The Hanford nuclear site is a 20th and 21st century example of America’s ongoing military industrial complex. Its ties with the aftermath of the Manhattan project shows that its harm was not unidirectional, but rather multidirectional since harm was done to the people of Nagasaki and to the communities within and around Hanford, Washington. Migrant workers have had ongoing misrepresentation regarding the nuclear site’s post-communal health impact; especially within oral and scholarly accounts. In this study, we explore what factors have had short-term and long-term impacts on the health, socioeconomic status, and autonomy of Hanford migrant workers. We use literature review and discourse analysis to understand these complexities affecting migrant health, and by developing these frameworks we reveal to the reader how such human and unalienable rights were undermined for the purpose of global control.

Parametric models are used in demographic research to reduce the number of parameters over those found in a life table, smooth and correct inadequate mortality data, and provide insight into the underlying processes of aging and mortality. One difficulty with many existing parametric mortality models, such as the Siler model, is that they assume that mortality risk is homogenous. We developed the mixed-Makeham model to explicitly model heterogeneity in mortality in the youngest ages. The model divides mortality risk at the youngest ages into “low-risk” and “high-risk” subgroups, as well as a parameter that specifies the fraction of newborns in each subgroup. Senescent mortality in both subgroups is a shared 2-parameter Gompertz model. We apply the model to cohort life table data from 11 European countries from 1876 to 1925 published in the Human Mortality Database. When mortality is decomposed this way, the proportion of high-risk infants declined and the mortality risk for low-risk infants declined for later cohorts, as anticipated. The mortality hazard for high-risk infants, however, increased for later cohorts. These findings suggest that, over time, medical and public health improvements shifted some fraction of infants from the high-risk category to the low risk category. The shift toward higher mortality hazard in the high-risk infants is likely explained by heterogeneous risk in the high-mortality pool, where medical and public health improvements are less effective on infants at the highest mortality risk.

The narrative of nuclear patriotism was heavily promoted to justify the construction of plutonium production facilities like Hanford, as well as the use of plutonium-based atomic bombs against Japan. Nagasaki, bombed only days after Hiroshima, does not fit into this patriotic narrative and has subsequently been overlooked by the public. Just like the government minimizes the attention on Hanford in the United States, the bombing of Nagasaki is not as well known as the bombing of Hiroshima. As a result, Nagasaki victims have endured health disparities of equal magnitude in silence. We researched this topic further by conducting interview analysis, discourse analysis, critical film analysis, and literature review. We wish to connect Hanford and Nagasaki by focusing on downwinders and atomic bomb survivors. While Hiroshima has had more public exposure than the Nagasaki bombing, we want to bring to light the equally devastating impact of the bomb on the citizens of Nagasaki. Hanford and Nagasaki are tied together not only by association to nuclear weapons and radiation, but also by the silencing of their association to these weapons. These impacts are closer to home than one would expect, and it is essential to bring awareness to the unseen struggles within our international community. Cleanup of nuclear sites and nuclear regulation need to be regarded as national responsibilities to global safety, to ensure that history will not repeat itself.

From the years 1946 to 1958, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), a sovereign nation in free association with the United States, endured the nuclear detonation of 67 atomic bombs conducted by US military. As a result of the nuclear testing, many Marshallese were gravely affected by the radiation exposure: suffering multi-generational health problems as well as being displaced from their homes. The unprecedented amounts of nuclear contamination have inevitably forced the Marshallese to abandon their lands, which has severely disrupted their cultural practices and lifestyle that has been passed down for years. The people have suffered countless traumas including birth defects and miscarriages, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. Through interviews, literature reviews, documentaries, and other modes of anthropological discourse, we will be demonstrating how the Marshallese have been affected by the US Government Nuclear Testing Program, and how this may parallel to the detrimental health effects of the people living near the Hanford Facility in Eastern Washington. Given the severity of health problems and involuntary migration in the RMI, we argue that the US government should take more responsibility and initiative to ensure that the Marshallese are granted proper restitution for the irreparable damages these nuclear test operations have caused to them and their culture. By implementing codes of ethics as well as more access to healthcare, we believe the health and wellbeing of the Marshallese will begin to thrive once again.

