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OpenBU is Boston University’s digital institutional repository for scholarly articles, theses and dissertations, preprints, and grey literature. This repository enables BU researchers to share, disseminate, and preserve their scholarship, and makes their research more accessible
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Recent Submissions
Vivaria
(2025) Billings, Thomas Adam; Cornell, Richard
Vivaria explores musical depictions of animalistic ecosystems, the advent of artificial intelligence, and its impact on the natural world and humanity. The rhythmic and gestural freedom in natural ecosystems has always fascinated me and remains a throughline in my art. Vivaria comments on the interaction between the natural and synthetic worlds. The exponential growth of artificial intelligence has altered how humans and animals interact, replacing certain human roles for efficiency and raising ethical concerns.The ecosystem in Vivaria emerges through a negotiation between improvised and composed elements. As musicians interact within the ensemble, I leave certain parameters vague, allowing performers to shape their gestures. I encourage them to respond reflectively, making different interpretative choices with each iteration. Their interactions create a living musical ecosystem.
Vivaria positions performers to fully surround the audience, creating a multidimensional sonic experience. The composition encourages various types of listening and evokes themes of individual and communal interaction. The plot unfolds as synthetic material intrudes upon the ornate acoustic ecosystem. Electronics remain mute until the climax, then gradually crossfade with live instruments. The electronics replicate what the performers played, creating an uncanny valley effect before distorting into a washed-out, incomprehensible variation. What remains are the gestures, cadences, and phrase structures—devoid of the nuance and fidelity of the original ecosystem. The processed electronics spawn new gestures, reflecting a dystopian vision of a synthetic world overtaking the natural world. This mirrors the Deus ex machina plot device, illustrating how our world is experiencing the same phenomenon.
Semblance, Beyond the Surface - Fall 2024
(2024-12-14) Barry, Willa; Bains, Caitlyn; Supple, Bowen; Jin, Xinyue; Walsh, Barrett; Tali, Emir R.; Hand, Mia
Conducting a pilot evaluation of a civic-engagement program for youth with disabilities
(Utah State University Libraries, 2024-09-06) Best, Megan; Johnston, Amanda; Demissie, Sarah; Kim, Julianna; Mendiratta Khanna, Ruchi; Fulton, Kelly; Hardy, Abby; Cheung, Catherine; Kunzier, Timothy; Hughes, Oscar; Burke, Meghan M.; Rossetti, Zachary
Perspectives of transition-aged youth with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities about self-advocacy and civic engagement
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2024) Best, Megan; Burke, Meghan; Rossetti, Zach; Demissie, Sarah; Hughes, Oscar; Ramirez, Manual; Kunzier, Tim
In alignment with the rallying cry of the self-advocacy movement, it is critical to center the perspectives of people with disabilities about their lived experiences. Yet, little is known about how youth with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) engage in self-advocacy and civic engagement in special education. We conducted focus groups with 15 transition-aged youth with IDD across four states about self-advocacy and civic engagement. Youth with IDD reported engaging in self-advocacy at school, but outside of their individualized education program meetings. Parent advocacy and positive partnerships with educators promoted youth self-advocacy. Youth reported minimal involvement in civic engagement, but they had suggestions for systemic changes to special education. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
On the helpfulness of a zero-shot Socratic tutor
(Springer, 2024-07-29) Gold, Kevin; Geng, Shuang
Anonymous attention and abuse
Ederer, Florian; Goldsmith-Pinkham, Paul; Jensen, Kyle
Power, politics, and finance: how multilateral development banks shape ASEAN’s energy transition - insights from Viet Nam and Indonesia
(2025-03-28) Dang, Kim-Ngan (Katie)
This thesis examines the effectiveness of multilateral development banks (MDBs) in shaping ASEAN’s energy transition through climate finance, focusing on Viet Nam and Indonesia between 2016 and 2023. Using a mixed-methods approach that integrates project-level data analysis with qualitative policy review, the study evaluates how the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the World Bank Group (WBG) mobilize financial and technical resources in two of ASEAN’s largest economies. The study finds that although Indonesia received more funding, MDB financial commitments contributed a greater share to Viet Nam’s climate finance needs, GDP, and renewable energy (RE) targets.Indonesia had a higher share of technical assistance projects, reflecting the country’s complex regulatory environment. The findings highlight the
importance of institutional capacity, and streamlined regulatory and policy frameworks in shaping MDB effectiveness. Regional initiatives such as the ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility (ACGF) illustrate MDBs’ potential to catalyze coordinated efforts in ASEAN’s energy transition. The study concludes that MDB success depends not only on the scale of financial contributions, but also on how well MDBs navigate national and regional policy environments to accelerate the energy transition.
