The research of genealogy and family history can represent a means of self-discovery, connection, and preservation of the past. The experience is individualistic, unique to the intricate intertwining of lives that helped create and influence who we are today. Through the analysis of historical biographies, family documents, and autobiographical vignettes,...
In this creative non-fiction thesis, the author reads her own life, suggesting that she believes in the details of experience and knows truth in and through experience even though the truth is not always clear. The first chapter includes several narratives from her childhood experience. In the second chapter, the...
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are among the most widely known and studied environmental contaminants, originating from a range of natural and anthropogenic sources. PAHs are known to occur in the environment as complex mixtures, containing both unsubstituted PAHs, as well as a range of PAH derivatives. Among the less-studied of...
Bark beetle outbreaks have left a legacy of tree mortality across fire-prone landscapes of western North America that could influence how these forests will burn and regenerate. While research has been focused on forests in the western United States, the potential interactions between mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreaks and wildfires...
We evaluated genes previously identified from a large scale functional genomics screen for their potential value to help enhance carbon sequestration in planted trees. We used poplar as a model tree species because of its abundant genetic variation, ease of gene transfer, and availability of large databases for genomic, anatomical,...
Geologic CO₂ sequestration is a climate change mitigation strategy that prevents CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere by capturing CO₂ gasses from large point source emissions streams and then pressurizing and pumping the supercritical-state CO₂ into underground geologic storage reservoirs. Once underground, CO₂ is prevented from buoyant migration to the surface...
Modeling and analyzing the combined effects of disease and population dynamics
is important in understanding the effects of mechanisms such as pathogen transmission
and direct competition between host species on the distribution and abundance of different
species in an ecological community. Mathematical analysis of such models in a
spatially explicit...