Ruhlman Conference

Arianna Regalado '18 explores the Jesuit movements in Asia during the 16th century, the challenges they faced, and the transmission of Christianity to Japan that followed into the 20th century.

Pelumi Botti '16 evaluates the methods and policies adopted by postcolonial governments to rid the capitals of Tanzania and Nigeria of harmful colonial legacies and thus decolonize the African urban space.

Rita Marquez '16, Alejandra Cuin Miranda '16, and Andrea Aguilar '16 chose to produce a podcast about ethnic studies classes in high school for their course on the Politics of Inequality.

Hannah Ruebeck '16 examines the implementation and effects of India's school-based iron supplementation program. Iron-deficiency anemia is the most widespread nutritional deficiency in India. More than half of school aged children there are anemic. In 2013, India's federal government instituted the Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation Program. Hannah uses school-level program uptake data to study the variation in implementation of the IFASP.

Gloria Samen '18 looks at how and why human trafficking exists and persists and ways that people and groups can use our economic agency to create meaningful change.

Emily Schultz '15 looks at Catalonia, the wealthiest of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities. It has its own language, a long history, and its own parliament and government. Does this mean it should become an independent nation? Within the past few years the Catalan independence movement has intrigued many, and has become the focus of her senior honors thesis. Emily discusses her research on the many political, historical, cultural, and social roots of Catalan nationalism. She also outlines how has this nationalist sentiment has changed over time in response to Spain’s complicated history of economic crises and political dictatorships.

Sophia Vale '17 and Jessica Yung '17 examine Murakami's work in the context of Japanese and global history, pop culture, and his uniquely scripted personal life. Despite their international popularity, his works remain enigmatic. Murakami’s short stories and novels are wild, surreal journeys that are, at once, entertaining and full of meaning, even if the meanings are difficult to unpack. Sophia and Jessica address how Murakami uses his literature to comment on modernity and westernization in Japan, the role of women in his fiction, as well as the complex, philosophical themes that he captures in his texts.

Seraphina Oney '16 examines Margaret of Anjou, one of England’s most infamous medieval queens. Villified by Shakespeare, Margaret was coined a "she-wolf of France" like one of her predecessors, Isabella of France. Margaret had the unfortunate luck of being married to a king who was unable to rule. In addition to lacking the militaristic qualities that made his father such a famed ruler, Henry VI also inherited a form of schizophrenia through his Valois ancestors, which incapacitated him as a ruler. The next in line to the throne was Margaret’s infant son, Edward. Margaret’s unusual upbringing allowed her to step up to head the Lancastrians without hesitation. Margaret led the Lancastrians on behalf of her son against the Yorks during the Wars of the Roses until the defeat of her son at the Battle of Tewkesbury. Margaret’s power clearly evolved throughout the various stages of womanhood, and the extent of her power was directly linked to the degree to which she was able to lead the Lancastrians in England.

Elaine Tang '15 asks if lower levels of Social Security benefits force retirees to move from high-cost to low-cost locations. We know little about how levels of Social Security benefits influence elderly migration and location choice which may have important implications for the welfare of the elderly, especially if it affects their proximity to their children. A simple comparison of retirees with higher versus lower benefit levels is problematic since the two groups systematically differ in many ways. I shed light on this question by exploiting the natural experiment of the Social Security “notch” to examine the effects of an exogenous change in Social Security benefits on where the elderly live.

Kathleen Zhu '15 looks at Cuba to see if democracy is the key to differential outcomes in the treatment of the global HIV epidemic. There are 35.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS, with 1.6 million deaths from AIDS annually. But the prevalence rate and mortality rate are not evenly distributed internationally, as 95% of HIV infections occur in the developing world. The HIV epidemic varies dramatically from country to country; for instance the estimated HIV prevalence rate in Thailand is 1.1% yet it is as high as 17.9% in South Africa. Some countries respond swiftly to the epidemic, while other countries take many years to initiate a meaningful response. Why does the overall HIV outcome and response vary dramatically from country to country? Although I originally hypothesized that democratic governments face greater pressure from their citizens to address the HIV epidemic, and thus would have a stronger response, I have found that this is often not the case. I have found that autocratic countries can respond highly effectively, while democratic countries struggle.

Iris Lin '15 and Marika Psyhojos '15 examine the factors behind the drastic decrease in the rate of non-urgent care sought by ER patients in the last 20 years. They debunk the myth that non-urgent patients alone cause EDs to be overpriced, over-packed, and overused. As a result of a number of health economic trends and forces, only 8-12% of patients in the ED today seek non-urgent care (NHAMCS, 2011). Certainly, there is room to reduce health care spending due to non-urgent ED visits (and we discuss the current efforts to do so), but many current economic calculations of average and marginal costs grossly overestimate the potential for savings.

