Undergraduate Research: An Archive - 2021 Program

MAY 2021 

Undergraduate 

Research: An Archive

"refractory planes" by Rachel Mrkaich ’21, Art and Archaeology 

Founded in 1994 as the Princeton Environmental Institute, the High 

Meadows Environmental Institute advances understanding of the 

Earth as a complex system influenced by human activities, and 

informs solutions to local and global challenges by conducting 

groundbreaking research across disciplines and by preparing future 

leaders in diverse fields to impact a world increasingly shaped by 

climate change. 

1

Undergraduate Research: 

An Archive 

Celebrating independent work on environmental 

topics by students in the Class of 2021 

The High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) is 

pleased to present an archive of environmental research 

projects completed by students in the Class of 2021. 

During their time at Princeton, the students whose work 

is profiled in this booklet have been affiliated with HMEI 

as participants in the Certificate Program in 

Environmental Studies, and/or received support from 

HMEI for field research associated with their senior 

independent projects. 

As a volume, this compendium reflects the great variety 

of environmental research pursued by seniors from 17 

academic disciplines on topics including climate science, 

biodiversity, health and disease, environmental policy, 

agriculture, urban sustainability and the environmental 

humanities. 

HMEI congratulates the students on their individual 

achievements and for their contributions to the body of 

environmental research being undertaken at Princeton 

to advance understanding and solutions at a time when 

environmental issues are among the most urgent 

challenges facing society and the planet. 

2

Index of Students 

(Alphabetical) 

Amy Amatya 21 

Pablo Bickenbach 9 

Janaya Bruce 10 

Casey Conrad 48 

Will Conte 7 

Sasha Culley 37 

Enzo Dominguez 22 

Alice Egar 11 

Lindsay Emi 29 

Christopher Gliwa 25 

Julia Harisay 38 

Julia Ilhardt 39 

Hans Imhof 40 

Hana Jiang 12 

Asia Kaiser 13 

Jimin Kang 30 

Joe Kawalec 14 

Ingrid Koester 15 

Luca Kuziel 16 

Taylor Machette 17 

Hugues Martin Dit Neuville 49 

Rebecca Mays 26 

Kailie McGeoy 41 

Lauren McGrath 42 

Emma McMahon 23 

Olivia Meyers 18 

Rachel Mrkaich 31 

Levy Nathan 24 

Emma O'Donnell 19 

Favour Oribhabor 8 

Maddie Pendolino 43 

Mollie Price 32

Brendan Raville 20 

Emily Reinhold 44 

Zoe Rennie 33 

Kiera Robinson 45 

Beverly Shen 50 

Yehuda Sinaga 34 

Willemijn ten Cate 46 

Kaley Ubellacker 27 

Charlotte Wallace 28 

John Wesley Wiggins 47 

Janet You 35 

Rei Zhang 36

Index of Student Research 

by Category (Alphabetical) 

AGRICULTURE AND 

FOOD SYSTEMS 

Will Conte 7 

Favour Oribhabor 8 

BIODIVERSITY AND 

CONSERVATION 

Pablo Bickenbach 9 

Janaya Bruce 10 

Alice Egar 11 

Hana Jiang 12 

Asia Kaiser 13 

Joe Kawalec 14 

Ingrid Koester 15 

Luca Kuziel 16 

Taylor Machette 17 

Olivia Meyers 18 

Emma O'Donnell 19 

Brendan Raville 20 

CLIMATE AND 

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 

Amy Amatya 21 

Enzo Dominguez 22 

Emma McMahon 23 

Levy Nathan 24 

ENVIRONMENTAL 

ENGINEERING 

Christopher Gliwa 25 

Rebecca Mays 26 

Kaley Ubellacker 27 

Charlotte Wallace 28

ENVIRONMENTAL 

HUMANITIES AND CULTURE 

Lindsay Emi 29 

Jimin Kang 30 

Rachel Mrkaich 31 

Mollie Price 32 

HEALTH AND DISEASE 

Zoe Rennie 33 

Yehuda Sinaga 34 

Janet You 35 

Rei Zhang 36 

Hans Imhof 40 

Kailie McGeoy 41 

Lauren McGrath 42 

Maddie Pendolino 43 

Emily Reinhold 44 

Kiera Robinson 45 

Willemijn ten Cate 46 

John Wesley Wiggins 47 

URBAN SUSTAINABILITY 

Casey Conrad 48 

Hugues Martin Dit Neuville 49 

Beverly Shen 50 

POLICY, NORMS AND 

BEHAVIOR 

Sasha Culley 37 

Julia Harisay 38 

Julia Ilhardt 39


FOOD SYSTEMS 

Will Conte ’21 

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL 

AFFAIRS 

Certificate in Environmental Studies 

THESIS TITLE 

Reconceptualizing the 

Farmer Tenure Contract 

for a Greener Tomorrow 

ADVISER 

Timothy Searchinger, 

Senior Research 

Scholar, School of 

Public and International 

Affairs and the Center 

for Policy Research on 

Energy and the 

Environment 

Conventional wisdom suggests that farmers who 

lease land are less likely to invest in its longterm 

productivity. I explored the relationship 

between land tenure and the adoption of two 

soil-conservation practices — cover cropping and 

no-tillage — by evaluating county-level survey 

and remote sensing data from the U.S. Corn Belt. 

I found that the prevalence of rental activity is 

associated with a decline in the adoption of one 

or both of these practices. These findings offer a 

promising addition to the existing quantitative 

scholarship on this issue. I then studied existing 

qualitative research and interviewed several 

individuals in the agriculture sector to explore 

possible solutions. Currently, the costs and 

risks of conservation are shouldered primarily 

by tenants while the benefits accrue mainly 

to landowners and society. I found that a 

redistribution of risk and cost between tenants 

and operators, and tenants and society, is 

necessary. I suggest that tenants be compensated 

by operators through cost-sharing, longer lease 

terms, and flexible lease arrangements. Tenants 

also should be compensated by society through 

increased funding of conservation programs and 

the implementation of a carbon banking system 

that pays farmers for the carbon sequestered 

through conservation practices. 

7

Favour Oribhabor ’21 

CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING 



FOOD SYSTEMS 

THESIS TITLE 

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to 

Dust Bowl: An Analysis 

of Boise City Historic 

Drought Events as 

Compared to the 1930s 

Dust Bowl 

ADVISER 

Amilcare Porporato, 

Thomas J. Wu '94 

Professor of Civil and 

Environmental 

Engineering, Professor 

of Civil and 

Environmental 

Engineering and the 

High Meadows 

Environmental Institute 

The Great Plains of the United States is an 

area essential to the country’s economy and 

nutritional survival due to being the source of 

a majority of crops. The Plains also are waterlimited, 

drought-prone and have a varying 

climate wherein sub-freezing and triple-digit 

temperatures occur over the course of a year. 

Those factors — in combination with poor 

agricultural practices — caused the 1930s Dust 

Bowl and exacerbated its effects. More major 

drought events have happened over time. The 

period from 2011-2016 was so extreme as to 

inspire Oklahoma farmers to call it a "Second 

Dust Bowl." My study compared parameters of 

interest for these major drought events in Boise 

City, Oklahoma, focusing on crop yields and 

frequency of winter wheat and cotton, two of the 

most valuable crops for Oklahoma. My research 

shows the effects of changing agricultural 

techniques on drought resilience. 

8

Pablo Bickenbach ’21 

COMPUTER SCIENCE B.S.E. 



CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

Computer Vision for 

Wildlife Conservation: A 

Detection and 

Classification Pipeline 

for Camera Trap Images 

ADVISER 

Olga Russakovsky, 

Assistant Professor of 

Computer Science 

I applied computer-vision techniques to address 

a real-world problem in wildlife conservation 

—the filtering and classification of large 

numbers of images captured with motionsensor 

camera traps. Through the use of deep 

learning convolutional neural networks (CNNs), 

I built a pipeline that automates this task, first 

by detecting the presence of animals in camera 

trap images (and discarding “empty” images), 

then by classifying these detections by animal 

species. When tested on data sets from different 

African nature reserves, the pipeline achieved an 

overall accuracy of 75% to 88%, demonstrating its 

efficacy and its potential for aiding camera trap 

conservation projects. 