Ankle range of motion (ROM) is frequently measured in clinical settings for the purpose of diagnosing and treating foot and ankle pathologies. Gastrocnemius equinus (GE), a condition in which isolated gastrocnemius contracture inhibits ankle ROM, contributing to foot pain in otherwise neurologically healthy individuals. Controversy surrounds the definition of GE, however, and the reliability of goniometer-based measurements of dorsiflexion—and consequently identification of gastrocnemius contracture—is untested. This study examines the reliability of using a goniometer to measure ankle dorsiflexion. Two observers (KR and CG) measured ankle dorsiflexion in 14 neurologically healthy individuals (6M/8F; ages 20-56 years; 6 participants measured by both observers) with the knee in fully-extended and flexed positions. Three measurements were taken for each position with the goniometer fulcrum on the lateral malleolus; stationary and moving arms aligned with the fibular head and fifth metatarsal, respectively. Inter- and intra-observer reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. Intra-observer Cronbach’s alpha was 0.230 (CG) and 0.533 (KR) for dorsiflexion with the knee extended, and 0.805 (CG) and -0.350 (KR) for dorsiflexion with the knee flexed. Inter-observer Cronbach’s alpha was 0.656 for extension and -0.245 for flexion. Little correlation exists within or between observers for goniometer-based ankle dorsiflexion measurements in either a flexed-knee or extended-knee position. The clinically-accepted practice of using a goniometer to determine ankle ROM, and consequently to diagnose and treat GE, may be unreliable and needs further evaluation.

Not only a form of self expression, fashion is one of many markers used by society to assign class, race, gender and sexuality. These assignments are made based on a set of norms which dictate which people are, or are not, privileged. Because of its power to assign privileged traits to an individual, it is also able to create a certain norm for what certain identities are meant to look like. In queer spaces, these norms are often thought to be challenged. This study engages with queer and feminist theories to analyze the ways queer individuals interact with the world of fashion. It argues that fashion should be viewed not only as a way through which individuals show self-expression, and explore identity, but also a form of powerful discourse. In order to do this, I have conducted 15 filmed interviews of queer individuals int the city of Seattle. These interviews seek to provide a platform through which participants can express the complexities of identity formation within a liberal, capitalist system as it relates to fashion. Interviews are collaborative and semi-structured, allowing for participants to share what they find important to their person and communities. From these interviews, this research engages with how the intersections of queer identities with race, class, gender, and sexualities work to form identities through fashion. This research and knowledge is then produced in the form of a thesis paper as well as a video. I have chosen to represent this research in a video format as there is something inherently visual about engaging with identity formation and fashion. This research and its methods are important in exploring and displaying the ways complex and multifaceted intersectional identities interact with systems of power through expression and fashion.

What does it take to burst the “bubble” of white privilege...what are the moves? Awaking to one’s complicity as a white person who benefits from racist systems of unearned privileges that mark a white supremacy culture can be a difficult experience. This research is the result of one person’s willingness to enter the transformative journey of following the auto-ethnographic process of dissolving and reconstituting their understanding of a white-self through the lens of indigenous scholarship and growing relationships with people of color whose voices and stories told of a reality that was unlike her own. In choosing to resist resisting the fear that is bound up in entering conversations about white privilege and racism, and holding space in an uncomfortable process, the researcher turned to her 89.7% predominately white community of Bainbridge Island, Washington to examine the culture of relationships between communities of color and those who identify as white. She asks the question “can, and if so, where, when and how are white identities transformed from positions of White Fragility and white supremacy into identities and relationships with people of color, of solidarity, allyship, accompliceship and race-traitorship in denouncing white privilege in order to create a culture that is equitable and inclusive for all people? Centering the methodology of relationships as sites of knowledge, the researcher engaged in cultivating cross-racial friendships with community members who were actively working in spaces of racial equity, inclusion, and social justice. In documenting the intersection of their lives and stories, valuable knowledge was gained in the accounts of privilege, fragility, oppression, hope, despair, joy, adversity, and triumph that is embodied in their collective experiences. This research contributes to the ongoing discovery and scholarship of the ways in which white identities move through the stages of transformation in relationship with communities of color.

