Africana Studies

Session I

Parah Shaw, "Narratives of Housing and Representation: Black Homeownership and Black Realtors"

Engineered organisms need to be functional in fluid dynamic environments. However there is a severe lack of mathematical modeling to effectively determine the feasibility of treatment and deployment of these engineered organisms. Part of my research focuses on creating mathematical models to appropriately simulate and monitor how problematic bacterial communities interact in the presence of bacteriophage, while also observing how fluid dynamic environments affect the transport and infection of bacteriophage. One such fluid-dynamic environment is in pipes, where tough, antibiotic resistant biofilms can form; bacteriophage can be used as a delivery vector of an enzyme that can degrade the extracellular matrix of these biofilms and lead to a novel solution and removal technique. Additionally, Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) can form in freshwater environments and compromise human health and the ecosystem they form in. Thus, lytically engineered cyanobacteriophage offers a promising approach at remediating HABs in their inherently fluid-dynamic environments.

Student Major(s)/Minor: Africana Studies Major, Marketing Minor

Advisor: Dr. Iyabo Osiapem