9

Janaya Bruce ’21 

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 


THESIS TITLE 

How Do Coral Reefs 

Respond to Climate 

Change? Investigating 

the Role of 

Symbiodiniaceae 

Community Composition 

on Coral Performance 

Under Long-Term 

Exposure to Warming 

and Acidification 

ADVISERS 

José Avalos, Assistant 

Professor of Chemical 

and Biological 


Andlinger Center for 


Environment; Robert 

Toonen, Professor, 

Hawai'i Institute of 

Marine Biology, 

University of Hawai'i at 

Mānoa 

Changes in environmental factors can cause 

coral to expel their endosymbiotic community 

of algae in the family Symbiodiniaceae, leaving 

coral vulnerable to disease and mortality. One 

method through which coral can acclimatize to 

fluctuations in ocean temperature is by shuffling 

their Symbiodiniaceae community to increase 

relative proportions of temperature-tolerant 

symbionts. I conducted a two-year mesocosm 

experiment investigating the effects of long-term 

exposure to ocean acidification and warming on 

Symbiodiniaceae communities in eight species 

of Hawaiian coral. Coral were collected from six 

locations around O'ahu and exposed to endof-century 

temperature and pH conditions for 

two years. We found that temperature is a more 

significant driver of changes to Symbiodiniaceae 

community composition than pH in Hawaiian 

corals. We additionally demonstrated that 

changes in symbiont communities arise from 

the shuffling of current symbionts and the 

incorporation of novel symbionts from the 

environment, which has implications for coral 

resilience to future climate change 


CONSERVATION 

10

Alice Egar ’21 

ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 

Senior Thesis Research Funding Awardee 


CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

Responses of Broadtailed 

Hummingbird 

Foraging Behavior to 

Climate Change Across 

Multiple Temporal 

Scales 

ADVISER 

Mary (Cassie) Stoddard, 


Ecology and 

Evolutionary Biology 

Each summer, broad-tailed hummingbirds 

(Selasphorus platycercus) migrate from their 

overwintering grounds in Central America to 

their breeding grounds in the western United 

States. As climate change causes the timing 

of hummingbird migration and wildflower 

bloom to shift at different rates, this plantpollinator 

mutualism is at risk of temporal 

mismatch. To determine how climate change 

may affect hummingbird foraging patterns, I 

analyzed time-lapse footage from Colorado of 

hummingbirds visiting flowers in two years with 

very different climatic conditions. Contrary to 

my expectations that foraging would be more 

restricted in the year of earlier snowmelt, I 

found that in the year of very late snowmelt, 

hummingbirds extended their daily foraging 

periods and visited less favored flowers, which 

is indicative of resource limitation. I also found 

that networks of hummingbird-plant interactions 

varied greatly across time, and that diel patterns 

in hummingbird foraging varied depending on 

flower species and environmental conditions. My 

study highlights the flexibility of hummingbird 

behavior in response to environmental variation 

and points to the utility of long-term camera trap 

studies of plant-pollinator interactions as a way 

to better understand these networks and their 

responses to climate change. 

11

Hana Jiang ’21 



THESIS TITLE 

Backyard Biodiversity: 

An Analysis of Butterfly 

Richness and 

Abundance Within 

Suburban Habitat Types 

in Southeast Michigan 

ADVISER 

David Wilcove, 

Professor of Ecology 

and Evolutionary 

Biology and Public 

Affairs and the High 

Meadows Environmental 

Institute 

Urbanization, urban sprawl and the resulting 

rural-urban gradient have had major impacts on 

biodiversity. Yet, few studies have investigated 

their effects on butterfly species in suburban 

habitats. The goal of this thesis was to investigate 

the variables characterizing different types of 

habitats within a suburban landscape and their 

resulting impact on butterfly species richness 

and abundance, using butterfly sightings as 

a metric. The proportion of flowering species 

and distance to the nearest road had significant 

effects on species richness and abundance. 

The highest species richness per survey point 

occurred in the garden habitat, while the highest 

individual abundance per survey point occurred 

in the meadow habitat; however, butterfly 

communities were generally very similar across 

all habitat types. My thesis adds to the limited 

knowledge of butterfly communities in suburbs 

in general and in southeast Michigan, an area 

that has historically been understudied. 


CONSERVATION 

12

Asia Kaiser ’21 




CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

Social Behavior in Two 

American Sweat Bees 

ADVISER 

Sarah Kocher, 


Ecology and 


and the Lewis-Sigler 

Institute for Integrative 

Genomics 

The Halictidae (sweat bee) family contains 

some of the greatest variety of social behavior in 

insects across the globe, making it an excellent 

model clade for comparative behavioral research. 

My study aimed to characterize social behavior 

differences between two closely related halictid 

species: the solitary Augochlora pura, and the 

facultatively eusocial Augochlorella aurata. My 

hypotheses were that these bees would exhibit 

different conspecific social behaviors — between 

strangers and familiar individuals — with 

the solitary A. pura being more avoidant and 

aggressive overall, and the social A. aurata being 

more tolerant. My results showed that these 

two species do display different social patterns, 

with the social species being unexpectedly more 

spatially avoidant than the solitary species. 

Comparative studies of this kind can complement 

research in other fields such as sociogenomics by 

showing the specific social-behavior variations 

that can result from genetic and physiological 

differences. 

13

THESIS TITLE 

Conspicuousness and 

Crypsis in Woodpecker 

Coloration 

ADVISER 

Mary (Cassie) Stoddard, 


Ecology and 


Joe Kawalec ’21 


Certificate in Environmental Studies; Becky Colvin 

’95 Memorial Award Recipient; Senior Thesis 

Research Funding Awardee 

Understanding how camouflage and warning 

coloration is linked to species’ survival is 

important for the conservation of biodiversity 

and balances within ecosystems. Woodpeckers 

exhibit a variety of natural patterning and 

play significant ecological roles in their 

environments. I examined if the coloration of 

the downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) 

functions as a warning coloration at close 

distances by testing the responses of wild birds 

to 3D-printed downy woodpecker models placed 

in a feeder-choice experiment. I also investigated 

if downy patterning serves as camouflage when 

viewed from farther distances by conducting 

a detection experiment in the woods. Finally, I 

analyzed images of pied (black-and-white) and 

plain black downy woodpecker models against 

the background of tree barks to quantify the 

impact of patterning on camouflage. While I 

did not find significant evidence for a function 

of warning coloration, I did find that the 

patterning of downy woodpeckers may give 

it increased camouflage through disruptive 

coloration and luminance background matching. 

These results suggest that downy woodpeckers 

may use camouflage to avoid predation in 

forested environments, which warrants further 

investigation of their coloration. 


CONSERVATION 

14

Ingrid Koester ’21 




CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

But Do You Recall, Why 

Reindeer Populations 

Rise and Fall? A 

Theoretical Model of 

Reindeer (Rangifer 

tarandus) and Warble 

Flies (Hypoderma 

tarandi) 

ADVISER 

Andrew Dobson, 

Professor of Ecology 


Biology 

While multiple mechanisms may contribute 

to the long-term population fluctuations of 

reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), the parasitic warble 

fly (Hypoderma tarandi) may be an overlooked 

contributor. I investigated this possibility by first 

constructing a basic theoretical model of this 

host/parasite system using the work of Crofton 

and May as a foundation, and then introducing 

additional nuance through host age-structure, 

parasite predators and climatic data. The model 

constructions were subsequently fit to observed 

field data of eight reindeer herds using both 

single-input projections (fitting the model to the 

entire time-series) and forecasting predictions 

(fitting the model to half of the time-series). 

