SSRD 2024 Schedule: Room 2

Room 2 Schedule: Eaton 209

• 10:30 a.m. | SAMUEL DILLON | Walvis Bay: A case study in Chinese investment

  Walvis Bay is the largest port in the southern African nation of Namibia, and handles a majority of Namibia’s ocean cargo. In 2016, the Namibian government issued a contract to a Chinese state-owned enterprise to modernize the port. Using first hand interviews on site, the project explores how the expansion affected the city’s local businesses and the community’s opinion of the Chinese, and potential for future economic growth. This project aims to contribute to a growing body of work examining the impacts that little-known Chinese investments are having across the world.

  Faculty Sponsor: Yan Liang
  Discipline: CCSRG/Economics

• 10:50 a.m. | EVA ROSE FLOYD | Using Music in the Prison Rehabilitation Process

   I will present information on the use of music in prisons based on my observational experience of musical programs in prisons and reintegration centers, along with interviews I conducted this past summer. I will outline the programs at each facility I visited, and how I observed music being used in each situation. I will also discuss what I learned from the people leading these programs and from talking to the participants of these programs.

  Faculty Sponsor: Scott Nadelson
  Discipline: CCSRG/PPLE

• 11:10 a.m. | LILLY THIES | A Digital Humanities Approach to Investigating the Transformations of Bob Dylan

  This research project investigated the transformations throughout the 60-year career
  of Bob Dylan using a digital humanities approach.This project builds on previous research to explore the psychological categories employed in Dylan’s lyrics corpus over time, and how these trends changed when adding archival material and covers. 771 songs were imported into LIWC software to discern what percentage of words in Dylan’s lyrics fit into 12 chosen psychological categories. Significant increases were observed in Authenticity, Positive Emotion, and Religion, while many categories experienced significant median variability during important periods, and adding archival material and covers revealed differences in psychological trends.

  Faculty Sponsor: Erik Noftle
  Discipline: CCSRG/Psychology

• 11:30 a.m. | MILO MALTZ | A Month in the Borderlands

  No More Death/No Más Muertes (NMD) provides humanitarian aid to migrants who have crossed the United States/Mexico border. This organization also performs searches, rescues, and recovers human remains. However, they are not the only humanitarian aid organization present at the border. Why do so many people choose to volunteer with them? NMD centers migrants' expressed needs and provides volunteers with food and housing so that they can focus on supporting the people who have crossed. This creates an empowered community united around the goal of ending suffering in the desert.

  Faculty Sponsor: Jeanne Clark
  Discipline: CCSRG/Public Health

• 1:30 p.m. | Presidential Scholars Symposium - MELISSA DUNCAN | Thermodynamic and Structural Analysis of Quadruplexes
  Quadruplex molecular beacons (QMBs) are DNA strands that have shown promise in research to be used as a biosensor for detecting different diseases. This is done by using miRNA, a type of RNA that is upregulated within the body when specific diseases are present. Research is specifically focused on looking at the structure and stability of the QMBs. Stability data is obtained by taking absorbance values of QMBs using a UV-Visible spectrophotometer; whereas structural data is taken using a CD spectrophotometer, done in collaboration with Dr. Mike Harms at the University of Oregon.
• 2:00 p.m. | Presidential Scholars Symposium - MATTHEW MAHONEY | Salvador Dali at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art: A Critical Appraisal
  This presidential scholarship-sponsored research involved translating and compiling the five Salvador Dali portfolios at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art (depicting Alchemy of the Philosophers, Poems of Mao Tse-Tsoung, Don Quixote, Le Tricorne, and Les Caprices) into catalogue books so that larger audiences can access them online. The project also involved curating an exhibition with hand-selected prints by Salvador Dali, providing their analysis and interpretation. Finally, it entailed the production of an episode about reevaluating the historiography of Surrealism and modern art for a podcast.