Undergraduate Research: An Archive - 2023 Program

MAY 2023 

Undergraduate 

Research: An Archive

Grace Barbara ’22 

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. 

Cover page: 

Ashley Cao ’23 (left) and Isabel Rodrigues ’23 (right) 

1

Undergraduate Research: 

An Archive 

Celebrating independent work on environmental 

topics by students in the Class of 2023 

The High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) is 

pleased to present an archive of environmental research 

projects completed by students in the Class of 2023. 

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 21 

academic disciplines on topics including climate science, 

biodiversity, water and the environment, health and 

disease, environmental policy, agriculture, clean energy, 

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) 

Juan Pablo Alvarado 61 

Stav Bejerano 24 

Camille Boylan 47 

Sarah Irene Brown 55 

Jenseric Calimag 62 

Ashley Cao 63 

Darcy Chang 7 

Matthew Chao 8 

Calif Chen 25 

Eve Cooke 9 

Francesca DiMare 48 

Yaxin Duan 20 

Keenan Duggal 21 

Annabel Grace Bol Dupont 56 

Adam Elkins 26 

Julia Elman 43 

Leah Emanuel 57 

Madison Esposito 49 

Naomi Frim-Abrams 27 

Claire Galat 10 

Alex Giannattasio 28 

Noa Greenspan 29 

Alison Hirsch 58 

Chaya Holch 11 

Annika Hsi 12 

Mary Cate Hyde 13 

Esha Jain 30 

Hojoon Kim 50 

Michael Kim 22 

Henry Koffler 31 

Chirag Kumar 44 

Juju Lane 32 

Reed Leventis 45 

Amelia Liu 51

Samantha Lopez-Rico 14 

Melina Mahood 33 

Aneesha Manocha 52 

Andrew Matos 34 

Marissa Mejia 35 

Faith Moore 53 

Cam My Nguyen 59 

Rachel Qing Pang 23 

Magdalena Poost 36 

Elena Remez 37 

Sophia Richter 15 

Isabel Rodrigues 64 

Molly Sauter 46 

Liam Seeley 16 

Robert Shell 38 

Joanna Shoubaki 17 

Riya Singh 60 

Adira Smirnov 18 

Camille VanderMeer 39 

Sam Vasen 19 

Isaac Wills 40 

Lois Wu 41 

Karena Yan 42 

Aidan Zentner 54

Index of Student Research 

by Category (Alphabetical) 

BIODIVERSITY AND 

CONSERVATION 

Darcy Chang 7 

Matthew Chao 8 

Eve Cooke 9 

Claire Galat 10 

Chaya Holch 11 

Annika Hsi 12 

Mary Cate Hyde 13 

Samantha Lopez-Rico 14 

Sophia Richter 15 

Liam Seeley 16 

Joanna Shoubaki 17 

Adira Smirnov 18 

Sam Vasen 19 

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL 

SCIENCE 

Yaxin Duan 20 

Keenan Duggal 21 

Michael Kim 22 

Rachel Qing Pang 23 

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY 

AND SOCIETY 

Stav Bejerano 24 

Calif Chen 25 

Adam Elkins 26 

Naomi Frim-Abrams 27 

Alex Giannattasio 28 

Noa Greenspan 29 

Esha Jain 30 

Henry Koffler 31 

Juju Lane 32 

Melina Mahood 33 

Andrew Matos 34 

Marissa Mejia 35 

Magdalena Poost 36 

Elena Remez 37 

Robert Shell 38 

Camille VanderMeer 39 

Isaac Wills 40 

Lois Wu 41 

Karena Yan 42

HEALTH AND DISEASE 

Julia Elman 43 

Chirag Kumar 44 

Reed Leventis 45 

Molly Sauter 46 

NEW ENERGY FUTURE 

Camille Boylan 47 

Francesca DiMare 48 

Madison Esposito 49 

Hojoon Kim 50 

Amelia Liu 51 

Aneesha Manocha 52 

Faith Moore 53 

Aidan Zentner 54 

URBAN PLANNING 

AND SUSTAINABLE 

COMMUNITIES 

Sarah Irene Brown 55 

Annabel Grace Bol Dupont 56 

Leah Emanuel 57 

Alison Hirsch 58 

Cam My Nguyen 59 

Riya Singh 60 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

Juan Pablo Alvarado 61 

Jenseric Calimag 62 

Ashley Cao 63 

Isabel Rodrigues 64


CONSERVATION 

Darcy Chang ’23 

ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 

Becky Colvin '95 Memorial Award Recipient; 

Senior Thesis Research Funding Awardee 

THESIS TITLE 

Foraging Behavior of 

Broad-tailed 

Hummingbirds in the 

Rocky Mountains: 

Sex Differences, Floral 

Abundance and Visual 

Ecology 

ADVISER 

Mary (Cassie) Stoddard, 

Associate Professor of 

Ecology and 

Evolutionary Biology 

Broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus 

platycercus) are important migratory pollinators 

in Rocky Mountain wildflower communities. 

Climate change is predicted to cause shifts in 

environmental cues that could drive a mismatch 

between the arrival of these pollinators and 

the blooming of flower species that they rely 

on, but a more thorough characterization of 

broad-tailed hummingbird foraging behavior is 

required to understand the potential impacts 

of this mismatch. My research aimed to fill 

this gap by documenting various aspects of 

hummingbird foraging behavior, including sex 

differences in flower visitation patterns, the 

influence of floral abundance on the timing of 

foraging, and the role of flower color in shaping 

hummingbird preferences. To do this, I analyzed 

data from a five-year camera trapping project 

at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory 

(RMBL) and began collecting field data on 

floral abundance and reflectance. I found that 

adult male birds visited atypical hummingbird 

flowers more often than females and juveniles, 

highlighting the importance of plant diversity. I 

also observed variability between plant species 

in the seasonal synchronization of floral density 

and hummingbird visit rate. For the two most 

visited flower species, visit rate did not directly 

correlate to floral density, indicating a distinct 

floral preference different from random chance. 

Overall, these results highlight the complexity of 

hummingbird–plant dynamics. 

7

Matthew Chao ’23 




CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

Helminth Parasites in 

Ruminants of 

Yellowstone National 

Park and Brucellosis 

Coinfection 

ADVISER 

Andy Dobson, Professor 

of Ecology and 


Yellowstone National Park is a protected 

ecosystem surrounded by cattle ranches, and 

this close proximity of wildlife and livestock 

creates management challenges for both cattle 

ranchers and the National Park Service. Wildlifelivestock 

interactions also have important 

implications for disease transmission. My 

research investigated predictors of helminth 

infection for wild ruminants in Yellowstone 

National Park and explored interactions between 

coinfections (i.e., simultaneous infections) with 

gastrointestinal helminths and the bacteria 

that cause brucellosis. I collected fecal samples 

of bison and elk and used the McMaster Egg 

Counting Technique to calculate the number of 

helminth eggs per gram of fecal, which provides 

an estimate of infection severity. I found that, 

in bison, helminth infection rate was associated 

with changes in herd size, while for elk, infection 

rate was associated with sex and age. These 

results match existing literature regarding 

disease transmission and helminth infection 

characteristics. Then, I conducted a literature 

review to examine the challenge of managing 

brucellosis, a zoonotic bacteria disease, and 

the implications that helminth coinfection 

has on its transmission to identify methods of 

indirect management to decrease brucellosis 

transmission to humans. 

8


CONSERVATION 

Eve Cooke ’23 



THESIS TITLE 

Characterizing 

Epiphytic Macroalgae 

Assemblages in 

Understudied Hawaiian 

Mangrove Stands 

ADVISER 

Lars Hedin, George M. 

Moffett Professor of 

Biology. Professor of 

Ecology and 


and the High Meadows 

Environmental Institute 

There were no mangroves in the Hawaiian 

Archipelago prior to 1902, when the red 

mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) was introduced. 

This introduction has created a rare opportunity 

to investigate species assembly within a novel 

ecosystem. For my thesis, I worked with the 

Sherwood Algal Biodiversity Laboratory to 

conduct the most extensive survey of the 

macroalgal epiphytes of Hawaiian mangrove 

forests to date. Using morphological and 

molecular analysis (DNA barcoding), I identified 

28 distinct taxa of macroalgal epiphytes on the 

islands of O’ahu and Molokai. The introduction 

of red mangrove appears to have altered the 

macroalgal composition of the Hawaiian 

intertidal zone, promoting the dominance of 

invasive and broadly distributed species. The low 

rate of endemism and generally cosmopolitan 

taxa identified in this study suggest that few 

endemic macroalgae species can tolerate the 

conditions generated by red mangrove invasion. 

My findings also suggest that Hawaiian 

mangrove stands support high macroalgal 

richness and host a unique composition of 

macroalgal taxa compared to native mangrove 

forests. 

9

Claire Galat ’23 




CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

Reconstructing the 

Savanna: How Mapping 

Diets Informs 

Ecosystem Functioning 

in Central Kenya 

ADVISER 

Rob Pringle, Professor 



Food webs are excellent models for analyzing 

the complexity of species interactions within 

ecosystem and provide insights that are often 

lost through basic observation. For central 

Kenya, a tri-trophic food web that includes 

carnivores, herbivores and plants has never 

been created despite the plethora of research 

conducted there. My thesis aimed to fill this 

gap by creating a food web to analyze the roles 

of different species, to examine how traits such 

as body mass impact a species’ position within 

the network and how the removal of different 

species affects the robustness of the food web. 

To do this, I conducted a literature review and 

used the results to construct a food web, which 

I then analyzed according to network metrics. 

I found that body mass is an indicator of diet 

breadth; that trophic level is an indicator of 

network position; and that the removal of species 

with the broadest diets, the largest body masses 

and the highest trophic levels most destabilizes 

the network. These results imply that the most 

central, connected species tend to have larger 

body sizes, and the removal of these key species 

is most likely to disrupt the network, thus 

providing a selection of species within central 

Kenya on which conservation efforts should be 

focused. 

10


CONSERVATION 

Chaya Holch ’23 

HISTORY 

Certificate in Environmental Studies 

THESIS TITLE 

The Drowning and 

Draining of the English 

Fens 

ADVISER 

Anthony Grafton, Henry 

Putnam University 

Professor of History 

My thesis explored a fragmented collection of 

studies that each attempt to engage with the 

idea that the history of the early modern fens, 

English wetlands, is as much the story of their 

drowning as their draining. I started by creating 

an historiography of early modern fens and 

other wetlands, starting with the antiquarian 

William Dugdale’s 1662 History of Imbanking 

and Drayning and concluding with recent 

academic and popular writings on the fens. 

Then, I explored the vocabulary used by prodrainage 

authors in the seventeenth century and 

argue that these works used a shared vocabulary 

for the dangers and merits of both wateriness 

and dryness. Then, I examined a 13-letter 

correspondence between Dugdale and Dr. 

Thomas Browne between 1658 and 1662, paying 

particular attention to their discussion of a fish 

bone that had been dug up in the fens at least two 

decades earlier, and the catastrophic flood that 

Dugdale invented to make sense of it. I conclude 

by discussing how the color green, which is 

consistently used in renderings of the marshy 

fens in late medieval maps, came to instead 

represent dry land in early modern maps. My 

thesis, drawn from fragments and impressions, 

is neither a history of “imbanking and drayning” 

nor a history of “divers fenns and marshes.” 