The average normalized RMSD value (root 

mean square deviation between observed and 

expected population sizes) across all herds was 

0.3797 for the single-input projections and was 

0.7036. for the forecasting predictions. Changes 

in latitude, herd status and herd ecotype show 

statistically significant correlations with changes 

in the normalized RMSD values. This study 

demonstrated that warble flies may be critical 

regulators of long-term reindeer population 

cycles. The models produced stable oscillations 

and have a predictive ability for some reindeer 

herds, particularly for herds with migratory 

tundra as its dominant ecotype. Future research 

should confirm these results through empirical 

parasite-removal experiments. 

15

Luca Kuziel ’21 


Certificate in Environmental Studies; Senior 

Thesis Research Funding Awardee 

THESIS TITLE 

Mind the (Phylogenetic) 

Gap: Exploring the 

Routes through 

Ungulate Intestines of 

Passenger and Resident 

Fungi 

ADVISER 

Robert Pringle, 

Associate Professor of 

Ecology and 


What animals eat and how they digest it is 

important information for conservation efforts. 

More generally, understanding the factors that 

drive community composition at all levels, from 

megaherbivores in a savanna to microbes in a 

gut, is poorly understood. Fungi in diets and 

microbiomes are understudied despite their 

potential importance to the livestock industry 

and its efforts to reduce methane emissions, as 

well as the importance of symbiotic relationships 

between many fungal and plant species to 

ecosystem health. My thesis investigated the 

fungal components of the diets and microbiomes 

of five mammalian herbivores and one omnivore 

from six locations in East and Southern Africa. 

While fungal libraries are incomplete, we were 

able to uncover unexpected locational variation 

in both the diets and microbiomes. Phylogenetic 

factors also helped explain variation in our data, 

but to a lesser extent. We also were surprised to 

find very few large mushrooms in our data. 


CONSERVATION 

16

Taylor Machette ’21 




CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

The Determinants and 

Potential Functions of 

Synchronous Diving in 

Short-Finned Pilot 

Whales 

ADVISER 

Daniel Rubenstein, 

Class of 1877 Professor 

of Zoology, Professor of 

Ecology and 


Short-finned pilot whales are deep-diving marine 

mammals that display synchronized movements 

in various behavioral contexts at the surface. 

However, little is known about how frequently 

pilot whales temporally coordinate their foraging 

dives and the potential functions of dive 

synchrony have yet to be explored. I worked on a 

team that analyzed synchronous diving among 

14 pairs of pilot whales off of Cape Hatteras, 

North Carolina, and the Hawaiian Islands. 

We found that pairs of stronger associates 

synchronized their dives more often than pairs of 

weaker associates, and pairs of two adult males 

were more synchronous than dyads of an adult 

male with an individual of a different age or sex. 

Additionally, we tested two hypotheses for the 

function of synchronous diving — anti-predator 

defense and cooperative foraging. We found 

support for the first hypothesis by demonstrating 

that individuals synchronized returns to the 

surface more frequently than they descended 

together then split apart at depth. This study 

provided the first baseline characterization 

of pilot whale dive synchrony patterns. These 

findings could be used in future research seeking 

to assess how these animals’ unique social 

behaviors may be altered by anthropogenic 

threats, such as naval sonar. 

17

Olivia Meyers ’21 



THESIS TITLE 

Protected-Area 

Downgrading, 

Downsizing and 

Degazettement 

ADVISER 

Lars Hedin, George M. 

Moffett Professor of 

Biology, Professor of 

Ecology and 


and the High Meadows 


Protected areas are the cornerstone of 

biodiversity conservation. Despite the 

assumption that protected areas (PAs) are 

permanent, previous studies have documented 

widespread legal changes known as 

protected area downgrading, downsizing and 

degazettement (PADDD) events that undermine 

PA durability. Costa Rica hosts 6% of the world's 

biodiversity and is recognized for its pioneering 

conservation policies and large PA estate. Costa 

Rica's environmental consciousness — coupled 

with a strong economic incentive to protect 

its Pas — may position the country to be less 

vulnerable to PADDD events. I investigated 

PADDD events in Costa Rica from 1955-2021 and 

found that during this time the government 

of Costa Rica enacted 22 PADDD events and 

proposed an additional nine PADDD events. 

Collectively, enacted PADDD events affected 

2.1% (302 km 2 ) of the terrestrial PA estate, while 

proposed events risked downgrading an absolute 

total area of 13,242 km 2 , representing 93% of the 

PA estate. Most PADDD events were associated 

with infrastructure development, specifically 

geothermal plants. Despite relying on the 

efficacy of its protected areas, Costa Rica is still 

vulnerable to PADDD; however, the ecological 

impacts remain unknown. Policy responses and 

government transparency are needed to address 

PADDD and support effective protected areas. 


CONSERVATION 

18

Emma O'Donnell ’21 




CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

One Fish, Two Fish: 

Measuring Patterns of 

Reef-Fish Biodiversity 

in Bermuda Using 

Environmental DNA 

Metabarcoding 

ADVISER 

Stephen Pacala, 

Frederick D. Petrie 

Professor in Ecology 


Biology 

Monitoring reef-fish biodiversity is essential 

to setting marine conservation priorities and 

measuring their success. Bermuda’s reef fish 

are threatened by anthropogenic pressures 

and current conservation strategies are not 

adequately protecting them. Bermuda’s colder 

environment slows the reef fishes’ reproductive 

rate, making them more vulnerable. Effective 

conservation strategies are essential to 

protecting Bermuda’s reef-fish stocks and 

biomonitoring efforts must accompany these 

strategies to measure shifts in biodiversity. I used 

environmental DNA metabarcoding to measure 

biodiversity at various sites across Bermuda’s 

platform to inform conservation decisions. I 

examined the effect of various environmental 

variables such as site type and tide predictions 

on the biodiversity patterns. The results 

indicated that site type and sample date are 

significant predictors of variation in community 

composition. Seagrass beds were distinctly 

different from the other site types, which could 

be explained by their importance as a habitat 

for recruitment for many reef fish species. 

Throughout the platform, the results found low 

levels of piscivorous taxa (fish predators), which 

suggests that these commercially important 

species are struggling to recover from historic 

and continued overexploitation from fisheries. 

Thus, my results indicated that improved 

protection of seagrass beds and piscivorous 

fish taxa should be conservation priorities in 

Bermuda. 

19

Brendan Raville ’21 



THESIS TITLE 

Interactions Between 

Human Hunters and 

Whitetail Deer: An 

Adirondack Landscape 

of Fear 

ADVISER 




Ecology and 


I found that whitetail deer responded to yearlong 

predation and the 2020 hunting season by 

mitigating their mortality risk through spatial, 

temporal and behavioral responses. I examined 

eight months of data collected from May 2020 

to January 2021 by 78 trail cameras at three 

sites. I used habitat surveys, cover assessments 

and video samples to characterize landscape 

use by whitetail deer and predators. Human 

pressure was represented by hunter activity as 

recorded at a hunting camp. I found that deer 

increased their use of habitats with more cover 

and shifted to nocturnal activity when hunters 

entered the landscape. Hunters used efficient 

drives during the first and last part of the regular 

season, while consistently increasing sit/stalk 

hunting. In wooded habitats, alertness increased, 

although diurnal human pressure and nocturnal 

natural predation produced different effects. 

Does and bucks reacted similarly to elevated 

risk, indicating sex-selective harvest does not 

produce sex-dependent responses. Mature bucks 

exhibited a stronger response to elevated risk 

than young bucks under similar conditions. 


