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Prospective Students
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Faculty and Staff
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Current Students
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Alumni and Friends
This phenomenological qualitative study, serves to fill a gap in the research surrounding how the multiplicities of identities inform the instructional practices and racial identity of self-identified antiracist educators by answering the following questions: “How do intersections of identity shape the way teachers view themselves in the classroom?” and “How do the varied intersections of white identity inform teacher experiences, philosophical and pedagogical paradigms, and instructional practice amongst self-identified antiracist educators?” Using interpretive phenomenological analysis and employing the theoretical frameworks of critical whiteness (Roediger, 1994), critical whiteness feminism, and double-imagery (Seidl & Hancock, 2011), the following themes were identified as relevant to forming white teachers’ critical consciousness (Freire, 2018), thus supporting an antiracist pedagogical paradigm: gender, religion, proximity to people of color, and education. These intersections in turn shifted their pedagogical paradigm to a student-centered humanizing paradigm, centering student identity, culture, voice, and choice through rigorous and relevant instructional practices.
As student demographics continue to evolve in higher education, the intersection of college-going generation status and U.S. immigrant-generation status needs to be considered; particularly, how these bi/polycultural experiences may play a role in the experience of belonging in college. This qualitative, phenomenological research study aimed to explore the lived experiences of four-year university students identifying as first-generation in college (FGC) and second-generation immigrants (SGI) in the U.S., with a focus on sense of belonging experiences at this identity intersection. Ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews with FGC-SGI students at an institution in the Southeastern U.S. were conducted to highlight identity and belonging narratives. Findings revealed that FGC-SGI students more readily engaged in identity disclosure with peers who shared at least one identity, and experienced implicit pressures to succeed due to their identities. Findings also revealed that FGC-SGI students sought out peers with similar identity characteristics to feel belonging, and that belonging played a critical role in how they viewed both their identities and their abilities to succeed in college. Thus, understanding FGC-SGI students' lived experiences may assist equity-minded higher education professionals with framing and creating settings that purposefully engage with this population to promote a positive, inclusive college experience, aiding in persistence and success.
The teaching practices of African American teachers are rooted in their personal and racialized experiences and have implications for teacher preparation programs and teacher scholarship. While research is abundant on how the teaching practices of Black male teachers positively impact student outcomes, the formation of their teaching practices is not as explicit in the existing literature. Employing critical race theory theoretical framework, this study explored how Black male teachers in the South's racialized and gendered experiences impact their teaching practices. The following research questions guided this qualitative study: 1) What are the racialized and gendered experiences of Black male teachers in the South; 2) What are the teaching practices of Black male teachers in the South?; and 3) How do the racialized and gendered experiences of Black male teachers in the South impact their teaching practices? A thematic analysis of participant interviews and archival documents revealed themes that add to the existing literature on how Black male teachers racialized and gendered experiences impact their teaching practices. Recommendations are provided for school and district leaders, professional development staff, teacher preparation programs, and other educational stakeholders.
Black doctoral students represent 25.09% of doctoral students that are enrolled in a Council of Accreditation of Related and Educational Programs (CACREP) Counseling Program. The voices and experiences of Black doctoral students in counselor education programs have been collected and reported by researchers in regards to the various challenges they experience in their program. However, despite the continuous research, Black doctoral students continue reporting feelings of isolation, microaggressions, navigating white privilege and white fragility, and a host of other negative experiences within their counselor education programs. This study consisted of twelve participants that participated in semi-structured interviews regarding their experiences, feelings, and perspectives of how they felt their program was meeting CACREP standard 1:K which explains how programs should make continuous and systematic ways to attract, enroll, retain and create an inclusive learning environment for diverse students. In an effort to illuminate the voices of the participants and capture genuine responses in the findings, Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit) was utilized as the theoretical framework and Critical Phenomenology was utilized as the methodology. From the data collected in this study, four themes emerged: Representation is Meaningful and Matters, White Faculty not Providing Safe Spaces, Disingenuous and Performative Programs, and Black Students Have Specific Needs. The findings aligned to existing research and provided a proposed solution for moving counselor education programs from awareness to action.
