This creative project consists of a series of narrative and interactive videos that explains the Mediterranean Diet from both nutritional and cultural perspectives, its history, and shares the stories and insights of female farmers in Southern Italy. These women preserve native ancient varieties of edible flora and cultural practices that have evolved with the plants and the territory. This video series recognizes the women preserving their traditions and local varieties native to Southern Italy and highlights the importance of local place-based eating and foodways. The videos provide questions and vocabulary to engage with the audience and challenge them to develop ideas and ruminate on the material presented.

The aim of this project was to identify current trends in organ transplant trafficking to build upon a Mayo Clinic internship in which I conducted research and published an article: “A Scoping Review of Labor and Organ Trafficking Resources for U.S. Healthcare Professionals” in the Journal of Human Trafficking. Healthcare professionals need to be educated on the underreported problem of organ trafficking in the United States and awareness needs to be spread. Due to the lack of research available in the United States on organ trafficking for healthcare professionals, I attempted to find international sources and to make suggestions on how awareness can be created. The research pointed out problems in the United States, such as doctor-patient confidently that make it difficult to track the issue. A major theme was discovered on transplant tourism, which is where wealthy individuals from the U.S. and other developed countries travel to third-world countries to take advantage of vulnerable individuals, who may be victims of organ trafficking.

Using a dataset of ASU students from the 2016-2017 cohort, we interact gender and parent education level to observe gaps in academic achievement. We see a statistically insignificant achievement gap for males across parent education level, but a statistically significant achievement gap for females across parent education level. We also observe dropout gaps among these interaction groups. We see the widest dropout gap being between males across parent education level, with the smallest dropout gap being between females across parent education level. So with males we see an insignificant achievement gap but the widest dropout gap across parent education level, and with females we see a significant achievement gap but the smallest dropout gap across parent education level. What is driving these gaps and causing more similarly performing students to drop out at wider rates? At the aggregate level, we see larger gaps in grade- associated dropout probability across parent education level for males which may be able to explain the larger difference in overall proportions of dropouts between males. However, when predicting dropout probability of the semester with the most first generation and non-first generation dropouts, we see that females have the largest differences across parent education level in grade-associated dropout probability. This suggests that our model may be best suited in using college achievement data to predict overall dropout probabilities, not next-semester dropout probabilities using current semester data. Our findings also suggest that first generation students’ dropout probability is more sensitive to the grades they receive than non-first generation students.

Samantha and Rachel both have a history in gifted education and wanted to create a safe space for the two of them and their peers to discuss the effects gifted/ accelerated education has had on them, specifically pertaining to burnout. To best dive into this matter, Gifted Kid Syndrome podcast was born! During which, our hosts interviewed students and professionals, allowing everyone to share their pasts, their hopes for the future, and what they’ve learned along the way regarding mental health, identity, education, and personal success.

The education that a student receives in the United States is influenced by an array of factors. One of the main influential factors is the financial resources a school has access to. Additionally, identities such as race, class, and gender all substantially impact the level of education a student has access to. Often students in minority groups, such as Hispanic students, experience additional challenging educational experiences than others. This is due to the intersectionality of their identities impacting their education. Within the Hispanic population, the unique educational experiences of Hispanic females are often disregarded. This paper analyzes the implications of intersectionality on the education of Hispanic females in Arizona. In order to examine this, a qualitative research study involving interviews with Hispanic female college students was done. Interviews consisted of questioning the participants about their K-12 educational experiences in Arizona’s education system, the school factors impacting their education, the familial factors impacting their education, and their college experiences. Key findings show that the educational experiences of Hispanic female students in Arizona are impacted by (a) familial support, (b) the role of Hispanic values/traditional gender roles, (c) a lack of financial resources, (d) an underrepresentation of Hispanic culture, (e) and inadequate college readiness resources. The findings of the study show that the intersectionality of gender and race/ethnicity creates additional disadvantages for the education of Hispanic female students. Furthermore, the results emphasize the need to take intersectionality into account when examining the educational differences that exist in the education system.

Beautiful and rich in history, the Arabic language is spoken by over 422 million people. The language has significant social and political importance, and it is increasingly taught in universities around the United States. When languages are taught their aim should be not only to teach learners to communicate effectively, but also to gain a deep understanding and respect of culture, people, and history. The Al-Kitaab textbook series by Georgetown University Press is utilized as the main learning material in most universities in the United States to teach Arabic language. The highly political and negative nature of the series limits students’ comprehension to a political perspective influenced by the conflicts in the Middle East and has a severe impact on not only students’ learning ability but also their perception of the Arabic language and culture. While the series sufficiently provides the political vocabulary necessary for roles in government, it overlooks the importance of a full understanding of the cultural richness and nuances of the Arabic language necessary for an appreciation of history, arts, and literature of the region. The overarching objective of this project is to analyze the Georgetown University Press Al-Kitaab textbook series for Arabic language instruction and compare it to the Vista Higher Learning Sentieri textbook for Italian language instruction to plan a new Arabic curriculum to increase student enrollment. This comparison will explore recurring themes present in each textbook series and display the detrimental and outdated depictions of Arab culture presented throughout the Al-Kitaab series. Different aspects of the textbooks will be discussed including vocabulary and vocabulary progression, biographies of important figures, in-text activities, reading passages, and recurrent themes. Through revamping the learning materials used to teach Arabic, Arizona State University (ASU) and the School of International Letters and Cultures (SILC) can become innovative leaders in the instruction of university-level Arabic language.