Category: Oral Presentation

Traditional Iron Forging in Contemporary Times: An Ethnoarchaeological Study on the Position of Blacksmiths in the Archaeological and Socio-cultural Records

Presenter: Sarah Wyer

Mentor: Daniel Wojcik, William Ayres

Oral Presentation

Major: Anthropology/Folklore

This paper is an ethnoarchaeological look at blacksmithing by combining ethnographic field work and archaeological data. I interviewed blacksmith Jack Frost, a resident of Glenwood, Oregon but originally from Devon, Great Britain. Frost works with a traditional forge and tries to keep his practices as authentic as possible. By asking Frost questions about his blacksmithing techniques and experience, I have been able to compare his methods and his step-by-step processes to what the archaeological record tells us of blacksmithing. In particular, I focus on the quantity of carbon versus phosphorus in iron and how that affects the blacksmithing process as a whole. By looking at the procedure of modern blacksmithing in a traditional vein through Frost’s work, I attempt to explain how archaeological data, such as carbon residue discovered during an excavation, might have come to be. Blacksmithing and smelting methods from Europe to Africa are explored to provide a historical context. This paper combines two usually differing fields of anthropology, socio-cultural and archaeology, to show how ethnographic research might contribute to how we interpret archaeological data. Bringing Frost into the study shows how ethnographic research can couple with archaeological data to offer some insight into the unrecorded past.

Crafting the Ancient: Pre-Columbian Music for a Modern Audience

Presenter: Sarah Wyer

Mentor: Daniel Wojcik, William Ayres

Oral Presentation

Major: Anthropology/Folklore

In this paper I recount my fieldwork with local Eugenian artist musician Samuel Becerra and his motivations for crafting clay flutes. Becerra is a formally trained musician with a specialization in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican music and a further focus on Aztec instruments and musical forms. Beyond giving an overview of the instruments and how Becerra defines their importance and use, I ask questions regarding his motivations for making folk art. Of particular focus is his use of Aztec heritage to form his identity and inform his work. Consulting background research on Aztec music, I attempt to create a framework for understanding Becerra’s artistic creations in terms of personal reasons, motivations and issues of community and identity. Through my fieldwork with Becerra, I explore the deeper meanings, such as strengthening a nostalgic connection to his Aztec heritage, behind his goal to uphold ancient Aztec traditions.

Lichenometric Dating Using Placopsis lambii Applied to the Yachats Basalt, Central Oregon Coast

Presenter: Logan Wetherell

Mentor: Josh Roering

Oral Presentation

Major: Geological Science

Surface exposure dates estimated through lichenometric growth rates can be used to document geologic events where other methods of dating rock surface exposure are not applicable. Largest lichen diameter measurements of pioneer species Placopsis lambii were taken at 10 sites with independent ages along the Yachats Basalt in the central Oregon coast to construct a regional growth curve to be used in estimating surface exposure dates. Largest lichen diameters were recorded across 25m2 swaths of non-calcareous rock at each site and recorded to establish two growth phases of P. lambii. Lichen colonization occurs approximately 5 years after surface exposure and lichen diameter increases at 1.2mm/yr to 1.5mm/yr for approximately 20 years. After 20 years, we observed slow linear growth of <0.2mm/yr as biological competition or spatial constraints from nearby P. lambii colonies impeded growth. We expect that P. lambii could be applied as a lichenometric dating species for exposed surfaces where the timescale of rockfall are less than 100 years and can provide useful information of regional rockfall rates.

Selling Sustainable Fashion: How Small Apparel Companies Communicate Social and Environmental Responsibility

Presenter: Aubrey West

Mentor: Kathie Carpenter

Oral Presentation

Major: International Studies

The apparel industry is responsible for much of today’s global pollution and many human rights violations, but quite a few small apparel companies are refashioning the industry’s dirty façade and becoming successfully sustainable by focusing on quality and consumer awareness. My research compiles the opinions of small apparel company managers and consumers regarding sustainable fashion in order to recommend viable solutions for creating a more sustainable fashion industry. Interviews were conducted with Hilary Fischer-Groban, VP of Operations and Sustainability at The Reformation in Los Angeles, California and Tina Cheung, Senior Manager of Social and Environmental Responsibility at Aritzia in Vancouver, British Columbia. They were chosen based on their company’s small size, brand image of sustainability, and willingness to participate. The interviewees agreed that the biggest sustainability challenge they face is lacking influence over their suppliers, but they believe that consumers feel well informed about their efforts. I also surveyed 80 male and female consumers contacted through my Facebook network, who called for an increase in accessibility and information about sustainable clothing and a decrease in these garments’ prices. Thus I discovered a crucial disconnect between company and consumer opinions about information exchange. Based on this information, I show examples of current marketing approaches, evaluate them, and make recommendations about how small apparel companies can better communicate their sustainability. These recommendations focus on efficient and informative marketing techniques that make known their garments’ origins, materials, and certifications in an accessible and interesting manner using technology such as Quick Response codes partnered with Smart Phones.