CONSERVATION 

20

Amy Amatya ’21 

GEOSCIENCES 


CLIMATE AND 


THESIS TITLE 

Receiver Function 

Analysis of the Mantle 

Transition Zone Beneath 

Cape Verde 

ADVISER 

Frederik Simons, 

Professor of 

Geosciences 

The Cape Verde Islands are a hotspot believed 

to be fed by a mantle plume that is stationary 

relative to the overlying plate. Characterization 

of the mantle transition zone underlying Cape 

Verde offers an opportunity for improving our 

understanding of hotspot formation and mantle 

dynamics. However, the region is seismically 

understudied and under-sampled, hence models 

have remained under-constrained. Seismic data 

recorded on noisy island stations are highly 

variable in quality. My study aimed to shed light 

on the structure and formation of Cape Verde’s 

hotspot through a receiver function analysis of 

the region’s mantle transition zone. I tested the 

applicability of a previously developed signalfiltering 

and receiver function-generating toolkit. 

My analysis produced evidence of depressed 

410- and 660-kilometer discontinuities, in line 

with the work of Helffrich, et al. (2010). This 

challenges previous findings of a thin transition 

zone beneath Cape Verde, calling for an alternate 

explanation of the thermal source of the island’s 

hotspot. 

21

Enzo Dominguez ’21 

CHEMISTRY 


THESIS TITLE 

Sunlight, Iron and the 

Environmental Fate of 

Dissolved Organic 

Matter in Freshwater 

Systems 

ADVISER 

Satish Myneni, 

Professor of 

Geosciences 

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) constitutes 

a significant part of the global carbon cycle. 

It is a source of energy and nutrients in 

aquatic ecosystems, and it can affect how 

pollutants are stored and transported across 

large environments. The composition of DOM 

is constantly undergoing both inter- and 

intramolecular changes driven by a variety 

of natural conditions, including exposure 

to sunlight and interactions with inorganic 

components in water like aqueous iron. However, 

little is known about exactly how these forces 

and their interactions change specific chemical 

and physical qualities of DOM. I investigated how 

the concentration and speciation of iron affect 

the photochemical reactions that transform and 

degrade DOM. I analyzed excitation-emission 

matrix fluorescence spectroscopy data through 

parallel factor analysis, which is a method of 

mathematically deconstructing a sample set 

into a small number of fluorescent components. 

Parallel factor analysis is especially suited for 

describing extremely heterogeneous mixtures of 

complex molecules. I also used X-ray absorbance 

spectroscopy. The results of a series of irradiation 

experiments with variable additions of aqueous 

iron demonstrated a number of trends in DOM 

composition related to the concentration and 

speciation of iron. 

CLIMATE AND 


22

Emma McMahon ’21 

GEOSCIENCES 


CLIMATE AND 


THESIS TITLE 

The Response of the 

Urban Heat Island to El 

Niño-Southern 

Oscillation 

ADVISER 

Gabriel Vecchi, 

Professor of 

Geosciences and the 

High Meadows 


The Urban Heat Island (UHI) refers to the 

tendency of a city to be warmer than surrounding 

rural areas. El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) 

has been found to contribute to UHI variability. 

However, there are few studies in the literature 

that examine the relationship between the UHI 

and ENSO. We used a coupled climate model 

with an urban component to develop a more 

comprehensive study of UHI responses to ENSO 

on a regional scale. We focused on South Asia, 

investigating how the response of UHI to ENSO 

differs across different climate regimes and 

seasons within the region. We found that there 

is an urban cool island during both the arid 

pre-monsoon summer and the humid monsoon 

season in the mean state. El Niño intensifies this 

mean-state trend in humid regions and opposes 

it in arid regions. Inversely, La Niña intensifies 

the mean state in arid nighttime and opposes it 

in humid daytime. 

23

Levy Nathan ’21 

GEOSCIENCES 


THESIS TITLE 

A Dive into the 

Chesapeake Bay: An 

Investigation of the 

Parameters Shaping 

Nitrous Oxide 

Distribution 

ADVISER 

Bess Ward, William J. 

Sinclair Professor of 

Geosciences and the 

High Meadows 


Estuaries such as the Chesapeake Bay act as 

hot spots for anthropogenic nitrous oxide (N 2 

O) 

fluxes to the atmosphere, and their role in the 

distribution of N 2 

O is critical to understand 

since N 2 

O is a potent greenhouse gas. During two 

cruises to the Chesapeake Bay in October 2019 

and August 2020, water samples were collected 

at two stations to investigate the seasonal and 

spatial parameters shaping N 2 

O distribution 

in the bay. One station, at the mouth of the 

bay, resembles a marine environment with low 

nutrient conditions, while the second station is 

further up the estuarine system of the bay and 

has high freshwater and nutrient input from 

rivers. Overall, N 2 

O distribution in the bay is 

strongly determined by the concentration of 

oxygen, which is likely due to oxygen’s regulation 

of microbial consumption and production of N 2 

O. 

CLIMATE AND 


24

Christopher Gliwa ’21 



ENVIRONMENTAL 

ENGINEERING 

THESIS TITLE 

A Retrospective 

Analysis of Industrial 

Benzene Emissions in 

Rutherford, New Jersey 

ADVISER 

Mark Zondlo, Associate 


Environmental 

Engineering 

In the 1970s, the Borough of Rutherford, New 

Jersey, experienced a mysterious cancer cluster 

that led local residents to question the role 

of local industries in the degradation of their 

environment. My thesis was a retrospective 

analysis using historical data and a Gaussianplume 

model to quantify the emissions of 

benzene — a known carcinogen — from a 

particular industrial facility located on the 

border of East Rutherford and Rutherford. 

It also quantifies the cancer risk associated 

with benzene inhalation exposure to explore 

the Rutherford cancer cluster in the context 

of industrial emissions. The results indicated 

that the emissions plume from the factory 

traveled directly over Rutherford, exposing 

potentially dozens of residents to dangerously 

high concentrations of benzene. My analysis 

also highlighted the importance of approaching 

engineering research from a public service and 

environmental justice perspective to shed light 

on communities disproportionately affected by 

negligent industries. 

25

Rebecca Mays ’21 

CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING 


THESIS TITLE 

Optogenetic Control of 

Microbial Consortia for 

the Optimization of 

Chemical Production 

ADVISER 

José Avalos, Assistant 

Professor of Chemical 

and Biological 


Andlinger Center for 


Environment 

Metabolic engineering modifies genetic 

pathways in microbes to more efficiently produce 

chemical compounds. However, engineered 

pathways induce metabolic burden within 

microbes. Microbial consortia divide metabolic 

labor among several microbial strains but 

require control systems to ensure microbes 

in consortia operate at ratios to maximize 

production. My research built on previous work 

that tuned microbial growth using blue lightactivated 

genetic circuits. Optogenetic control 

provided dynamic control over consortia of 

Saccharomyces cerevisiae and optogenetically 

controlled Escherichia coli, which produced 

isobutyl acetate — a valuable industrial chemical 

— and naringenin, a valuable pharmaceutical 

compound. We then explored media containing 

lignin-derived acids with naringenin-producing 

S. cerevisiae. Lignin is a waste byproduct of many 

chemical processes, the valorization of which 

has economic and environmental implications. 

We characterized the toxicity of several 

acids to S. cerevisiae before examining the 

detoxifying effects of optogenetically controlled 

Pseudomonas putida in consortia with S. 

cerevisiae. This research demonstrated the more 

sustainable production of valuable chemical 

compounds. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 

ENGINEERING 

26

Kaley Ubellacker ’21 

MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE 

ENGINEERING 


ENVIRONMENTAL 

ENGINEERING 

THESIS TITLE 

Sensor-Integrated 

Unmanned Aerial 

Vehicle: A Pilot Design 

for Albedo Monitoring 

ADVISER 

Marcus Hultmark, 


Mechanical and 

Aerospace Engineering 

While climate change is a growing issue, there 

remain vast unknowns regarding monitoring and 

mitigation methods across various geographical 

locations. Currently, satellites are the main 

source of environmental monitoring, but their 

scope is incredibly large and does not provide 

a specific picture of the problem. This project 

provided a portable, easily adaptable solution 

via a pilot design for environmental monitoring. 

