2004 Recipients of The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research

Kara E. Bischoff
"Asx Maintains Anterior-Posterior Fate in the Drosophila Wing Through Regulation of Ubx"
The goal of research in the field of signal transduction is to understand how numerous signaling pathways cooperate to direct cellular activities. Examples of such activity include growth and proliferation, and regulation of transcription and differentiation. Kara Bischoff participated in a project that aimed to identify pathways regulated by Src family tyrosine kinases, a family of proteins that regulate numerous normal cellular events. When cellular events are mis-regulated, they are implicated in cancer progression.

Kara single-handedly cloned a potential member of a key Src signaling pathway in fruit flies. She then characterized the defects caused by mutation of the gene, and determined the cellular mechanism responsible for the defects. This work was completed in one year, which is a testament to Kara's impressive ability to learn new fields and design and conduct experiments. The independence, productivity and intellect that Kara demonstrated during the course of her project will serve her extremely well in her future in clinical medicine.

Josh Bushinsky
"Optimizing Residential Demand Side Management in the South African Electricity Sector"
Josh Bushinsky is keen to save the world. He is also a sharp analyst. A year ago he put these ambitions and skills together and decided to study the South Africa electric power system. Over the last 15 years South Africa has displayed one of the most rapid and successful examples of electrification. More than 300,000 low-income households have been connected per year.

Josh’s thesis looks at the consequences of this success, which is that South Africa must build new power capacity. Josh has applied a novel computer model to this issue. He analyzed technologies, such as special water heater relays that shift electricity demand from peak periods to times when surplus power is available. His thesis shows that such investments would be a lot less costly than building new power plants. It would give South Africa the opportunity to build much cleaner natural gas power plants instead of traditional coal generators. In addition, Josh drafted a smart map indicating how these findings could be implemented in the real world of the South African political system.

Katherine E. Cameron 
"Adoption or Parenting: Predictors of Decisions of Mexican Women"
In her innovative, thoughtful, sophisticated study, Katie Cameron makes substantial contributions to understanding Mexican women’s decisions to parent their children or place them for adoption.

Katie interviewed pregnant women in Mexico to gain insight into their major considerations when choosing whether to parent a child. Guided by both her fieldwork and previous studies, she developed an econometric model to determine factors that predict an adoption decision.

Katie used her model to analyze a large data set of information on pregnant women in Mexico. She found that emotional and financial support have more influence on women’s decisions than cultural views of parenting and adoption. She identifies the policy implications of her findings for the public sector and for organizations that serve pregnant women. Katie’s thesis is distinguished by her multi-method research design and the thoroughness with which she answers her research question.

Larissa N. F. Cheong
"Medical Savings Accounts in Singapore: The Impact of Medisave and Income on Health Care Expenditure"
Larissa's thesis addresses the influence of medical care savings accounts on the demand for hospital care. The Singapore experience offers a good opportunity to examine how well these accounts do in creating equitable care.

Singapore requires all working citizens to contribute to medical care savings accounts, which can be used to pay hospitals in the event of illness. Singapore hospitals offer explicit tiers of service to patients, who pay different prices for tiers that vary in accommodations and degree of choice over doctors.

Larissa got access to micro data (not usually released to researchers) from the Singapore Ministry of Health. Based on her analysis, Larissa found that medical savings account holdings have at least as large an effect as income on the choice of hospital tier. This finding has important implications for how equitable medical savings accounts systems are. In the process of doing her thesis, Larissa had to learn and implement many difficult econometric techniques that are typically taught in graduate school. She did a great job teaching herself these techniques and exhibited patience and ingenuity: the marks of a scholar.

Bryan Y. Choi 
"Motivational Biases in Judgments of Streaks in Random Sequences"
Chance is a ubiquitous feature of our daily lives: whether we’re playing the stock market, watching the NBA finals or predicting the weather for graduation. We’re always trying to make guesses about the future based on what happened in the recent past.