Isabella Dougherty '15 examines the Veterans Affairs Disability Compensation (VADC) program, which provides cash benefits for qualifying disabled veterans. It has been growing rapidly since 2001. The drivers of the program’s growth are not well understood with worsening health as one possible driver, but recent liberalizations of medical eligibility criteria may also play a role. This study deconstructs the recent growth in the VADC program into the share due to worsening veteran health and the share due to other factors. She uses NHIS data to estimate the relationship between health and receipt of VADC benefits in the late 1990s, and then use those estimates with the actual health of recent veterans to project the share of today’s veterans that would be on the program if eligibility criteria had not changed. Findings may help policy makers as they consider how to balance the needs of wounded veterans against rapidly rising program expenditures.

Zoe Magid '15 and Elena Scott-Kakures '15 examine whether Tea Partiers are actually ideologically distinct from Republicans. What causes such an anticipated gap will allow them to further explore the Tea Party, its relationship to the GOP, and their futures in American politics. They are interested in resolving these questions, and learning about the ideological composition of Tea Party members. Though some existing literature has predicted a swift end to the Tea Party, much as with the Occupy movement, the Tea Party is still strong today. Zoe and Elena explore just how this movement has adapted over time, and through this, predict what could be in store for their future position in politics.

Oset Babur '15 pinpoints the influences of eurosceptic parties in the European Union, by focusing on the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the Danish People’s Party (DPP). Euroscepticism will be broken down into ’hard’ and ’soft’ branches, based on the kinds of impacts suggested by each parties; a ’soft’ influence over the concern of state sovereignty might be a party’s decision to support discourse that is skeptical of a united Europe, while a ’hard’ influence may be proposing legislative motions to leave the EU on grounds of a lack of accountability between EU institutions and member governments. The talk will conclude by looking forward at the future of Eurosceptic parties, and hypothesizing about their continued impact on EU enlargement and integration, as well as the impacts they will have on their local political systems.

Abigail L. Golden '15 relates her experience in the Calderwood Seminar on Environmental Communication and Synthesis, taught by Jay Tuner. Bee pollination is required to produce over 35 percent of world food crops and, since 2004, honeybees have been mysteriously dying at alarming rates. In order to learn more about the status of local bees, Abigail attended a meeting of the Norfolk County Beekeeper’s Association (NCBA), where she met and interviewed Tony Lulek. Lulek is the former president and current Bee School Director for the NCBA. He also owns and operates Little Beehive Farm in Holliston, Massachusetts.

Tiffany K. Chan '15 describes her Calderwood interview with Wellesley biologist Yui Suzuki. Suzuki is an evolutionary-developmental biologist who focuses his research on insect metamorphosis and regeneration. By conducting embryonic studies on several different insect species, he studies the change and control of developmental processes both throughout an individual’s lifetime but also in the evolutionary context of a species. Tiffany interviewed Suzuki as the final assignment for my Calderwood Seminar: Biology in the News. She not only introduces an emerging field of Biology but also showcases Suzuki’s path into the sciences.

Two Wellesley students describe their experiences in the inaugural year for the Calderwood Seminars in Public Writing. Seminar goals include empowering students’ voices; engaging in public writing; and having students respond to their peers. Most seminars required students to conduct an interview with professional in their field as final assignment — the capstone of a capstone course. Jody interviewed Gina Maranto, a prize-winning science writer. Dania interviewed Biology professor Heather Mattila.

Lauren Chen '14 looks at Argo, North by Northwest, and Friends with Benefits as examples of filmic self-reflexivity. Film is a medium in which realistic representation not only combines but also collides with fantasy, where these two contradictory elements of storytelling both intertwine and coalesce to create new perspectives. Film is a marriage of the real and the fake, the building and breaking down of illusion that helps to create cinematic perspective.

Katherine Leung '14 looks at 5 landmark Supreme Court cases which forever altered the landscape of American privacy law and the permissibility of Americans’ decisions about how to construct their families. She explores the legal, social and cultural ramifications of legislating the American family ideal. These cases were decided by nine men, and influenced by the men and women who challenged antimiscegenation laws, birth control bans and abortion restrictions. This talk explores the development of these cases -- notably McLaughlin v. Florida and Griswold v Connecticut -- and how they shaped the American family.

Emma Rackstraw '14 captures some of the longer-term effects (up to a decade later) for the recipients of the Honduran Conditional Cash Transfer program, PRAF. The simplicity of giving money to the poor for a specific and pre-approved purpose appeals to many stakeholders in the field of development, from policymakers to economists. In education policy, conditional cash transfers have been found effective in improving school attendance/ enrollment and short-term learning, as well as lowering child labor supply; however, the effects have only been studied after a relatively short time period after the transfer. The ultimate goal of investment in education to get some return to that investment through an improvement in children’s long-term well-being. The results of Emma's thesis not only help answer questions about the effectiveness of PRAF in the context of Honduras, but will also begin to fill a substantial void in our knowledge of long-term poverty alleviation strategies.