By equipping a drone with thermal and visible 

imagery and a pyranometer, specific regions 

can be more consistently monitored at a higher 

resolution than with satellites. The pyranometer 

measures both solar radiation and reflected solar 

radiation, which enables researchers to measure 

the albedo on any given surface. Albedo provides 

crucial insight into the heat balance for a region. 

An albedo visualization program was developed 

in MATLAB to produce graphics overlaid with 

orthomosaics, providing researchers with an 

easily readable and understandable set of plots 

with which to interpret data. The data analyzed 

in this paper verifies the efficacy of this design 

— with some modifications — to measure albedo 

with a fair degree of accuracy in a variety of 

geographic regions and times of day. 

This thesis was conducted with Charlotte Wallace 

’21 (page 28). 

27

Charlotte Wallace ’21 

MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE 

ENGINEERING 


THESIS TITLE 

Sensor-Integrated 

Unmanned Aerial 

Vehicle: A Pilot Design 

for Albedo Monitoring 

ADVISER 

Marcus Hultmark, 


Mechanical and 

Aerospace Engineering 

While climate change is a growing issue, there 

remain vast unknowns regarding monitoring and 

mitigation methods across various geographical 

locations. Currently, satellites are the main 

source of environmental monitoring, but their 

scope is incredibly large and does not provide 

a specific picture of the problem. This project 

provided a portable, easily adaptable solution 

via a pilot design for environmental monitoring. 

By equipping a drone with thermal and visible 

imagery and a pyranometer, specific regions 

can be more consistently monitored at a higher 

resolution than with satellites. The pyranometer 

measures both solar radiation and reflected solar 

radiation, which enables researchers to measure 

the albedo on any given surface. Albedo provides 

crucial insight into the heat balance for a region. 

An albedo visualization program was developed 

in MATLAB to produce graphics overlaid with 

orthomosaics, providing researchers with an 

easily readable and understandable set of plots 

with which to interpret data. The data analyzed 

in this paper verifies the efficacy of this design 

— with some modifications — to measure albedo 

with a fair degree of accuracy in a variety of 

geographic regions and times of day. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 

ENGINEERING 

This thesis was conducted with Kaley Ubellacker 

’21 (page 27). 

28

Lindsay Emi ’21 

ENGLISH 


ENVIRONMENTAL 


THESIS TITLE 

Commodities and Curios 

in the American West: 

Postcard Photography 

and the Anti-Civilizing 

Activism of George 

Wharton James 

(1858-1923) 

ADVISER 

Michael Dickman, 

Lecturer in Creative 

Writing and the Lewis 

Center for the Arts 

I conducted original research on George Wharton 

James (1858-1923), an itinerant preacher, 

writer, photographer and anthropologist. My 

particular focus was his photography archived 

in Princeton’s Special Collections, of which 

I used his work with the Luiseño Indians in 

Southern California as a case study. James 

visited the Soboba Reservation in 1910 intending 

to collect the Luiseño Indians’ mythologies, 

artisanal knowledge and accounts of how they 

were affected by the federal government’s 

“civilizing” projects consisting of compulsory 

education and commercial agriculture. James 

had a unique perspective as an environmentalist. 

Unlike John Muir and other conservationists, 

he admired and romanticized Native Americans 

for their “primitive” lifestyles. His artistic and 

anthropological practices served as a form of 

public activism, but also were built upon fraught 

cultural fantasies of the “noble savage,” the 

commodification of Indigenous individuals’ 

photographs as postcards, and his intrusive and 

sometimes unwelcome presence as a visitor on 

reservations. 

29

Jimin Kang ’21 

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE 


THESIS TITLE 

Tales from Indigenous 

Brazil: A Translation of 

Daniel Munduruku's 

“Chronicles of São 

Paulo” and “The 

Lessons I've Learned” 

ADVISERS 

Christina Lee, 


Spanish and 

Portuguese; Jhumpa 

Lahiri, Director and 

Professor of Creative 

Writing 

This creative thesis was a critical translation of 

two works — “Chronicles of São Paulo” and “The 

Lessons I’ve Learned” “Das Coisas que Aprendi” 

— by the Indigenous Brazilian writer Daniel 

Munduruku, accompanied by a translator’s 

preface and a personal essay. Published 15 years 

apart, the two books contain a series of firstperson 

narratives by Munduruku as he navigates 

contemporary Brazil while straddling multiple 

divides between urban and rural environments, 

Indigenous and Western thought systems, and 

his work as a writer and an oral storyteller, 

among other distinctions. The works explore the 

nuances of Amerindian cosmology as it pertains 

to ancestry, mythology and the natural world, 

among other areas, as well as of oral storytelling 

traditions, Indigenous history and urban life in 

Latin America’s biggest city. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


30

Rachel Mrkaich ’21 

ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 


THESIS TITLE 

refractory planes 

ADVISER 

Martha Friedman, 

Senior Lecturer in 

Visual Arts in the Lewis 

Center for the Arts 

“refractory planes” is a series of sculptural 

installations that are constructed and 

deconstructed before and in reference to the 

landscapes of the world. Each iteration utilizes 

a range of organic and commercial materials to 

frame the selected landscapes in novel ways. 

Some of these materials include transparent 

and opaque glass, silk and wool fabric, flowers, 

and fruits. To date, each of the iterations has 

included one to three collapsible metal frames 

that are decorated with ornaments at the artist’s 

fluid discretion in response to the selected 

landscape. This work sought to highlight Earth’s 

beauty in order to encourage viewers to question 

the methods and referents they employ when 

considering the land and their relationship to it. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


31

Mollie Price ’21 

ENGLISH 


THESIS TITLE 

We Can't Put It Back: A 

Century of Appalachian 

Coal in Song 

ADVISER 

Rob Nixon, Thomas A. 

and Currie C. Barron 

Family Professor in 

Humanities and the 

Environment, Professor 

of English and the High 

Meadows Environmental 

Institute 

“We Can’t Put It Back” is a discussion on 

Appalachia’s complex relationship with coal 

during the past century analyzed through the 

lens of several coal songs. As the coal industry 

enters its twilight years in Appalachia, this 

music remains an enduring and important 

aspect of both coal culture and Appalachian 

culture more broadly. I examined these songs in 

order to place them in their historical contexts 

and put them in conversation with relevant 

modern events. My analysis revealed enduring 

and difficult truths about social, political, 

environmental and economic elements of 

coal’s relationship with the people who live 

and work with and around it. This encourages 

a reflection on the immeasurable depth of loss 

that has accompanied coal during its tenure in 

Appalachia – and a reflection on what it means to 

persist and live in a landscape and a community 

that has been irrevocably altered. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


32


THESIS TITLE 

Projecting Measles 

Susceptibility Build-Up 

in the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo 

Following Vaccination 

Delays 

ADVISER 

C. Jessica Metcalf, 


Ecology and 


and Public Affairs 

Zoe Rennie ’21 



The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has 

experienced a resurgence of measles as COVID-19 

attributed vaccination delays created pockets 

of susceptible individuals and facilitated an 

environment for outbreak. My research created 

an interactive map of the DRC to visualize the 

build-up of susceptible individuals to measles 

in its 26 provinces. The simulation implements 

equations through time steps corresponding to 

the inputted duration of disruption by taking 

into account user input for the parameters of 

birth rate, R0, duration of disruption, start of 

disruption, reduction in vaccination, and the 

proportion of the population vaccinated, as 

well as initial values for population, susceptible 

and infected individuals. My visualization 

allowed for pockets of susceptible individuals 

to be understood under different conditions 

of vaccination. Visualizing the build-up of 

susceptible individuals to measles can be helpful 

to health officials and policymakers, particularly 

when challenged with distributing limited 

resources and in unprecedented circumstances 

such as the COVID-19 pandemic. 