Why does a gambler on a losing streak believe he is “due” for a win? Why does a mother of three boys believe she is “due” for a girl? Psychologists have studied how our predictions about the future are biased by past events, even when subsequent events are in reality perfectly independent. 

Bryan Choi took the simplest of random processes, a coin toss, and developed a series of extremely clever behavioral experiments to study these processes. He uncovered in particular the importance of labeling outcomes as good or bad, a dimension largely ignored in the literature. Brian’s thesis involved a tremendous amount of very careful work and he has shown a real knack for experimental design and creativity. His work has already received acclaim at international conferences. It will undoubtedly contribute significantly to the literature and is directly relevant to the decisions we make on a daily basis.

Daniel Doktori
"Under Construction: The United States, the European Union and the Transatlantic Security Paradox"
Daniel Doktori’s thesis examines the US influence on the Common Foreign Security Policy (CSFP) of the European Union (EU).

Dan postulates a central paradox in the US-EU relationship. The US encouraged European security developments in order to share the burden of defense. In so doing, it helped forge a separate European identity that is not necessarily in the interest of the United States.

Dan self-confidently and creatively invented and then operationalized his own theoretical framework based upon a thorough knowledge of relevant literature. He then used the resulting analytical tool to analyze three cases: the Gulf War, the Balkans Crisis and the events that followed September 11.

Dan is a skilled researcher, a fine thinker and a talented writer; his work shines with an expressively rich and colorful style. Exceptional writing and originality, as well as painstaking research, make “The Transatlantic Security Paradox” a truly exceptional thesis.

Rebecca E. Dowell
"Event Segmentation in an Action-Organized Task"
Life is a constant storm on our senses. We make sense of it by packaging it into discrete events. Earlier work shows that events, from doing the dishes to producing a movie, are segmented around objects at a high level and actions at a lower level.

Rebecca Dowell questioned the object bias in event organization. Her carefully designed tasks provided evidence for flexibility. People can organize around objects or actions as appropriate. For an object bias, organization around objects is more consistent both within and across individuals. She concluded that the object bias is not in the task organization but in the perceiver. She conjectures that objects are better landmarks for organizing events because their boundaries are easier to perceive. From conception to execution to presentation, Rebecca's work shows exquisite clarity, enabling her to make a significant contribution to how people make sense of the confusion around them.

Arietta E. Fleming-Davies
"Foraging Activity of Argentine Ants (Linepithema humile) and Native Ant Species on Coyote Brush"
The Argentine ant is an invasive species that has spread around the world. Wherever it becomes established, the native species die out. Argentine ants, like many other species, protect scale insects and aphids from predators, and in return the ants eat sugary fluids excreted by the aphids.

Arietta studied competition between Argentine ants and native ants for scale insects in the Stanford Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. She designed a sophisticated set of observations that she accomplished over many months of field work. Her results were surprising.

She found that the native ants deter Argentine ants, but the Argentine ants do not have much effect on the native ants. This may help explain why some native ant species that use scale insects are able to persist in parts of California invaded by Argentine ants. Arietta is going to graduate school in ecology.

Professor Deborah Gordon writes: “Arietta’s honors project promises to be the first of many brilliant research projects with unexpected and interesting results.”

Emily F. Freed
"Speciation on the 15th Green: An Abrupt Boundary Between the Intertidal Snails Nucella emarginata and Nucella ostrina"
Along the shoreline bordering the 15th tee of the Spyglass Hill golf course in Pebble Beach, a remarkable biological change occurs. On either side of a small cleft in the intertidal rocks, a southern species of marine snail gives way to its northern sister species. The snails are so difficult to tell apart that a previous century of work failed to discern the difference.

Emily Freed's work used genetic identification to clearly identify individuals to species. She charted the genotypes of individual snails by mapping their GIS coordinates, taking a tissue biopsy and obtaining a DNA sequence that distinguishes the two species. The species transition occurs over a stunningly short scale of five to ten meters. Such species borders result from the interplay of climate and species requirements. The borderline between these two species can now be used as a climate change indicator.