Mutations are a primary source of genetic variation and a major driving force in evolution by influencing survivability (fitness), genetic disease, and the development of complex traits such as antibiotic resistance. However, studying the mutation process is extremely challenging and time consuming, as most mutation rates lie between 1×10-11 to 1×10-9 mutations per site per generation. In my work, we have developed two major improvements in how we study the mutation process. First, we have developed a closed-system microfluidic platform that can be used to efficiently and rapidly measure mutation rates. This liquid-based platform overcomes many limitations of traditional growth methods, and can allow for the study of extremophiles or pathogens that cannot be grown on solid media. Second, we are studying mutations that drive collateral sensitivity (resistance from one antibiotic giving rise to sensitivity from another antibiotic) within Burkholderia multivorans patient isolates. Across 8 lineages involving 6 antibiotics, we identify mutations in Chemoreceptor CheD, DNA ligase D, and BON domain-containing proteins that are associated with antibiotic sensitivity. These proteins are known to repair double-stranded DNA breaks and control efflux pump function, providing a mechanistic approach for combatting antibiotic resistant strains using gene therapy.
Mutations are a primary source of genetic variation and a major driving force in evolution by influencing survivability (fitness), genetic disease, and the development of complex traits such as antibiotic resistance. However, studying the mutation process is extremely challenging and time consuming, as most mutation rates lie between 1×10-11 to 1×10-9 mutations per site per generation. In my work, we have developed two major improvements in how we study the mutation process. First, we have developed a closed-system microfluidic platform that can be used to efficiently and rapidly measure mutation rates. This liquid-based platform overcomes many limitations of traditional growth methods, and can allow for the study of extremophiles or pathogens that cannot be grown on solid media. Second, we are studying mutations that drive collateral sensitivity (resistance from one antibiotic giving rise to sensitivity from another antibiotic) within Burkholderia multivorans patient isolates. Across 8 lineages involving 6 antibiotics, we identify mutations in Chemoreceptor CheD, DNA ligase D, and BON domain-containing proteins that are associated with antibiotic sensitivity. These proteins are known to repair double-stranded DNA breaks and control efflux pump function, providing a mechanistic approach for combatting antibiotic resistant strains using gene therapy.
In August 2019, The New York Times published what was said to be a “controversial” journalistic take on African American and American history. Written by Nikole Hannah-Jones, an awardee of the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Genius Award, and her fellow journalists at The New York Times, The 1619 Project was intentionally published on the 400th anniversary of the arrival in Virginia of the first ships arriving in Virginia with enslaved Africans aboard (The New York Times, 2019). Although it has become one center of the United States political debate and rhetoric, the intent of The 1619 Project was not to further politicize the United States educational system. Rather, the intention was to present a compelling counternarrative to American history, but more importantly, African American history (The New York Times, 2019). However, because education within the United States is a politicized system, the work of Nikole Hannah-Jones and her colleagues has magnified the growing disconnect between a history of honest racial representation and its alignment with formal curriculum, standards, and education policy.
The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate how the formal social studies curriculum can become politicized by political actors and media. The New York Times’s The 1619 Project serves as a contemporary illustration of these dynamics. Through a multi-method approach using archival data and the Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nikole Hannah-Jones, the intent and media influence of The 1619 Project was examined situating the study within the theoretical frame of critical policy analysis using grounded theory methods to be analyzed through BlackCrit (Birk & Mills, 2015; Charmaz, 1996; Diem et al., 2014; Dumas & ross, 2016; King, 2018; Young & Diem, 2018).
Keywords: African American, The 1619 Project, representation, anti-Blackness, politics, political affiliation, education, Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times, “controversial”
The resident advisor (RA) position is one of the most complex and important roles on college campuses in the United States. There are few other student staff positions that require the same level of training and have the same level of responsibilities. While these staff members serve many functions, a primary responsibility of RAs is to make their residents feel welcomed and valued in their community. Black students who take on the RA role at historically White institutions (HWIs) are charged with creating welcoming environments for students and making them feel valued in the community while often not feeling welcomed or valued themselves in these same environments due to the stereotypes and racism they encounter on their campuses. Navigating the RA role as a Black student may mean helping their residents develop their sense of belonging while simultaneously trying to find spaces where they feel they belong. This study is a qualitative phenomenological one that explored the lived experiences of Black students serving in the RA role at HWIs and where they found belonging and support in their residence life department. The study shares the stories of 10 students using interviews and photovoice. The findings of this study are broken down into five themes: (1) Motivation, (2) Isolation, (3) Stereotyping, (4) Labor, and (5) Underrepresentation. The words and images captured by the participants of the study are used to better understand these themes and the needs of Black RAs.