Situated in the ambiguous place between these 

possibilities, my thesis is a history of the 17thcentury 

drowning and draining of the fens. 

11

Annika Hsi ’23 




CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

Understanding 

Differences in how 

Grevy's and Plains 

Zebras Interact with 

Cattle 

ADVISER 

Daniel Rubenstein, 

Class of 1877 Professor 

of Zoology. Professor of 

Ecology and 


The issue of coexistence arises when livestock 

and wildlife share an environment; can 

biodiversity and livestock raising both be 

preserved? In the case study of zebras and 

cattle in Kenya, previous publications have 

suggested that rather than having a competitive 

relationship, their distinct dietary habits may 

lead to a facilitative relationship. In particular, 

cattle grazing can stimulate grass growth in 

what is known as a “green up” leading to higher 

quality grass for the zebras to consume. My thesis 

extended upon existing research on how two 

species of zebras — Grevy’s and plains — interact 

with cattle. I collected observational data on 

grazing habits for the two zebra species at Mpala 

Research Centre in Kenya and then analyzed 

these observations to identify species-specific 

differences. My results reinforced preexisting 

knowledge on Grevy’s and plains zebras and 

identified further interspecific differences in how 

the two species behave around cattle. I found that 

Grevy’s zebras tended to graze near cattle, where 

cattle grazing resulted in short, green grass, 

whereas plains zebra tended to avoid those areas 

in favor of grazing on tall grass near drinking 

points. This suggests that the two species of 

zebra have different priorities that affect how 

they interact with cattle. 

12


CONSERVATION 

Mary Cate Hyde ’23 



THESIS TITLE 

Investigating Wildfire 

History as a Driver of 

Large Mammal Habitat 

Use Patterns in a 

Mediterranean-type 

Ecosystem 

ADVISER 

David Wilcove, 

Professor of Ecology 

and Evolutionary Biology 

and Public Affairs and 

the High Meadows 


Anthropogenic factors including urban 

encroachment and climate change are altering 

the frequency and intensity of fires, resulting 

in lasting changes to ecosystems. The response 

of small mammals to fire has been well studied, 

but little is known about how large mammals 

(>1kg) respond to different aspects of fire 

regimes. Understanding the effects of fire on 

large-bodied species is particularly important 

for conservation because these species play 

key roles in ecosystems as herbivores and apex 

predators and have substantial habitat range 

requirements. I investigated whether large 

mammal habitat use varies with years-since-fire 

in Southern California. To do this, I collected 

camera trap data on four mammal species (the 

gray fox, Urocyon cinereoargenteus; mountain 

lion, Puma concolor; mule deer, Odocoileus 

hemionus; and bob cat, Lynx rufus) across three 

recent wildfire sites at a conservancy in Irvine, 

California and then used this data to build a 

series of generalized linear models to predict 

these species’ habitat use. My model predicted 

that mule deer more frequently occupy sites with 

fewer years-since-fire, whereas ambush predators 

(gray fox, mountain lion, and bobcat) more 

frequently occupy sites with greater years-sincefire. 

These results provide useful information 

for future land conservation priorities to help 

manage at-risk landscapes to mitigate the 

downstream effects of fire on large mammals and 

the habitats they occupy. 

13

Samantha Lopez-Rico ’23 




CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

Caste Abundance of 

Philophthalmus sp. In 

Cerithium 

stercusmuscarum 

ADVISER 




Trematode-snail systems are used in a variety of 

ways to test large-scale ecological phenomena. 

For example, optimal allocation theory predicts 

that organisms will invest resources to defense 

and reproduction under specific contexts. 

Previous studies have used eusocial trematodes 

to test this theory because these species 

consist of multiple castes, such as soldiers 

and reproductives, that are morphioligically 

distinct, and can be induced under certain 

environmental conditions. For example, the 

proportion of soldiers to reproductives can vary 

across spatial scales that possess different levels 

of infection. My research used the eusocial 

trematode Philophthalmus sp, which infects 

Cerithium stercusmuscarum snails, to test soldier 

allocation across finer spatial scales and in a 

different snail-trematode system from previous 

studies with which I compared my findings. I also 

investigated whether soldier allocation depends 

on the potential type of infection present across 

the tide pools. I found that there was not a 

statistically significant relationship between the 

average proportion of soldiers and the prevalence 

of infection within a given tide pool, and likewise 

there was no statistically significant difference 

between the mean proportion of soldiers across 

different tide pools. Several other factors may 

influence soldier allocation such as the snail 

immune system and microbial communities in 

both the host and parasite. These findings add 

to the literature of eusocial parasitic trematode 

behavior and provide insight on defense 

allocation in eusocial organisms more generally. 

14


CONSERVATION 

Sophia Richter ’23 



THESIS TITLE 

The Highs and Lows of 

Grazing: Effects of 

Ungulates and Elevation 

on Grassland and 

Sagebrush Steppe 

Vegetation Composition 

in Yellowstone National 

Park 

ADVISER 




It has long been debated whether ungulates are 

overgrazing the iconic grassland and sagebrushsteppe 

plant communities of the Northern Range 

of Yellowstone National Park. For my thesis, 

I investigated how vegetation composition 

changes along the elevation gradient and under 

different bison and elk grazing conditions in 

Yellowstone National Park. I collected paired 

transect data inside and outside of “exclosures” 

that keep animals out of certain areas within 

the park to compare vegetation composition in 

the presence and absence of ungulate grazing. 

I found that non-native plant species are found 

at higher abundances at low elevations and 

near park entrances, suggesting that the park 

is currently relatively protected from invasion 

as a mountain ecosystem. The exclosure 

results indicated that overgrazing by ungulates 

is reducing beta-diversity and native cover 

and promoting non-native cover. Differences 

in vegetation change were greater in bisondominated 

areas than elk-dominated areas, 

but grazing by intermediate levels of bison 

and elk reduced these negative impacts and 

even increased spatial heterogeneity. Based 

on my findings, I recommend that Yellowstone 

management policies shift to recognize the 

impact of overgrazing by ungulate populations 

and increase translocations of bison to tribal 

lands. I also recommend that invasive species 

policies focus on low elevation areas to prevent 

the spread of exotic plants in the park. 

15

Liam Seeley ’23 

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE 

Certificate in Environmental Studies; 



CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

Vegetal Cartographies: 

Plant Aesthetics for 

After the End 

ADVISER 

Rachel Price, Associate 

Professor of Spanish 

and Portuguese 

Moved by new materialisms, non-objectualism 

and the coloniality of power, my thesis contributed 

to the emergent field of critical plant studies 

within Spanish and Portuguese cultural studies 

by tracing an emergent vegetal counter-visuality 

in Latin America. My thesis collates several 

theorists/artists/beings, principally from Chile 

and Brazil, that engage with the vegetal as an 

important social space for decolonial world making. 

Rather than understanding contemporary Latin 

American plant representations as articulating a 

transparent discourse of ‘nature,’ a world-saving 

environmentalism, or even a potent ‘post-human’ 

assemblage, I built and considered an archive 

of contemporary practices, works, actions and 

operations that ‘touch’ the vegetal as invocations 

of the deep simultaneity of the social-political or 

cosmopolitical realms. I explored three different sets 

of sensorial-vegetal operations — the respiratory, the 

oneiric and the seeded — within visual and material 

cultures of neoliberal Chile and Brazil to articulate 

how these engagements with plant-ness come to 

produce a common decolonial countervisuality. 

This ‘vegetal eye’ — seeing from and with the 

corporeality, sociality, incommensurability and 

blindness of plant-worlds — sights/sites material 

pathways for plural and cosmogenetic history, 

amidst intercepting and ongoing coloniality. I 

conclude that the environmental humanities must 

be committed to thinking with emergent plant 

geographies theorized and socially produced from 

the South if it is to contribute meaningfully to the 

unraveling of the ‘environmental problem’ enfolded 

within coloniality. 

16


CONSERVATION 

Joanna Shoubaki ’23 


Becky Colvin '95 Memorial Award Recipient; 


THESIS TITLE 

Chemical Signatures of 

Reproduction and 

Nestmate Identity in the 

Socially Flexible Sweat 

Bee, Lasioglossum 

baleicum 

ADVISER 

Sarah Kocher, 

Assistant Professor of 

Ecology and 


and the Lewis-Sigler 

Institute for Integrative 

Genomics 

The sweat bee Lasioglossum baleicum, a 

member of the family Halictidae, an extremely 

socially diverse group of insects, is one of the 

only members of its species group known to 

exhibit solitary and non-delayed eusocial 

polymorphism. This polymorphic species is also 

unusual in that a nontrivial proportion of worker 

bees have highly developed ovaries and are 

therefore capable of reproduction. This means 

that there are conflicts between the evolutionary 

interests of queen bees and their workers, and 

prior studies have observed behavior, in which 

female workers leave their natal nests to found 

new nests or join others to care for unrelated 

broods. It is in the queen’s best interest for 

workers to remain and care for her brood, 

increasing her reproductive success. However, a 

worker may achieve more reproductive success 

by laying her own brood rather than caring for a 

queen’s brood. This suggests that there must be 

some mechanism by which the queen maintains 

her status as the dominant reproductive. 

Olfactory cues have been previously shown to be 

integral to maintaining dominance hierarchy in 

closely related species. My research addresses 

how these bees use chemical signaling to relay 

important information regarding social caste 

occupation and reproductive status. To do this, 

I chemically profiled the pheromonal ratios of 

social castes and identified compounds that 

queens likely use to establish dominance within 

their nests. 

17

Adira Smirnov ’23 




CONSERVATION 

THESIS TITLE 

The Dark Side of Light: 

Investigating the 

Effects of Low-level 

Artificial Light at Night 

on Testes Size and 

Melatonin Production in 

Male Acomys russatus 

and Acomys cahirinus 

ADVISER 

Lindy McBride, 


Ecology and 


and Neuroscience 

Many cities produce artificial light at night that 

illuminates the sky far beyond the cities’ borders. 

For animals that use the changing photoperiod 

to determine their mating season, this artificial 

light can interfere with their ability to recognize 

the natural light cues that signal the changing 

seasons. Both diurnal spiny mice (Acomys 

russatus) and nocturnal spiny mice (Acomys 

cahirinus) are seasonal breeders that rely on the 

photoperiod, and previous studies have shown 

that both species produce significantly fewer 

offspring when exposed to environmentally 

relevant levels of artificial light at night. My 

research investigated the impact of artificial 

light on two reproductive metrics — melatonin 

levels and testes size — in male spiny mice of 

both species. I found no significant effect of 

artificial light at night on either parameter in 

Acomys russatus and Acomys cahirinus, which 

suggests that artificial light at night is not 

negatively impacting the reproductive health of 

male spiny mice. This suggests that the decrease 

in fecundity found in the previous study may 

be due to other factors such as behavior, female 

reproductive health or the viability of offspring. 

It is important to remain vigilant and continue 

investigating this issue as urbanization and its 

associated artificial light continue to grow. 

