Graduate School News and Events
Commemorating the Sesquicentennial of the PhD Degree at Yale
Breakout Sessions Feature Current Students’ Research
Between the opening and closing panel discussions, 29 current students presented their ongoing research in simultaneous breakout sessions, demonstrating the rich variety of cutting-edge research being carried out across the academic disciplines at Yale. The talks were scheduled so as to enable delegates to attend one from each division.
Many delegates cited the talks as their favorite part of the Assembly in a follow-up survey they were asked to complete. One delegate commented that the “graduate student presentations were fresh, and it was exciting to be this close to fundamental research,” and another said, “All the sessions by grad students were superb.” Noting that there were “Lots of great options,” a third lamented, “Wish I could have done MORE of them.” Another said, “I was really impressed. I was happy that the sessions ranged over much of the campus.”
Rahul Prasad (PhD 1987, Engineering and Applied Science), chair of the Graduate School Alumni Association, attended three talks and reported that “The presentations were extremely professional. Had I not known, I would have easily mistaken all three presenters to be faculty members!” He praised the students for their passion, clarity, and command of their subject.
Students benefited from the experience, too. Allison Sovey (Political Science) presented “Tricks of the Trade in International Politics” and says, “I very much enjoyed giving my talk to a general audience. Many audience members were experts on specific policy implications of my research so it was very useful to get their feedback. I had several interesting conversations with alumni afterward, including meeting one alumnus in New York for lunch to discuss my topic further!”
The first session consisted of talks by students in the social sciences. Speakers, in addition to Allison, included Ellen Rubinstein (Anthropology) on “Diagnosing Deviance through Social Withdrawal in Japan,” Elizabeth Butler Breese (Sociology) on “Making Sense of the Crisis in American Journalism,” Alex Shaw (Psychology) on “Developing a Sense of Fairness in Children,” and Christina Roberto (Psychology) on “Fighting Obesity through Public Policy.”
Alex described how he uses experiments grounded in evolutionary biology, behavioral economics, and developmental psychology to explore selfishness and selflessness. His findings suggest that children willingly choose to discard a resource that could go to others or themselves in order to avoid creating an unfair situation — but he also found that these behaviors may be driven by a desire to appear fair in the eyes of others, rather than to actually be fair.
Christina addressed the problem of obesity and poor diet, calling them “worldwide public health concerns. Nutrient-poor and calorie-dense foods are not only widely available; they are typically less expensive, extensively marketed, and served in large portions. Making matters worse, they are seldom labeled with clear, easy-to-understand nutrition information.” The question underlying her research is, “How can the scientific community help policy-makers understand the challenges they face in persuading people to make healthier choices when they eat?” She spoke about the environmental contributors to obesity and the latest research on food policy in the United States and other countries, using video clips to illustrate the way food is marketed and interactive quizzes to challenge her listeners to find out how much they really know about the food they eat.
The second session was dedicated to the sciences. Talks ranged from “Weighing the Galaxies,” presented by Rachel Bezanson (Astronomy), and “Preserving the Periodic Table for Posterity,” by Nedal Nassar (Environmental Studies), to “Producing Fuels from Sunlight and Water,” by Laura Allen, James Blakemore, and Rebecca Milot (Chemistry), “Engineering Better Drugs,” by Jacob Appelbaum (Cellular Biology), and “The Evolution of Feathers,” by Jake Musser (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology).
Jacob Appelbaum told the alumni audience that “Researchers who design and test modern drugs have to negotiate a balance between scale and cellular access. ‘Small’ drugs — those relying on small molecules — tend to permeate tissues and cells, which ‘large’ drugs cannot do. On the other hand, ‘large’ drugs provide bigger surface areas that can interact with their molecular targets and may be easier to design.” His research aims to increase the ability of large molecules to reach the inside of cells. Speaking at the new Institute for High-Throughput Cell Biology on West Campus, he reviewed the challenges inherent in this type of research and how Yale scientists are tackling them. In one class of molecules, for example, they have learned how to incorporate a particular amino acid that dramatically increases the number of molecules capable of entering cells. Jacob spoke about how they screen genes to test whether they are involved in peptide release in order to better understand what works and what does not.