Black womxn in the United States have a long-standing history of creating community-based support networks and utilizing strategies of resilience to thrive in an oppressive society. Black feminist scholars have formulated useful frameworks such as “transformative work” and “intersectionality” to help contextualize long-standing practices of resistance, resilience, and transformation. As a medical anthropology student, the aim of my project is to understand how Black womxn in Seattle make sense of and advocate for the health, well-being, and safety of their communities. In order to answer this question, I collaborated with a diverse network of Black womxn who are initiating conversations about health and social justice in their churches, workplaces, and advocacy groups. Mount Zion Baptist Church, a predominantly African American church in Seattle, functioned as a community center for a network of Black womxn actively working to advance health equity. To learn about the ways that Black womxn in Seattle express, communicate, and act on their personal and political views regarding health, I engaged in participant observation at health-centered church events, advocacy meetings, marches, and health equity committee gatherings. Furthermore, I conducted structured and unstructured interviews to understand how Black womxn in Seattle perceive societal conditions and rely on support networks to radically better their lives. Through the experience of listening to Black womxn’s life history narratives, I learned about the vital role that solidarity, collaboration, and faith have in creating positive social change. My ethnographic research process has enlightened me to the importance of listening to and learning from the lived experiences of Black womxn who consistently work to transform their own health and the health of their communities.

Millions of people across the United States struggle with disordered eating. For the proportion of those who have been clinically diagnosed with “eating disorders”, many will continue to fall in and out of the grasps of their illness - even after the privilege of receiving comprehensive treatment and therapeutics. The issue of “chronic relapse” amongst individuals who have attended inpatient, partial hospitalization, and/or intensive outpatient care for disordered eating necessitates a thorough questioning of “treatment”, “illness”, and “recovery”. Despite so many years under the “medical gaze” of research in medicine and psychology, as well as in sociology and feminist scholarship, little has been done to make space for the voices of those affected. Therefore, the intent of this project is to strip away hegemonic discourses on disordered eating, and radically listen to those who have traditionally been silenced, isolated, and reduced to statistics in other literature. Drawing from subaltern and feminist theory, I seek to illuminate the lived and embodied experiences of women who have attended and returned to clinical treatment for disordered eating on multiple occasions. A phenomenological, (auto-)ethnographic approach is adopted to explore the liminal period between their treatment cycles. Having personally returned to treatment for disordered eating numerous times, I will use reflections from my own experience to inform my engagement and collaboration with other women who have embarked on a similar journey towards healing to produce a collection of narratives. Deeply listening to these individuals and juxtaposing their narratives may shed light on the ways they resist, negotiate, and perform relationship and identity in the sphere of “recovery”. Contextualizing healing trajectories in this way has implications for a new lens through which “relapse” and “recovery” are discussed, and could reveal what may be missed in the realm of current therapeutics for disordered eating.

With the global refugee crisis, resettlement agencies do important work to insure successful refugee resettlement. Previous research suggests that some refugee families struggle with segmented assimilation, which is when a child assimilates faster than their parents, disassociating from their culture of origin, creating conflict with their parents. Building on this research, this qualitative ethnographic study investigated segmented assimilation concern among families through semi-structured interviewing. Refugee families and childcare providers for refugee children were interviewed to understand the needs of families in managing segmented assimilation and to gain insight from childcare providers serving those families. While it was hypothesized that families would be concerned about segmented assimilation, the recently arrived families in this study were not experiencing segmented assimilation. This is due to a lack of resources which maintains daily stresses of supporting themselves. The resettlement agency in the city where interviews were conducted solely provided housing and employment placement services, meaning that refugees had no resources for civic engagement, education, community building, and other necessary programs. While families are now physically safe, in terms of not being in a war zone or crowded refugee camp, their lives are still extremely strained, in part due to the lack of adjustment resources. Many families work long hours simply to have enough money to live in their apartment and feed their children. The lack of resources given to resettlement agencies, especially in the recent years under the Trump administration, have profound impacts on the lives of hundreds of refugees that are being resettled, and the thousands more that have not been allowed into the United States due to restrictions under the Trump administration. After refugees move to America, it takes time for them to establish their lives in their host country, and the lack of resources allocated to refugee resettlement impedes this process.

