We are living in a world of gender, but it’s difficult to grasp its shape because of its fluidity and complexity. And yet, many of us are taught to believe that gender only exist as “either-or”, or that it is merely about our own identities. My research about gender in my gender and sexuality course GWSS 200 and GWSS 390 have offered me the tools to better articulate historic and current ideas and experiences related to gender and place. With this interactive zine project, I invite my audiences to question and interrogate assumptions about gender and our gendered world through words and images. I introduce a series of terms and their definitions accompanied by abstract graphics based on my own understanding and experiences. During the reading process, I encourage my readers to embrace and embody those terms through their deeply personal lenses and experiences, as well as through guided intentional practices, like making art pieces or writing poems with the terms and ideas provided in the zine. in so doing, participants examine their own vulnerabilities around gender in a safe space. Unfamiliar vocabularies are intended to evoke questions if not some confusions, but that’s the point. I hope to deepen our awareness of gender-related topics and ongoing issues through a humane, educational, and playful strategy, and eventually, cultivate more empathy within us. 

Campus safety issues are not typically included in institutional diversity efforts. However, it's important to understand how students with diverse ranges of social identities perceive campus safety; promoting safety should be prioritized. To understand marginalized student perceptions of campus safety and policy, I analyzed focus group transcripts (31 participants) from PNW LSAMP (Pacific Northwest Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation) students and recent alumni from the University of Washington, Washington State University, Oregon State University, Portland State University and Boise State University. Data was coded deductively in NVivo by a pre-determined coding scheme guided by the research question but allowing for inductive coding as other themes emerged. My findings indicate that gender identity has a high impact on perceived safety. Women and non binary individuals tended to discuss feeling uncomfortable in campus areas at night and mentioned taking preventative safety measures like carrying tasers. Participants identified emergency blue lights and safe rides as initiatives which maintained or improved safety feelings. This indicates that on some level, universities are already protecting marginalized students. Little discussion on policy improvement emerged, but instead how universities can use clarity and police presence (or absence) to show students they value their safety. Namely, several Black/African American participants expressed preference for more detailed notifications on how to take action when safety threats are alerted to the university community. Participants generally expressed that police did not improve their safety perceptions or that police presence could detract from other students’ safety depending on their race. These findings suggest that universities are protecting marginalized student safety to some degree. Next steps include clarifying safety notifications, expanding safe ride and emergency blue light operations, and conducting broader surveys on perceptions of campus and municipal police, given police brutality incidents and mixed literature.

Universities hold expectations of students to possess forms of cultural and social capital in order to be successful in their educational careers. This may include knowledge of the financial aid process, an ability to build relationships with faculty, and an understanding of cultural norms of the middle-class. While research shows that underrepresented students may be less likely to possess this capital, institutional expectations regarding social/cultural capital, specifically among first-generation (FG) students, seems largely unexplored in educational research. The goal of our research is to identify the hidden things FG students are expected to learn in higher education, and how they are able to learn those things. We conducted focus groups of students enrolled in LSAMP (a program that supports underrepresented students in STEM) across 5 universities in the Pacific Northwest over Zoom. Our research focuses on how the hidden curriculum, through the lense of cultural norms and the Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA), serves as a barrier to self-identified first-generation students in STEM. Focus groups were conducted by LSAMP students across three universities affiliated with LSAMP and researchers at the University of Washington. Focus groups were recorded and transcribed through Zoom, and later coded and analyzed. Our analysis focuses on identifying common barriers among FG STEM students. In our focus groups, FG students spoke about how relationships with faculty and peers were hard to establish because of their FG background, or because of different/potentially intersecting identities, and also how the FAFSA served as a barrier to them. Our findings support the idea that knowledge of the hidden norms and processes may be expected of students by universities, and that FG students may not possess this knowledge. By developing a better understanding of the experiences of FG students with the hidden curriculum, we can better learn how to support these students.

Ewing sarcoma (ES) is a bone and soft tissue tumor that primarily occurs in children and young adults. The tumor is driven by an oncogenic fusion gene that fuses the EWSR1 gene located on chromosome 22 to FLI1, an ETS family transcription factor located on chromosome 11. EWS-FLI1 promotes tumorigenesis through transcriptional and epigenetic dysregulation. Despite maximally intensive cytotoxic therapy, the outcome for patients with metastatic ES remains poor, thus the need to identify new therapeutic agents. Given ES’s epigenetic dependencies, there is strong rationale to investigate epigenetic modifying drugs. Bromodomain and extra terminal domain (BET) proteins function as epigenetic readers that facilitate transcription and are upregulated in many tumors. I have shown that BET inhibition slows the growth of ES cells in vitro and in mice. However, BET inhibitors (BETi) will not be successful as a single agent. I hypothesize that combining BETi with other biologically targeted agents will lead to synergistic effects and tumor regression. Based on established literature, RNA-seq data of BETi-treated ES cells, and in silico drug screen, we selected Copanlisib (PI3K inhibitor), GSK-126 (EZH2 inhibitor), PP121 (Src, mTOR, VEGFR2, PI3K inhibitor), Danusertib (Aurora Kinase inhibitor) and Infigratinib (FGFR inhibitor) to test in combination with BETi (BMS-986158). Using standard in vitro cytotoxic assays and calculating synergy using the Chou-Talalay method, my preliminary results showed strong synergy between Copanlisib and BMS-986158. I detected no synergy between BMS-986158 and GSK-126. Our initial results from our in silico drug screen predict that Danusertib, Infigratinib and PP121 may be synergistic with BETi. Ongoing in vitro studies are testing this. Promising combinations will be tested in vivo xenograft models. It is our goal to identify drug combinations from the drug screen that will enhance the cytotoxic effects of BETi in vitro and lead to tumor regression in vivo.

 Microglia, the resident immune cells in the brain, have multiple functions including synaptic pruning to preserve resources, phagocytosis of apoptotic cells, and isolation and removal of foreign material. Depending on local environmental stimuli, microglia can change their shape between multiple states including highly branched, branched, or ameboid. To better understand microglia responses to changes in the brain environment, I investigated morphological shape features that include changes in area, circularity, and aspect ratio among other important features. I specifically focused on the microglial response to oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD). Oxygen-glucose deprivation is a condition where the brain fails to receive the necessary oxygen and nutrients for growth and maintenance, resulting in higher levels of stress and cytotoxicity. Investigating the effects of OGD on microglia is part of a larger effort - developing a fluorescent imaging pipeline called microFIBER. Our goal for microFIBER is to create an unbiased, detailed, and replicable analysis pipeline for the robust characterization of microglia morphology. Images are from a previous investigation into effects of OGD on neonatal rat brains in the Nance Lab. We used SciKit-Image along with other Python packages to segment, label, and quantify the geometry of fluorescent-labeled microglia cells in the images. SciKit-Image’s module RegionProps was used to quantify shape features by drawing certain properties over the objects and then measuring those drawings. I then analyzed the response of microglia in non-treated, 1.5-hour OGD exposure, and 3-hour OGD exposure via data analysis in Python and Excel. I further divided these treatment groups into regional comparisons of the cortex, hippocampus, and thalamus. Results from statistical analysis supported differences between treatment groups and brain region, including statistically relevant differences in microglial circularity, area, and axes lengths. Differences in shape features could be used in the future as markers for diseased or distressed conditions for medical diagnosis.