Seeing how this narrow zone moves over time will provide a sentinel for how marine species are responding to future ocean warming. Emily narrowed down this transition from a possible 200 mile range to 10 meters. She did this through enormous energy, careful attention to technological detail and a drive to know with all possible precision.

M. Eric Giannella
"Understanding Histories of Innovation through Quantitative Patent Data"
The problem Eric poses is crucial for writing the history of contemporary technology, where hundreds of small innovations interact in surprising ways and produce revolutionary technology. How to identify the trajectory of these innovations and the institutional and social networks involved is nearly impossible using the standard methods of narrative history. This is because standard narrative history favors “genius” accounts of lone inventors.

Eric proposes informing histories of innovation by developing statistical methods that sort and analyze patent citations, track inventors and locate firms that license their work.

The quantitative analysis aids in identifying key developments, trajectories and persons around which a traditional historical narrative can then be constructed. Interviews with participants in rapid prototyping technology confirmed the validity of a case study using his methods. This work has important implications for a variety of policy areas in addition to its obvious importance for future historians of technology.

Professor Tim Lenoir writes: “Eric Giannella’s thesis is one of the most original and important pieces of undergraduate work I have encountered in my fifteen-year career at Stanford.”

Sidney M. Gospe III
"Sch9p and Other Protein Kinases Alter the Activity of the Calcineurin/Crz1p Signaling Pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae"
All cells sense and respond to changes in their environment by activating highly conserved signaling systems. We can learn a lot about the regulation of these important events by studying simple cells, like yeast. Yeast responds to environmental stress by activating several proteins, including the Crz1 protein, which turns on genes required for yeast survival.

Sidney Gospe's research has given us new insights into how the activity of Crz1 is regulated in response to stress. Sid examined several protein kinases, a class of proteins that modify other proteins through phosphorylation. He determined the role of one of those kinases, Sch9, in regulating Crz1. During his research, Sid displayed an amazing ability to assimilate and integrate information and his honors thesis reflects his outstanding abilities as a scholar.

Thesis advisor Martha Cyert writes: “It is an impressive piece of independent research performed by an unusually talented, persistent, thoughtful and curious young scientist.”

Joshua I. Herlands
"Crop Choice in Context: A Case Study of Rice Farmer Decision-making in Northern Thailand"
Josh examines a central issue in international development and food security: that of the adoption or non-adoption of improved crop varieties.

He focused on why rice farmers in Thailand generally have been reluctant to plant the high-yielding rice cultivars associated with the Green Revolution. This reluctance is unexpected, as Thailand is one of the world’s main rice exporters and has experienced substantial economic development.

As a result of widespread non-adoption, Thai rice-yields per acre have remained relatively low, constraining the country’s further economic development. To investigate these issues, Josh learned to speak Thai, studied rice breeding and cultivation and lived in a remote rice-growing village in northern Thailand.

Josh found that choice was often constrained by the need to coordinate planting schedules and a variety of nonmaterial factors. These factors included the actual taste of the rice and could often decide the issues. The depth of his research endeavors and the sophistication of his analysis go far beyond what one would expect of an undergraduate. His findings should interest scholars of agrarian development.

Nicole T. Hildebrandt
"The Effect of Migration on Child Health in Mexico"
Nicole has written an outstanding thesis on an important, understudied area: the effect of migration on health outcomes in migrant families. Using a large nationwide survey from Mexico, Nicole employs rigorous econometric methods to account for selection effects, improving on previous research which treats migrants and nonmigrants as similar.

With these methods, she finds that a significant decline in child mortality and increase in birth weight can be attributed to the effect of migration. Taking her results further, she then attempts to disentangle the mechanisms through which migration may influence health.

She finds that migration improves child health both by raising the incomes of families, and also by increasing the health knowledge of mothers. These findings extend the existing knowledge about the effects of migration on families in developing countries, an area of important research and policy interest. The result is a high caliber and extremely well-written thesis of publishable quality.

