, new metropolitan areas (e.g., Atlanta, GA) are also drawing large numbers of immigrants. What is largely unknown about these new destinations is how they differ from traditional destinations in terms of the health outcomes of their immigrant populations compared to their local native-born counterparts. I hypothesize that immigrants in new destinations will have worse health outcomes compared to the surrounding native-born population than that of immigrants in traditional destinations. I conduct a logistic regression analysis using data from the 1997-2001 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) in order to compare health outcomes between immigrants and native-born populations in six new destination cities (Atlanta, Dallas, Fort Worth, Orlando, Washington D.C., and West Palm Beach) and eight traditional gateway cities (Bergen-Passaic, Boston, Chicago, Jersey City, Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, Nassau-Suffolk, New York, and San Francisco). Health is measured using two different models: (1) access to a primary care physician (based on the question “Is there a place that you usually go to when you are sick or need advice about your health?”) and (2) self-reported health (based on the question “Would you say your health in general is excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor?” with responses coded on a five point Likert scale, where 1 is “excellent” and 5 is “poor”). This research can be used to inform those interested in immigrant health on contexts that might increase immigrant health risks, such as patient-doctor communication issues and discrimination. Policymakers and public health officials can use this research to identify areas where intervention is needed.

I will be doing research alongside Dr. Ronnie Dunn, for the 50th Year Commemoration of the Stokes brothers. Carl Stokes was the first African American mayor of a major US city, and Brother Louis Stokes, was the first African-American congressman in the state of Ohio. The commemoration will focus on the contributions the Stokes brothers made within Greater Cleveland via a public policy perspective. This research will mainly focus on the category of Public Safety Sector, specifically on policing because local/national racial tensions then, mirror those of today. Since these racial tensions have not decreased, this means new policies and changes need to be implemented, thus I question why they have not been implemented. I will look at Mayor Stokes funding proposal titled: “Cleveland: NOW!” and other administrative documents from the early 1960’s. I will be analyzing the impact he had on public safety policies while in office, and use it as a model to study the current climate of public safety. I expect to find that public safety policies and police administration are still being ran how they were fifty years ago in spite of the evolving and ever-changing society. Collectively, this information will be used to help conduct a report with recommendations that policy makers can utilize for enhancing public safety.

Cytosolic pH is sustained by the movement of protons out of the cytosol. The vacuolar ATPase (V-ATPase) is a conserved protein complex that localizes to the membrane of organelles and transfers protons from the cytosol into the organelle lumen. The V-ATPase couples the energy of ATP hydrolysis to transport protons. Proper pH homeostasis is important for many organelles such as endosomes, lysosomes, and secretory vesicles. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the Pma1 protein localizes to the plasma membrane and pumps protons out of the cell, helping to maintain cellular pH homeostasis. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we have found that loss of activity of the V-ATPase results in a growth arrest at low temperature. We generated 66 yeast V-ATPase mutant strains that are able to suppress the low temperature induced growth arrest. In complementation tests of these mutants, our results suggest that all of the mutants belong in the same complementation group. We have performed whole genome sequencing on one strain and analysis of the whole genome sequencing data has identified a single putative mutation. We are validating that the identified mutation is causative for the phenotypic suppression, and performing targeted sequencing of the candidate gene in the other suppressor strains.

Universal sport analytics was made possible with the emergence of different technology in the past two decades. With existing statistical software and data recording, the performance of players can be quantified by organizations that are seeking to obtain a more scientific analysis of player performance. Specifically, more statistics are made to eliminate biases and better summarize a player’s contribution to their team. Major League Baseball and its drafting rules place themselves above other professional sports for analytics because players do not have to sign up for the draft, draft picks and players cannot be traded during the draft, and the lengthiness of its draft. Although individual organizations make efforts to pick suitable selections in the draft, the performance of baseball players is more difficult to predict at the professional level when compared to other sports. Despite the publication of MoneyBall, a book by Michael Lewis about methods to make quantifiable player signings, other research on player selection is often sensitive and discoveries are rarely published due to organizations fearing they will give away their competitive edge in the process. For this specific research project, data was gathered through web-scraping Baseball-Reference, a widely used online database for baseball analytics. By using analytical statistics and accounting for other factors, statistical analysis was done on different categories of players. This research identified differences between the predictability of success for pitchers and position players, and observed the impact of age or level of education of the player that is drafted. This study demonstrates how the different characteristics of these players reflect on the predictability of their accumulated value throughout their career. Preliminary results show pitchers’ performance as more predictable, perhaps due to the physicality prowess of pitching. This research suggests further work to produce better indicators for prospective players at the Major League level.

Black men are disproportionately represented among the number of people killed through the use of police deadly force each year. With the development of technology and the pervasiveness of social media in every day life, people have the ability to watch and re-watch these deaths on a daily basis. This phenomenon has become particularly prevalent in recent years, sparked by the graphic videos of deadly force used on Eric Garner and Philando Castile. Although there is a significant body of literature on the impact of racism, discrimination, and violence on black male self-perception, group identity and political attitudes, little is understood about the impact of this new form of publicized fatal violence. For this research project, I explore how black men are being exposed to this specific type of fatal violence, and outcomes related specifically to changes in political response, attitudes, and group identity. This process included a series of three open-ended focus groups, each comprised of 7-8 black male undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Washington. From these focus groups I identified 4-5 individuals and conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews to build on themes established in the focus groups. The information from these focus groups and interviews provide a unique insight into changing forms of discrimination and violence black men face, and the implications this violence has for their own political actions and behaviors.