Afterward, he said, “I had a great time giving the talk, and there were some great tips from the audience, several of whom worked in the chemical or pharmaceutical industry. Giving the talk to a general audience helped distill all the research I've been doing for the past five years and let me take a step back to see what I've really accomplished.”
A photograph from Jennifer Wellington’s presentation, “The War of Souvenirs: Collecting and Exhibiting the First World War.” (Image courtesy of Canada’s Department of National Defence Library and Archives)
Jake Musser's work is conducted partly in the comfortable confines of his Yale laboratory and partly in the wilds of emu farms and alligator-infested swamps in Louisiana. He explores the evolution of feathers by studying the underlying genetics of different types of skin, including not only feathers, but also scales and claws. Feathers, he says, are “complex and alluring,” and they “endow birds with the capacity for flight, precise control over body temperature, and a showy plumage for use in displays of aggression and affection.” These very different tasks often require the coordinated action of numerous feathers of greatly differing size and shape. His research aims find out how feathers evolve in light of their considerable capacity to vary. His talk made use of the collections in the Peabody Museum and the Class of 1954 Environmental Science Center.
A delegate who attended Jake’s talk wrote, “I really enjoyed being immersed in the world of a grad student in the ‘Evolution of Feathers’ presentation. It was cool to see the labs and drawers full of bird skins, and to see how a scientist experienced Yale (since I was a literature major).”
The final session of student presentations focused on the humanities, with talks titled “Literary Labs and Modernist Maps,” by Anthony Domestico (English), “The Myths Behind Oklahoma!” by Jamie O’Leary (Music), “The War of Souvenirs: Collecting and Exhibiting the First World War,” by Jennifer Wellington (History), and “An Archive of the British in India,” by Holly Shaffer (History of Art).
Jennifer broached the questions of how soldiers and those left behind at home make sense of the experience of war, as well as how governments influence this understanding. To answer these questions, she analyzes the memorabilia collected and exhibited after World War I in Britain, Canada, and Australia. Illustrating her lecture with images of battlefield souvenirs, government-sponsored war art, and the display of “war trophies,” she noted that exhibitions can act as both propaganda and recruitment tools, shaping the popular memory and understanding of what the war meant. She also explained how some temporary exhibitions provided the foundation for permanent museums such as the Imperial War Museum in London.
Alumni who chose Holly’s talk toured the exhibition that she curated as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Yale Center for British Art. Titled “Adapting the Eye: An Archive of the British in India,” Holly’s exhibition explores the complex networks of British and Indian professional and amateur artists, patrons, and scholars in British India in the late-18th and early-19th centuries and their drive to create and organize knowledge for both aesthetic and political purposes. Selected from the Center’s rich holdings, with two key loans from Tate Britain and the British Library, the exhibition features objects from both high art and popular culture, many of which are being exhibited for the first time.
Holly Shaffer at the Yale Center for British Art (above). Gangaram Chintaman Tambat’s A Rhinoceros in the Peshwa’s Menagerie at Poona, Nov. 1790 (below) was featured in her exhibit titled “Adapting the Eye: An Archive of the British in India.” (Image courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)
GSAA Chair Prasad commented afterward, “Holly’s talk attracted me since I was curious how someone so young as a graduate student could curate an exhibition. Holly has done a fantastic job. She spoke so clearly and with the ease of one who has addressed audiences her whole life. She is also passionate about her work. She showed us different ways in which one can look at art. It reminded me why I always enjoyed my history of art classes in college and makes me want to repeat the experience.”
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Allison Sovey, Elizabeth Butler Breese and Christina Roberto
