2013 Graduate Conference

Graduate students enrolled in Ivan Allen College Liberal Arts graduate courses submitted abstracts to present papers at the IAC graduate student conference. Presentations were scheduled as 10 minute papers on panels or 9 minute roundtable presentations during the conference on February 12th, 2013, 10am-5pm, in Room 102 of the Stephen C. Hall Building (215 Bobby Dodd). The Ivan Allen Graduate Student Advisory Board members reviewed the abstracts and organized the schedule for the conference.

2013 IAC Graduate Student Conference Program

February 12, 2013

Exploring Energy Policy: Issues of Competition and Cooperation in the U.S. and Europe

  • Benjamin Deitchman (Public Policy) – Why U.S. States Became Leaders in Climate and Energy Policy: Innovation through Competition in Federalism
  • Mingge Wu (Economics) – Testing the Pollution Haven Hypothesis: Evidence from the European Union Emission Trading Scheme
  • Xiuli Sun (Economics) – Efficiency and Ownership in Regulated Electric Power Generation Industry

The Social Aspects of Communication Technologies: Telegraph, Typewriter, Mass Media

  • John H. Miller II (History and Sociology) – Communication and Innovation in the American Civil War: Comparison of Union and Confederate Implementation of Telegraph Technology
  • Xiaoning Dai (History and Sociology) – Revolution on a Keyboard: Chinese Input Methods and the Success of the Stone Word Processor in Socio-cultural and Technological Contexts
  • Jeffrey L. Hubbs (Public Policy) – Resource Abundance and Poverty in American Science Fiction Film and Television

Knowledge, Language, and Abstraction: How Communities Share Ideas and Information

  • Sanjay K. Arora (Public Policy) – Measuring the Development of a Shared Scientific Lexicon in nanotechnology
  • Samuel Zwaan (Literature, Media, and Communication) – Project XXX – Abstraction Escalation

Contested Meanings of Commercial Products: Negotiations of Use and Value

  • Liang Yao (History and Sociology) – Coca-Cola versus Salty Soda: How the Summer Became Cooler in Communist China, 1949-1978
  • *Emily K. Gibson (History and Sociology) – “The Hand that Rocked the Cradle Flies the Family’s Plane Today”: Feminism, Gender Roles, and the Rise of Commercial Aviation in the United States during the 1920s-30s (Second Prize)
  • Lisa J. Borello (History and Sociology) – Banded for Life? Negotiating Permanency and Reversibility among Gastric Banding Patients

Discourses of Knowledge, Security, and Technology: Nuclear Weapons and Remote Sensing Data

  • *Tong Zhao (International Affairs) – Confidence Building and Nuclear Arms Control between the U.S. and China: The Role and Limit of Epistemic Community (First Prize)
  • Brian Jirout (History and Sociology) – Remote Control: Environment, Landsat, and User Communities, 1964-1978
  • Philip Baxter (International Affairs) – An Examination of Nuclear Smuggling Trends

Sustainability: From Industrial Energy to Nanotechnology

  • Gyungwon Kim (Public Policy) – The Job Generation Impacts of Expanding Industrial Cogeneration
  • Jonah Bea-Taylor (History and Sociology) – Nanotechnology and Environmental Politics: From Sustainable Development to Eco-efficiency

Social and Economic Dimensions of Transportation Technologies

  • *Peter G. Westin (History and Sociology) – Sparky, the Patriot, and Turbo-Diesels: The Relevance of Failed Motorsports Innovations in the History of Technology (Third Prize)
  • Hyoung Joon An (History and Sociology) – Masquerading behind Science: A History of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, 1963-1969
  • Gregory Macfarlane (Economics) – Evaluating the Hedonic Value of Rail Transit Proximity: A Spatial Econometrics Approach

Designs for Living: Social, Technical, and Aesthetic Interests

  • Hannah Weksler (History and Sociology) – How to Build a Poultry House during the American Progressive Era
  • Sarah Fox (Literature, Media, and Communication) – Activating the Invisible: Co-design of Technology with the Disenfranchised

* Prize winner

Read abstracts of prize winners