18


CONSERVATION 

Sam Vasen ’23 



THESIS TITLE 

The Impacts of 

Vegetation Structure 

and Invasive Shrubs on 

Carolina Wren Densities 

ADVISER 

Christina Riehl, 


Ecology and 


Carolina wrens (Thryothorus ludovicianus) are 

common nonmigratory birds that establish yearround 

territories in shrub dense habitats around 

Princeton, New Jersey. These habitats are often 

invaded by non-native and fast-growing shrubs 

such as Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) 

and Multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora). Invasive 

shrubs can drastically alter native ecosystem 

functions and biological communities, however 

the literature on their potential impacts on 

native bird species is varied. I used playback and 

vegetation surveys to investigate the impact of 

invasive shrubs on Carolina wrens. My results 

suggested that the presence of invasive shrubs 

does not suppress Carolina wren territory 

densities. Instead, my data suggests that invasive 

shrubs might correlate with higher densities of 

these birds. I found that wrens were successful 

and ubiquitous across wooded study sites with 

varied vegetation structure, and they appear 

to be an adaptable species in the face of habitat 

change. However, there is substantial space for 

future studies on the impacts invasive shrubs 

have on habitat quality for native bird species. 

19

Yaxin Duan ’23 

CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING 

HMEI Environmental Scholar; 


THESIS TITLE 

Elucidating the Onset of 

Chemotaxis in 

Bioremediation 

ADVISER 

Sujit Datta, Assistant 

Professor of Chemical 

and Biological 

Engineering 

Groundwater contamination presents a large 

problem in the United States, where almost 

half of the population relies on groundwater 

for drinking water. One promising method 

for cleaning up groundwater contaminants is 

bioremediation, which uses microorganisms to 

degrade contaminants. Previous work suggests 

that chemotactic bacteria — species that can 

sense and respond to the concentration gradient 

of chemicals — may be especially effective to use 

as they can actively sense, locate and degrade 

the contaminants in situ. Effective application 

of bacteria for bioremediation requires an 

understanding of how they move through soil and 

other porous media. Researchers have already 

explored the advantage of chemotactic bacteria 

over non-chemotactic bacteria, but few researchers 

have considered how chemotactic response and 

the overall efficacy of bioremediation are affected 

by factors such as the spatial distribution of the 

contaminant and the initial density of bacteria, 

which may determine whether the bacteria 

will be able to chemotactically respond to the 

contaminant. To better understand the conditions 

that elicit a chemotactic response, I used 

simulations to investigate the effect of bacterial 

properties, contaminant characteristics and the 

spatial distribution of contaminant sources on 

bacteria distribution. My findings provide insight 

into how chemotactic bacteria could contribute to 

bioremediation at the pore scale and could help to 

develop more effective applications bioremediation 

strategies. 

CLIMATE AND 

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 

20

Keenan Duggal ’23 

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 


CLIMATE AND 


21 

THESIS TITLE 

Plants, Pathogens and 

Algae: Modern 

Approaches to Fortify 

Global Food Security 

ADVISERS 

Martin Jonikas, 


Molecular Biology; 

Eric Franklin, Jonikas 

Lab 

Population growth and climate change are 

straining the global food supply, and we need 

to increase crop production to support the 

growing global population. I explored two 

possible methods for increasing crop production: 

bioengineering crops to improve their yield 

efficiencies by enhancing their carbon fixation, 

and minimizing agricultural losses caused 

by plant disease. For the bioengineering part 

of my project, I investigated Chlamydomonas 

reinhardtii algae, a species that is capable of uberefficient 

carbon fixation. Specifically, I explored 

the formation and structure of the algaes’ tubules, 

the microstructure responsible for its efficient 

carbon fixation. I identified several promising 

tubulogenesis candidates, and improved a 

workflow capable of characterizing proteins 

associated with the tubules; both advancements 

that will help bring us closer to bioengineering 

this feature into land plants. The other side 

of my research explored how agricultural 

practices could mitigate disease-driven yield 

losses in the presence of climate change. I used 

simple stochastic epidemiological models of 

plant populations to explore possible pathogen 

transmission dynamics under different climate 

change scenarios. My simulations suggest that 

climate change will cause population declines 

in the current geographic ranges of plants, but 

that plant population trajectories will be very 

species specific. Ultimately, these results will 

help focus future research efforts to inform our 

understanding of the nexus of climate change and 

plant pathosystems.

Michael Kim ’23 



THESIS TITLE 

Bringing the Vibe Down 

from Ten to Zero: 

Effects of Glacial 

Discharge on Northern 

Rockweed in the Gulf of 

Alaska 

ADVISERS 

Mary (Cassie) Stoddard, 


Ecology and 

Evolutionary Biology; 

Katrin Iken, Professor 

of Marine Biology, 

University of Alaska 

Fairbanks 

Arctic glacial estuaries are unique and 

extremely dynamic maritime ecosystems, 

being simultaneously influenced by tidal 

action, oceanic currents and terrestrial glacial 

meltwater. It is important that we understand 

how glacial discharge from polar environments 

affects coastal ecosystems and their primary 

production because glacial melt and recession are 

expected to accelerate in the coming decades due 

to anthropogenic climate change. My research 

aimed to shed light on the relationship between 

glacial discharge and the nutritional content of 

one representative species of macroalgae in the 

Arctic, the northern rockweed (Fucus distichus). 

To investigate this relationship, I analyzed 

nutritional and compositional data from F. 

distichus samples collected across six months 

at five Alaskan watershed sites in the context 

of monthly environmental data at each site. I 

concluded that, as an intertidal species that is 

well-adapted to colder waters, F. distichus is not 

expected to be significantly adversely affected 

by increasing glacial discharge and warming 

temperatures, though its quality as a food source 

may decline. Thus, the stability of F. distichus 

under disturbed conditions may not be indicative 

of the stability of the polar estuarine ecosystems 

to which they belong. While F. distichus will 

likely be relatively unaffected by climate change 

and its cascading effects on glaciers, it remains 

unclear how this suite of environmental changes 

will affect the ability of F. distichus to fulfill 

essential ecosystem functions in Alaskan littoral 

ecosystems more generally. 

22 

CLIMATE AND 

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

Rachel Qing Pang ’23 

PHYSICS 


CLIMATE AND 


THESIS TITLE 

Physical Controls of 

Coastal Hypoxia in the 

Indian Ocean Dipole 

ADVISER 

Laure Resplandy, 


Geosciences and the 

High Meadows 


Recurring and widespread coastal hypoxic 

events — where water oxygen levels are depleted 

to below 60 µmol/kg — have been directly 

impacting the productivity of fisheries that 

sustain more than 2.49 billion livelihoods in the 

Indian Ocean littoral. My research examined 

the impact of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), an 

understudied physical phenomenon that involves 

a currently unpredictable reversal of temperature 

gradient across the Indian Ocean, on coastal 

hypoxia events. The overall mechanism of IOD 

propagation is well-established. However, the 

existing literature lacks sufficient studies of the 

specific impacts of the IOD on different regions 

within the Indian Ocean basin. I analyzed the 

differing nature and extent of the influence of 

positive and negative IOD phases on a variety of 

locations across the Indian Ocean by combining 

a theoretical understanding of the IOD, data 

from the biogeochemical MOM6 ocean model 

and the Dipole Mode Index (DMI), an oxygen 

budget analysis. This combination of methods 

and resources enables the study of physical and 

biological mechanisms that influence coastal 

hypoxia in the Indian Ocean. I found that 

positive IOD phases increase the risk of coastal 

hypoxia in the Bay of Bengal but decrease the risk 

of hypoxia in the Arabian Sea, while the converse 

is true for a negative IOD year. 

23

Stav Bejerano ’23 

PHILOSOPHY 


THESIS TITLE 

Animal Exploitation and 

the Capitalist Growth 

Drive: Towards an 

Ecosocialist Philosophy 

ADVISER 

Anna Stilz, Laurance S. 

Rockefeller Professor 

of Politics and the 

University Center for 

Human Values 

What is exploitation? What makes it wrong? 

Previous attempts to answer these questions 

— from Marx to G. A. Cohen — have major 

shortcomings, so I have developed a novel 

account of exploitation to address these 

difficulties that is also uniquely suited to apply 

to sentient non-human animals. In the first 

half of my thesis, I explored the potential for 

a multispecies, post-exploitation politics. In 

the second half of my thesis, I focused on the 

structure of environmental arguments against 

capitalist economies’ need for continuous growth 

and explored non-growth-based alternatives. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 

POLICY AND SOCIETY 

24

Calif Chen ’23 

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL 

AFFAIRS 


ENVIRONMENTAL 


THESIS TITLE 

Building Equitable 

Outcomes, BRIC by 

BRIC: Investigating 

Barriers to Coastal 

Resilience Funding 

Faced by Disadvantaged 

Communities 

ADVISER 

Michael Oppenheimer, 

Albert G. Milbank 

Professor of 

Geosciences and 

International Affairs 

and the High Meadows 


Climate change is and will continue to be one 

of the biggest challenges that human society 

faces this century. Regardless of how much we 

mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the short 

term, sea levels will continue to rise due to past 

greenhouse gas emissions. These impacts will 

significantly impact the lives and livelihoods 

of coastal communities. To help reduce these 

impacts, coastal communities can apply for 

federal coastal resilience funding, but these 

application processes can be long, tedious and 

require technical expertise that disadvantaged 

communities may not have access to. My thesis 

investigated the gap between disadvantaged 

communities and resilience-focused grant 

programs by using a combination of literature 

review, demographic analysis and a qualitative 

case study of the Washington Coastal Resilience 

Action Demonstration Project. I found that 

disadvantaged communities are less likely 

to apply for coastal resilience funding, and 

I identified five barriers that may cause or 

exacerbate this low number of applications. I 

propose two policy solutions to address this issue 

and help disadvantaged communities receive 

coastal resilience funding. Firstly, I recommend 

that states implement an inter-agency approach, 

and I recommend that the grant selection 

process favor applications from disadvantaged 

communities to compensate for their low number 

of applications. 

