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A Day (or Two or Twenty) at the Fowler Museum
Writers: Mugita Kurosaki, Erin KwakEditors: Selena Perez, Samvit Garg, Katherine King, Julia Torres Cultural enrichment is important in a community to understand and appreciate the diverse peoples, cultures, and religions of the world. UCLA is honored to have the Fowler Museum, which demonstrates these values with dynamic exhibitions, publications, and public programs. The museum, open Wednesday through Sunday from 12 PM to 5 PM, is located in the northern part of UCLA, adjacent to Royce Hall and Glorya Kaufman Hall. Admission is always free to the public! In addition, the Fowler provides a quiet place to study. Students are welcome to study in the Elizabeth and W. Thomas Davis Courtyard,…
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Augustine Udukumbura: The Visibility of Asexuality and Asexual Education
Interviewer: Mandy Tang Editor: Selena Perez In this article, Mandy Tang interviews Augustine Udukumbura. Augustine is a third-year double majoring in Sociology and Gender Studies, while minoring in LGBTQ Studies. Their research interest lies in asexuality, with a focus on its social implications. This article highlights Augutine’s research experience in asexual education and their perspective on the intersection of LGBTQ studies and education. Mandy: Can you share your research experience, and the motivation behind studying asexual education? Augustine: Certainly! In the initial phase of my research journey, the main focus was examining the representation of asexuality within gender and sexuality alliance clubs. I aimed to evaluate if/how these clubs incorporate…
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“What Makes Your HeART Beat?”: Art Gallery Review
Writer and Editor: Selena Perez This Spring, I fatefully stumbled upon an organization with similar values as this blog section. Medicine and Art @ UCLA is devoted to showcasing the importance of integrating creativity and the arts into STEM methods. In addition to hosting galleries and events that illustrate the efficacy of this intersection, the organization works with the Creative Arts department at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Hospital to craft an environment in support of holistic health. Through their music therapy and art therapy committees, the organization fosters interdisciplinary healing, nurturing an inventive approach to medicine. From May 30 to June 2nd, the student organization held an art exhibition at Kerckhoff…
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Justin C.M. Brown: A Creator’s Philosophy of Arts and Nature
Interviewer: Mandy Tang Editor: Selena Perez In this artist spotlight, Mandy Tang interviews Justin C.M. Brown. Justin is a third-year transfer student majoring in Sociology and minoring in Digital Humanities. He is also one of the Chief Layout Editors for Aleph Journal. As an artist, musician, and writer, Justin is dedicated to exploring his research interests within multimedia content. This article features his most recent creative project, “Signs of Spring”, a series of augmented photographs that showcase some of the many flowers on UCLA’s campus. Mandy: Could you tell me about your creative project, and what the motivation behind it was? Justin: So what really set it off for me…
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Undergraduate Research Week 2023: Aleph Round Table
Aleph will be hosting a panel with our authors this year to discuss their research and their undergraduate research experience at UCLA! The event is open to all undergraduate students and will be held via Zoom on Friday, May 26th from 11am to 12 pm, however please feel free to register for our event here. Check back for the zoom link closer to the date! We will be featuring Vacuum of Social Mobility by Hector de Leon and Stories of (S)kin by Sean Sugai, and both authors will have the opportunity to talk more about their research and answer your questions. If you are interested in joining or publishing with…
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Introducing… Imaginative Inquiries!
Dear Aleph Readers, I’m absolutely elated to be introducing a new blog section, Imaginative Inquiries. I have been the Chief Blog Editor for two years, at the start of which I was told that the blog was yet unrefined and, as such, was an open canvas. The vision for this expansion did not dawn upon me until Fall 2022, when I unveiled a hidden cabinet of possibility that had eluded me the previous year. As an English (Creative Writing: Poetry) and Psychology double major, I noticed a vast difference in the stigmas surrounding field work of both my majors. Laboratory classes were met with consuling looks of “that sucks, sounds…
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Kayleigh Morrissey: Research in Pop Culture Topics
Interviewer and Editor: Selena Perez In this article, Selena Perez interviews Kayleigh Morrissey. Morrissey is a fourth-year English student at UCLA currently conducting a senior thesis. In this interview, she delves into the unique topic of Morrissey’s research, covering everything from the research process to the social implication of producing an analysis of parasocial relationships. Selena: Could you tell me about the subject of your senior thesis, and what initially drew you to this topic? Kayleigh: Yes! I’m writing about the complexity and the neutrality of Taylor Swift’s star image. Normally, complexity and neutrality wouldn’t be seen as interrelated, but I’m arguing that they are, in the case of Taylor…
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Alejandra Lopez and Sydney Kong: A Look Into DiSH Lab @ UCLA
Interviewer and Editor: Selena Perez In this article, Selena Perez interviews Alejandra Lopez (Lab Manager) and Sydney Kong (Research Assistant) from Dr. Tomiyama’s DiSH Lab. The DiSH Lab conducts research aimed toward understanding the relationship between food and psychology. In this interview, she examines the experience of working at a UCLA research laboratory, including how valuable and at times, challenging the opportunity can be. Selena: Alejandra, could you explain what some of your duties are as a lab manager, as well as how holding this position has been a valuable experience for you as a scholar? Alejandra: Yeah, so some of my duties include grant budgeting (making sure we have…
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Vivian Byeon: How Persistence Opened the Door for Grad School
Interviewers and Editors: Jennifer Chanto, Connie Chen, Selena Yu, Klaus Gomez Stimeder What is your area of research? In this article, we interview Vivian Byeon. As a second-year Ph.D. student in Clinical Psychology at UCLA, Byeon talks about her experiences in research and gives words of wisdom to students pursuing graduate school. I’m interested in organizational factors that impact the adoption and sustainment of evidence-based therapeutic strategies in community mental health settings. How did you become interested in this topic? As an undergrad, I became involved in research during my senior year of college. I worked at a substance use lab here at UCLA, and that made me really interested…
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Writing a Research Proposal: a How-To Guide for You and for Me
Author: Leika Keys Editor: Eva Li My Research Proposal Abstract My name is Leika Keys and I am a fourth-year political science major at UCLA and the outreach coordinator here at Aleph. As the sun sets on my senior year, my long-waited and planned existential crisis can finally emerge out of its nest. In response, I have frantically been searching for a grad program to throw myself in. Somewhere along the way, I found myself writing research proposals to universities in the U.K. and Japan, hoping to continue my educational career. Maybe, you find yourself in the same position as me—desperately trying to figure out your next step before you…