Spotlight on GSAS Students and Alumni

In this episode of the Highlights Podcast, Alexander Herbert, a PhD  candidate in the history department, discusses his book, "What About  Tomorrow?: An Oral History of Russian Punk from the Soviet Era to Pussy  Riot."

PhD candidate Matthew Heck first fell in love with Shostakovich as a young violinist. He has spent his time at Brandeis investigating the nuts and bolts of Shostakovich's musical language—an area that he feels has been somewhat neglected by anglophone theorists.

Ryan Marcus, PhD'19, discusses the challenges associated with cloud  computing and the ways that machine learning may be able to address them.

Chris Konow researches the impact of growth on Turing patterns in the  Epstein Lab. Turing patterns are named after the British mathematician  Alan Turing, who proposed a mechanism for how differentiation can occur  within a homogeneous system. The Epstein and Fraden labs at Brandeis  have provided experimental support for Turing's predictions and are  currently performing research to improve our understanding of the Turing  mechanism.

Jack E. Davis, PhD'94, returned to campus on March 19, 2019 to give a talk about his Pulitzer Prize winning book, "The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea." He sat down with us for half an hour to discuss the book, his next project on the history of the bald eagle and to provide some words of advice on how students of history can improve their own writing. 

Veronica Flores, PhD'19, discusses her work across the disciplines of  psychology and neuroscience in the Katz lab. Flores studies the effect  of incidental experience on taste using a rodent model. Recently, she  was selected for a faculty vacancy by Furman University in South  Carolina. She will begin working in this role in August.

Master's candidate Victor Suarez discusses his experience pursuing a  dual degree in Biotechnology and Business Administration at the Graduate  School of Arts and Sciences and the Heller School for Social Policy and  Management.

Janna Lowensohn, a PhD candidate in Physics, discusses the process of  experimentation involved with DNA self-assembly. As a member of the  Rogers Lab, she works with DNA molecules to unravel and then reprogram  the self-assembly process.

Megan Finch discusses her dissertation, "Unreasonable Blackness: Black  Women Writing Madness, 1967 – 2015," with Alyssa Stalsberg Canelli, PhD,  the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at the Graduate School of Arts  and Sciences.

PhD candidate Amy Hanes investigates the topic of care. Her field  research involves working with Chimpanzees at a sanctuary in Cameroon.  She analyzes care from the standpoints of touch, power dynamics between  chimps and the humans that look after them.