25

Adam Elkins ’23 


AFFAIRS 


THESIS TITLE 

Zoning In and Out: Land 

Use Policies and 

Environmental Justice 

in Chicago and Houston 

ADVISER 

Nicky Sheats, Lecturer 

in School of Public and 


Urban planning and environmental justice 

literature charge Chicago and Houston with 

disproportionately increasing pollution 

burdens in low-income communities and 

communities of color for opposite reasons: 

in Chicago, these disproportionate burdens 

are attributed to extensive citywide zoning 

policies, while in Houston they are attributed 

to an utter lack of citywide zoning policy. In 

my thesis, I posit theoretical explanations to 

this apparent paradox. I argue that Chicago’s 

zoning ordinances concentrate high residential 

density zoning districts and industrial zoning 

districts in and near low-income communities 

and communities of color, while Houston’s lack 

of zoning restrictions allows well-resourced 

neighborhoods to protect themselves from 

unwanted land uses while other neighborhoods 

cannot stop sources of pollution from being sited 

nearby. I reviewed the origins of zoning in the 

United States from both an urban planning and 

environmental justice standpoint and focused 

on the history of zoning in Chicago and Houston 

as case studies, and I conducted a quantitative 

analysis of a dataset from the Environmental 

Protection Agency. From my findings, I make 

several policy recommendations that build upon 

existing proposals to reform zoning and improve 

community engagement. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


26

Naomi Frim-Abrams ’23 

SOCIOLOGY 


ENVIRONMENTAL 


THESIS TITLE 

Social Prescribing in the 

United Kingdom: The 

Role of Organizational 

Networks and 

Implications for the 

United States 

ADVISER 

Kristopher Velasco, 


Sociology 

Social prescribing (SP) is a National Health 

Service England initiative that utilizes nonclinical 

interventions to support health 

and well-being by connecting patients with 

community resources. To explore the role that 

organizational networks and relationships play 

in the client referral process and SP, and to 

compare SP to healthcare systems in the United 

States, I conducted interviews and observations 

in Sunderland, England and Pittsburgh, 

Pennsylvania. My aims were to investigates 

the impacts of networks on organizational 

function and referral capacity, how SP-toorganization 

and organization-to-organization 

relationships are formed and maintained and 

how SP-to-organization and organization-toorganization 

networks facilitate more efficient 

referrals. I performed a cross-city comparison 

that highlighted differences in organizational 

funding structures, as well as motivations 

for, and barriers to, collaboration. SP acts as a 

navigation service and “access node” for patients, 

in contrast to decentralized referral methods in 

Pittsburgh. In Sunderland, strong interpersonal 

and organizational relationships are central to 

SP. I identified gaps in client service navigation 

support in Pittsburgh for which SP could provide 

a constructive solution. 

27

Alex Giannattasio ’23 


AFFAIRS 



THESIS TITLE 

It Isn’t Easy Being Green: 

Assessing Accelerators 

and Bottlenecks to Green 

Hydrogen Development in 

the Context of Chile’s 

National Green Hydrogen 

Strategy 

ADVISER 

Eric Larson, Senior 

Research Engineer, 

Andlinger Center for 

Energy and the 

Environment 

With mounting concerns over climate change, 

governments around the world are working to 

mitigate the human and ecological impacts 

associated with climate disasters. The Paris 

Climate Accord represents a collective global 

effort towards this aim and provides a framework 

to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Green 

hydrogen, a carbon-neutral energy vector 

made from water and renewable electricity, is 

one potential decarbonization method being 

explored. My thesis focuses on green hydrogen in 

Chile, a country ripe with development potential 

given its rich renewable energy landscape. I 

used a combination of interviews and literature 

review to assess the feasibility of achieving the 

development goals outlined in Chile’s National 

Green Hydrogen Strategy. Informed by a holistic 

analysis of social, cultural, political and economic 

factors, I concluded that Chile’s National 

Green Hydrogen Strategy will not be enough 

to support Chile’s green hydrogen ambitions. 

As such, more policy measures in support of 

green hydrogen development will be necessary. 

I explore additional policy measures that could 

be implemented in Chile by discussing existing 

green hydrogen policies in the United States, 

the European Union, and Australia. My research 

suggests that a combination of incentivizing and 

regulatory policies, as well as attention to the 

unique social, cultural and political makeup in 

Chile, is necessary to reach the country’s desired 

levels of green hydrogen development. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


28

Noa Greenspan ’23 

ENGLISH 


ENVIRONMENTAL 


THESIS TITLE 

Receiving the 

Knowledge: Stories 

ADVISER 

Allison Carruth, 

Professor of American 

Studies and the High 

Meadows 


For my thesis, I worked with Princeton’s Blue 

Lab to create two audio-based stories based in 

my home region of southeastern Virginia. Led by 

Professor Allison Carruth, the Blue Lab’s aim was 

to create a series of stories called Coastal Futures, 

which would be local, community-based tales 

set in regions that are facing sea level rising and 

flooding as a result of climate change. 

29

Esha Jain ’23 


AFFAIRS 


THESIS TITLE 

A Case Study of 

Mumbai: Preparing the 

City for Incoming 

Migration and Climate 

Change 

ADVISER 

Douglas Massey, Henry 

G. Bryant Professor of 

Sociology and Public 

Affairs 

My research examined the impact of climate 

change and migration on Mumbai, India's 

financial and cultural capital. I used geospatial 

analysis to identify the top states that contribute 

migrants to Mumbai, and potential reasons 

for this migration, with a focus on climaterelated 

factors. I also analyzed flood risks for 

vulnerable populations such as women, children, 

individuals from scheduled castes and tribes 

and those with a low socioeconomic status. 

My findings revealed that individuals with a 

lower socioeconomic status are more exposed 

to flooding, while the other vulnerable groups 

are not. Next, I conducted a spatial analysis 

to predict the impact of different emissions 

scenarios on flooding in 2050 and 2100. I 

interviewed stakeholders in India, including 

academics, journalists and NGOs, to craft 

policy recommendations that aim to reduce 

migration to Mumbai, address climate resilience, 

aid vulnerable populations and improve 

international frameworks. Overall, my thesis 

highlights the need for urgent action to mitigate 

the impact of climate change on vulnerable 

populations in Mumbai and other similar cities. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


30

Henry Koffler ’23 

OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND FINANCIAL 

ENGINEERING 


ENVIRONMENTAL 


THESIS TITLE 

A Pricing Analysis of 

European Cap and Trade 

Carbon Futures: Trading 

Strategies and 

Implications 

ADVISER 

Daniel Scheinerman, 

Lecturer in Operations 

Research and Financial 

Engineering 

Many people believe that pure economic 

progress and capitalism are incompatible 

with environmental protection. However, the 

European Union, in their implementation of 

their Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), has 

demonstrated that there is an alternative where 

economic progress is not only fundamentally 

compatible with, but necessarily commands 

environmental protection. In this cap-and-trade 

system, corporations in certain high-emission 

sectors are required by law to purchase rights to 

emit CO 2 

to offset their emissions or pay fines. My 

thesis sought to evaluate the veracity of the claim 

that the European Union carbon credit prices 

are significantly driven by market speculation. 

To accomplish this goal, I blended traditional 

financial modeling approaches, such as Least 

Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator 

regression and the division of historical prices 

into market regimes with new approaches in 

Deep Learning, such as Long Short-Term Memory 

networks. My results suggest that carbon prices 

are indeed strongly correlated to a slew of world 

states such as weather as well as commodities 

such as oil and coal. Based on these findings, 

I concluded that market speculation is not a 

significant factor in carbon credit prices, at 

least in comparison to the speculation of the 

underlying commodities. 

31

Juju Lane ’23 

RELIGION 


THESIS TITLE 

The Pagan Project: 

Reclaiming Heritage, 

Healing, and 

Environmental 

Sovereignty in Ireland 

ADVISER 

Seth Perry, Associate 

Professor of Religion 

Irish people are reclaiming a physical and 

spiritual sovereignty over their bodies, their 

healing and their land, as evidenced by the 

contemporary revival of Irish Paganism, along 

with re-emerging interest in traditional herbal 

medicine. This multivalent reclamation of 

sovereignty — which involves overcoming 

historical and contemporary forces of cultural, 

religious and medical domination — is 

dependent on the consolidation of a worldview 

that is indigenous in Irish culture. Connection 

with the land is put forth as a solution to 

both personal and communal ills. My thesis 

explored how this revival of Irish Paganism is 

based on the stories that real Irish people are 

telling about their practices, their culture and 

themselves. A therapeutic relationship with the 

landscape was historically taken for granted 

in Ireland. According to Irish mythology, the 

desired outcomes of herbal medicine depend on 

a specific set of relationships between humans 

and the landscape, mediated by a layer of magic. 

Today, those who engage in traditional Irish 

herbal medicine are trying to recreate that 

Pagan relationship in order to reap the benefits, 

without relying entirely on magical logics. Irish 

herbalism promises to create a new relationship 

between people and the land, through the 

restoration of a supposedly traditional way of life. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


32

Melina Mahood ’23 


AFFAIRS 


ENVIRONMENTAL 


33 

THESIS TITLE 

Wrangling the Wild 

West: An Analysis of the 

Wild Horse and Burro 

Program in the United 

States 

ADVISER 

Gregory Jaczko, 

Lecturer in School of 

Public and International 

Affairs 

As of March 2022, 82,000 federally protected 

wild horses and burros lived and were managed 

on Bureau of Land Management land in the 

American West under the Wild Horse and Burro 

Program. This program, which began in 1971, has 

cost the United States as much as $139 million in 

a single fiscal year. Despite the copious amounts 

of funding, 105 of 177 Herd Management Areas 

(HMA) are considered overpopulated and there 

are little signs that the overpopulation problem 

will be resolved anytime soon. Due to strains 

on the land from wild horses, burros, livestock, 

drought and adverse climate conditions, both the 

animals and the land are struggling to survive. 

I investigated the progress and feasability 

of a 15-18 year plan that the Bureau of Land 

Management outlined in 2020 to establish a 

sustainable population. I conducted expert 

interviews, case studies of herds under different 

management authorities and reviewed related 

governmental and non-profit organization 

reports, scientific research and literature. Based 

on my assessment and research, I concluded that 

the 2020 plan is not and will not be enough to 

reach the targets established by the 2020 plan. 

However, these targets are achievable, but they 

will require a brave and bold implementation 

plan, along with patience and community 

leadership. Key to achieving these targets are 

improvements in capture-and-hold methodology, 

an expansion of research in both fertility and 

rangeland science and widespread growth of 

partnerships to increase adoption and private offrange 

holding facilities.

Andrew Matos ’23 

ENGLISH 


THESIS TITLE 

“The Idle Singer of an 

Empty Day”: The 

Fantastic and the 

Material in William 

Morris’s The Earthly 

Paradise 

ADVISER 

Susan Wolfson, 

Professor of English 

My thesis explored how William Morris’ use of 

aesthetics in his 1870 epic poem The Earthly 

Paradise presents a materialist vision of paradise 

which intersects labor and environmental theory. 

In his political works, Morris broadcast the 

Marxist argument that industrialism exploits 

labor such that workers no longer feel fulfilled 

in their productions. Morris saw the medieval 

artisan as representing ideal labor, particularly 

in their ornamentation of craftworks. Morris 

also saw the natural environment’s decoration of 

flora as the progenitor of ornamentation. Thus, 

he believed that industrialism’s degradation 

of ornament also degraded nature, thereby 

destructively condoning an extractivist 

relationship with the environment. In The 

Earthly Paradise, the marvels decorating Morris’ 

portraits of paradise produce wonder through 

the union of craftsmanship and nature. Instead 

of using fantasy as a frivolous escape from the 

present’s injustices, Morris’ fantasy is a utopian 

hope which rebels against the rigid epistemic 

authority of capitalism. Morris’ argument 

signifies that, as early as the Victorian era, 

the intersection of labor and environmental 

advocacy has been understood and emphasized 

as necessary to progress beyond the exploitative 

systems of unregulated industrial capitalism. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


34

Marissa Mejia ’23 

PSYCHOLOGY 


ENVIRONMENTAL 


THESIS TITLE 

The Caged Bird Sings of 

Freedom: Using Social 

Norm Psychology to 

Counter Wild Songbird 

Trade in Vietnam 

ADVISER 

Betsy Levy Paluck, 

Professor of 

Psychology and Public 

Affairs 

It is becoming increasingly apparent that without 

dramatic increases in conservation efforts, 

we will soon face biodiversity and ecosystem 

service losses so great that they threaten our very 

existence. Illegal wildlife trafficking is a primary 

contributor to global species loss, yet one 

extremely popular subsect of wildlife trafficking 

is rarely addressed in modern environmental 

campaigns: wild songbird trade. My research 

applied psychological theories revolving around 

norm-based messaging, pluralistic ignorance 

and reality-testing to social media marketing 

against wild songbird trafficking in Vietnam. 

