More Like this

1. How Can We Identify Teams at Risk of Marginalizing Minoritized Students, at Scale?

   Dickerson, Darryl A. Masta; Masta, Stephanie; Ohland, Matthew W.; Pawley, Alice L. (July 2021, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Teamwork is critical to engineering professional work. While some aspects of teaming with engineering students are well understood and implemented into instructional tools, tools for handling student teams dealing with implicit and explicit racism, sexism, and homophobia are infrequent. Instructors of large undergraduate courses need tools to help make team-level marginalization visible at the classroom level to interrupt discriminatory or marginalizing behavior amongst teammates, and to model allyship so teammates learn how to interrupt others' marginalizing behavior when instructors are not around. This paper describes the broader project, and describes some early results, focused on an algorithm that can help identify teams engaging in marginalizing behaviors against minoritized students, whether minoritized by race, gender, nationality, LGBTQ identity, or other categorization schemes. We describe how the algorithm is proving useful to identify student teams to focus on for analysis to answer some of our research questions focused on how engineering undergraduate teams marginalize minoritized members, and illustrate one such analysis. We describe our continuing work on the broader project. 

   more » « less
2. Boundary Currents at the Northern Edge of the Chukchi Sea at 166°W

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC018997  

   Li, Min; Pickart, Robert S.; Lin, Peigen; Woodgate, Rebecca A.; Wang, Guiyuan; Xie, Lingling (December 2022, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans)

   Abstract Data from two moorings deployed at 166°W on the northern Chukchi shelf and slope from summer 2002 to fall 2004, as part of the Western Arctic Shelf‐Basin Interactions program, are analyzed to investigate the characteristics and variability of the flow in this region. The depth‐mean velocity at the outer‐shelf mooring is northeastward and bottom‐intensified, while that at the upper‐slope mooring is northwestward and surface‐intensified. This, together with results from a high resolution ocean and sea ice reanalysis, indicates that the outer‐shelf mooring sampled the seaward edge of the Chukchi Shelfbreak Jet, while the upper‐slope mooring sampled the shoreward edge of the Chukchi Slope Current. The coupled variability in velocity at both sites is related to the wind stress curl over the Chukchi Sea shelf, likely via Ekman dynamics and geostrophic set up, analogous to the dynamics of both currents closer to Barrow Canyon near 157°W. Hydrographic signals are analyzed to elucidate the origin of the water masses present at this location. It is argued that the annual appearance of Pacific‐origin warm water at the outer‐shelf (upper‐slope) mooring in late‐fall and winter originates from Herald (Barrow) Canyon some months earlier. Our results constitute the first robust evidence that the westward‐flowing Chukchi Slope Current persists this far west of Barrow Canyon. 

   more » « less
3. Student and employee perceptions of geoscience workplace climate at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, USA

   Bruno, Barbara C; Shea, Thomas (August 2025, Geological Society of America)

   MacDonald, JH; Clary, RM; Archer, RS; Broadway, RL (Ed.)

   A workplace climate survey conducted among geoscientists at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, USA, was analyzed in two ways: Whole data set analysis (basic descriptive statistics were calculated for the set of responses to each climate survey item, without considering demographics) and demographic analysis (responses were examined through a demographic lens to identify any statistically significant correlations between respondents’ perceptions of climate and various aspects of their identities). The whole data set analysis revealed a strongly positive perception of the EARTH/HIGP (Department of Earth Sciences/Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology) workplace climate. A few areas that warrant further attention are presented at the end of the “Data and Results 1: Whole Data Set Analysis” section. The demographic analysis revealed statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) in perceptions of workplace climate. Of the 115 climate survey items examined, 78 (or 68%) showed significant differences within at least one demographic dimension. In other words, the workplace climate is perceived significantly differently by different demographic groups. Of the 18 demographic dimensions analyzed, all (100%) showed significant differences in at least one workplace climate survey item. For the vast majority of significant differences, the minoritized or marginalized groups had a more negative perception of workplace climate than the majority groups. The demographic dimension associated with the greatest number of significant differences (46) was “condition” (defined as “health conditions that impacted your learning, working or living activities in the past 12 months”). The responses of those who reported at least one condition indicated considerably greater disenfranchisement compared with those who reported no conditions. An intersectional demographic analysis was precluded due to the small sample size (n = 49), and we note this as a serious limitation. However, despite the small sample size, the fact that statistically significant results were found underscores the value of conducting climate surveys, even at a relatively small scale. 

   more » « less
4. Electrochemical Modification of Polypeptides at Selenocysteine

   https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202313037  

   Mackay, Angus S; Maxwell, Joshua_W C; Bedding, Max J; Kulkarni, Sameer S; Byrne, Stephen A; Kambanis, Lucas; Popescu, Mihai V; Paton, Robert S; Malins, Lara R; Ashhurst, Anneliese S; et al (December 2023, Angewandte Chemie International Edition)

   Abstract Mild strategies for the selective modification of peptides and proteins are in demand for applications in therapeutic peptide and protein discovery, and in the study of fundamental biomolecular processes. Herein, we describe the development of an electrochemical selenoetherification (e‐SE) platform for the efficient site‐selective functionalization of polypeptides. This methodology utilizes the unique reactivity of the 21st amino acid, selenocysteine, to effect formation of valuable bioconjugates through stable selenoether linkages under mild electrochemical conditions. The power of e‐SE is highlighted through late‐stage C‐terminal modification of the FDA‐approved cancer drug leuprolide and assembly of a library of anti‐HER2 affibody conjugates bearing complex cargoes. Following assembly by e‐SE, the utility of functionalized affibodies for in vitro imaging and targeting of HER2 positive breast and lung cancer cell lines is also demonstrated. 

   more » « less
5. Identification of charm jets at LHCb

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/17/02/P02028  

   Aaij, R.; Abdelmotteleb, A.S.W.; Abellán Beteta, C.; Abudinen Gallego, F.J.; Ackernley, T.; Adeva, B.; Adinolfi, M.; Afsharnia, H.; Agapopoulou, C.; Aidala, C.A.; et al (February 2022, Journal of Instrumentation)

   Abstract The identification of charm jets is achieved at LHCb for data collected in 2015–2018 using a method based on the properties of displaced vertices reconstructed and matched with jets. The performance of this method is determined using a dijet calibration dataset recorded by the LHCb detector and selected such that the jets are unbiased in quantities used in the tagging algorithm. The charm-tagging efficiency is reported as a function of the transverse momentum of the jet. The measured efficiencies are compared to those obtained from simulation and found to be in good agreement. 

   more » « less