Quantum mechanical phenomena are playing tremendous roles in many areas of chemistry and materials science research. In recent years, the potential role of coupling between electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom in photochemical processes has been widely researched. Despite its potential to improve molecular technologies, the lack of studies focusing...
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images the retina noninvasively with micrometer-scale volumetric resolutions. It is an invaluable resource in the clinic for identifying, monitoring, and treating blindness-causing diseases. By shortening illumination wavelengths to the visible range, visible-light OCT (vis-OCT) improves image resolution, provides new scattering contrasts, and enables oxygen saturation (sO2)...
This thesis contains two research projects. The first research project examined the coherent nature of electron transfer in two donor-acceptor dyads – one single acceptor control compound and one dual acceptor molecule of interest. Using transient absorption spectroscopy in the ultraviolet/visible/near-infrared and mid-infrared regions, magnetic field effect experiments, and theoretical...
Today’s romance fiction landscape is drastically different than the early 1980s when its community of readers and writers formalized in the Romance Writers of America and Romantic Times fan magazine. Then, romance fiction was understood to focus on “the interaction between male and female.” Today, romance depicts a variety of...
This thesis presents a new self-assembling robotic system that diverges from traditional approaches by enabling robots to build structures not constrained to a lattice and formed based on environmental conditions, rather than on a priori blueprints. Robot self-assembly is a class of behavior in swarm robotics in which many robots...
“Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” is the name for one of French artist Paul Gauguin’s most influential paintings. Unsurprisingly, these very questions have occupied the minds of countless philosophers, artists, and scholars since the beginning of human civilization. These questions become especially salient...
Cuteness is a popular aesthetic in product design, yet there is a lack of understanding of who is most likely to engage in cute consumption and, more importantly, why. In this dissertation, I consider the role of sex and gender identity in cute consumption, proposing a strong mental association between...
Imagine sitting in a room listening to some friends play a song. Perhaps one friend is playing guitar, another playing bass, and a third is playing drums. The musical content in this scene is extraordinarily complex, yet it contains many types of structure that is easy for us to comprehend....
Laser powder-blown directed energy deposition (DED) is an additive manufacturing process that utilizes a co-axial nozzle and laser to melt metal powders onto a substrate in a line-by-line fashion. This coupling gives rise to interactions between the laser, powder, and melt pool. To address fundamental process understanding, physical models were...
This dissertation purposely prioritizes Tibetan and Himalayan tsunmas’ perspectives on the topic of restoring a full ordination lineage for ordained women. To do so, it examines the gendered landscapes of Buddhist women’s ordination, which has been a contentious issue throughout Buddhism’s twenty-six-hundred-year history, beginning with the Buddha’s eventual acceptance of...