I collaborated with the nonprofit WildAct 

Vietnam to conduct a norms survey to measure 

pluralistic ignorance associated with social 

norms in Vietnam. I found that while norms 

surrounding public health and laws are equally 

popular amongst Vietnamese citizens, lawbased 

norms have significantly higher levels of 

pluralistic ignorance, making them less resilient 

to reality-testing. Next, I used these insights to 

design, launch and analyze different campaigns 

countering wild songbird trade via Facebook 

advertisements. Contrary to our predictions 

that reality-testing would boost the efficacy of 

campaigns that drew from norms of public health 

to counter songbird trade, all our campaigns 

performed equally well. This indicates that 

reality-testing, which has primarily been used 

to explain tangible behavior changes up until 

this point, may not play as large a role as we 

anticipated in social awareness campaigns. 

35

Magdalena Poost ’23 

ANTHROPOLOGY 


THESIS TITLE 

I Made This For You: 

Shared Meals as Sites 

of Memory, Care, 

Climate Change, and 

Resistance 

ADVISERS 

Allison Carruth, 

Professor of American 

Studies and the High 

Meadows 

Environmental 

Institute; Brian Herrera, 


Theater in the Lewis 

Center for the Arts 

Food is the intersection of layered systems of 

power within our global society; at once, eating 

is one of the most intimate and most political 

actions we engage in every day. Sharing a meal 

in community is a profound tool for connection, 

representing an opportunity for reflection on 

relationships between self, others, place and 

time. In a world of climate emergency, food 

insecurity looms as a risk multiplier, threatening 

already vulnerable populations and exacerbating 

socio-economic and racial inequities that will 

have the largest direct effect on Black and 

Indigenous folks. My thesis sought to engage 

with the communal ritual of sharing food as 

an opening for rest as resistance, pleasure in 

the face of strife and memory of lost care. “I 

made this for you” was a three-pronged artistic 

practice: first, a series of shared public meal 

performances that took place on and around 

campus; second, an oral history project in which 

I collected remembered stories of shared meals 

gone by and meals or foods that have been lost to 

us; and finally, a culminating final public meal 

installation and performance. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


36

Elena Remez ’23 


AFFAIRS 


ENVIRONMENTAL 


37 

THESIS TITLE 

Reigniting the Good 

Fire: Using Indigenous 

Networks and NGOs to 

Enhance Government to 

Government Work on 

Prescribed Burning for 

Reducing Wildfire Risk 

ADVISER 

David Wilcove, 


and Evolutionary 

Biology and Public 

Affairs and the 

High Meadows 


With the worsening impacts of climate change, 

catastrophic wildfires have been making frequent 

news headlines. However, a dive into American history 

shows that naturally occurring fires were part of this 

continent’s ecosystem pre-colonization, and that 

suppression policies have ultimately led to intense 

uncontrollable fires due to the removal of smaller fires 

from the ecosystem. A new initiative by the United States 

Forest Service aims to mitigate the impacts of wildfire by 

treating 50 million acres of land with prescribed burning 

and thinning treatment over the next 10 years. However, 

this initiative does not take into account indigenous 

perspectives. Prior to mass colonization and relocation, 

many tribes had robust fire regimes, fitted to the 

ecological landscape. Now with increased understanding 

of the validity of tribal knowledge, there have been 

pushes to allow tribes to reclaim their historical burning 

practices for both cultural and ecological reasons. 

However, due to the landscape of fire policies, and almost 

a century of public negative perception of fire led by 

Smokey the Bear, restarting indigenous burning regimes 

is complex. Because of this, the Nature Conservancy 

in collaboration with the United States Forest Service 

has sponsored a set of agreements and networks for the 

purpose of fire resilience, the most recent being the 

Indigenous Peoples Burning Network which aims to 

enhance collaboration between indigenous tribes and 

federal agencies and enable these tribes to overcome 

obstacles to restart their burning practices. For my 

thesis, I conducted interviews with participants of the 

Indigenous Peoples Burning Network to understand 

the barriers to effective fuel management work and 

to understand how the network can assist. I analyzed 

policies regarding burning and collaboration and made 

recommendations in hopes of enhancing tribal burning 

and the greater goal of fuel management by the United 

States Forest Service.

Robert Shell ’23 


AFFAIRS 


THESIS TITLE 

“We Need to Move 

Away”: The Future of 

Forestry Offsets under 

California’s Compliance 

Offset Protocol 

ADVISER 

Timothy Searchinger, 

Senior Research 

Scholar, School of 


Affairs and the Center 

for Policy Research on 

Energy and the 

Environment 

California is home to one of the largest 

compliance offset markets in the world, but 

unfortunately the majority of the offsets within 

the market are from United States forestry 

projects. Compared to other offsets, Forestry 

Carbon Offsets are more vulnerable to lack of 

permanence, leakage, lack of additionality and 

difficulty in verification of the credits which are 

issued. There have been reports that the over 

crediting rate for forestry projects in California 

is 30%, with some studies citing the rate as high 

as 80%. My research examined the problem of 

Forestry Projects within California’s Compliance 

Offset Protocol. I conducted a literature review 

and interviewed experts in order to analyze the 

four main principles of offsets and to compare 

California’s program to the voluntary market in 

the United States and the international voluntary 

market in the Clean Development Mechanism. 

From this, I proposed three pathways forward 

and identified questions and priorities for future 

research on this topic. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


38

Camille VanderMeer ’23 

ECONOMICS 


ENVIRONMENTAL 


THESIS TITLE 

Rising Fears and Tides: 

Flood Risk Perceptions 

in New Jersey Before 

and After Hurricane 

Sandy 

ADVISER 

Stephen Redding, 

Harold T. Shapiro '64 

Professor in 

Economics. Professor 

of Economics and 

International Affairs, 

School of Public and 


Do natural disasters have long term impacts on 

the spatial economy? My thesis aimed to answer 

this question in the context of Hurricane Sandy 

by determining its impacts on perceptions of 

flood risk and spatial sorting of income groups, 

population density and racial composition. I used 

a pooled cross-sectional analysis with interaction 

expansions and hedonic controls to build off 

the Rosen-Roback spatial equilibrium model 

to assess changing valuations of areas with 

high flood risk and Hurricane Sandy exposure 

by examining both properties and census 

tracts. Though flood zone properties are more 

expensive, my results show a dip and partial 

recovery of property prices, which reflects both 

an element of physical damage from the storm as 

well as changing amenity values associated with 

flood risk. I also observed that the differences 

in price of flood zone properties and non-flood 

zone properties fell by 26% in the years following 

Hurricane Sandy. This relative price drop was 

even greater for properties in counties exposed 

to high winds — of over seventy-five miles per 

hour —during Hurricane Sandy. My census-tractlevel 

analysis indicated that poorer communities 

are more exposed to flood risk, though this level 

of exposure did not change at conventionally 

significant levels after Hurricane Sandy. 

39

Isaac Wills ’23 

HISTORY 


THESIS TITLE 

Her Majesty’s Loyal 

Opposition: Protest, 

Petition, and Prison in 

British South Africa, 

1875-1906 

ADVISER 

Michael Laffan, Paula 

Chow Professor in 

International and 

Regional Studies. 

Professor of History 

In 2010, around three-hundred Muslims marched 

from Bo-Kaap, formally designated as the 

Malay Quarter in Cape Town, to the Tana Baru 

Cemetery on Signal Hill. This march, performed 

on the anniversary of one like it in 1886, honored 

the three-thousand Cape Muslims who had 

protested the closure of their burial ground by 

the British. My thesis explored the history that 

gave rise to this and related episodes of civil 

disobedience by non-white, non-native South 

Africans, including Cape Muslims and Indians, 

who lived under British rule. Contemporary 

Cape Muslims (or Malays) view the 1886 protest 

as “a symbol of the struggle for freedom.” I 

interpret how the legacy of such events, as well 

as the people and institutions that mobilized 

them, shaped subsequent political and social 

movements in the history of the Cape and 

beyond. The story my thesis explored is not just 

Capetonian, but rather South African. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


40

Lois Wu ’23 

ANTHROPOLOGY 


ENVIRONMENTAL 


THESIS TITLE 

Cricket Farming’s 

Capitalist Emergence: 

Care, Scale, and Moral 

Imaginaries in a New 

Industry of Food 

Production 

ADVISER 

Beth Semel, Assistant 

Professor of 

Anthropology 

Since its emergence in the early 2010’s, 

cricket farming as a source of food for human 

consumption has begun to industrialize in 

the United States and Canada. However, little 

is known about cricket farmers or attitudes 

to insect consumption in Western countries; 

much of the anthropological literature on insect 

eating has been limited to non-Western cultures 

or insect consumption by primates. I used a 

combination of ethnographic fieldwork, analysis 

of cricket company websites and interviews 

to examine the edible cricket industry as an 

example of how entrepreneurs imagine their 

businesses can help solve complex problems 

like climate change and food insecurity. My 

findings suggest that entrepreneurs within 

the cricket industry do so through the moral 

imaginaries they hold, their practices of care and 

their visions for how the industry should look 

after it is scaled up. 

41

Karena Yan ’23 

OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND FINANCIAL 

ENGINEERING 


THESIS TITLE 

Equity, Mobility, and 

Sustainability: 

Analyzing Geographic 

and Demographic 

Disparities in Urban 

Bikeability 

ADVISER 

Miklos Racz, Assistant 

Professor of Operations 

Research and Financial 

Engineering 

Cities produce 70% of the world’s greenhouse 

gas emissions, and within major cities, the 

transportation sector accounts for a third of 

these emissions. Improving urban infrastructure 

to support low-carbon methods of transportation 

such as cycling can play a critical role in reducing 

emissions. Improving bikeability also provides 

people with an affordable means of mobility as 

well as health and wellbeing benefits. However, 

efforts to improve city bike infrastructure have 

historically overlooked underserved populations 

such as low-income residents, people of color 

and people with disabilities. To ensure urban 

bike networks serve all residents, it is important 

to evaluate where disparities in bikeability 

occur and who they impact. I used a multiobjective, 

network-based approach to analyze the 

geographic and demographic equity of cycling 

in three case study cities in the United States. I 

found that the network-wide bikeability of a city 

is not necessarily indicative of its equity level, 

as significant disparities in bikeability can exist 

in cities that are highly bike-friendly overall. 

These disparities are observed when the data 

is stratified by socioeconomic status and when 

the accessibility needs of vulnerable cyclist 

populations are accounted for. This framework 

represents a useful tool for future equity analyses 

to help inform urban planning decisions with 

the ultimate goal of providing sustainable 

transportation options that are equitable and 

accessible for all. 

