Graduate Research Fellowship

Supervised by Prof. Jeffrey High

Natalie Martz graduated cum laude with a double major in History and German at CSULB in 2019 and is graduating summa cum laude with an MA in German in 2021. Her research interests include the history of 19^th century arctic exploration, intersections of fashion and class during the Enlightenment, and film and videogame adaptations of historical events. In the autumn of 2021, she will begin an MPhil in British and European History 1750–1800 at Oxford University, studying anti-Irish bias in the 19^th century British Royal Navy Discovery Service.

Natalie’s graduate research project examines the influence of the 1845 Franklin Expedition on Austro-Hungarian polar explorers in the 1870s and early 1880s. During this time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire launched several polar expeditions in an attempt to promote imperial unity while asserting its equality with other imperial nations on the world stage of exploration. In particular, the Austro-Hungarians saw themselves in competition with Britain, which had dominated polar exploration since the beginning of the 19^th century. However, British enthusiasm for its polar projects had been waning since the disastrous Franklin Expedition—all men on the expedition had died in the Canadian arctic while searching for the Northwest Passage—and due to the expensive but unsuccessful search-and-rescue missions sent on Franklin’s behalf. Natalie argues that this disastrous expedition had far-reaching consequences for more than just Britain: the entire Austro-Hungarian polar project could not escape the shadow left by the Franklin Expedition. Through the analysis of the writings by and about three Austro-Hungarian explorers—Julius von Payer (1841–1915), Carl Weyprecht (1838–1881), and Heinrich Klutschak (1848–1890)—she concludes that the Franklin Expedition had a substantial impact on the exploration techniques, scientific methodology, and even public reception of Austro-Hungarian polar expeditions.

Tales of the Franklin Expedition interacting with the native Inuit groups of Canada inspired Klutschak to adapt to their ways of life to such an extent that his published expedition narrative also serves as one of the best ethnographies of the Inuit in the 19^th century. Payer and Weyprecht, on the other hand, struggled to distinguish their expedition to find the Northeast Passage from the Franklin Expedition’s search for the Northwest Passage—especially when the Austro-Hungarian Expedition was forced to abandon their icebound ship and trek overland just as the Franklin men did. When Payer and Weyprecht successfully returned home to Vienna, the Austro-Hungarian press continued to compare them to Franklin and his men, this time as a tale of imperial triumph: Austro-Hungary had succeeded where Britain had famously failed. Indeed, the arctic achievements of Klutschak, Payer, and Weyprecht were used by the press to boost pride in the Austro-Hungarian Empire during a period of financial, social, and political unrest. News reports on the three men were further sensationalized by the use of Arctic Sublime language and imagery, a gothic literary and artistic genre that was completely revitalized and reformed by the disappearance of the Franklin Expedition.

A deeper study of this era is not only useful for expanding the breadth of arctic exploration historical knowledge, but also for conceptualizing and understanding future exploration challenges, conflicts, and media manipulation in the present-day—namely, the international competition involving unmanned expeditions to Moon and Mars.

Supervised by Dr. Nellie Wieland

Avery Amerson graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in 2017 with a B.A. in Psychology, and is currently pursuing the M.A. in Philosophy. He is broadly interested in studying the connections between the philosophies of language and cognition. These interests developed from a course on the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. His current research interests arose from a paper he wrote, entitled 'Wittgenstein, Extended Cognition, and the Problem of Other Minds', which he subsequently presented at the CSULB and CSU-wide Student Research Competition, as well as at the Texas Tech University Annual Philosophy Conference.

Avery's research project is focused on the development from protolanguage to language, and evaluating the explanatory merits of the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition in accounting for this major transitional phase in human communication. According to this hypothesis, certain processes in the external world interact with our minds in a manner that influences perception and behavior. The world is not merely a tool of the mind but is an active component of it; moreover, for advocates of this hypothesis, our cognition permeates the external world and affects others who participate in the same cognitive system. In turn, we are also affected by others' cognition. The dual interaction between cognition and the environment may have shaped how human language developed over time. Looking to Wittgenstein's famous Private Language Argument as support for the view that language is necessarily in the public sphere and requires a community of users, it is easier to see how a communal view of cognition (e.g., extended cognition) might be the key component in the successful development of human language.

