Student Research Profiles

Fighting Urban Crime with Gun Control, Social Services, and Good Data
April 7, 2014Michael Sierra-Arevalo (Sociology) was drawn to sociology as an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, “because of the way it didn’t take things for granted. There weren’t rules for how the world worked, like in chemistry or... read more

Creating Simple, Durable Robotic Hands in the Lab
April 6, 2014Raymond Ma (Engineering) came to Yale so he could join the GRAB Lab, headed by Aaron Dollar, the John J. Lee Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. Ray learned about the project as an undergraduate and was... read more



Creating New Life Forms in the Lab, One Codon at a Time
February 3, 2014Lexi Rovner got hooked on synthetic biology after she read an article about Jay Keasling, who was using E. coli as a host for the cheap production of an antimalarial drug. “This was my first introduction to synthetic biology and research in... read more

![Top: From Surgery of the Vascular System, by Bertram Bernheim (1913). The illustration depicts the Carrel-Guthrie triangulation technique, used in Korea [photo] to restore arterial continuity and save limbs.](https://gsas.yale.edu/sites/default/files/styles/profile_headshot/public/news-images/research-humanities_surgery_photo.jpg?itok=44EcDWsF)
Studying Historic Changes in Combat Surgery, with Help from Kickstarter
February 3, 2014Justin Barr (History) has successfully applied for research grants, and sees Kickstarter as an added source of funding for his study of dramatic improvements in field surgery during the Korean War. The Kickstarter aspect is “novel and (to... read more

What Killed Off the Giant “Elephant Bird” of Madagascar?
February 3, 2014Kristina Guild Douglass (Anthropology) spent 10 years of her childhood in Madagascar, and now does her dissertation fieldwork there. Set in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Southeast Africa, Madagascar is the fourth-largest island in the... read more



Studying Jainism and Its Tantric Ritual Diagrams in India
December 9, 2013The first time Ellen Gough (Religious Studies) went to India, “It was hard to find something that didn’t surprise me,” she says. “From the endless bureaucracy (it took me eight hours sitting in a bank to open an account) to the gang of... read more




‘The World’s Fastest Psychology Experiment,’ Conducted in New York’s Times Square
November 13, 2013Chaz Firestone (Psychology) is fascinated by the human mind, and especially how visual perception and cognition interact. His field is cognitive science, which incorporates psychology, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, linguistics... read more