THE 2012 MAGS/PROQUEST DISTINGUISHED MASTER'S THESIS AWARD:

Megan Tesene, University of Northern Iowa

Transforming Lives: Exploring The Impact of Transitioning on Female-To-Male Transpersons and Partners of Female-To-Male Transpersons

Recent trends in gender scholarship point to an increased research focus on transidentified persons. However, the majority of it revolves around the experiences of transpersons as individuals while ignoring the influence that transitioning has on intimacy in personal relationships. Furthermore, while previous research on FtM transpersons tends to emphasize the benefits that transmen receive from transitioning, the current study focuses on some of its negative implications. Through ten semi-structured, in-depth interviews, this research explores the experiences of four transmen and six partners of transmen who were involved in a romantic relationship during the transition process. My findings indicate that transitioning leads to a variety of consequences for both parties. While this process allows transmen to acquire the physical appearance and social status that they have long desired, it also leads to negative consequences such as losing one’s queer visibility and for partners, losing their once physically and emotionally feminine partners. Transmen also find that “passing” as heterosexual men leads to obvious shifts in one’s social interactions, including the presumed gendered meaning of those interactions. Interestingly, although respondents indicate that their experiences have led to more open and fluid understandings of gender and sexuality, their responses point to the heavy influence of heteronormative ideologies within the larger transgender community. This research project has the potential to contribute to the existing gender scholarship in that the experiences of the transgender community sheds new light on the intersections of gender and sexuality as well as the highly gendered organization of social life.

THE 2012 MAGS/PROQUEST DISTINGUISHED MASTER'S THESIS AWARD:

Heath Kersell, Ohio University

Investigations on the Complex Rotations of Molecular Nanomachines

Synthetic molecular devices, famously envisioned more than fifty years ago in Richard Feynman’s lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” have undergone significant recent advances. Molecular analogs of macroscopic ratchets, shuttles, and pistons have now been developed. However, large hurdles stand between scientists and functional nanoscale molecular machines. Perhaps the foremost of these is the development of mechanisms for the machines’ controlled operation. Molecular rotors could hold the key to overcoming this hurdle and have thus received much attention in modern publications. Molecular rotors have been imaged at the nanoscale, and coupled together to make thermally induced “gears” and “brakes.” If unidirectional molecular rotors can be constructed, they may be employed as motors to power more elaborate molecular systems, and facilitate controlled operation of molecular machines. However, unidirectionality has proven elusive. This thesis characterizes a type of molecular rotor, 4Fc3SEt, whose chiral (handedness) asymmetry makes it a candidate for use as a motor. An investigation of these rotors at the single-molecule level was performed using ultrahigh vacuum low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. The molecules were deposited on a Au(111) substrate and studied at temperatures of 4.2 K and 77 K. At 77 K thermal fluctuations drove the rotors in a stochastic, bidirectional manner. At 4.2 K (-268.95 °C) inelastic electron tunneling (IET) was used to produce controlled, stepwise rotor rotation. Details such as the rotation rate, number of electrons necessary to induce rotation, and rotational energy barriers were measured, yielding the first detailed analysis of IET-induced stepwise rotation of a double-decker molecular rotor. The results provide understanding of the 4Fc3SEt rotation mechanism, and imply a tendency toward unidirectional rotation under non-equilibrium conditions. They are thus a first step towards developing and understanding more complicated molecular machines powered by such a rotor.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Kelly Harper Berkson, University of Kansas

The Nature of the Optional Sibilant Harmony in Navajo