In the United States, the use of nuclear weapons is often associated with an era of scientific discovery which led to the security of the nation; yet there is another side to the nuclear era, one characterized by loss and irreversible consequences that is often overshadowed. One manner in which individuals connect to nuclear culture is through nuclear tourism: tourism centered around visiting sites associated with the nuclear age ranging from museums, to nuclear storage facilities, and even cities. I found myself intrigued with people’s obsession towards this dark area and wondered what laid beyond the tourism itself and how tourism affects society’s perceptions of nuclear weapons. I aimed to discover what side of the nuclear arms argument is being portrayed, and the potential implications, through analyzing the structure and advertising behind prominent tourist locations in the United States and Japan. After critically evaluating five nuclear tourism locations, it is clear that nuclear culture was largely portrayed with a sense of nationalistic pride which concurrently creates misconceptions about the use of nuclear weapons, numbing society to the humanity and suffering behind the machines. However, there were a few locations that painted the nuclear era in a different light; one that is truthful to the mass destruction and loss created by the nuclear era, sparking conversations that can lead to positive change. Overall, while nuclear tourism allows individuals to explore nuclear issues that face the world today, we must look beyond the technological contributions of the nuclear era and remember the humans whose lives were forever harmed as a result of using these weapons. It is critical to have avenues, such as tourism, to share knowledge about nuclearization that not only generate awareness but also work towards a world where nuclear weapons are simply a thing of the past.

For many Somali refugees in Italy, the journey from Somalia to Italian land is fueled by an overwhelming desire to seek better opportunities in education, employment, health, and lifestyle. As a country previously known for its luxurious beach resorts and affectionately named “the nation of poets,” Somalia has since dramatically shifted to a land inflicted with ongoing violence, terror, and instability. In this research, we will be exposing how the legacy of Italian colonial power has led to numerous detrimental effects on both the people and the government in Somalia. Furthermore, we will be investigating the ongoing refugee crisis in Somalia, focusing specifically on political and colonial history. Using an ethnographic approach, our research project provides insight into the harsh realities that face Somali refugee immigrant populations in Italy. Over the course of six weeks in Rome, Italy, our team has engaged in qualitative research methods in which we collected personal testimonies from current Somali refugees living in Rome through observations, interviews, and daily interactions. The results of our research will uncover the role Italy has had on the ongoing humanitarian crisis affecting the Somali diaspora.

The construction of the Hanford Nuclear Site was to aid the production of the atom bomb for the United States in World War II. This led to an era of secrecy, especially for the Hanford workers. A whistleblower is someone that brings about safety concerns about nuclear production to the public, but only with the risk of losing their job. Recent trends have shown that there are major consequences to whistleblowing, as many in the past who whistleblowed lost their jobs. However, whistleblowing is crucial to sustain the safety and health of many workers. Our purpose is to identify the motivations of these workers for either speaking out against the program or staying silent. Through analyzing interviews, literature and discourse, we hypothesize that whistleblowers at Hanford spoke out when they felt their moral obligations outweighed any monetary or social gain. Because the government heavily suppressed the voices of workers, we wish to better understand how society fosters environments where people are comfortable to speak out as opposed to promoting an environment of secrecy.

With the discovery of radioactive materials, many institutions have conducted numerous radiation experiments in order to further understand the effects of radiation and radioactive contamination on human bodies and their environments. While doing so, there has been a great amount of unequal health disparities among the different communities involved. Institutions, like the University of Washington, while held in high regard, have participated in experiments that have affected the livelihood of many people. To this day, common knowledge of the University of Washington’s participation is still obscured. There are many institutions in the United States that are like UW and are known for their extensive and groundbreaking research; with the funding and power they hold, people often don’t question their research or their ethical approach to conducting it. From our research, we obtained a greater understanding of what occurred throughout the experiments - thus our goal is to bring attention to the actions of the University of Washington researchers’, C. Alvin Paulsen’s and Lauren R. Donaldson’s, unethical research practices in the Marshall Islands and UW Walla Walla Prison Radiation Experiments. Our methods include analyzation of interviews with Tom Carpenter - the Executive Director of Hanford Challenge, discourse analysis, reviews of relevant literature and interpretations of visual elements. Because the research of C. Alvin Paulsen and Lauren R. Donaldson is locked away in UW’s Special Collections Library, we were unable to analyze their research directly. We anticipate that this project will ensue more curiosity and lead to the general public learning more about the University of Washington’s participation in human radiation experiments.