33

THESIS TITLE 

Fight or Flight 

Response: Using 

Air-Travel History to 

Determine COVID-19 

Import Risk Across 

Sub-Saharan Africa 

ADVISER 

C. Jessica Metcalf, 


Ecology and 



Yehuda Sinaga ’21 



The potential outbreak of COVID-19 seemed 

less severe for lower latitude, lower middleincome 

countries (LMICs) in 2020, but recent 

data suggest the epidemic will escalate. The 

eventual spread to these countries could result 

in even higher cases and mortality because 

these countries, especially in sub-Saharan 

Africa, have limited medical infrastructures and 

resources. Potential development of healthcare 

facilities in these countries is hampered by a 

lack of knowledge about COVID-19s. Collecting 

data from people arriving in international 

airports in sub-Saharan Africa would allow for 

the analysis of risk and the prediction of which 

countries could experience a high concentration 

of cases so that resources could be mobilized. 

My study compiled the number of arrivals and 

analyzed the level of risk based on current 

coronavirus case reports in people’s country of 

origin. To account for the risk determined by the 

current infrastructure in place, the flight-data 

model I developed would be compared to the 

actual infection rate. While this is a necessary 

and initial step in preventative study, further 

research is needed to supplement current records 

and extend intervention plans to outbreak 

mitigation, especially when considering the 

intense diversity of factors in sub-Saharan 

Africa. 


34


THESIS TITLE 

Habitat Hunting: 

Dissolved Oxygen 

Dynamics in Artificial 

Breeding Grounds for 

Aedes aegypti Domestic 

Subspecies 

ADVISER 

Lindy McBride, 


Ecology and 


and Neuroscience 

Janet You ’21 



Mosquitos of the species Aedes aegypti are 

vectors for diseases such as dengue fever, 

yellow fever and Zika that threaten endemics 

in multiple parts of the world. Aedes aegypti are 

such effective disease vectors because they have 

adapted to live in close proximity to humans. 

Studies have shown that there are different 

preferences between breeding containers 

between the generalist subspecies and domestic 

subspecies. However, it is still undiscovered 

if the domestic subspecies’ adaptations are 

relevant to the actual conditions of artificial 

breeding cans. My study aimed to increase our 

understanding of the breeding habitats of Aedes 

aegypti in urban spaces to better develop vector 

control strategies. I focused on the dynamics of 

dissolved oxygen in potential artificial breeding 

containers and explored the variables that affect 

this hatching cue. The results show that various 

variables of an urban environment —type of 

container, temperature, time, larvae presence 

and time of day —effect the dissolved oxygen 

levels of a container. I also found that there is a 

high variability of dissolved oxygen in different 

artificial containers. These data call for a better 

understanding of the breeding habitats of the 

domestic subspecies to prevent and eliminate 

potential breeding sites in human inhabited 

areas. 

35

THESIS TITLE 

Linking Changes in NO 2 

Pollution and Mobility 

During the COVID-19 

Lockdowns in the U.S. 

ADVISER 

Mark Zondlo, Associate 


Environmental 

Engineering 

Rei Zhang ’21 



One impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has 

been its effect on reducing travel, which is the 

single largest contributor to nitrogen dioxide 

(NO 2 

) pollution in the United States. The 

widespread suspension of daily activities due 

to the pandemic provided a rare opportunity 

to directly study the effects of human behavior 

on air quality. I leveraged diverse data sets to 

analyze the effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns 

on air quality in the United States in 2020. My 

thesis built upon previous studies by considering 

a larger geographical extent, using a longer 

timeframe, and integrating ground-level 

nitrogen dioxide measurements, high-resolution 

satellite imagery, and mobility metrics derived 

from cellphone data. I found that reducing travel 

is one way to reduce NO 2 

levels for the benefit 

human health and the environment, though 

reducing vehicle emissions is unlikely to be the 

most impactful way of improving air quality in 

the future. 


36

Sasha Culley ’21 

ECONOMICS 


POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

THESIS TITLE 

The Renewables Policy 

Showdown: Comparing 

the Effects of Feed-In 

Tariffs and Renewable 

Energy Certificates on 

Australian Residential 

Solar Photovoltaic 

System Installations 

ADVISER 

Christopher Neilson, 


Economics and Public 

Affairs 

The Australian Government’s generous 

incentives for residential solar photovoltaic 

systems is a key piece of its response to the 

climate crisis. Two major policy instruments 

— feed-in tariffs (FiT’s) and renewable energy 

certificates (RECs) — have been implemented 

state-by-state with varying levels of success. The 

economic literature surrounding renewableenergy 

policy is extensive and the theoretical 

underpinnings of both FiT and REC mechanisms 

are well supported. Policy analysis and model 

simulations find FiT payments to be more 

effective than RECs for the promotion of solar 

deployment. However, there are fewer papers 

that examine the comparative effect of the two 

policy instruments on solar power installations 

in practice. Australia’s use of both FiT and 

REC policy makes it an ideal case study for 

comparing policy effects. I found that REC 

mechanisms have been more cost-effective than 

FiT mechanisms for the promotion of residential 

solar-system installations in Australia from 

2007-2018. However, moving forward, RECs may 

see diminished effects on installation rates due 

to declining upfront system prices. My results 

suggest that an empirically motivated policy 

mechanism design — with an emphasis on the 

behavioral determinants of solar photovoltaic 

installation — should guide future Australian 

residential solar-power incentive policy. 

37

Julia Harisay ’21 


AFFAIRS 


THESIS TITLE 

What’s the Beef with the 

Media: The Effects of 

Social and Traditional 

Media on Biased 

Assimilation and 

Attitude Polarization on 

the Issue of Livestock 

Production and Climate 

Change 

ADVISER 

Emily Pronin, Associate 

Professor of 

Psychology and Public 

Affairs 

We face the challenge of meeting an increasing 

demand for food while also mitigating climate 

change. At the same time, Americans are 

extremely polarized on the issue of climate 

change, with many blaming the media for 

this division. My research examined how 

communicating the food demand dilemma 

through various types of media might 

convince people of the need to eat less 

meat. Raising livestock for consumption is a 

significant source of greenhouse gas emissions 

and habitat loss. Study participants were 

exposed to mixed evidence about the impact 

of livestock production on climate change 

through traditional or social media. I found 

that climate change believers found such 

information to be more credible and convincing 

when communicated on social media than in 

traditional media, while non-believers reported 

the opposite. Neither media type leads to 

significantly greater polarization, but social 

media appeared to have more of a negative 

impact than traditional media on a person’s 

belief in the impact of livestock production on 

climate change. My findings have important 

implications for how climate change information 

can be communicated via social media. 

POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

38

Julia Ilhardt ’21 


AFFAIRS 


POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

THESIS TITLE 

The Fight for Fresh Air: 

Localized Movements 

for Environmental 

Justice and the 

Incremental Process of 

Policy Reform 

ADVISER 

Michael Oppenheimer, 

Albert G. Milbank 

Professor of 

Geosciences and 

International Affairs 



The environmental justice (EJ) movement has 

a decades-long history in the United States, 

driven by community-level activism against 

environmental harms that disproportionately 

impact communities of color and lowincome 

areas. My thesis sought to explain 

the transformation of EJ as a policy issue, 

to understand the mechanisms underlying 

grassroots activism, and to consider the role 

of various levels of government in addressing 

EJ. Case studies centered around industrial 

pollution in Detroit and Houston, as well as 

the impact of concentrated animal agriculture 

in southeastern North Carolina. I reviewed all 

introduced legislation and executive activity 

pertaining to these cases, then conducted 

interviews with local stakeholders. Based on my 

literature review, policy analysis and interview 

material, I applied theoretical lenses to explain 

the incremental progress of community-based 

actors in local EJ movements. Ultimately, this 

research suggests a number of policy priorities 

for centering communities in environmental 

discourse and ameliorating the disparate harms 

associated with pollution. 

