Writing Portfolio

This research proposal was one of the most significant assignments I was given throughout my psychology major. We were asked to write a 5-7 page proposal for an empirical research study on a subject that we cared deeply about. I chose the topic I did because I feel very strongly about the importance of ethics in child care and institutional regulatory practices.

In this project for PSYC 302, we analyzed how ethnic identity, aggression, peer acceptance, and gender combine into cumulative risk factors that shape perceived popularity among Black 5th and 6th grade students. We found that students with fewer risk factors gain popularity over the school year, while those with multiple risks show little to no improvement, underscoring how intersecting vulnerabilities influence social outcomes in the classroom.

American schools have historically transmitted a “hidden curriculum” that teaches obedience, patriotism, and cultural assimilation alongside academic content. This paper, written for SOCI 314, traces the hidden curriculum from colonial-era Indigenous boarding schools to modern disparities in funding, tracking, and identity‑based censorship.

In this analytical essay I explored how the film I Saw the TV Glow uses queer temporality, trans symbolism, and the collapse of linear narrative to illuminate the suffocating effects of performativity, drawing on Butler and Merleau-Ponty’s theories of doing gender.

In POLT 213: The Politics of Oil, we picked countries to research throughout the semester and represent in the final project of the course: a mock UN session for the discussion of the creation of an International Organization of Carbon Governance. For our final paper, we were asked to write a policy brief on behalf of our assigned countries.

Throughout PSYC 408: Seminar in Canine Bonding, we learned the steps and administrative procedures involved in creating a social program with a focus on integrating therapy dogs into public health systems. For our final project, we were each tasked with crafting a program proposal to present to the board (our classmates), answer questions on the feasibility of our program designs, and champion the approval of our proposals.

This autoethnography traces my educational journey through overcrowded and under-regulated schools, arguing that both LAUSD’s systemic instability following the 2008 recession and the Troubled Teen Industry’s lack of oversight contribute to widespread educational inequality and discontinuity. 

In this research project I studied the sociological and legislative histories of conversion therapy in the United States, from creation to growing illegality. 

This paper uses the works of Hil Malatino, C. E. McKenzie, and Cleo Wolfle-Hazard to analyze disaster and loss from a trans affect theory perspective. It also serves as a memorialization of the history lost in the Los Angeles Fires of 2025 and a guide on remembering yourself after erasure.

In RELG 216, we learned about the apocalyptic narratives in the Bible and other religious texts. For our open ended final project, I decided to write about the intercept of two of my main interests (the unfathomably vast history of our world and universe, and the incredible complexities of the human mind) through a psychological analysis on apocalyptic narratives and the minds of people who have written them.

In this paper, I superimposed Gregory Stanton's ten stages of genocide onto the timeline of modern trans bodies and media representations in the United States, with global implications and specific highlights of the Netflix documentary, Disclosure.

For this group research project, my classmates, Cal Cain and Elias Bartlett, and I, were asked to choose a representation of everyday militarizations, and write a paper on the different ways they manifest in daily life. The broad topic we chose was militarized objects, and I decided to focus specifically on militarized toys and child's play narratives.

In Dr. Rebecca Totton's lab research group, Kiera Leitch, Emi Kawamura, Alina Stoll, and I worked together with Professor Totton's guidance to craft a two-time point study aiming to reduce bias against transgender individuals through an intergroup contact intervention activity.

In this essay I argue that early childhood isolation driven by differential risk factors creates long lasting consequences that compound over time. It proposes an integrative inclusion framework in which teachers, administrators, and policy makers work together to build classroom environments that actively foster diverse friendships, belonging, and equitable access to social learning opportunities.