Disease and Space: An Historical Epidemiology Study Investigating Northern Paiute Cultural Patterns Pre and Post Reservation

Presenter: Madeline Weissman

Mentor: Kevin Hatfield

Oral Presentation

Major: Psychology/Spanish

I chose to study the effects of disease on the Northern Paiute from the 1700’s through present day for a 10 week Honors College Colloquium. I chose this topic due to my ongoing interest in public health and the ways diseases correlate with cultural and social factors. This study is a historical epidemiology, combining biological information on the components of epidemic diseases such as the flu, malaria, smallpox, and measles with geographical information on the Pacific Northwest as well as cultural information on the lifestyle of the Northern Paiute. I investigated the
onset of epidemiological diseases in relation to movement onto reservations. This study focuses on the interaction between disease and the idiosyncratic cultural patterns of the Northern Paiute, such as location, movement, isolation, and traditional medicinal practices. Methods for my research included finding primary sources such as government documents obtained via microfilm and handwritten letters available through the UO Library’s Special Collections. Additionally, I conducted three oral interviews with four tribe members and referenced secondary sources obtained through the UO library catalogue. Approximately half of my research comes from primary sources and half from secondary sources. Through my research, I found that diseases such as the flu, malaria, smallpox, and measles only started to affect the Northern Paiute once they were forced onto reservations and continue to have devastating population repercussions on the existing tribe.

Barriers to Survival: The Japanese Legal Framework As a Risk Factor in Refugee Services

Presenter: Nobuyuki Tomiuga

Mentor: Kathie Carpenter

Oral Presentation

Major: International Studies 

Refugees in Japan who entered the country without a resident status (official passport and visa) are not given the right to work or obtain health insurance during the refugee recognition application process. The application process usually takes more than three years, but very few are granted refugee status. In 2013, only 6 out of 3260 applicants were admitted as refugees, and 856 of the applicants did not have a resident status. This study includes interviews with refugees who had to survive in Japan without the right to work or obtain health insurance, even though they fled their home countries to evade persecution and seek protection in Japan. The interviews found that many face a choice between living without any income or working illegally to survive, even if they risk incarceration. Most abstain from seeing a doctor because they cannot afford to pay the full medical fee without health insurance. The study also includes the kinds of assistance various organizations, social workers, and professionals have been giving to those refugees in need, and found that there is a limit to the number of people they can help and the degree of support they can offer. As a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention, Japan has the obligation to protect refugees. The government needs to modify the legal framework by allowing refugees to work and obtain health insurance regardless of their legal restrictions, because these are fundamental rights for survival, and refugees often are unable to leave their countries with official documents.

Soundproofing in the Residential Halls

Presenter: Francisco Toledo

Co-Presenters: Amanda Mensch, Kristina Ames

Mentor: Alison Kwok

Oral Presentation

Major: Architecture 

Privacy is an important part of everyone’s life. The focus of our research is to determine what could be done to reduce the amount of sound transmission through a wall in the resident halls. We choose to test and compare two different insulations (wool and rigid). We hypothesized that natural sheep’s wool insulation will reduce the amount of sound transmission by 50% compared to that of rigid insulation. The insulations were placed inside a reconstructed wall to resemble a section of the interior walls inside the Walton residential hall and tested in a sound control room to avoid other factors such as temperature and exterior sounds that could alter our data. We choose five activities, talking, laughing, vacuuming, playing video games, and listening to music, based on their occurrence in the halls. To record data we used a sound meter app from the apple store to determine sound penetration into the box. In our findings, we concluded that when comparing the peaks from each individual activity there was about 8 % more efficiency using wool insulation in terms of sound penetration, but in general the average peak was reduced significantly by around 10-20 decibels. From our understanding, our results make sense because wool has fibers that are able to absorb sound waves while rigid insulation is highly compact hence why is able to transmit sound in the form of energy. The significance of this project is to help university housing enhance the living environment students live in. We believe privacy is an issue when living with 70 other students. Our recommendation, based on our results, is that wool is a better soundproofing material and therefore should be used within the residential halls to provide a greater sense of privacy. University housing on campus has communicated with us that they are preparing a five year renovation plan and would love for us to present to them our findings because it would help them create the most economic and effective plan.