Nathaniel G. Hilger
"Market Liberalization,  Labor Unions, and Real Wages in Mexico, 1984-1998"
Nate’s principal concern is with the evolution of real wages in Mexico and the role that Mexico’s labor unions have played in this evolution. Between 1984 and 1988, the real wages of workers declined by twelve percent and the fraction of union workers declined by over ten percentage points. Is the contraction of unionism the explanation for the decline in real wages?

Nate sets up an imaginative framework to address this question. He uses three large data sets to compute union-nonunion wage differentials and the determinants of the change in the extent of unionism in Mexico.

Nate finds that, despite extensive privatizations, liberalization of foreign trade and several austerity programs, Mexican unions are not losing effectiveness to raise wages for members. The principal reason why the real wages of Mexican workers fell has to do with changes in the wages of nonunion workers.

According to Professor John Pencavel, “This empirical research is executed with great care, ingenuity, and sophistication. This is certainly one of the best theses I have ever supervised at Stanford.”

Alexander S. Kendall
"The Joke Isn’t on the Democrats?  The Partisan Effects of Voter Turnout"
Alex asked an old and surprisingly difficult question to answer: does an increase in voter turnout advantage Democrats? The political science literature on this subject has produced a surprisingly chaotic set of answers. Part of the problem is that the question addresses a counterfactual. If turnout had been higher at any place or time, would the Democrats have received a higher vote proportion? Such questions are notoriously difficult and require finding naturally occurring extraneous shocks to turnout that might allow estimation of these effects.

Specifically, Alex constructed a county level data set for four successive presidential elections and used federal data to produce several county level measures of weather. He controlled for other known cross-sectional correlates of vote and partisan division, and used a fixed effects model to remove the influences of specific elections. Alex found beautiful and clear and robust results: turnout variation is unambiguously advantageous to Democrats.

Brandon M. Liverence
"Fgfr2 Is Required for Normal Levels of Cell Proliferation in the Developing Cerebral Cortex"
In his honors work, Brandon Liverence used cutting-edge genetic methods to study brain development in the mouse. Fibroblast Growth Factors (FGFs) and their receptors are believed to exert widespread actions during neural development.

Brandon generated mice that bear a conditional knockout of a major FGF receptor gene, Fgfr2, in the developing brain. He then demonstrated definitively that Fgfr2 is not required for the normal formation of two brain hemispheres or for brain patterning. However, Brandon found that cell proliferation is diminished in mutant animals, showing that Fgfr2 is required for regulating the proliferation of neural progenitors.

Brandon is an enthusiastic, determined, talented researcher who has been deeply engaged in this project. He has worked independently and efficiently, produced beautiful data, and is always open to suggestions and criticism. Yet he is able to defend his own ideas with clarity and passion. Brandon's work is at the very highest level of scientific inquiry and is richly deserving of a Firestone Medal.

Matthew J. McQuinn
"The Curvature Effect and the Intrinsic Light Curves and Spectra in GRBs"
Matt's achievements in course work and research have been outstanding and his current abilities are at the level of a first-year graduate student.

Matt started his research program in Professor Vahe’ Petrosian’s group three years ago. He studied the energy spectrum of gamma-ray bursts, the most intense explosions in our universe. This work involves calculating the observed spectra as a convolution of an intrinsic spectrum with some geometric effects due to Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. At Professor Petrosian’s suggestion, Josh compared convolved model spectra with observations and became lead author of a paper presented at a recent meeting on gamma-ray bursts.

He also initiated research by exploring a deconvolution method where the geometric effects are taken out of the data to obtain the intrinsic spectrum. In this thesis, he developed an original hybrid method, the results of which will be submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.

Yoko Murakami
"Children’s Sensitivity to the Expertise of the Speaker When Learning New Words:  A Cross-Cultural Study"
Young children only gradually figure out that others have knowledge and beliefs different from their own. However, extensive research in the US showing that “theory of mind” (TOM) develops by age four is often not replicated in other cultures. For example, Japanese four-year-olds typically fail the TOM assessments based on US instruments.