While the connection between language and cognition is apparent, what must be explored is how exactly the two are related and what prompted these massive shifts in how we communicate. Avery will explore the literature that argues that human language arose alongside cognition and was developed to meet the cognitive needs of our ancient human ancestors. He will argue that the two developing together is what allowed for the rapid expansion of both. He will suggest that this rapid expansion of human communication is better explained when looking through the lens of the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition.

Supervised by Dr. Jeffrey High

Glen Gray is broadly interested in the intersection of literature and music in the German context. He received a B.A. in German Studies and a B.M. in Music Composition from Cal State Long Beach in 2017 and is currently pursuing an M.A. in German Studies. Glen presented a paper on Hans Werner Henze's Opera Der Prinz von Homburg at the 52nd Annual CSULB Comparative Literature Conference, and acted as musical director for the 2019 German Art in SoCal–SoCal in German Art conference at CSULB, where he curated and directed a musical program of the exile compositions of Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler. He premiered musical compositions at the 2016 conference Drive-By Theatre Double Feature: Brecht+60/Kleist+205 and the 2019 Oh My Ears music festival, and he is co-founder of the Los Angeles Electroacoustic Ensemble.

Glen's current research project addresses the lack of scholarly attention regarding six operatic adaptations of 19th century German author Heinrich von Kleist's (1777–1811) prose drama Das Käthchen von Heilbronn (1810), which were composed between 1845 and 1881, through a comparative analysis of the libretti and scores. Kleist's life and works have enjoyed a great deal of scholarly attention and artistic resonance since the beginning of the 20th century. The young author, however, faced difficulties with his reception: a number of his pieces were not premiered in his lifetime, and some were first performed only decades after his death. However, Das Käthchen von Heilbronn was performed relatively often in the 19th century. It appeared as it was originally composed, was rewritten for stage interpretations, recast in novel form, and perhaps foremost adapted as opera. There is to date no significant research published on any of the operatic adaptations of Das Käthchen von Heilbronn. Research funding will allow Glen to travel to German and Austrian archives to study libretti and scores, because copies of these rare musical works only exist in European archives. Glen presented his first findings on this topic in a comparison of Kleist's Das Käthchen von Heilbronn and Karl Martin Reinthaler's (1822–1896) 1881 opera of the same name at the 54th Annual Comparative Literature Conference at CSULB. He demonstrated that Reinthaler's opera reinterprets Kleist's drama to celebrate the Middle Ages, whereas Kleist's drama parodies the Middle Ages, and pursued the reasons why. This project's results will help shape the current understanding of Kleist's legacy.

Supervised by Dr. Kevin Wallsten

As a first generation college student, I am seeking a PhD in political science with an emphasis in comparative politics and international relations.  I grew up in a blue-collar Mexican-American household.  My father supported the family by commuting 70 miles daily to work as a welder at a shipping company in Long Beach.  He knows nothing but hard work, which is why I was shocked when President Trump suggested during his campaign that Mexicans are only capable of bringing drugs and violent crime into the US, not solutions to problems. With the help of the Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF), I would like to advance two working research projects that seek solutions to issues concerning Mexico's ongoing "drug war." According to the Merida Initiative and the demand for drugs in the US, this conflict is America's problem too, and solving it requires an appreciation of diversity and more cooperation between and within the two nations. >The first project argues that assassinations of Mexican mayors are more prevalent in states wherein different political parties control different levels of government. Rule by a single party facilitates cooperation across all levels of government (i.e. state and federal). Such cooperation is crucial to allocating resources properly while combating drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) and stifling their violent operations. However, states with different political parties across the multiple levels are government are less likely to cooperate and therefore more incapable of upholding the law, combatting DTOs, and stifling violent crimes against politicians.  While the second project is currently in the early theoretical stage, it examines whether the presence of oil prolongs drug violence in Mexico.  With the help of the GRF, I plan to advance both of these projects further to hopefully produce knowledge that can be helpful to mitigate the drug conflict from a policy standpoint. >I would like to thank my family, friends, and everyone at the Department of Political Science for helping me get to this point.