Do Distinct Types of Progenitors Contribute to the Diversity of Enteric Neurons and Glia?

Presenter: Charlotte Taylor

Mentor: Judith Eisen

Oral Presentation

Major: Biology 

The enteric nervous system (ENS), the largest component of the peripheral nervous system, provides intrinsic innervation of the intestinal tract and modulates gut function. The ENS forms a complex network composed of different neuronal and glial subtypes. Whether these different subtypes arise from distinct progenitors is currently unknown. Developing zebrafish embryos are transparent and genetic manipulations can be used to label progenitor cells and their progeny, thus zebrafish is an excellent model in which to address this question. ENS progenitors express several marker genes, including phox2b, sox10, and ret. Using the zebrafish model, we investigated whether expression of these genes designates distinct ENS progenitor populations. Our co-expression analysis identified three different progenitor subpopulations that express the following marker combinations: phox2b/sox10/ret, phox2b/ret, and phox2b. Our next goal is to test the hypothesis that these subpopulations give rise to distinct neuronal and glial cell types during ENS development. We will use the Cre/loxP lineage tracing system to track progeny of identified progenitor subpopulations. Currently, we are generating BAC constructs that drive expression of Cre recombinase under the control of enteric progenitor specific promoters. We will inject these BAC constructs into a red fluorescent reporter line to permanently label all Cre expressing cells and their progeny and then follow the fate of of these cells in living embryos during ENS development. These results will provide a comprehensive lineage analysis of ENS precursors in vivo and thus offer new insights into ENS development and the developmental potential of individual ENS progenitors.

The Neurocognitive Development of HIV Positive Children and Adolescents

Presenter: Sophia Tarzaban

Mentor: Janis Weeks

Oral Presentation

Major: Human Physiology 

Research has displayed that children living with HIV diagnoses have showed signs of progressive encephalopathy; and these children exhibited higher rates of residual neurologic, cognitive, and scholastic impairment compared
with the average school age child. My research highlights the fact that antiretroviral drug treatments (ARVs) are developmentally unsafe to be administered to infants, children, and adolescents, due to the decreased neurocognitive development that is displayed as they progress into adulthood. In addition, my research exposes the physiological mechanism that causes HIV to damage the developing brain of infants. My goal is to draw awareness to this issue by arguing that these children require special attention and are too often overlooked, in order to help prevent them from losing their right to an education.The data I collected is from a review of over 30 research papers and will be presented as a meta-analysis of relevant cognition testing performed on children born with HIV. These cognitive assessments provide statistical comparisons that are used to compare and contrast scholastic performance in various disciplines.

My research is important as it displays strong evidence that ARVs are not a safe treatment method for combating HIV in youth and adolescents. While ARVs are the current, most effective treatment in increasing child mortality, they are also increasing the rates of encephalopathy amongst school children. Discovering a new, safer method of treatment for HIV+ children could produce a generation of adolescents and adults who are not only immunologically stable, but also cognitively sound.

Governor George L. Woods and Genocide in Oregon

Presenter: Simone Smith

Mentor: Kevin Hatfield

Oral Presentation

Major: Business Administration

Governor George L. Woods, with the help of various members in the US Army and federal government such as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and General Crook, created a strong federal presence specifically unique to Oregon. Under Woods’ rule, ethnocide along with the use of Indian Scouts were legalized, leading to the attempted extermination of the Northern Paiute and the strengthening of the federal government’s control in Oregon in the context of Richard White’s “kindergarten” theory. The expansion of federal power is evident through Woods’ decision to use Indian Scouts during the Snake War from 1866 to 1868. Prior to Woods’ term in office, the government
had not legalized the pitting of Indian against Indian for the purpose of extermination. Through further inspection of state documents, newspapers, letters, and manuscripts, it becomes evident that this history employs a further discussion of authority and of marginalization. Acting alongside Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Woods was able to bypass several military officers in order to attempt to eliminate the Northern Paiute during the erroneously named “Snake War” which scholar Gregory Michno proclaims to be “the deadliest Indian war” in terms of Native American casualties. The history of Woods’ genocidal rampage is absent in the common understanding of Oregon’s history and many scholars have overlooked the impact of Woods’ presence in Oregon. In the existing literature surrounding the Snake War and the history of Oregon, Governor Woods is mentioned very briefly although his impact on the Northern Paiute is quite substantial. Given that there are currently no published biographies on the third governor of Oregon, Governor George L. Woods, this research provides original material and will contribute to a larger body of work on federalized power in Oregon and its effect on the Northern Paiute.