The city of Seattle currently finds itself in a state of emergency in reference to a growing number of people experiencing homelessness. In 2016, 4,505 people in King County were identified as living outside, and 6,183 living within the shelter system. While some in Seattle struggle to meet their most basic needs, others thrive in the economic growth of the cloud computing industry. Many tech workers are moving to Seattle to take these high-skill, high-paying jobs, and are subsequently reshaping neighborhoods and local economies. Historically, people experiencing homelessness have been forced out of Seattle’s gentrifying neighborhoods through processes of banishment. Banishment is defined as the legal removal of individuals from specified urban spaces for extended periods of time, and operates through police policies that criminalize activities associated with the poor. In recent years, many of these policies have been abandoned or deemed unconstitutional in the city of Seattle. Regardless, there appear still to be sanctioned spaces for homelessness and spaces where it is mysteriously absent. I have conducted series of interviews with people experiencing homeless in a rapidly gentrifying Seattle neighborhood. My sample includes individuals of a wide range of backgrounds and forms of homelessness to reveal the complex ways in which identity and homelessness intersect. Through analysis of response content, I have identified common themes that illuminate the social interactions that take place between housed and homeless community members throughout the process of neighborhood gentrification. These findings may help us to understand social forces that influence the migration of people experiencing homelessness between Seattle neighborhoods, and to understand broader concepts of the exclusion, seclusion, and accumulation of urban poverty. Results from this research may also help inform the provision of social services for people experiencing homelessness.

The city of Seattle has experienced immense urban change. Over the past 15 years, we see companies expanding, neighborhoods evolving, and populations being displaced. Recently, sociologists have discovered that neighborhoods that were traditional oases for queer life and living, including neighborhoods in Seattle, have experienced losses in the queer population. The body of research emerging on this topic largely credits this to a greater public acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities which have reduced barriers that kept queer populations from living in other areas. Though many public sources of information, news sites, blogs, and forums, propose gentrification of these neighborhoods as the force driving queer people from their homes. Between 2000 and 2012 Seattle’s traditional gayborhood, Capitol Hill, has seen a significant decrease in same-sex couples, according to the US census. With Amazon and other tech companies expanding into the Capitol Hill neighborhood and subsequent rising rents in that area, it may be the case that queer people can no longer afford to live in the gayborhood has made itself known in Seattle. In this research project I examine the motives for why queer people leave Capitol Hill through a series of interviews with LGBTQ+ people who are moving out of Capitol Hill. These interviews will provide insight into how gentrification and greater acceptance of LGBTQ+ people and other social factors may play a role in this new form of urban change.

A growing field of sociological research has provided evidence that Hispanic immigrants in the United States tend to have better health outcomes than their native-born counterparts. Despite the fact that Hispanic immigrants tend to be of a lower socioeconomic status and are less fluent in the English language compared to native-born Americans, immigrants show lower rates of both physical and mental health disorders. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as the “epidemiological paradox” or the “immigrant health paradox.” This study questions the nature of the epidemiological paradox as it applies to mental health disorders among Hispanic immigrants in Seattle. The primary aim of this research is to better understand why immigrants have low rates of mental disorders by examining factors such as perception of mental illness, interaction with and access to the American healthcare system, treatment of mental illness, social connectivity, and cultural determinants. I am conducting semi-structured interviews with first-generation immigrants attending the University of Washington (i.e. Hispanic immigrants born outside of the U.S who first moved to the country after age 16 and have resided in the country for less than 4 years). My sampling strategy involves contacting students through clubs on campus in addition to snowball sampling in order to generate a sufficient sample of 20 subjects for interview. Results from this research will contribute to an in-depth understanding of the nature and mechanisms behind the immigrant health paradox as it relates to rates of mental health disorders in the United States.

A large body of research has examined the association between disadvantage and crime in neighborhoods, usually finding a strong positive association between neighborhood disadvantage and crime. Neighborhood disadvantage is associated to crime via a variety of pathways, including, but not limited to, reduced educational opportunities and reduced collective efficacy (i.e., the ability of residents to control or influence the behavior of other individuals and groups in the neighborhood). However, research that links neighborhood disadvantage to crime has not examined the effects of clustering, better understood as grouping, of neighborhoods on the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and crime. In metropolitan areas, predominantly minority-occupied, disadvantaged neighborhoods are often grouped together into specific areas. In other words, poor neighborhoods are adjacent to other poor neighborhoods compounding the disadvantage that inhabitants of these neighborhoods face. This is important to understand because it means that segregation of neighborhoods may be helping to drive high crime rates within neighborhoods. I extend this body of research by considering the role of clustering in the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and crime. I use data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study, which includes tract, city, and metropolitan level variables to analyze crime and spatial inequality. The poverty and spatial proximity data is provided by the Neighborhood Change Database, which includes tract level data for impoverished neighborhoods as well as longitude and latitude of said neighborhoods. I use these two data sets to analyze the effects of neighborhood clustering through various data analyses. Preliminary data analyses show a statistically positive relationship between spatial proximity and number of murders. From this, it is expected that spatial proximity will also have a statistically positive relationship with overall crime.