Student Profiles

Sarah Abolail is a Senior English major completing a departmental English honors thesis about capitalism’s effect on time and history in Breaking Bad. She is deeply interested in moments of violence that occur within erased or altered time and their effect on recorded history. Sarah was in Egypt during the Egyptian Spring revolution and she began thinking about the problematic way through which bodies and histories disappear.

Her research argues that Breaking Bad defines the discord as arising from a varied or altered understanding of the role of time and history due to the impact of late capitalism on time. Under the Undergraduate Student Facilitated Education, Sarah will be teaching a class in the Spring titled “The Rise of the Anti-hero” which uses the anti-hero trope as lens to understand contemporary questions morality, violence, disconnection and trauma. After graduation, she hopes to pursue graduate studies in the humanities with a focus on media and film studies.

Mikey Aboutboul is a third-year first generation immigrant student pursuing a BA in ethnomusicology at UCLA. His research involves the ayin— the mystical ceremony of the Mevlevis, a Turkish sufi group who follows Rumi’s teachings. Mikey looks at how the change of the ayin from a sacred ritual to a cultural phenomenon affects current conceptualization of what is sacred and what is secular in modern Turkey. He also contextualizes his research within the religious political landscape in Turkey and wishes to understand how these socio-political shifts play on the sustainability of the ayin—either as a ritual, an art, or a cultural phenomenon. Mikey has been studying the ney, the reed flute central to this ceremony, since 2017. He learned Turkish and visited Turkey three times to study with Master’s from the tradition. He also revived the Ethnomusicology Undergraduate Student Organization at UCLA. Mikey wishes to pursue an MA degree in ethnomusicology in Turkey before applying to a PhD in the United States and to study music across political differences.

Arman Abrishamchian is a fourth-year History major and Asian Languages minor. His thesis analyzes the diplomatic relationship between the United States and Afghanistan during World War II (1941-1945). His research explores the reasoning behind the United States government’s feet-dragging in the region, as well as the strategies of both sides’ important actors to leverage benefits from the other. Looking at relevant administrations’ state department archives and the limited past scholarship on the time period, Arman describes the beginnings of a relationship that has dominated the last twenty years of news headlines. Arman rows for UCLA and edits the campus satire magazine, The Westwood Enabler. He intends to study law and work as a speechwriter and comedy writer.

Sofia A. Abune is a 4th year undergraduate minoring in evolutionary medicine, majoring in Anthropology B.S. She is performing research on health and related issues of Ethiopian migrants domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates. As it is the rule of the land in the Emirates, any migrant worker has to pass a screening test to be free from hepatitis B, Aids and tuberculosis before they get the two years residency permits. Unfortunately, after serving two years of services, many Ethiopians are being deported to their country because of Aids, hepatitis B or tuberculosis. As Sofia was raised in the United Arab Emirates she was well aware of the bad treatment and the abuses imposed on the Ethiopian maids facing by their employers. She had sad memories of her childhood during her stay on those parts of the world, which is why she was very much interested to do research to know the root cause of their health and related issues of Ethiopian maids in the United Arab Emirates. Direct interviews of the victims, legal authorities and her father (the Counsel General of Ethiopia) were the primary sources of her research.

Sofia would like to thank all her sources and mentors including her father Mr. Ashenafi Abune Alemie and Professor Deborah Mindy for their support and advise.

Bayan Abusneineh is a fourth year completing her Bachelor’s of Arts degrees in Political Science and Gender Studies with a minor in Education. She is passionate about Middle Eastern Studies and studying women in the Third World. She’s has plenty of experience as a student activist, organizing with the Students for Justice in Palestine. She plans to apply to PhD programs the following year, to study feminist theory and third world feminism.

