Megan Leftwich, Associate Professor | Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering |

Biomechanical studies of human birth

Premature cervical remodeling is a medical condition wherein the uterine cervix is unable to retain a pregnancy in the absence of contractions, labor, or both during the second trimester. It is a common cause of second trimester pregnancy loss. Once diagnosed, part of the treatment could be a cervical cerclage, a purse string suture designed to close the cervix and maintain the pregnancy.  Ultrasound images were used to create a generalized model of the cervix.  Physicians performed the cerclage on models with varied properties, and the sutured models were tested to failure.  Investigating the impact of tissue stiffness on cerclage integrity revealed the firm cervices were able to withstand higher forces before failure. Additionally, longer cervices were able to withstand higher forces before rupture; however, the dependence was weaker than for cervical softness. Cervices stitched with two different materials revealed Mersilene tape was able to hold a cerclage in place at significantly higher forces than monofilament sutures.

Jameta Barlow, Assistant Professor of Writing, Health Policy and Management and WGSS | University Writing Program |

Reclaiming Black Girls' and Women's Health when Women & our Health is Under Attack

Black girl's and women have a herstory of fighting for the agency and full humanity, since being enslaved in the Americas. As the attack on women's health increases, Black girls' and women are disproportionately affected by intersectionality of the policies. While the field of Black girls' and women's health (BGWH) science is both transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary, the larger medical and public health fields rarely engage in ontological and epistemological discourse prior to methodological clinical, practice, research and policy decisions. This talk asks the readers to consider their framing and writing in the effort to create change in BGWH, while also seeing the connections throughout the African Diaspora.

Marie Price, Geography | International Affairs

Changing sources, changing courses: Shifting migrant flows in the Rio Grande Valley on the US/Mexican Border

The US-Mexican Border is an area of increasing securitization. Despite physical and legal barriers, large numbers of new and diverse groups continue to attempt to enter the US from Mexico. In this WoW talk, I examine the mobility/immobility of migrants and asylum seekers through a case study of the Rio Grande Valley stretch of the US-Mexico Border. I use data obtained from interviews with migrants, administrative data from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, TRACs data from Syracuse University, and intake data from a Brownsville, Texas migrant shelter to investigate the divergent flows and their causes, as well as strategies used by migrants and asylum seekers who wish to enter the USA.