Supervised by Dr. Nellie Wieland

My project is on the role that values play in adjudication of recent same-sex marriage case law, and its implications for other civil rights debates. My working thesis is that both federal and state judges could not decide gay marriage equal protection or due process challenges without relying on extralegal value judgments about: (1) the purpose of marriage, and (2) the ability of gay and lesbian couples to equally satisfy this purpose.

This research draws on research methodologies draw from legal reasoning, philosophy, political science, gay rights history, and sociology. It contributes substantially to LGBTQ rights literature, and defends legal claims about constitutional law, claims by queer theorists about marriage, and political claims about the role of our judiciary in intermediating competing social values. The project is socially and politically current because, although the battle for same-sex marriage is (nearly) over, lessons gleaned from one legal context are often instructive to future classes of plaintiffs in another. Furthermore, my research interrogates deeply the role of judge's morality, attitudes, and ideologies in terms of how the law gets decided in some of the most contentious constitutional "hard" cases.

My project will analyze every appellate-level case nationwide addressing same-sex marriage rights, and extract and examine the values behind the legal reasoning in the equal protection and due process challenges gay plaintiffs have made to state marriage statutes. What is particularly interesting is that, although judges present their reasoning as if it were politically neutral, my analysis shows that, at bottom, this reasoning is value-based. I will argue that gay marriage cases reveal an unavoidable judicial bias—either for or against—the LGBTQ plaintiffs. In other words, I attempt to show that, at least in this line of constitutional law cases, judges are making value judgments in this area of the law. This analysis supports further claims in philosophy of law.

My GRF project will conclude by arguing that one implication of same-sex marriage cases is that law and values are not entirely separate—that there are areas of law where moral values are either incorporated into the law through adjudication or are inherently present in certain legal standards. Contrary to modern legal trends, I argue that this is not a failing of some so-called "activist" judge, but rather the ethical nature of the job. I also suggest that we can embrace an unflinchingly robust view of the judiciary as guardians of civil rights and social values. These claims in my thesis argue against two common contemporary viewpoints in the legal profession: that law is just "doing one's job," and that law is wholly "separate" or "separable" from morality. This is significant because these beliefs in the legal profession affect how legal practitioners conceive of their job, and, ultimately, how our legal system vindicates rights.

Supervised by Dr. Guido Urizar

Olivia Silke graduated from Chapman University with her bachelor's degree in psychology in 2015. After graduation, she worked at the University of Southern California, assessing health and pain outcomes for orthopedic patients after a Mindfulness-Based Intervention. Currently, she is a first-year graduate student in the Masters in Psychological Research Program at CSULB, where she is working in the PRO-Health (Partners in Research & Outreach for Health) laboratory with Dr. Guido Urizar. Olivia was awarded the Dr. Steven Ungerleider Graduate Research Award in 2018.

She has spent the last year studying stress biomarkers and perceived stress for low-income women and their infants during the pre- and postnatal period. Her thesis, entitled Maternal Mindful Disposition, Alpha Amylase, Cortisol, and Perceived Stress: A Longitudinal Analysis on Maternal and Infant Stress Response, focuses on the role of mindfulness, or one's ability to maintain present moment awareness and attention, on multifaceted stress responses. Olivia's research conceptualizes stress by investigating multiple pathways of action, including the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, the sympathetic adrenal medullary axis, perceived stress, and perceived stress reactivity. Dr. Urizar in the Department of Psychology will help guide Olivia's research. Over the next year, they will collaborate on the completion of a peer-reviewed manuscript, explore various models in mixed method design, and present at professional conferences.

Olivia is interested in exploring applications of mind-body constructs for low-income women through a preventative medicine lens; she intends to continue this research in a Health Psychology doctoral program. She hopes her research will one day expand current knowledge of mind-body interventions in the following ways: 1) address limitations in the current body of research, 2) increase mind-body prevention programs in clinical settings, 3) outline biological outcomes associated with meditation, and 4) assist with the dissemination of empirically based mind-body interventions.