There are countless times in the past where people have attempted to expose systematic injustices committed by the U.S. government. Despite the fact that Hanford was a critical site in producing plutonium for the atomic bombs dropped during World War II, the contamination and subsequent health disparities remain shrouded in mystery and present dangers to future generations. In this project, we explore how the Hanford facility and the release of radioactive waste impacted the culture and daily activities related to diet, health, and faith of indigenous peoples in Washington State, as well as efforts by the government and native tribes that have been made in regards to cleaning Hanford and protecting tribal lands. By comparing interviews of Native Americans affected by the Manhattan Project, their oral histories, literature, public speeches, and using website discourse analysis of governmental sites, we made several important observations. Through our research, we found that among the devastating results of the Hanford contamination, the most common theme was the upheaval and marginalization of indigenous culture and the resulting inability of Natives to take part in community building activities such as wild game hunting, fishing, spiritual ceremonies, and trade with neighboring tribes. Not only did contamination tarnish relationships that local natives had with each other and the land, but there was and remains a strong correlation between subsequent cancer-related health disparities and bioaccumulation in natural resources. Nuclear radiation resulting from the Manhattan Project is not an issue of the past; its effects are far-reaching and will continue to mutate the physical and cultural conditions of the Native American tribes who lived in the area, relied on its resources, and were biologically affected by the processes involved at Hanford.

Currently in Latin America, there are no nuclear weapons. In 1967, the Treaty of Tlatelolco was created and signed by Latin America and the Caribbean. This treaty prohibits the possession of nuclear weapons of any kind, making Latin America a non-nuclear weapon state. The research question I will be addressing is: Even though there are no nuclear weapons in Latin America, does nuclearism play a role in shaping its culture? As a native Spanish speaker, I am able to use my knowledge of the culture by using methods to analyze popular music, language and literature regarding nuclear weapons. I studied the lyrical and visual aspect of music to look for themes of the naturalization of nuclear weapons, as well as finding how language plays a role in its normalization. I analyzed literature in order to find commonality of nuclear cultures between nations that possess nuclear weapons and those that do not. My initial findings show that there is a strong presence of a nuclear culture existing in Latin America despite the fact that the region does not own nuclear weapons. Research also shows that nuclear culture is normalized through important themes such as gender and sexuality. Its normalization is often not obvious and is a part of daily life. These results were unexpected because I hypothesized for a nuclear culture to be nonexistent in a region that prohibits nuclear weapons. It is important to conduct further research on how nuclear weapons affect regions that are non-nuclear weapon states because it would create a broader understanding of the effects that nuclear weapons have on everyone and how it is a global issue that needs to be addressed. 

Archaeologists increasingly use three-dimensional modeling to analyze artifact attributes and document in situ relationships. Less attention has been paid to modeling’s potential in strengthening connections between descendant communities and their cultural heritage. In collaboration with the Grand Ronde Historic Preservation Office, we created three-dimensional models of excavation units and belongings associated with the Molalla Encampment, a late nineteenth and early twentieth century settlement area on the Grand Ronde Reservation in northwestern Oregon. This work proceeded in two steps. First, we established a modeling methodology applicable to a variety of excavation contexts and artifact types. This required defining proper artifact handling techniques and modeling procedures, including optimal camera settings and software workflow. Second, we used this methodology to capture hundreds of artifacts photos in order to build each model. Photogrammetry provides an alternative approach to heritage curation, allowing us to share interactive, three-dimensional models of historic belongings within the Grand Ronde community. This not only lends additional transparency to our research process, it can also initiate conversations with tribal members about the functions and meanings of belongings in historic reservation lifeways. Photogrammetry can thus play an important role in the development of community-based research practices.

Analysis of faunal remains provides crucial insight into the subsistence patterns of past groups. This is particularly important for the Grand Ronde community in northwestern Oregon, where past and present populations have balanced traditional practices and lifeways with imposed colonial assimilation pressures and economies. This research examines faunal remains found at the Molalla Encampment and Grand Ronde Agency Schoolhouse, two nineteenth and early twentieth century archaeological sites on the Grand Ronde Reservation. Our research focuses on documenting and analyzing faunal remain attributes such as degree of fragmentation, taxonomic presence, and bone modification at the two sites. In addition to comparative faunal analysis, our research takes a step further by looking into the implications of observed bone modifications. Aided by archival and primary sources, we reconstructed the taphonomic pathways of these remains, determining whether they have been altered by either humans or animals. For example, our analysis of cut marks revealed if meat was butchered commercially at the site, what meat cuts were consumed, and meat prices at Grande Ronde during the early 1900s. Comparing these data by site and stratigraphic level paints a better picture of life at Grand Ronde across space and time. This research provides insight into subsistence patterns within the Grand Ronde community and how they navigated the challenges and opportunities of life on the reservation.