ENVIRONMENTAL 


42

Julia Elman ’23 


AFFAIRS 


HEALTH AND 

DISEASE 

THESIS TITLE 

“Our Bodies, Our Land, 

Our Choice, Our Voice” 

Environmental Justice 

and Reproductive 

Rights: The Fight For 

Bodily Autonomy 

Through Coalition 

Politics 

ADVISER 




Affairs, School of 


Affairs 

My thesis explored the intersection between 

environmental justice and reproductive rights 

in the United States. Environmental justice, 

ecofeminism and the women’s reproductive 

rights movement are connected through the 

commonality of the prioritization of bodily 

autonomy. I argue that both the environmental 

justice movement and the women’s reproductive 

rights movements must embrace coalition politics 

in order to form problem-focused coping strategies 

and engage outside of their preexisting bases. I 

used two case studies to explore these concepts. 

In my first case study I examine the impacts of 

ambient fine particulate matter air pollution 

(PM2.5) on Latina women’s health in California, 

the most heavily air-polluted state in the United 

States, in the context of historic oppression aimed 

at disenfranchising Californians who don’t speak 

fluent English. My second case study explored the 

longterm ramifications of uranium extraction in 

the Navajo Nation and the related exploitation 

that this group has faced. In particular, I focus 

on how this extraction negatively affected Navajo 

women’s reproductive health, tribal roles and 

social positions within the community. I conclude 

by drawing both case studies back into the core 

argument of moving towards sharing a common 

ground in bodily autonomy and a common 

methodology in coalition politics, while exploring 

ways of implementing coalition politics strategies 

in the grassroots collaborative environmental 

justice and women’s health movement. 

43

Chirag Kumar ’23 

CHEMISTRY 



THESIS TITLE 

Is Climate Change 

Driving the Next 

Superbug? Modeling the 

Global Spread of 

Candida auris 

ADVISER 

Ramanan 

Laxminarayan, Senior 

Research Scholar, High 

Meadows 


Candida auris is a globally distributed, 

multidrug resistant fungus. Despite numerous 

case studies, we have a limited understanding 

of the factors driving C. auris transmission. To 

identify environmental predictors of C. auris 

transmission, I aggregated a global database of 

outbreaks and developed a hierarchical Bayesian 

regression to estimate C. auris cases from 

environmental and country-level variables. I 

found that C. auris cases are positively predicted 

by temperature and antifungal use but negatively 

associated with humidity. Collectively, this 

suggests that C. auris transmission may be 

related to climate change and that there is a 

distinct ecological niche of C. auris spread. Next, 

I used this model to provide global projections 

of C. auris cases both currently and under future 

climate and antifungal-use scenarios. My model 

indicated that Mediterranean countries and 

lower-middle income countries across North 

Africa and South-East Asia (India, Pakistan) have 

the highest burden of cases currently, and in 

future this burden is likely to spread to Australia 

and Latin America (Brazil, Argentina). Finally, 

I conducted a factorial analysis to identify the 

variables that will be most predictive of future 

cases. I found that increases in antifungal use 

would be more impactful in driving future C. 

auris outbreaks than temperature and humidity, 

which suggests that effective antimicrobial 

stewardship could prevent these outbreaks. 

HEALTH AND 

DISEASE 

44

Reed Leventis ’23 



HEALTH AND 

DISEASE 

THESIS TITLE 

Species Characteristics 

of and Interactions 

Between Large 

Herbivore Nemabiomes, 

Microbiomes, and Diets 

ADVISER 




I investigated how host characterics such 

as body size might impact interactions 

between gastrointestinal microbes and 

nematodes. The relationship between host 

microbes and nematodes is just beginning 

to be understood; in some cases, nematodes 

appear to exert antimicrobial activity while 

in other cases nematodes may potentially 

worsen bacterial disease. To explore how host 

species characteristics such as body size, water 

dependence, gut anatomy and digestive system 

type may drive differences in interactions 

between whole communities of coexisting 

nematodes and microbes, I sequenced the full 

community of nemabiome and microbiome of 

several species of large hervivore. Additionally, 

I focused on nematode size as a potential 

modulator of interactions between nemabiome 

and microbiome. I found that host species with 

larger sized nematodes tended to have less 

diverse microbiomes, and the gut microbiomes 

of individual hosts with larger nematodes 

were characterized by a larger proportion of 

pathogenic microbes. I found no association 

between host size and average nematode size, 

but my results provide preliminary evidence 

that domestication status and gut anatomy 

may correlate with average nematode size. My 

results also suggest that there is a link between 

nemabiome and diet composition. 

45

Molly Sauter ’23 



THESIS TITLE 

Shedding Light on 

Influenza: Viral Kinetics, 

Transmission Dynamics, 

and Antibody Titers of 

Seasonal Influenza in 

Two South African 

Community Cohorts 

(PHIRST), 2016-2018 

ADVISERS 

Bryan Grenfell, 


and Evolutionary 

Biology and Public 



Affairs; Cecile Viboud, 

Senior Staff Scientist 

at Fogarty International 

Center at the National 

Institutes of Health; 

Kaiyuan Sun, 

Postdoctoral Fellow at 

Fogarty International 

Center at the National 

Institutes of Health 

Seasonal influenza disproportionately burdens 

healthcare systems in tropical and low-income 

regions, yet these areas are overlooked in scientific 

literature. To fill this gap, I explored seasonal 

influenza in South Africa by analyzing and 

comparing serology and longitudinal infection data 

from a rural and an urban community. This data was 

collected from 2016 to 2018 as part of the PHIRST 

cohort study. I used these data to model the viral 

RNA shedding trajectory, a measure of the amount 

of virus expelled by an infected individual, for 

each recorded infection episode. Then, I used these 

estimates to inform a robust household transmission 

model that evaluated the determinants of risk of 

infection acquisition. My results highlighted that 

the hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) antibody 

titer, a widely accepted correlate of protection, 

was associated with a reduced risk of infection for 

A(H1N1) pdm09, A(H3N2), and B/Victoria strains, 

but was only associated with a reduction in the 

duration of viral shedding for the A(H3N2) strain. 

Moreover, I found that age displayed a strong 

residual relationship in both analyses, as children 

demonstrated longer shedding and a higher risk 

of infection regardless of the HAI titer level and 

presence of other individual or household risk 

factors. These findings have important implications 

for the use of HAI titers as a correlate of protection 

in studies of seasonal influenza and vaccine 

production, as there could be unmeasured antibody 

or cell-mediated immunity at play. This model 

methodology could also be used to inform future 

vaccine distribution policies and nonpharmaceutical 

intervention strategies in South Africa. 

46 

HEALTH AND 

DISEASE

Camille Boylan ’23 


AFFAIRS 


NEW ENERGY 

FUTURE 

THESIS TITLE 

Resolving Chicken-and- 

Egg Bottlenecks Facing 

the Deployment of Clean 

Energy Technologies for 

the Net-zero Transition 

in the United States 

ADVISER 

Chris Greig, Theodora D 

'78 & William H Walton 

III '74 Senior Research 

Scientist, Andlinger 

Center for Energy and 

the Environment. 

Investments in clean energy and transmission 

infrastructure in the United States today are far 

below what is needed for the nation to be on track 

to a fully-decarbonized electricity sector and to 

achieve net-zero economy-wide goals by 2050. 

My research investigated how chicken and egg 

challenges are keeping the United States from 

accelerating clean energy deployment at the pace 

and scale needed to reach its goals in order to 

make recommendations for the type of role the 

United States government must take to remove 

these bottlenecks. To do this, I used a mixture 

of a literature review, historical analysis, and a 

contemporary analysis using original research I 

collected through 12 interviews with stakeholders 

in the industry. The overriding conclusion from 

my research is that existing policy interventions 

from the United States government, which rely 

on providing financial incentives to impel market 

forces towards the clean energy transition, are 

insufficient to deliver the rapid energy system 

transition in time to decarbonize the entire 

economy by 2050. Ultimately, the government 

must take a more ‘hands on’ role to align the 

entire system along a green trajectory with more 

centralized authority over the electricity sector 

as the nation transitions to a new energy system. 

47

Francesca DiMare ’23 

CHEMISTRY 



THESIS TITLE 

Evaluation of 

Phenoxythiazolinecobalt 

Catalysts for 

C(sp 2 )–C(sp 3 ) Suzuki- 

Miyaura Cross-coupling 

Reactions 

ADVISER 

Paul Chirik, Edwards S. 

Sanford Professor of 

Chemistry 

Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions have 

widespread applications in the synthesis of 

pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals and organic 

materials. Cross-coupling reactions to form 

C–C bonds are typically catalyzed by precious 

metals such as palladium, which significantly 

contributes to the cost and environmental impact 

of important synthetic routes. Consequently, 

there is large motivation to use more earthabundant 

first-row transition metals such as 

cobalt in catalysis. However, we currently have 

a limited mechanistic understanding of cobalt 

catalysis, particularly as applied to C(sp 2 )–C(sp ) 

couplings. My research has established a 

reproducible protocol for a cobalt-catalyzed 

C(sp 2 )–C(sp ) Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling 

with phenoxyimine (FI) ligands. I achieved this 

by fine-tuning previously reported experimental 

and analytical procedures. Specifically, I 

used cobalt(II) halides in combination with 

phenoxythiazoline (FTz) ligands to catalyze a 

C(sp 2 )–C(sp ) Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling 

between alkyl bromides and a pharmaceutically 

relevant indole- containing boronic ester. Then, 

I optimized this reaction by exploring the 

influence of various reaction parameters. I also 

explored the relevant coordination chemistry 

of the catalyst by forming various FTz-Co 

complexes and examining their reactivity. These 

experiments revealed that mono and bis- ligand 

Co(II) compounds are effective in producing high 

yields of the desired product, while the trisligand 

Co(III)–Co(III) complex was ineffective. 

NEW ENERGY 

FUTURE 

48

Madison Esposito ’23 

CHEMISTRY 



NEW ENERGY 

FUTURE 

THESIS TITLE 

Bis(phosphine) Cationic 

Co(I)- and Neutral 

Co(0)- Catalyzed 

Asymmetric 

Hydrogenation of 

Pharmaceutically- 

Relevant Functionalized 

Enamides 

ADVISER 



Chemistry 

Transition metal-catalyzed asymmetric 

hydrogenation is an atom-economical process 

used in the industrial synthesis of pharmaceutical 

ingredients. The process usually uses precious metals 

such as rhodium as catalysts, but these metals are 

rare and have high impacts on global warming. 

Studying catalysis by more abundant metals such as 

cobalt can provide insight into novel single-electron 

differentiated reactivity that could provide more 

cost-effective alternatives. My research examined 

the functional tolerance of cationic bis(phosphine) 

Co(I) and neutral bis(phosphine) Co(0) precatalysts 

toward two model substrate classes that are used 

to produce pharmaceuticals for migraine and 

Parkinson’s disease treatment, respectively. I 

used high-pressure asymmetric hydrogenation 

reactions to explore the active and selective cationic 

Co(I)-catalyzed hydrogenation of indazole- and 

carboxylic- containing enamides. Notably, this is 

the first synthesis of L-DOPA precursors by Cocatalyzed 

asymmetric hydrogenation. Next, I used 

in-situ studies to investigate precatalyst stability 

and precatalyst-substrate interactions in THF-d8 

and MeOH-d4. These experiments revealed that the 

optimal precatalyst [(R,R)- (BenzP*)Co(η 6 -C6H6)] 

[BAr F 4] forms an unidentified substrate-independent 

and diamagnetic phosphorus-containing species 

that is visible by 31 P NMR spectroscopy. Overall, 

my research demonstrates the tolerance of singleelectron 

differentiated cobalt catalysts for indazole-, 

carboxylic acid-, and free phenol- containing 

enamides, and provides preliminary insight into 

cationic BenzP* Co(I) precatalyst activation in MeOH. 

