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O CC I D E N TA L CO L L E G E
hallmark of the Oxy experience is the chance for our students to engage in research, often at the levels typically reserved for graduate students. Whether initiated by a student’s curiosity beyond a topic in class or whether driven by facultyled initiatives and expertise, Oxy students are encouraged to do research on campus, in Los Angeles, and around the world. Through funding from faculty and the Undergraduate Research Center (URC), opportunities for students present themselves year round; however, each summer an average of 120 students receive funding and participate in our Summer Undergraduate Research program.
ALEXANDER LUMNAH
Physics major “Search for an Alternative Buffer Gas to Create Minority Peaks in the DRIFT Dark Matter Detector”
SAMANTHA CARRASCO
Philosophy major “Environmental Ethics in L.A.”
SARA CHARNEY
While studying abroad in Amman, Jordan, I took several trips to the West Bank. During my visit of the wall that separates Bethlehem and Jerusalem, I saw a lot of the moving protest art on the Palestinian side. One of the pieces in particular stopped me in my tracks. It was a memorial of Trayvon Martin with the Arabic translation of W.E.B. Du Bois’s infamous quote from his classic work Souls of Black Folk, “How does it feel to be a problem?” I was initially surprised to see Trayvon Martin memorialized in Palestine, but then I began to realize that there are many more layers to this mural. As the mural suggests there are compelling connections and a growing solidarity between the Black and Palestinian Diasporas. I believe this needs more attention and research on an academic and activist level.
South Los Angeles is home to a lot of nonprofit organizations, so I reached out to several of their reentry programs and job placement organizations. I also recruited participants from Downtown Los Angeles and New York.
I studied abroad in La Habana and became entranced by the urban landscape and how it affected my daily movement. Architecture and its collective form, the city, are works of art that we can’t ignore or escape because we live inside them. The results can be awesome. In La Habana, I felt an infinite history and magic on every street corner and in every house. I was part of a 500 year-old art project, one that continues to be reshaped with every generation.
OTHER SUMMER RESEARCH :
The Place
I am interested in the intersection of gender, race, and medical practice… Professor Fett suggested that I look more into tuberculosis as a disease that marks its sufferers and affects all classes and genders. While searching for sources, I noticed that Los Angeles has had continual and very recent outbreaks of tuberculosis, especially amongst the homeless population. I also noticed that the contemporary language used by the County Department of Public Health is eerily similar to the language of the early twentieth century, regardless of medical advances, dropping death rates, and changes in population and racial assumptions and discourse. I believe that this is unique to California and Los Angeles in particular, and wanted to track continuities and change in the language of tuberculosis as populations within the county were problematized by medical authorities. 7.
Our research was largely influenced by our location in Southern California. The horses that are infected by this painful disease are concentrated here in the Southwest region of the United States, so it strikes close to home.
Cognitive Science major, Music minor “The Smell of Dubstep: Cross-modal Correspondences Between Music, Odor, and Emotion”
GEORGIA TRIPODES
History major, Classical Studies minor “The Exhibition and Presentation of Ancient Latin American Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art”
CARLINA PERNA
Religious Studies and Spanish majors “Applying Queer Ecofeminism to Remedy Divine LGBTQ Discrimination”
ELWYN PRATT Economics major, Math minor “LAUSD Greening Spatial Analysis”
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