The current state of science education in the United States is evolving to building a skills-based, rather than content-based, knowledge in its students, grades K-12. To this end, I have integrated my experience and understanding of molecular biology and educational…

The Nusayri-'Alawis, the syncretistic Shiite sect currently prominent in Syria, are some of the only survivors of the heterodox cults of Early Islam. For theological and precautionary reasons they are forbidden from sharing their beliefs with outsiders. As a result,…

To investigate the influence of input from fellow group members in a constrained decision-making context, we develop four 2-armed bandit tasks in which subjects freely select one of two options (A or B) and are informed of the resulting reward…

This dissertation is about family history and the constitution of the social among the Abenaki, an aboriginal people often associated with the Odanak reserve in southern Quebec. It is an ethnography of belonging among a people whose status as aboriginal…

Childhood obesity is heavily documented as a public health crisis in the United
States. Today, more than one-third of American youth can be medically classified as
overweight or obese. Of those children, a disproportionately high number are Hispanic.
There is…

The aim of this thesis is to develop methods for variable selection and statistical prediction for high dimensional statistical problems. Along with proposing new and innovative procedures, this thesis also focuses on the theoretical properties of the proposed methods and…