39

Hans Imhof ’21 


AFFAIRS 


THESIS TITLE 

The Modernization of 

the Public Utility 

Regulatory Policies Act 

of 1978 and Its Effects 

on Solar-Power 

Generation: An Analysis 

of the Implementation 

of PURPA in South 

Carolina 

ADVISER 

Gregory Jaczko, 

Lecturer in School of 

Public and International 

Affairs 

In South Carolina, one utility has primarily 

driven the incorporation of solar in the state’s 

electricity grid, meaning that state policies could 

push other utilities in the region to do the same. 

The complex differences between the utilities, 

however, decrease the transparency of rates, fees 

and contract structures despite being regulated 

by the same state-level institution. An analysis of 

the avoided cost rates, their implementation and 

the contract terms revealed that not all aspects 

of the standard offers are equally well-regulated. 

This has resulted in utility-scale solar projects 

being located in one utility’s territory. Fractions 

of cents have thousands of dollars' worth of 

consequences and allow for a distortion of the 

power dynamics between utilities, independent 

power producers and consumers. The new 

changes to Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act 

of 1978 (PURPA) place more power in the hands 

of the utilities by increasing the tools available 

to them to set avoided costs, and by decreasing 

the certainty of returns on investments for solar 

investors and developers. Thus, these changes 

decrease the competitiveness of solar power. 

POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

40

Kailie McGeoy ’21 

PSYCHOLOGY 


POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

THESIS TITLE 

To Be a Sheep or to Be a 

Shepherd? How Political 

and Religious Identities 

Influence Environmental 

Dilemma Decisions and 

Post-Decision Emotions 

ADVISER 

Elke Weber, Gerhard R. 

Andlinger Professor in 



of Psychology and the 

School of Public and 


Study participants were presented with a 

hypothetical commons (public resources) 

dilemma asking how many sheep they would own 

as part of a communal pasture. The two present 

studies tested religious and political identity 

salience and in-group behavior information 

against differences in repeated commons’ 

dilemma choices and post-decision emotions. 

Participants were assigned to three groups 

where, before their second decision, they were 

told their in-group acted similarly to their first 

decision (congruent), dissimilarly (incongruent), 

or no information was provided (control). As 

expected, incongruent participants experienced 

significant differences between decisions in the 

direction of the in-group behavior. However, 

across both studies, participants that chose 

a low eco-friendly option in the first decision 

experienced significant decreases in their second 

decision regardless of treatment group. To our 

surprise, negative-emotion scores decreased 

significantly across studies and groups. In the 

religious study, social identity was a predictor 

of commons’ differences, regardless of first 

choice, and personal identity was a predictor of 

commons’ differences for participants who chose 

low eco-friendly first choices. These findings 

suggest that when identity is salient, non-ecoconscious 

behavior is more susceptible to change 

than eco-conscious behavior, and that negative 

emotions typically decrease between repeated 

measures, regardless of several variables. 

41

Lauren McGrath ’21 

ANTHROPOLOGY 


THESIS TITLE 

Ethnographic Data 

Visualization as a 

Methodology to 

Visualize the Health 

Impacts of Structural 

Violence in Urban 

Philadelphia 

Communities 

ADVISER 

Jeffrey Himpele, 

Director, Ethnographic 

Data Visualization Lab, 

Anthropology, Lecturer 

in Anthropology 

While structural violence harms individuals’ 

health, this connection is not broadly recognized 

in society because the relationships that 

constitute structural violence are invisible. This 

lack of recognition is compounded by society 

viewing data as representative of an ultimate 

truth. My thesis was twofold. My primary work 

was the website, The Side Unseen, which shows 

how ethnographic data visualizations can 

highlight a more complete story surrounding 

structural violence in Philadelphia. My written 

methodology supplemented the website by 

addressing the anthropological theory behind 

why structural violence demands visualization 

through a discussion of the subjectivity 

and power dynamics behind data creation. 

Ethnographic data visualization layers data with 

interlocutor narrative to emphasize the absence 

inherent in data. I argued that it is necessary 

to utilize an anthropological perspective when 

analyzing data because all data are a social 

construction. 

POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

42

Maddie Pendolino ’21 

POLITICS 


POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

THESIS TITLE 

Unprecedented: How 

the Events of 2020 

Affected the Outcome of 

the 2020 Presidential 

Election 

ADVISER 

Brandice Canes-Wrone, 

Donald E. Stokes 

Professor in Public and 

International Affairs, 

Professor of Politics 


My research focused on how the events of 

2020 affected the U.S. Presidential election. I 

conducted a national post-election survey of 

2,500 people. I used a linear probability model 

to test for party voting, identity politics, issue 

ownership, retrospective, prospective and 

sociotropic voting theories. I hypothesized that 

party identification would continue to drive 

voter choice, followed by President Donald 

Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. 

I also analyzed how voters responded to major 

events such as the Black Lives Matter protests 

and the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett 

to the Supreme Court. I found that voters who 

supported climate change policy were more 

likely to vote for Biden, whereas approval of 

Justice Barrett’s confirmation revealed support 

for the incumbent. Climate change and racial 

equity played a role in Democratic vote choice, 

while Republican voters were more heavily 

swayed by foreign policy and trade. My findings 

revealed that Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 

pandemic was the most indicative factor of a 

vote for Joe Biden, holding a higher magnitude 

than Democratic party identification. These 

findings are supported by my testing for polling 

discrepancies seen briefly in the 2016 election 

and discovering evidence suggesting that there 

were no “shy” Trump supporters in 2020. 

43

Emily Reinhold ’21 


AFFAIRS 


THESIS TITLE 

Perpetual Plastics No 

More: Large-Scale 

Plastic-Waste 

Mitigation in a Circular 

Economy 

ADVISER 

Elke Weber, Gerhard R. 

Andlinger Professor in 



of Psychology and the 

School of Public and 


My thesis explored policy solutions to mitigating 

single-use plastic waste within the transition to 

a circular economy. After outlining the extent 

of global plastic waste and its negative impacts, 

I described the shortcomings of United States 

policy related to plastics. Afterward, my thesis 

explored policy solutions to plastic waste that 

have been implemented by other countries. 

These measures include taxes on single-use 

plastics bags, bans on single-use plastics, 

extended producer responsibility in managing 

the end stages of single-use plastics, limits on the 

export of plastic waste to developing countries, 

and more. Lessons from these policies for the 

United States are explained in detail. Lastly, 

I investigated the potential for expanding 

alternative sustainable plastics to a commercial 

and industrial scale. I provided examples of 

existing compostable and biodegradable plastics, 

explained their value to the circular economy, 

and discussed the importance of also scaling up 

proper methods of disposal, such as industrial 

composting. 

POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

44

Kiera Robinson ’21 

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 


POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

THESIS TITLE 

The Development of 

Smart Energy Meters 

for College Dorms that 

Provide Real-Time 

Feedback on Energy 

Use and the Associated 

Carbon Footprint 

ADVISER 

Stephen Pacala, 

Frederick D. Petrie 

Professor in Ecology 


Biology 

Efforts toward carbon neutrality have 

emphasized the importance of raising people’s 

awareness of their personal carbon footprints in 

order to invoke increased self-management of 

their behaviors. One method has been through 

the use of carbon-footprint calculators, which 

help users estimate their total carbon emissions 

and determine past actions that are carbon 

intensive, while simultaneously motivating them 

to adopt low-carbon behaviors. However, many 

existing calculators apply no environmental 

behavioral theory and only provide retrospective 

calculations, which limits the influence they 

can have on their users. My project explored 

the development of affordable and compact 

smart energy-use meters that could be deployed 

in college dorms to measure student energy 

use and the associated carbon footprint. This 

project also encompassed a small pilot study 

that explored the translation of this proof-ofconcept 

technology to assess student energy use, 

changes in attitudes towards energy use and 

energy literacy, and determine the likelihood of 

positive spillover into other pro-environmental 

actions from assessing one contributory carbonintensive 

action. 