A polarized diaspora: the changing relationship between American Jews and Israel after October 7th
(2025-03-28) Betts, Dora
How has the relationship between Jewish American identity and Israel shifted since
October 7th? Deemed ‘the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust’ by President Biden, the
Hamas-led terrorist attacks on October 7th, 2023, marked a pivotal change in Jewish American
support for Israel. Jewish American organizations sent nearly a billion dollars in donations to
Israel after the attack during a growing movement of solidarity among Jews in support for Israel.
However, the retaliatory Israeli policy and military responses after October 7th has prompted a
political and generational divide between Jews in the US. Such a divide can not be generalized
among individuals, however, three political movements shape the discourse: one that vies for
consistent support of Zionism; one that argues for a new, progressive Zionism; and one that
rejects Zionism in favor of an identity without. Within these three streams is a widening
polarization between Jewish Americans that support Israel and Zionism, and those that do not.
The policy and programming changes in Jewish American organizations are indicative of this,
and organizations must grapple with which camp they position themselves in and the broader
implications attached. For analysis, I will be looking at multiple Jewish American organizations
that fall on a spectrum along these three movements: Taglit-Birthright Israel (Birthright), the
American Council for Judaism (ACJ), and Jewish V oice for Peace (JVP). I will use these
analyses to comprehend how Jewish American organizing can foster novel understandings of the
relationship between Jewish Americans and Israel.
Big brother is watching: the integration of commercial remote sensing satellites into U.S. defense and intelligence architectures
(2025-03-29) Stussi, Thibaut A.
In the past three decades the U.S. government has increasingly adopted commercial remote sensing and imagery satellites within its military and intelligence remote sensing operations. The commercial sector, like most sectors in space, require a heavy up-front capital investment with high risk. This poses the question of why the sector developed in the first place given these high barriers to entry, what role the government had in its development, and what specific uses the government sees in commercial remote sensing. This thesis analyzes these questions and analyzes the policy development of commercial-government interactions in remote sensing, followed by a future policy analysis and policy recommendations for the sector. I find that the sector’s development was pushed by commercial growth stemming from the creation of France’s Spot Image following successful battlefield integration of commercial remote sensing during the Gulf War, which caused heightened government demand for remote sensing capability that could only be satiated by the commercial sector. The unique benefits of commercial capabilities, such as reduced barriers to information sharing, instituting redundancies into government systems, and reduce information wait times, helps explains the longevity of their integration over the creation of traditional government systems. Following this, I analyze the historical development of policy, finding key inflection points during the mid to late 1990s and the first Trump Administration, analyzing the rationale for these policy shifts and seeing their impact today. In analyzing policy development, I outline a series of faults within the existing policy framework, such as inability to address systemic differences in perspective, lackluster focus on nascent firms, and R&D disparities. In analyzing these issues, I propose a series of policy changes to address issues stemming from both these policies and historical lapses in the sector.
Women's entrepreneurship landscape: empowering sustainable development: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis
(2025-04-11) Goncalves, Marcus; Ahumada, Esteban De La Vega
A systematic literature review and bibliometric and altmetric analysis of the growing scholarly focus on women entrepreneurs' economic and social impact across global markets.