Yoko Murakami’s masterful cross-cultural study of preschoolers’ sensitivity to other minds refined the typical TOM measures, rendering them as appropriate to Japanese as to English. Yoko then experimentally varied the trustworthiness of a speaker who conveyed new words with certainty or uncertainty to 150 three- and four-year-old children. If they appreciate the speaker’s mental state, the children should more reliably learn and remember new words presented with certainty.

Contrary to previous findings based on Anglocentric measures of TOM, Japanese preschoolers were even more sensitive to the speaker’s degree of uncertainty than US children. To accomplish this challenging and imaginative study, Yoko demonstrated impressive determination, ingenuity, resourcefulness and scholarly rigor.

Dinyar P. Patel
"Building Imperial Delhi: The Politics and Symbolism of a New Capital for India"
A remarkably mature piece of work, Dinyar Patel’s thesis is the product of a prodigious amount of archival research in both Delhi and London.

Dinyar examined the interstices of politics and architecture in analyzing the British decision to build a new capital for India in place of Calcutta. One of the most interesting aspects of the thesis is Dinyar’s exposition of the Indian side of the debate. The end result, a fascinating look at an Indian Empire whose leading subjects engaged in the debate, presents a perspective quite different than the usual one.

Dinyar has synthesized with remarkable success the “subaltern” project in contemporary Indian historiography and a more traditional research and expository method. The value of the thesis is enhanced by its singular methodology. The strengths of this thesis lie in its research, in the coherent and methodical way in which Dinyar tells his story in his mature style. It reflects the work of a serious historian en route to developing professional and intellectual sophistication.

Noah H. Popp
"The Appearance of Money in Politics: The Impact of Campaign Finance Reform on Public Attitudes towards Corruption"
Noah Popp’s thesis is an exemplary piece of social science research. He brings careful data collection, sophisticated statistical analyses and logical reasoning to an important question of public policy.

In judicial decisions starting with Buckley v. Valeo (1974) through McConnell v. FEC (2003), the US Supreme Court justified regulating campaign contributions to limit the “appearance of corruption.” Noah observes that the Court’s reasoning rests upon an untested empirical claim: do campaign finance regulations decrease the public’s perception of corruption in government? Since various states adopted campaign finance regulations at different times, he is able to measure how public perception of corruption changed in response to adopting such laws.

He shows that state contribution limits had little or no impact on public attitudes. However, public financing resulted in a small, but measurable, decrease in public perceptions of corruption. His analysis is persuasive and has significant implications for the ongoing debate on how to regulate money in political campaigns.

Jonathan M. Ragan-Kelley
"Practical Interactive Lighting Design for RenderMan Scenes"
Jonathan Ragan-Kelley's thesis describes a system for computerized lighting design.
A major problem in computer-generated imagery and digital photography is how to set up lights to achieve the artistic goals of the cinematographer or photographer. This is a major problem in movie production and makes computer graphics less accessible to people who want to use it for their own artistic purposes. The challenge is to speed up the rendering process so that it can be done at interactive rates, approximately 10 frames per second.

The system Jonathan describes in his thesis decreases the rendering time by a factor of 1000, reducing the time from approximately 20 minutes to 50 milliseconds per image. He does this through two means. The first is the use of aggressive optimization techniques using specialization; and the second is the mapping of the rendering loop to modern high-performance graphic processors GPUs).

Throughout the project (done on his own), Jonathan showed unusual creativity, the ability to formulate the problem precisely and the technical skill to carry it to completion. He is the sole author of a paper publishing his results, which are likely to have a big impact on computer graphics.

Na’amah Razon
"Vettai Noi: Making AIDS Indian – A Study of the Use of Siddha Medicine on AIDS/HIV Patients in Tamil Nadu, India"
Na'amah Razon's honors thesis on HIV and the government-sponsored promotion of Siddha medicine to treat HIV-related illnesses is fascinating. She displays an intellectual rigor in her analysis that is unusual for an undergraduate student.

