Abstracts 2017 2017 Abstracts Pcer
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HARVARD COLLEGE PRISE PBPSSP PRISE | BLISS | PRIMO | SHARP | SURGH | PCER !"# &'"( | BLISS | PRIMO | SHARP | SURGH | SURGH | | SHARP | PRIMO BLISS | + (Ε-⋁)- = 0 !$" )" PCER ABSTRACTS 2017 1 = ℎ3 456 = cos : + ; sin : 8B> > = E Abstracts 2017 ?@ CD ?@ Harvard Summer Undergraduate Research Village ABSTRACT BOOK 2017 Edited By Jiafeng Chen,Editor-in-Chief Sean Gibney,Editor-in-Chief Jeongmin Lee,Editor-in-Chief Hanson Tam,Editor-in-Chief Olivia Velasquez,Editor-in-Chief Katie Vincent,Editor-in-Chief Irla Belli,Editor Maria Brouard,Editor Morgan Buchanan,Editor Emma Clerx,Editor Sophia Lee,Editor Willa Li,Editor Jeffrey Naftaly,Editor Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts Participating Programs Behavioral Laboratory in the Social Sciences (bliss) Harvard College-Mindich Program in Community-Engaged Research (pcer) Program for Research in Markets and Organizations (primo) Program for Research in Science and Engineering (prise) Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program (sharp) Summer Undergraduate Research in Global Health (surgh) Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships Harvard University The Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief Jiafeng Chen Sean Gibney Jeongmin Lee Hanson Tam Olivia Velasquez Katie Vincent Editors Irla Belli Maria Brouard Morgan Buchanan Emma Clerx Sophia Lee Willa Li Je↵rey Naftaly Staff Development Coordinator Ellen Zhang Cover Design Willa Li Interior Artwork Trevor Chistolini, Emma Clerx Peer Editors Daniel Alpert, Irla Belli, Maria Brouard, Morgan Buchanan, Stephanie Campbell, Trevor Chistolini, Emma Clerx, Michael Dybala, Jonathan Galla, Sean Gibney, Julia Huesa, Gha Young Lee, Jeongmin Lee, Sophia Lee, Shira Li, Willa Li, Maya Miklos, Cal Miller, Vaibhav Mohanty, Je↵rey Naftaly, Abhishek Patel, Ste↵an Paul, Daniel Ragheb, Brad Riew, Vanessa Ruales, Benjamin Senzer, Reggie St. Louis, Mirac Suzgun, Hanson Tam, Olivia Velasquez, Katie Vincent, Akash Wasil, David Yang Contents Letter from the Director ii Letter from the Editors iii Behavioral Laboratory in the Social Sciences (BLISS) 1 Harvard College-Mindich Program in Community-Engaged Research (PCER) 9 Program for Research in Markets and Organizations (PRIMO) 11 Program for Research in Science and Engineering (PRISE) 19 Astronomy and Astrophysics . 19 Biomedical Engineering and Science . 20 Chemistry and Biochemistry . 26 Computer Science . 30 Developmental Biology . 32 Earth and Planetary Sciences . 32 Economics . 33 Engineering and Applied Sciences . 34 Genetics . 36 Mathematics . 37 Molecular and Cellular Biology . 38 Neuroscience . 49 Organismic and Evolutionary Biology . 56 Physics and Biophysics . 60 Psychology . 67 Statistics . 69 Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology . 69 Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program (SHARP) 75 Summer Undergraduate Research in Global Health (SURGH) 83 List of Fellows 91 Acknowledgments 93 Author Index 95 i Letter from the Director Dear HSURV Community, On behalf of Rakesh Khurana, the Dano↵ Dean of Harvard College, and Jay Harris, the Dean of Undergraduate Education, I am writing with pleasure to introduce the 2017 Abstract Book of the Harvard College Summer Undergraduate Research Village com- munity. The Village is comprised of PRISE (the Program for Research in Science and Engineering), BLISS (the Behavioral Laboratory in Social Sciences), PRIMO (the Program for Research in Markets and Organizations), SHARP (the Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program), SURGH (Summer Undergraduate Research in Global Health), and our latest affiliated program, PCER (the Program in Community-Engaged Research), which is celebrating its inaugural summer. From the beginning of PRISE in the summer of 2006 and the subsequent evolution of the Summer Undergraduate Research Village, I have been gratified by the continuing development of interdisciplinary opportunities that provide formative and substantive exposure to research under the auspices of faculty and subject experts across the university. As members of our residential community will attest, this experience is fortified by a compelling, meaningful social engagement in which these six programs together are inextricably linked with enthusiasm, inclusivity, and deeply-felt kindheartedness. The abstracts included herein speak for themselves: impressive in their considerable interdisciplinary range, the projects are a testimony to the fellows’ diligent e↵ort and compelling sense of purpose. With gratitude to our faculty hosts, the abstracts further underscore the truly inspiring research happening across the Harvard universe. I wish each of the fellows in PRISE, BLISS, PRIMO, SHARP, SURGH, and PCER satisfying accomplishments in your academic endeavors going forward and hope your curiosity continues