45

Willemijn ten Cate ’21 



THESIS TITLE 

How Human Traffic — 

on Foot or in Vehicles 

— Affects Wildlife 

Movements on 

Landscapes Shared by 

Humans Throughout the 

COVID-19 Pandemic 

ADVISER 




Ecology and 


Policies restricting peoples’ movements 

during the COVID-19 pandemic created an 

“Anthropause” whereby people altered their 

regular behavior. I observed and analyzed how 

prevalent the effects of the “Anthropause” were 

throughout high human-density suburban parks 

and neighborhoods during a three-month period 

in Connecticut and New Jersey. I used camera 

traps to analyze variations in human activity 

and how wildlife populations responded to 

these changes. My study noted large amounts 

of human activity during the lockdown phase, 

suggesting that people valued their personal 

freedom over government mandates. As the 

lockdown restrictions eased, the majority of 

parks saw gradual reductions in the abundance 

of people. These variations in human activities 

did not directly affect the behaviors of suburban 

wildlife, as the animal populations either 

stayed constant or followed the same declining 

patterns as people. Overall, wildlife seemed to 

be more influenced by seasonality effects (with 

warmer temperatures reducing their prevalence) 

than the presence of humans. Specifically, an 

increase in nocturnal wildlife activity later in 

the study illustrated animals’ shift in behavior 

to effectively maximize their energy usage. 

My study further demonstrated that wildlife 

alongside residential areas were not affected by 

the “Anthropause.” 

POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

46

John Wesley Wiggins ’21 

GEOSCIENCES 


POLICY, NORMS 

AND BEHAVIOR 

THESIS TITLE 

Sea-Level Rise on the 

Eastern Shore of 

Maryland: Vulnerability, 

Adaptation, 

Environmental Justice 

ADVISER 



Professor of 





The global sea level is rising at an accelerating 

rate and adaptation measures have to be taken to 

protect coastal communities. In the past, these 

efforts have either not considered — or outright 

ignored — the injustices and inequalities facing 

the most vulnerable populations, which leads 

to these groups experiencing disproportionate 

harm from sea-level rise. My study surveyed 

counties on the Eastern Shore of Maryland 

along the Chesapeake Bay and analyzed the 

effects of sea-level rise in Cambridge, Maryland. 

The purpose of my project was to describe the 

impacts of rising seas on the Eastern Shore, 

explain preferences for adaptation measures, and 

understand how African American communities 

are disproportionately vulnerable to coastal 

hazards. We found a greater than 35% probability 

that sea levels will rise by one meter or more in 

Cambridge regardless of emissions reductions 

and that the majority of individuals surveyed 

prefer to defend rather than retreat from the 

coast. 

47

Casey Conrad ’21 

GEOSCIENCES 


THESIS TITLE 

Bowling Green as the 

Achilles Heel: An 

Updated Analysis of 

New York City’s Subway 

System in Response to 

Predicted Sea-Level 

Rise 

ADVISER 



Professor of 





With the East Coast experiencing greater-thanaverage 

sea-level rise (SLR), it is imperative 

that major metropolitan areas are protected 

against increasingly destructive storm events. 

This study updated the New York City subway 

system’s resiliency literature. A critical 

analysis of the system highlighted the current 

vulnerabilities within the infrastructure to 

SLR and the 0.01 annual-chance high waterlevel 

storm event. Bowling Green Station in 

southern Manhattan was predicted to be most 

at risk to flooding in 2080. This is primarily 

due to neglect of this specific station by the 

Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) 

resiliency framework established after Hurricane 

Sandy in 2012, as well as the great potential 

for floodwater propagation and destruction 

in underground stations. With Bowling Green 

Station’s vulnerability known, the MTA and 

NYC government must enact the appropriate 

resiliency measures to protect the station (and 

other such stations) for decades to come. 

URBAN 

SUSTAINABILITY 

48

Hugues Martin Dit Neuville ’21 

OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND FINANCIAL 

ENGINEERING 


URBAN 


THESIS TITLE 

Total Recall: An 

Optimization Model to 

Help Ban Diesel and 

Petrol Fueled Cars from 

Paris' Streets 

ADVISER 

Ronnie Sircar, 

Professor of Operations 

Research and Financial 

Engineering 

On October 12, 2017, Paris' Deputy Mayor, 

Christophe Najdovski, announced that the city 

would ban all petrol and diesel fueled cars from 

circulating within its city limits by 2030. To 

achieve this goal, the French energy provider 

Total was designated the lead in restructuring 

Paris' electric charging network over the next 

decade and has promised to add an additional 

1,830 new public charging stations. However, 

this task has been complicated by Paris' goal 

of eliminating a large portion of its roadside 

parking spots, pushing public parking almost 

exclusively to underground car parks. This 

removes one of the principle traditional locations 

for public charging stations. I adapted an existing 

optimization model in order to distribute 

these new charging stations across Paris' 

arrondissements. The model accelerates the 

adoption of electric vehicles by minimizing the 

travel and queuing costs incurred by EV owners. 

The proximity of the city's existing underground 

car parks to points of interests also was analyzed, 

helping to determine how charging points should 

be allocated across this existing infrastructure. 

I also conducted an analysis for London, 

demonstrating that the model can be applied to 

various urban environments. 

49

Beverly Shen ’21 


AFFAIRS 


THESIS TITLE 

Weathering the Storm: 

Mitigating the Impacts 

of Natural Disasters in 

United States Cities 

Through Smart 

Technologies 

ADVISER 

Anu Ramaswami, 

Sanjay Swani '87 

Professor of India 

Studies, Professor of 

Civil and Environmental 


High Meadows 


With the increase in urban populations and 

climate-related risks, there has been a growing 

interest in applying smart technology and the 

smart-city paradigm toward urban disaster 

management. The Sendai Framework for 

Disaster Risk Reduction specifically encourages 

global-scale investment in innovation 

and technology development in disaster 

management frameworks. However, the degree 

of technological adoption to address disasters 

vary widely by country. American cities have 

lagged behind in the investment and integration 

of disaster risk-reducing smart technologies 

compared to cities in countries such as Japan, 

which has some of the most developed disaster 

risk-reduction technologies in the world. 

Although there is ample literature surrounding 

both disaster management frameworks and 

smart-technology applications, the combination 

of the two fields is a relatively new subject 

area and has not been extensively studied. 

My research aimed to evaluate the landscape 

of smart-technology use in urban disaster 

management and explore the barriers to the 

widespread adoption of these technologies in the 

United States. Specifically, my thesis contributes 

to the discourse on the use of disaster riskreduction 

and management technologies in 

United States cities. 

URBAN 


50

Acknowledgements 

THE PROGRAM IN 

ENVIRONMENTAL 

STUDIES AND 

UNDERGRADUATE 

ENVIRONMENTAL 

RESEARCH IS 

GENEROUSLY 

SUPPORTED BY: 

The Barron Family Fund for Innovations in 

Environmental Studies 

The Becky Colvin ’95 Field Research Fund 

Charles W. Dodge ’51 Fund 

Edmund Hayes Sr. ’18 Fund 

The High Meadows Environmental Institute 

Fund 

Newton Family HMEI Scholars Fund 

Bob and Cathy Solomon Undergraduate 

Research Fund 

John H. T. Wilson ’56 and Sandra W. Wilson 

Fund 

51

High Meadows Environmental Institute 

Princeton University, Guyot Hall 

Princeton, New Jersey 08544-1003 

environment.princeton.edu 

environment@princeton.edu 

facebook.com/PrincetonEnviro 

twitter.com/PrincetonEnviro 

instagram.com/princetonenviro 

youtube.com/HighMeadowsEnvironmentalInstitute 

linkedin.com/company/princetonenviro

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