Na'amah asks why the Indian government has promoted Siddha treatments for HIV, but has done very little to provide people with antiretroviral drugs.

The thesis takes the reader on a journey. We discover general hospital HIV wards, TB asylums, Siddha medical practitioners’ private practices and HIV-infected men and women suffering in the poorest communities of Tamil Nadu.

Na’amah’s research findings are compelling. It is especially so because of the rapidly increasing prevalence of HIV infection in India and the lateness of the Indian government in facing the problem.

Thesis Advisor Narquis Barak writes: “I am encouraging Na'amah to submit her work to journals and to make it available to organizations within India that are addressing the problem of HIV. Na'amah is one of the top students I have had at Stanford.”

Richard I. Sherwood
"Sorting Out Myogenic Contribution of Bone Marrow, Hematopoietic Stem Cells, Circulating Cells and Endogenous Cells"
Before Richard Sherwood began his work, the consensus opinion was that damaged muscles could be regenerated with blood-forming stem cells. It was believed that these cells could change their fate from blood to muscle.

These claims were widely publicized in the press and cited often by those who oppose some kinds of stem cell research. This led to claims of blood stem cell formation of many other cell types, a veritable fountain of youth in an easily obtained cell.

Rich tore through all the confusion to get to the heart of the matter. He showed that previous claims were explained by a rare event — cell fusion — that neither explained muscle regeneration nor led to useful therapies. More importantly, he is senior author on the first identification and isolation of mouse skeletal muscle stem cells. These cells robustly regenerate damaged muscle and are not derived from blood stem cells.

Thesis advisor Irving Weissman writes: “Rich is the best undergraduate researcher I have seen. He completed work comparable to the finest PhD theses during his four years here while taking part in all aspects of Stanford life. I can hardly wait to see what happens next.”

Lauren L. K. Uyeshiro
"Learning from the Bard: The Creation and Analysis of the TRANSFORM Workshop and Student Initiated Course"
Lauren Uyeshiro’s thesis evaluates a tutorial Shakespeare program. She created it in collaboration with her advisor, Professor Pamela Grossman, some of her undergraduate peers and high school students from East Palo Alto.

Lauren created a series of courses designed to teach Shakespeare to East Palo Alto High School students. This was through a variety of activities, such as attendance at performances, private seminars with actors, student-created performance and constructive evaluation. She completed this exceptional project in a timely manner with tremendous ingenuity and fiscal responsibility while supporting her colleagues.

Her thesis is outstanding, offering insightful scholarship that will carry this program forward into the future. Her contributions have done more than advance her own knowledge, or that of her students. She has taught them to love Shakespeare as she shows them how these classic plays can be translated into themes that touch their lives. Lauren pulled together a team of skilled actors and students from the Stanford campus committed to continuing this program.

Director of Honors in Education, John Baugh, writes: “I think she is the most deserving candidate that I have ever nominated for this rare distinction.”

Anya Vodopyanov
"A Watchful Eye Behind the Iron Curtain: The U.S. Military Liaison Mission in East Germany"
Anya Vodopyanov has written an outstanding thesis about a little-known institution that helped prevent the Cold War from erupting into World War III. In 1947, the US and the Soviet Union established military liaison missions with the right to travel freely around each other's occupation zone in Germany.

Anya examines the work of the US Military Liaison Mission in the tense years from 1953 to 1961. She uses intelligence reports that were declassified at her request under the Freedom of Information Act and interviews officers who served in the mission. This is the first detailed analysis of the work of any of these missions.

The US Mission provided most of the intelligence the United States had about the group of Soviet forces in Germany. This information reassured the United States about Soviet intentions, helping to prevent war on the most heavily armed front of the Cold War.

Anya argues that this mechanism of mutual transparency could be applied to other cases of tension between neighboring states. This remarkable study forces us to look anew at the history of the Cold War in Europe. It also proposes a method for reducing the risk of war in other confrontations.

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