As a passionate scholar of literature and writing, he has constantly endeavored to educate and better himself in the literary realm from a very young age. As an Armenian who was born and raised in Iran, he studied both Armenian and Farsi literature throughout his elementary and middle school education. However, after migrating to the United States at the age of 14, he also became immensely interested in English literature. At this point in his life, books and poems evolved from joyous and tragic tales of love, friendship and lessons of morality to a medium through which people express their struggles with societal norms, conflicting identities, and most importantly, a constant eagerness for change and progress. Thus, by the time he was a student at the Glendale Community College, he chose to major in English to further educate himself with the words of the greatest authors and thinkers. After transferring to UCLA within two years, he learned about the English Departmental Honors Program and decided to conduct research on his favorite novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. The novel is born out of Wilde’s sense of struggle between unconventionality and normativity, and a lack of harmony between queerness and a moralistic society. Considering that over a century earlier, the novel served as a major component to the gay rights movement and queer subjectivity, Erik aims to clarify how relevant Wilde’s depiction of queerness is, today. Could The Picture of Dorian Gray be considered as a timeless portrayal of the nature of queerness?

Jessica Adlouni is a fourth-year Sociology major, minoring in Labor and Workplace studies, and pursuing college and departmental honors. She currently serves as the Public Relations Chair for the Women’s Pre-Law Association at UCLA. With her senior thesis, she has been able to combine her interests in social movements and the law. Her project quantitatively analyzes the effects of various factors of political and legal opportunity on social movements’ use of the law. The study covers a wide range of policy areas in which social movements are involved, from 1960-1995. She hopes that the results will contribute to understanding some of the factors that influence social movement litigation, an important part of the struggle for progress. After graduation, her plans are to attend law school and continue to explore how social justice issues intersect with the law.

Yesenia Aguilar Silvan is a first-generation student majoring in Psychology and double minoring in Latin American Studies and Chicana/o Studies. Her experience as a first-generation immigrant and her upbringing in a low-income city in Los Angeles, has sparked her research interest in community based approaches and minority mental health. She is a Psychology Departmental Scholar and is completing her honors thesis on the barriers that arise during the implementation of evidence-based treatments in a community setting. Her research argues that a client’s demographics will be predictive of the rise in emergent life events or what therapist refer to as “crisis of the week”. She argues that these barriers need to be addressed to better the mental health services for communities of color. For her honors thesis, Yesenia is leading a team of coders to develop a manual and reliably code the rise of emergent life events. After graduation, she hopes to pursue a post-bac position as a research lab coordinator and apply to Clinical Psychology Ph.D. programs in the near future.

Ixchel Aguilar-Moore is a fourth-year Global Studies major with minors in Spanish and Geography. She is working on a departmental honors senior thesis under the International Institute department. Her thesis explores post-coup democratization in Central America, using the 2009 coup in Honduras as a focal point. She is interested in exploring why Central America lags in post-coup democratization compared to other parts of the world. She hypothesizes that the degree of U.S. intervention in the coup and historically in political and economic structures play a role in the post-coup democratization processes’ success level. She also aims to look at social movements, political party formation, and diplomatic relationships between Central America and the United States to further explain the connection between coups and democracy. At UCLA, Ixchel is the Political Educator for UNICA (Unión Centroamericana), a peer learning facilitator for the Undergraduate Writing Center, a member of the Global Development Lab, and a Study Abroad Ambassador. She hopes to study international law, with a focus on humanitarian and refugee law. As a Honduran, she hopes her research will support corruption-free democratic structures in Central America by understanding the events and factors that form the current political structures.

