There is a national interest in improving the quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in institutions of higher education in the face of mounting difficulties. Reports by the National Academy of Sciences in 2018 and 2020 found that the dissemination and adoption of effective, timely change initiatives...
Magneto- and chemostratigraphic correlation underpins much of our understanding of Earth history, yet typical correlation techniques are neither quantitative nor objective. Within this dissertation, I detail my efforts to develop and apply dynamic programming-based algorithms that accomplish optimal and reproducible stratigraphic alignment. I apply these algorithms to three geologic intervals:...
Protective Action Decision Making is used to protect communities from adverse events and hazards. Models such as PADM (Lindell & Perry 2012) describe individual behaviors but have not robustly examined the information requirements in the solicitation process. The literature further indicates gaps in understanding the individual impacts of specific factors...
Mainstream local food systems focus on environmental and individual health, but labor is out of sight and out of mind. We begin with a story that introduces the immigrant in the room, the locavore’s blind spots, and the need to move beyond mainstream environmentalism and embrace social justice. In the...
Forests play an integral role in the global carbon cycle, regulating the atmospheric CO₂ concentration by sequestering nearly one third of anthropogenic carbon emissions and storing carbon for centuries. Forest ecosystems are integrated into the culture, ecology, and economy of western North America, supporting wildlife habitat, local economies, recreation, and...
Ideally, dosimetric models for pine trees will accurately reflect the doses to its critical organs. However, existing models (e.g. that in ICRP 108) for the pine tree are over simplified or solely focused on estimating doses to one specific organ, and none of the existing models attempt dosimetry to the...
This dissertation focuses on personal privacy in human-robot interaction, which we call "privacy-sensitive robotics." Our understanding of "privacy" is very broad, including not just information privacy but also physical, psychological, and social privacy. We begin by surveying the scholarly literature on privacy and talking about why it applies to interactions...
Human development researchers consider adolescence a rich time for interest development and identity exploration. A relatively new movement in the Free-Choice Learning (FCL) arena, the Maker movement, offers learners interest-driven, experiential, often collaborative, and process-oriented activities ranging from game design (computer-based and otherwise) and robotics, to sewing LEDs into clothing...
Although perceived-risk curriculum, that is, where the learner experiences effects of eustress (positive stress), has been used in Arts or outdoor activities, it has not been used in school classrooms. Milkman’s 1996 studies of after-school Project Self Discovery demonstrated that at-risk students lessened their adverse risky behaviors, such as substance...
This work explores a framework for the gathering and analysis of information rich customer needs, with the goal of informing inclusive product design practice. The goal is to be able to provide information and experience to designers so that they can better understand the needs of exceptional users and include...