This research presents an initial theoretical framework for how underprivileged consumers – who make up most of the marketplace globally – may benefit from blockchain: a seminal paradigm shift that portends to radically transform marketing. Underprivileged consumers are disadvantaged relative to the overall marketplace and consequently, these consumers hold less favorable attitudes and trust perceptions in traditional financial institutions. The core value propositions of blockchain (trust, security, privacy, and disintermediation) may provide the best opportunities to date for the prosperity of underprivileged consumers. Given the lack of extant scholarship on the topic, the current work utilizes the indigenous theory development inductive realist methodology (Hunt 2020) to develop an initial theoretical framework and foundational premises regarding blockchain and underprivileged consumers. An empirical study will be conducted by administering open-ended survey questionnaires to immigrants from El Salvador residing in the United States. A textual analytics methodology will be used to analyze their responses from this disadvantaged population and identify themes from participant responses to support the foundational premises. The current work provides one of the earliest frameworks for administering blockchain as a foundation of prosperity for underprivileged consumers. The work answers a call to action for better marketing for a better world (Moorman 2021) and is a formative step toward solutions for underprivileged consumers.
Antireflective structured surfaces (ARSS) are periodic, or random, distributions of three-dimensional nano-features fabricated directly on optical quality substrates, for the suppression of surface reflectivity from the dielectric boundary. Within the spectral band of efficient antireflective operation, the structures are sub-wavelength scale in crossectional diameter, and near-wavelength scale in height. As incident light passes from superstrate to substrate, the ARSS induce a synthetic index of refraction with a surface-average optical dielectric density, effectively matching the electromagnetic impedance on the surface separating the media, thus reducing Fresnel reflectivity. Published studies often model random ARSS as stratified homogenous dielectric layers, globally averaging the transverse feature distributions to a single optical index value per layer, and ignoring their distributed profiles.
In this work, the effects of pseudo-random deterministic transverse feature distributions within the ARSS and their antireflective properties were studied. Rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA) was used to compute the performance of periodic unit cell ARSS, superimposed on a binary-phase transmission grating as a function of the ARSS period, for TE and TM incident light polarization states, at normal angle of incidence. The results showed differences in performance between distinct ARSS distributions, despite their identical layer-averaged refractive index value. Sub-wavelength and near-wavelength scale unit-cell periodicities for ARSS with short autocorrelation lengths, show better overall anti-reflectivity performance, compared to less complicated feature distributions with comparable effective-permittivity layers. Numerical simulations for specific randomly distributed ARSS features correlated with anti-reflective performance efficiencies.
In parallel, the fabrication process of random anti-reflective structures (rARSS) was optimized for fused silica optical flats, and then applied to deterministic phase-diffusing diffractive optical elements (DOE) to suppress Fresnel reflections. The goal of the effort was to examine the effects of rARSS application on existing optical components. Four commercially available DOE, a 2D spot array generator, a 1D spot array, a controlled-angle illumination diffuser, and a discrete-phase profile diffractive lens, were used to investigate the effects of rARSS on 3-dimensional segmented-phase topographies. Three diffractive diffusers were measured over the entire equatorial plane of incidence using a scatterometer, to determine changes from the original design illumination pattern due to the presence of rARSS beyond a simple transmission enhancement. The diffractive lens was measured using a power detector and a beam profiler to compare the focal spots before and after addition of rARSS in transmission and reflection. The tests verified significant reduction of Fresnel reflections by the rARSS on the surface of the DOE, without altering their original performance efficiency. Finally, the non-deterministic scatter effects due to inherent roughness of the rARSS on segmented phase profiles was characterized by comparing scatterometer measurements of optical flats and near-wavelength scale binary-phase gratings. It is shown that scatter effects because of rARSS presence on optical flats and binary-phase gratings were negligible, indicating rARSS can be applied as an effective anti-reflection treatment to pre-fabricated optical surfaces with complex topography without degrading their performance.