Supervised by Dr. Lily House-Peters

Eugenia Bey is a Master's candidate in the Department of Geography, is excited to have been selected to represent the College of Liberal Arts as the 2017–2018 Graduate Research Fellow. Eugenia graduated with honors from the University of Utah with a B. S. in Environmental and Sustainability Studies, and B. S. in Urban Ecology, where she was dedicated to enriching the lives of her peers on campus by directing and participating in multiple student groups, including the Sustainability Leadership Committee and the Student Collective of Allied Planners and Ecologists. She has volunteered with a variety of urban agriculture and environmental justice nonprofit organizations. Her most recent work focuses on helping to establish Long Beach, CA as one of the California Environmental Justice Alliance's 'Green Zone' cities. After the culmination of her graduate studies, Eugenia looks forward to directing a non-profit organization that focuses on strategic conservation planning and community resilience building through green infrastructure education and implementation.

Eugenia's thesis research project, entitled Cultivating Social-Ecological Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation through Green Infrastructure in Long Beach CA, focuses on addressing the anticipated local impacts of climate change through ecosystem-based adaptation and community engagement. Densely populated coastal cities, such as Long Beach, will face increased risks due to sea-level rise, larger storm surges, prolonged drought, deteriorating air quality, and an increased number of extreme heat days. Furthermore, Long Beach is home to a wide diversity of socioeconomic groups, and the impacts of climate change are expected to be unevenly distributed, with a disproportionate burden of risks and hazards affecting already disenfranchised populations, and residents and businesses residing in low-lying coastal areas of the city.

Eugenia's research takes a community-based, solutions-oriented approach to addressing these projected impacts with the intention of enhancing the social-ecological resilience of our communities. In particular, her thesis research examines the ecosystem-based adaptation strategies that green infrastructure offers. Green infrastructure is the development and strategic siting of urban green spaces such as parks, trees, and greenways in conjunction with built systems such as green roofs, permeable pavement, and rain gardens, that together can provide multiple social and ecological benefits including improved human health, stormwater and flooding abatement, air pollution reduction, and reduced urban heat island effect. This research aims to address critical questions at the forefront of environmental geography, land-use planning, and climate adaptation. Eugenia takes an interdisciplinary approach utilizing her background in urban ecology, environmental sustainability, and architectural design to address the local challenges that climate change presents to Long Beach specifically, as little research has been conducted to examine the potential contribution that green infrastructure can offer our city. Through this research, she aims to inform a gap in scholarly knowledge, while simultaneously applying problem-solving skills to tangible, real-world issues. Sensitive to capturing uneven social power relations, cultural understandings of space, and ecological function, Eugenia's research proposes a mixed methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative social science methods with geospatial analysis. Eugenia will collaborate with local community organizers and staff from City of Long Beach Department of Planning, to collect and analyze multiple types of data and build relationships with diverse community stakeholders, ensuring that her research is rigorous and her findings are can be applied to assist local communities build social-ecological system resilience.

Eugenia's research will be conducted under the supervision and guidance of Dr. Lily House-Peters, Assistant Professor of Sustainability Science in the Department of Geography, whose expertise includes social-ecological system resilience, sustainable water resource management, and the human dimensions of environmental change. Over the course of the next year, Dr. House-Peters and Eugenia will collaborate to write peer-reviewed articles, and a 'white paper' to offer to the City of Long Beach staff and to leaders of local community organizations to better inform the decision-making process of creating a healthier, more climate-resilient Long Beach.

Supervised by Dr. Guido Urizar

Hugo Sanchez Hernandez received the Graduate Research Fellowship in the 2017–2018 school year. He graduated from CSULB in 2015 with a double major in psychology and Film and Electronic Arts, with a concentration in screenwriting. He joined the Masters in Psychological Research program at CSULB in 2016, where he worked with Dr. Guido Urizar in the PRO-Health (Partners in Research & Outreach for Health) lab where his research focused on examining the positive factors (e.g., mindfulness, social support) that could help buffer the adverse health risks that ethnic-minority women of low socioeconomic status suffer from. His thesis, entitled The Moderating Effect of Social Support on the Association Between Pregnant Women's Mindfulness and Perceived Stress Reactivity, was nominated by his thesis committee for the Best Thesis Award and was published as a manuscript that additionally examined pregnant women's cortisol (stress hormone).

Having primarily worked in the field of health psychology at CSULB, Hugo is now additionally interested in further exploring the fields of affective science and social psychology. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine. His focus is on exploring interpersonal emotion regulation and the dark side of positive emotions (e.g., expressions of pride).