Dylan Aguirre is a fourth-year transfer majoring in Psychology with a minor in Cognitive Science. His proposed study seeks to address two aims investigating if immigrant generation predicts mental health stigma and help-seeking behavior in schools, as well as whether this relationship differs across Latinx youth. The first aim examines whether immigrant generation (first or second generation) predicts mental health stigma in school-based settings, and whether this relationship differs across Latinx youth. The second aim examines whether immigrant generation predicts help-seeking from mental health professionals in school-based settings, and whether these relationships differ across Latinx youth. By examining stigma and mental health help-seeking in a racial/ethnic minority sample, he hopes to better understand how to increase immigrant youth access to mental health services. Dylan hypothesizes that immigrant generation will significantly predict mental health stigma in schools in that second-generation youth report greater stigma towards mental health than first generation youth. However, he expects this relationship to be moderated by race/ethnicity such that second generation Latinx youth report greater mental health stigma than first generation youth. He also hypothesizes that immigrant generation will significantly predict help-seeking from mental health professionals in that first-generation youth will be more likely to engage in help-seeking than second generation youth. However, Dylan expects this relationship to be moderated by race/ethnicity such that second generation Latinx youth report lower likelihood of help-seeking than first generation youth.

Martha Jailene Aguirre is a Guatemalan-American and first-generation college student in her fourth year at UCLA. Jailene is a Psychology major with minors in Education Studies and Applied Developmental Psychology. She has interdisciplinary research interests primarily in the fields of education and psychology, which she hopes to use to improve the conditions that impact marginalized communities. With the help of her research mentor, Dr. Carola Suárez-Orozco, Jailene’s current research project aims to examine the college experiences of underrepresented college students, such as Undocumented college students. She hopes the findings of this study shed light as to how institutional agents can enhance the current system in a way that is tailored towards these students needs and support their academic endeavors.

Mizna Akbar is fourth-year majoring in Global Studies with a Arabic & Islamic Studies minor. Her research focuses on migrant women’s health in the Mediterranean Refugee Crisis, with a focus on cultural barriers in healthcare provision and an examination of local and international NGOs and receiving nations’ healthcare systems accommodations for migrant women. Through her year-long Global Studies senior thesis, she hopes to explore this intersection of women’s health, migration, and globalization and to gain a greater understanding of how individuals’ experiences, culture, and environment influence their health. Mizna hopes for this research to serve as a starting point for her as she orients herself in the field of migrant health. After graduation, her plan is to attend medical school and further explore the unique healthcare challenges faced by marginalized communities, particularly immigrant, asylum-seeker, and refugee communities.

When Ani Alaberkyan was ten years old, her family came to Los Angeles as refugees from the former Soviet Union. This experience has shaped her life in such a way she plans to use her experiences and opportunities she had in the United States towards helping those suffering and affected by conflicts. She is majoring in Linguistics and Anthropology with Minors in Anthropology, Arabic, and International Migration Studies. Outside of class, she is heavily involved with undergraduate research and volunteering with a refugee settlement agency in Los Angeles. This year she is attempting many firsts: learning to speak Arabic, caring for a cat, and teaching a class on the history of cats. She plans to apply for PhD programs in Anthropology.

Alma Alvarado is a 4^th year undergraduate double majoring in Anthropology and Spanish. She was born and raised in Durango, Mexico, but has lived for the past 9 years in California. As an undergraduate scholar she is studying the autobiographical texts along with one novel of the authors Sandra Cisneros and Reyna Grande. She is constructing a framework of the formation of identity and highlight the importance of both—autobiographical work and literature influenced by personal experience. Following her graduation from UCLA, Alma is interested in attending graduate school and ultimately become an educator and an academic.

Habiba is a fourth year psychology major and research assistant at several clinical psychology labs at UCLA. She is interested in exploring underlying mechanisms of psychopathology, evidence-based treatments for mood disorders, and culturally-informed practices. Her senior thesis examines the relationship between ruminative subtypes and trajectories of depression in youth. Rumination is a promising vulnerability factor for depression and it has two main subtypes: reflective and brooding rumination, the first of which is seen as an adaptive coping strategy while the second is thought to be a maladaptive one. Through a longitudinal moderation analysis, Habiba will examine the ways in which these two subtypes of rumination influence depression outcomes over a ten year period. Through this project, she hopes to clarify the roles of maladaptive thinking styles and unhelpful cognitions in influencing psychopathology, particularly in youth. Eventually, Habiba plans to complete a clinical psychology doctoral program and work to improve mental health outcomes amongst ethnic-minority populations.