49

Hojoon Kim ’23 

CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING 


THESIS TITLE 

Catalytic Upcycling of 

Plastic Waste on 

Faujasite-type Zeolites 

ADVISER 

Michele Sarazen, 


Chemical and Biological 

Engineering 

Despite the increasing global production of 

plastics, methods to manage waste plastics have 

lagged far behind. This has resulted in plastic 

waste leaking into marine ecosystems and 

accumulating in landfills. A sustainable pathway 

for plastic upcycling that could help resolve 

this issue is catalytic hydrocracking, a reaction 

pathway which utilizes solid bifunctional 

metal-acid catalysts to produce saturated 

hydrocarbons at mild reaction conditions 

under H 2 

. To explore this method, I performed 

polyethylene hydrocracking experiments under 

mild temperatures and pressures (473 K, 10 bar 

H 2 

) on Ni-loaded FAU zeolites with Si/Al ratios 

of 15 and 40. These experiments exhibited 

high conversions and produced gaseous and 

liquid hydrocarbons in the C 3 

-C 20 

range, with 

minimal amounts of low-value methane (

Amelia Liu ’23 

CHEMISTRY 



NEW ENERGY 

FUTURE 

THESIS TITLE 

Developing Quinoline 

Pyridine Imine Iron 

Complexes for 

Upgrading Feedstock 

Olefins 

ADVISER 



Chemistry 

Petrochemical and biomass-derived 

hydrocarbons, specifically those of butadiene 

and linear α-olefins, are abundant synthetic 

feedstocks for transformations that yield 

commercially valuable materials. Redoxactive 

(PDI) iron complexes are widely used 

for catalyzing hydrovinylation and [2+2] 

cycloaddition reactions to achieve new 

hydrocarbon architectures. My research explored 

a new class of modulable, redox-active quinoline 

pyridine imine (QPI) ligands originally targeted 

to access diasteroselective [2+2] cycloaddition 

reactions. I synthesized a library of (QPI) 

ligands of varying substituents to prevent 

catalyst deactivation pathways and elucidate 

the interesting hydrovinylation reactivity 

observed with these complexes. Preliminary 

studies of these complexes in the Chirik group 

showed that, despite the similar electronic and 

structural properties of (QPI) iron methyl and 

(PDI) iron methyl complexes, reactivity diverges 

under catalytic conditions with butadiene and 

ethylene. Namely, (QPI) iron methyl complexes 

favor hydrovinylation products, while (PDI) 

favors [2+2] cycloaddition complexes. Stability 

and activity deactivation pathways were also 

encountered while attempting to access (QPI) 

iron(0) species, known precatalysts for [2+2] 

cycloaddition and hydrovinylation reactions. 

51

Aneesha Manocha ’23 

ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING 


THESIS TITLE 

Evaluating the Role of 

Co-located Energy 

Storage in a 

Decarbonized Energy 

Future 

ADVISER 

Jesse Jenkins, 


Mechanical and 

Aerospace Engineering 

and the Andlinger 

Center for Energy and 

the Environment 

Cost-effective decarbonization of the electricity 

sector will require substantial increases in 

wind and solar photovoltaic capacity and 

storage resources. Numerous modeling studies 

have focused on the value and optimal design 

space of standalone storage assets but have 

not analyzed how batteries co-located with 

solar photovoltaic or wind energy resources 

— known as variable renewable energy (VRE) 

resources — could change the role of batteries 

and buildout of various technologies. I used 

a least-cost optimization capacity expansion 

model to explore two projects related to the value 

of co-located short-duration energy storage in 

the American West for 2030. My findings indicate 

that co-locating VREs and battery energy 

storage can reduce long-distance inter-regional 

transmission expansion by 12-31% (106-744 GWmiles) 

and decrease grid connection capacity and 

shorter-distance transmission interconnection 

by 21-32% depending on battery penetration 

(7-22 GW). Next, I investigated the impacts of the 

current federal policy environment on deploying 

co-located energy storage, transmission, and 

VRE resources. I found that the Inflation 

Reduction Act (IRA) could further solar 

photovoltaic capacity by 10-11%, wind energy 

by 36-38%, and inter-regional transmission 

expansion by 51-81%. However, even with the 

introduction of the IRA, our models do not 

deploy new battery technologies for 2030 due to 

the value that batteries can provide to the grid 

at their projected costs and the existing storage 

resources in the Western Interconnection. 

NEW ENERGY 

FUTURE 

52

Faith Moore ’23 

ECONOMICS 


NEW ENERGY 

FUTURE 

THESIS TITLE 

The Impact of the El 

Niño-Southern 

Oscillation on United 

States and European 

Renewable Energy 

Stock Markets 

ADVISER 

Lin Peng, Visiting 

Research Scholar, 

Bendheim Center for 

Finance. Visiting 

Professor of Economics 

Although the El Niño-Southern Oscillation 

(ENSO) is one of the most important climate 

phenomena on Earth, little has been done to 

explore the effect of ENSO on renewable energy 

stock markets. My thesis contributes to the 

literature by being the first empirical paper to 

document the effect of ENSO on the volatility 

of renewable stocks, as well as explore the 

heterogeneity across different renewable energy 

sub-sectors, including wind, solar, geothermal 

and fuel cell energy, as well as the manufacturing 

sector for renewable energy power plants. 

Overall, I found that there was no significant 

relationship between ENSO and renewable 

energy stock returns. However, my analysis 

showed that La Niña has a significant first-order 

effect on the volatility of the U.S. and European 

aggregate renewable energy markets, as well as 

the majority of sub-sector stocks. Furthermore, 

my logit analysis showed that increases in the 

intensity of La Niña increase the downside risk 

of the United States and European aggregate 

renewable energy markets, as well as all subsector 

stocks except for solar energy. My VAR 

analysis suggested that a La Niña shock would 

impact the aggregate renewables market for 

several months. My results suggest that this 

would also be true for wind energy but would 

be contained to an immediate effect for the 

remaining sub-sectors. These findings can be 

used by investors to hedge against climate risk 

and by policy makers to inform decisions about 

investing in renewables. 

53

Aidan Zentner ’23 

PHYSICS 


THESIS TITLE 

Hyperuniformity and 

Photonic Properties in 

Solids with Bondorientational 

Order 

ADVISER 

Paul Steinhardt, Albert 

Einstein Professor in 

Science. Professor of 

Physics 

Advances in materials science, nanotechnology 

and atomic physics will soon allow for the 

construction of solids that are impossible to 

construct by thermodynamic processes alone. 

Adopting this broader view of the landscape 

of possible structures, one class of solids that 

offers immense variety is solids with bondorientational 

order. However, beyond perfect 

quasicrystals, the hyperuniformity and 

transport properties of such systems have yet to 

be explored. My thesis explored Hyperuniform 

Bond-Orientational Ordered (HyperBOO) 

structures, a new class of solids that show 

promise both for exploring the connection 

between hyperuniformity and transport, and 

as interesting systems that could possess novel 

properties desirable in future technologies. My 

research focused on the photonic properties 

of these systems. I first characterized the 

hyperuniformity of a selection of BOO structures 

and identified several of them as HyperBOO 

structures. Then, I modified the prescription 

for generating periodic approximants of 

perfect quasicrystals to accommodate a much 

larger variety of BOO tilings, which allowed 

me to study the photonic band gaps of these 

systems. I applied this procedure to a selection 

of BOO structures whose hyperuniformity I 

had previously characterized. These tests were 

inconclusive in addressing whether HyperBOO 

structures outperform non-hyperuniform BOO 

systems in terms of the widths of their photonic 

band gaps. Future research should be aimed at 

constraining the photonic band gaps of these 

systems. 

54 

NEW ENERGY 

FUTURE

URBAN PLANNING AND 

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES 

THESIS TITLE 

Te Abre un Mundo’ │ ‘A 

World Opens to You’ 

In and Out of the Clinical 

Gaze in Tijuana Migrant 

Healthcare 

ADVISER 

João Biehl, Susan Dod 

Brown Professor of 


Sarah Irene Brown ’23 

ANTHROPOLOGY 


Climate change, increasing displacement and 

the hardening of borders have driven a need for 

more medical care in border spaces worldwide. 

In this thesis, I offer an ethnographic glance 

into one organization offering these services, 

the Coalition for Refugee Medicine (CRM) 

in Tijuana, Mexico. CRM works to create a 

sustainable system of services to boost the 

health of migrants and refugees. It moves beyond 

biological, mechanistic views of health to also 

focus on mental, material, hygienic, social and 

spiritual health. I argue that CRM disrupts 

the conventional boundaries of humanitarian 

aid and forges a new model for engagement 

with migrant healthcare. My thesis details the 

organization’s clinical gaze, born both from 

the structure of the organization itself and the 

sensibilities of the on-the-ground providers. 

While not without flaws, CRM presents an 

exciting model of an organization that juggles 

the seemingly competing priorities of structural 

competency and individual care. 

55

THESIS TITLE 

Growing as the Trees 

Grow: A Study of 

Human-tree 

Interactions as Food 

Justice in South Central 

Los Angeles 

ADVISER 

Hanna Garth, Assistant 

Professor of 


Annabel Grace Bol Dupont ’23 

ANTHROPOLOGY 



My research explored multispecies relationships 

forged within localized economies through 

collective practices of harvesting and 

redistributing produce from residential trees. 

I performed ethnographic research on programs 

implemented by the non-profit, Collective Care 

(CC), as they align with the ideals of food justice 

and work to combat food apartheid in South 

Central Los Angeles. Using theories proposed by 

Sidney Mintz and Anna Tsing, I argue that CC 

represents a unique food system that contrasts 

with dominant models of industrial agriculture. 

In the first part of my thesis, I discuss how CC 

is closely oriented around the natural cycles of 

growth, dormancy and decay and how these 

slow modalities help construct reciprocal 

relationships. In the second part of my thesis, 

I focus on issues of ownership and discuss how 

barriers to homeownership necessitate alternative 

understandings of property. My research situates 

multispecies theories within a food justice 

framework and offers new ways of considering 

the role of non-human actors in constructing 

community and interspecies wellbeing. 



56



THESIS TITLE 

A Journey to the Heart 

of Energy in America: 

The Convergence of 

Diverse Temporalities in 

the West Texas 

Landscape 

ADVISER 

Jerry Zee, Assistant 

Professor of 

Anthropology and the 

High Meadows 


Leah Emanuel ’23 

ANTHROPOLOGY 



My thesis explored anthropological 

considerations of change, belonging and 

coexistence as they are experienced in West 

Texas communities to uncover the complexity 

of our nation’s energy transition, blunting 

the idealization of a linear transformation 

while offering hope for our energy future. This 

work emerged through ethnographic research 

conducted in West Texas’s tract of the Permian 

Basin. By contrasting the traditional teleological 

narrative of a fluid and linear renewable energy 

transition, I discussed the immense intricacies 

of transforming our nation’s energy resources 

and explored this complexity through its 

intersectionality with land, local livelihoods, 

extractive economies, communal relations and 

cultural identities. 