to be piqued through further prospects to conduct research on topics that fascinate you. I suspect the important relationships you have cultivated over the summer will parlay into long-term friendships that positively influence you during your time at Harvard and beyond. Thank you for sharing your summer with me! Yours truly, Gregory A. Llacer Director, Harvard College Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (URAF) Director, Harvard College Program for Research in Science and Engineering (PRISE) ii Letter from the Editors Dear HSURV Community, As the summer draws to a close, we commemorate the incredible research conducted by all of the fellows in this community with this collection of abstracts. HSURV is a unique experience, allowing motivated and driven student researchers to spend ten weeks living and learning together. We will cherish our memories of discussing research, wandering Boston, watching whales on the open sea, and cheering on our peers at the packed co↵eehouses. The research we conducted this summer showcases talents beyond mundane acts of pipetting and reading; even more, our research was diverse, collaborative, and multidis- ciplinary. Small or great, preliminary or groundbreaking, we are pushing the frontiers of human understanding. It has been a privilege and a pleasure reading about the hard work of those in this community. We are incredibly grateful to our dedicated fellows and peer editors, without whom this book would not have been possible. This summer was the result of the hard work of numerous groups and individuals. Thank you to the proctors, PAs, and PBPSSP and Leverett House summer sta↵: you have made this a summer filled with fun and have turned Leverett House into our home. To our PIs, advisors, and mentors: we are beyond grateful for both the knowledge you have shared and the general wisdom you have imparted to us. And most of all, thank you to Greg Llacer and the entire URAF team: this village would not exist without your enthusiasm, experience, and expertise, which drive these programs forward. And now, we invite you to explore our work this summer—happy reading! Sincerely, The 2017 HSURV Abstract Book Editorial Board iii iv Behavioral Laboratory in the Social Sciences (BLISS) Assessing Ethics Education at Harvard The Role of Empathic Learning in Harm University Aversion Ikeoluwa Adeyemi-Idowu Harvard College Stephanie Campbell Harvard College Sociology Class of 2019 Computer Science Class of 2019 Danielle Allen Mind, Brain, Behavior Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Mina Cikara Mentors Harvard Intergroup Neuroscience Laboratory Jess Miner, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Mentors Michael Blauw, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Fiery Cushman, Department of Psychology Researchers at the Edmond J. Safra Center have be- Indrajeet Patil, Department of Psychology gun a holistic assessment of ethics education across the Harvard University’s thirteen schools. As part of Empathy is a strong contributor to the remark- a National Ethics Project to examine ethics instruc- able human aversion to inflicting harm. Although tion across the United States, our team is aiming to extant work has investigated how present empathic determine how and where Harvard teaches ethics. responses prevent harmful actions, little work has To do so we have created an archive of course de- focused on how our past empathic experiences help scriptions, student/faculty surveys, and syllabi deter- us learn to assign negative values to harmful actions. mined to provide information about ethics instruc- Our approach is to understand this process of tion. After assembling a weighted three-tier system learning moral values by drawing on formal com- of 82 key terms, the team was able to identify courses putational models. We use the two distinct systems that fit within the broad limits of our methodologi- known to guide choice behavior: the habitual inter- cal framework. Analysis of the archive utilized the nalized “model-free” system, and the goal-directed methods of the Humanities and Liberal Arts Assess- planning “model-based” system. ment Lab (HULA), which involved coding a variety We modeled our empathic learning experiment on of excerpts to track learning pathways and human a previous two-step reinforcement learning task that development. As this qualitative data analysis con- identifies which of the two decision-making systems tinues, the team aims to discover emergent patterns has greater control in making non-social choices. across the body of ethics instruction at Harvard. The This task can dissociate model-based and model- results of this assessment will provide crucial infor- free strategies based on di↵erent predictions these mation to give the university a clearer image of what strategies make on how second-stage rewards af- and how it is teaching in the realm of ethics