Analysis of plant foods and medicines is a growing field within archaeological research. However, few scholars have examined plant foods among Native American communities in colonial settings. This project combined archival and archaeological data to better understand plant use within the Grand Ronde community during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Field Methods in Indigenous Archaeology (FMIA), a community-based research partnership between UW and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Historic Preservation Office, has collected macrobotanical remains from the Grand Ronde Reservation in northwestern Oregon. I explored how and why these remains were used within the community. Knowing this information will provide a better sense of local environmental contexts and cultural lifeways. To study this question, I selected ten plants that have been recovered during FMIA’s excavations and examined ethnographic, archaeological, and documentary sources from the region to understand each plant’s cultural context. I found that most plants found on the reservation were used as food sources, though some also had medicinal and spiritual significance. This work sheds new light on the relationships between Native communities and plants in the Pacific Northwest over the past two centuries, helping us understand how people navigated the challenges and opportunities introduced by colonialism.

Through rapid industrialization and development, much of the Green River Valley landscape and townships from the earlier periods of settlement have been obscured. However, several historical cemeteries remain largely preserved. Cemeteries can have an equalizing power when it comes to representation of past populations, while preserving societal ideas of hierarchy. While cemeteries cannot tell the full history and lives of those interred, they do provide names, ages, and the placement of the individual in conversation with other deceased people. A cemetery is not a passive location in a town, but rather a place created with the ability to reflect societal values regarding death and social integration and spiritual significance for the living. My research focuses on what relationships can be rediscovered in the development of the Green River Valley’s townships, as these relationships may speak to the social organization of the Valley townships in development, the role death had in society, and how race, gender, religion or other factors were presented. These relationships will be investigated following three lines of inquiry: a) relationship among the dead in cemeteries, b) relationship between cemeteries and the living in modern and historical times, and c) relationship of the deceased’s identity and their position within the cemetery landscape.  Though each cemetery has been researched and written about separately, conducting a survey of several cemeteries in the region and analyzing them together will allow for a bigger picture of health discrepancies between men and women, white and non-white residents, and differences of land quality broadly associated with members of different social classes, building a more comprehensive history of the Green River Valley.

Tubal ligation, or tubal sterilization, refers to a set of permanent female sterilization procedures that bilaterally occlude or remove the fallopian tubes, typically to prevent conception. These procedures range in invasiveness, cost, and popularity, and comprise the first or second most popular contraceptive method in the world. Current scientific literature emphasizes the methods by which tubal sterilization can be achieved, but lacks the perspective of the women receiving them. As a result, women have turned to social media to share their experiences, ask questions, and gain insight into what tubal sterilization is like. My research compiles the tubal ligation experiences of women from the United States to explain, via personal experience and surgical methodology, what women can expect from the moment that they ask for a tubal ligation to the time that they heal from their procedures. Ethnographic interviews were conducted with 13 women who had previously used social media to discuss their tubal ligation stories. These interviews suggested three main themes: firstly, that regret among electively sterilized women is incredibly low; secondly, the lack of support for women seeking tubal sterilization from medical professionals is so profound that the majority of my participants felt fortunate to simply have been listened to; and thirdly, that social media allows for women to simultaneously normalize elective sterilization, advocate for their own bodily autonomy, and support other women who seek sterilization. This research provides a glimpse of tubal ligation from the patient perspective to inform medical professionals and women alike.