57

THESIS TITLE 

Monsanto as Image 

Maker: Feeding the 

World Lies 

ADVISER 

Rachael DeLue, 

Christopher Binyon 

Sarofim '86 Professor in 

American Art. Professor 

of Art and Archaeology 

and American Studies 

Alison Hirsch ’23 

ART AND ARCHEOLOGY 


My thesis explored the visual marketing and 

dissemination of misinformation regarding 

food through the lens of the agrochemical 

corporation Monsanto as an image maker. I 

discuss why this topic is an America-centric 

issue that also has implications for the rest of 

the world by considering the Supreme Court 

ruling that corporations should be treated as 

individuals, as well as the legal leniency around 

Big Ag and advertising at large. The art-historical 

analysis of this issue has been largely, and 

wrongly, overlooked. For decades, court cases, 

investigative reports and scientific studies have 

revealed insight into Monsanto’s malpractices, 

but these efforts have resulted in limited 

change because they are far less accessible 

than Monsanto’s advertisements, where visual 

expression is largely unregulated. These 

persuasive, promotional materials reach the 

masses and receive minimal critical attention. 

People don’t appreciate that they are being ‘fed’ 

information via visuals that often don’t reflect 

reality. I used two case studies to explore the use 

of visuals in Monsanto’s marketing materials: 

Monsanto’s 2015 “Food is Love” commercial 

and Bayer’s 2020 “This is Why We Science” 

commercial, which aired after Monsanto was 

acquired by Bayer. Finally, I explored visualbased 

solutions to offset Monsanto’s monopoly 

in the mainstream media, and concluded that 

consumers need better visual literacy in order to 

assume the role of critics rather than captives. 



58



THESIS TITLE 

Designing for 

Deconstruction: The 

Architectural 

Implications of 

Impermanence 

ADVISER 

Paul Lewis, Professor 

of School of 

Architecture 

Cam My Nguyen ’23 

ARCHITECTURE 


My thesis explored ‘Designing for Disassembly’ 

or ‘Designing for Deconstruction’, two types 

of sustainable building design that aim to 

allow buildings to be changed or dismantled, 

in part or in whole, in a way that facilitates the 

recovery of systems, components and materials. 

Integrating these design principles can prevent 

obsolescence and discourage destructive 

practices. The current practice of architectural 

design disregards the reality of impermanence 

that all architecture will inevitably face, leading 

to unnecessary and unsustainable waste. 

The relationship between the Grand Palais 

Éphémère and the Grand Palais demonstrates 

the architectural implications of Designing for 

Deconstruction that emerge when obsolescence 

is considered. The architectural implications 

of Designing for Deconstruction — such as the 

use of de-solidified structures, integration into a 

material network and dry assembly — embrace 

temporary yet durable and long-term modes 

of existence. These characteristics serve as a 

starting point toward a more sustainable future. 

59

THESIS TITLE 

Environmental Goods 

and “Bads”: 

Understanding Green 

Infrastructure in NYCHA 

Public Housing 

ADVISER 






Affairs 

Riya Singh ’23 


AFFAIRS 


Tenants of New York City’s largest public 

housing authority, NYCHA, are faced with 

both disproportionately high exposure to 

environmental “bads” and disproportionately 

low access to environmental “goods” due to a 

long history of racial segregation, discrimination 

in the housing market and federal disinvestment 

in their neighborhoods. NYCHA residences 

experience elevated flood risk and can be 

subject to combined sewer overflow, a negative 

outcome of extreme weather, which is hazardous 

to health and degrades the environment. In 

response to these harms, the city of New York 

is increasingly exploring green infrastructure 

to prepare for a future of more intense and 

frequent extreme weather due to worsening 

climate change. I sought to better understand 

the context of NYCHA demographics and flood 

risk, the level of access that NYCHA residents 

have to green infrastructure and whether this 

green infrastructure has been integrated into 

the lived experiences of tenants. To explore 

these questions, I mapped spatial relationships 

between socioeconomic variables and flood zones 

and surveyed 28 NYCHA residents from Gowanus 

Houses in Brooklyn to understand their opinions 

and behavior regarding green infrastructure. 

My results suggest that NYCHA residents are not 

being successfully engaged in the participatory 

processes of planning and implementing green 

infrastructure and indicate that race is an 

underlying factor in the relationships between 

NYCHA, green infrastructure and flood risk. 



60

Juan Pablo Alvarado ’23 

CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING 


WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

THESIS TITLE 

Mexico City's Water 

Management: 

“Tula No Se Inundó, 

La Inundaron” 

ADVISER 

Ian Bourg, Associate 

Professor of Civil and 

Environmental 

Engineering and the 

High Meadows 


My thesis aimed to understand the causes of the 

disastrous 2021 flooding of Tula, Hidalgo, near 

Mexico City, and to make recommendations 

to prevent future floods. Activists in the area 

have attributed the flooding to Mexico City's 

water management, while Mexican authorities 

have described the flooding as an unavoidable, 

isolated event. Tula and Mexico City are part of 

different natural drainage basins, but a series of 

artificially interconnected conduits have been 

engineered such that Mexico City discharges 

some of its water to Tula. I analyzed land and 

water management data to explore whether 

Mexico City could instead discharge this water to 

the drained Lake Texcoco. I used a simple model 

to investigate whether this water management 

method would have prevented the 2021 flooding 

and to estimate how much of the lake’s land 

would need to be used to prevent future flooding. 

In addition to this quantitative engineering 

approach, I interviewed local activists and 

residents who were impacted by the flooding 

to learn about what changes they want to see 

regarding the area of Lake Texcoco and the 

Tula River. 

61

Jenseric Calimag ’23 




THESIS TITLE 

Studying the Impact of 

Water Insecurity and 

Health Biomarkers in 

the Turkana Community 

ADVISER 

Julien Ayroles, 


Ecology and 


and the Lewis-Sigler 

Institute for Integrative 

Genomics 

Water is essential to human health, but water 

insecurity is a growing threat that is exacerbated 

by increasing urbanization, socioeconomic 

development and climate change acting 

in parallel. My research examined links 

between deydration stress and the risk of 

noncommunicable disease (NCD), for example 

of the cardiovascular system, kidney or liver. 

Dehydration stress is associated with higher 

body mass index (BMI), which is a marker of 

greater cardiovascular disease risk, and elevated 

levels of protein and urobilinogen in the urine, 

markers of poor kidney and liver function. I 

investigated the impact of water scarcity on the 

Turkana, a seminomadic pastoralist tribe, who 

live in northern Kenya. I found that dehydration 

stress is associated with higher BMI, elevated 

levels of protein and urobilogen, and distinct 

immune signatures in this community. Although 

I found associations between dehydration stress 

and distinct health outcomes, future studies 

are needed to establish whether dehdration is 

directly causing these patterns. The possible link 

between dehydration stress and increased NCD 

risk is another reminder of the importance of 

addressing the global threat of water insecurity. 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

62

Ashley Cao ’23 

CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING 


WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

THESIS TITLE 

Using Field-informed 

Hydrologic Modeling to 

Understand Speciesspecific 

Plant Water 

Stress Under Differing 

Climate Scenarios 

ADVISER 

Reed Maxwell, William 

and Edna Macaleer 

Professor of 

Engineering and 

Applied Science. 

Professor of Civil and 

Environmental 

Engineering and the 

High Meadows 


The Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) 

supplies water to nearly 40 million people but 

is experiencing unprecedented drought due to 

climate change. Terrestrial water flux — that 

is, water exchange between Earth’s surface 

and the atmosphere — largely depends on 

evapotranspiration (ET), which is heavily linked 

to plant water stress. Thus, studying plant water 

stress is an important way to understand the 

future state of drought in the UCRB. For my 

thesis, I used a combination of field research and 

modeling to examine the impact of water stress 

on plants in the UCRB under several different 

climate change scenarios. I undertook a twomonth 

field campaign at Snodgrass Hillslope in 

the UCRB to collect atmospheric, meteorological, 

soil and vegetation data. Then, to put these 

observations into the larger context of climate 

change and drought, I incorporated these data 

into a model to examine the impacts of different 

climate scenarios on forb and shrub species 

in the region. This model allows us to explore 

how different climate change scenarios might 

affect the vitality of shrubs as compared to 

forbs, as well as invasive species as compared to 

native species. These results can also be used to 

examine how vegetative shifts in the UCRB might 

impact the water balance downstream, and 

how this might impact inter-species ecological 

interactions and the local economy, which relies 

heavily on wildflower tourism. 

63

Isabel Rodrigues ’23 

GEOSCIENCES 


THESIS TITLE 

A Minimally-invasive, 

On-site Identification 

Method for Lead-lined 

Water Service Lines: A 

Case Study in Trenton, 

New Jersey 

ADVISER 

John Higgins, Associate 

Professor of 

Geosciences 

Lead exposure is a well-understood health risk, 

both when it occurs acutely via lead poisoning, 

and when exposure occurs at low dosages 

over a prolonged period. Historically, lead was 

commonly used in many industries, including 

paint, gasoline and plumbing. In the 21st century, 

high profile cases of elevated lead levels in 

residential tap water systems that occurred — 

for example, in 2003 in Washington, D.C., and 

in 2014 in Flint, Michigan — made replacing 

lead pipes a priority for many municipalities. 

Replacement became particularly important for 

cities where large amounts of housing were built 

before the 1986 federal lead pipe ban. However, 

most municipalities do not have accurate or 

complete records of where lead pipes were 

installed, particularly on the privately owned, 

homeowner side of the line, and steel pipes lined 

with lead often go undetected by conventional 

identification methods. My research evaluated 

a novel method of identifying lead-lined water 

service lines using a portable x-ray fluorescence 

device. I used this method to analyze a suit of 

656 samples from pipes replaced in Trenton City 

and Hamilton, New Jersey, and found that using 

the device on the outer surface of the pipe could 

detect approximately 70% of lead-lined samples, 

and that approximately 90% of samples with 

an outer surface reading of at least 10,000 ppm 

were visibly lead-lined. This minimally invasive 

approach allows lead service lines to be quickly 

and accurately identified without cutting or 

excavation. 

WATER AND THE 

ENVIRONMENT 

64

Acknowledgements 

THE PROGRAM IN 

ENVIRONMENTAL 

STUDIES AND 

UNDERGRADUATE 

ENVIRONMENTAL 

RESEARCH IS 

GENEROUSLY 

SUPPORTED BY: 

The Barron Family Fund for Innovations in 

Environmental Studies 

Becky Colvin ’95 Memorial Research Fund 

The Charles W. H. Dodge ’51 Fund 

Edmund Hayes, Sr. ’18 Fund 

The High Meadows Environmental Institute 

Fund 

Newton Family High Meadows 

Environmental Institute Scholars Fund 

Bob and Cathy Solomon Undergraduate 

Research Fund 

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

Fund 

65

High Meadows Environmental Institute 

Princeton University, Guyot Hall 

Princeton, New Jersey 08544-1003 

HMEI UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH: AN ARCHIVE 2023 

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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