Women in the most underserved area of Seattle experience higher rates of pre-term birth, low birthweight rates, and cesarean section surgeries. The focus of this project is to see if female genital circumcision (FGC) correlates with the cause of these issues, but also if there are other factors that have an influence on high reproductive health disparities such as, racism, access to resources, and any other barriers of the community that are driving these issues. This project works with Somali immigrant and refugee residents in the south Seattle area because it is the most under-served, ethnically and economically diverse area. Somalia has the highest rate of women who have undergone the practice of FGM/C with a leading 98% of the female population between the ages of 15-49 years being circumcised. My project works collaboratively with the Mama AMAAN Project which seeks to test out a community-led, integrative services approach to improve perinatal health outcomes in this population. The goal of my project is to understand why these issues are consistently happening amongst women that come from similar backgrounds, more specific amongst East African women. While trying to reach the goal of this project, we seek to answer the following questions; What are the ways that FGC played a part in their perinatal experience and outcomes for Mom and infant? What is their perspective on the practices of FGC in Seattle as relates to themselves, their families, their community? To accomplish the goal of my research I plan on using qualitative methods by conducting written surveys, participant-observation during child birth education sessions. This project is significant because it assesses the reason for the high rates of reproductive health disparity that we are seeing amongst the women of the Somali community and how FGC is related to those problems, if at all.

Homo naledi is a species of hominin that lived in South Africa at between 335-236 ka, around the same time that anatomically modern humans were evolving in Africa. While the lower limb of Homo naledi shares many characteristics indicative of obligate bipedality with modern humans, the upper limb shows a more primitive morphology related to climbing. The distal humerus is one of the more common bony elements found in the fossil record and its morphology directly reflects the functional requirements of the limb, making it a good place to study upper limb function and adaptation. Using 3D geometric morphometrics, we compared seven distal humeri attributed to Homo naledi with distal humeri from great apes, modern humans, Neandertals, and other extinct hominins to place H. naledi in a functional context. We conducted a principal components analysis and partial least squares analysis on anatomical landmark data to investigate variation in distal humeral shape. Preliminary results indicate that H. naledi had a distal humeral morphology broadly similar to gorillas and unlike modern humans. Our results provide new insights into the upper limb mechanics and the role of climbing in the locomotion of Homo naledi, as well as clarify their phylogenetic relationship with other hominins.

Human behavior can be understood through the lense of evolutionary psychology as the product of biological and psychological adaptations to an ancestral environment. This approach serves as my conceptual basis for design as I ask the question, how can we create public spaces best suited to our evolved needs as Homo sapiens? I begin the process by compiling a list of evolutionary theories for a variety of human behaviors. Preliminary designs for public spaces in a range of urban contexts are then sketched, expounded upon using digital design software including Adobe Illustrator, and clarified for inclusion in my final product, the urban design look book: Designs by Origin. Existing public space designs accessed online serve as precedents within the final lookbook and as inspiration during my creative process. Accompanying my final designs are explanations of the evolutionary theories that inspired them as well as visual aids addressing both my creative process and the underlying science. This exploration of evolutionary psychology and urban design in tandem reveals a new method for design and a new lens through which the urban environment can be viewed. Designs by Origin will provide urban designers of all disciplines with an understanding of the dynamic natural process that produced their intended users and a relevant method for using this information to inform public space design.

How does one live an ethical and equitable life in the midst of a unequal world? Industrialization and globalization has created a hierarchy of wealth, giving the upper hand to the Global North while exploiting the Global South for cheap labor and lenient laws. As a result of this unequal reality that we live in, the Handcraft Movement was born in India. A modern adaptation of the Swadeshi Movement, a social crusade led by Mahatma Gandhi during the time of British colonization, the Handcraft Movement supports the self-sustaining nature of the handcrafting industry. It promotes the belief of staying, buying, and sourcing locally, ultimately redirecting the power to the people rather than to the large corporations. My interests lie in evaluating the social, economic, and political impacts this movement has had on this region but also on a global scale. To show the global effects, I lightly touched upon the parallel but differently located handcrafting industry found in the Pacific Northwest in order to better understand how value is ascribed due to locality rather than by sheer input. Gaining insight through interviews as well as with participant observation and photography, I have gained a more comprehensive perspective into the complexity behind how we as people ascribe value to materials in addition to seeing how this ascription has caused either failure or success in the handcraft industry. An ever evovling understanding, this project meerly scratches the surface of the significance of value and the subjectivity of this term. Acknowledging this complexity then allows for us as consumers and communities to better appreciate and more consciously participate in a globalized society.