By Charlotte Brookins
Graduate and undergraduate students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are doing impactful and interesting work across disciplines. Learn more about the research, creative projects, and interests of playwright graduate student Christopher Lysik, recently graduated neuroscience undergraduate student Manuela Lizarazu, and history graduate student Samuel Boucher.
Christopher Lysik, Theatre Arts
What is the focus of your work?
I am a playwright and musician whose work often interrogates the complexities of memory, personally and culturally. As an artist, I’m interested in the questions, “What do we remember? What have we forgotten? What stories have we told ourselves to plug we’ve up those gaps?” Often, this work starts from a personal place and expands outwards from there.
For example, I’m currently working on a piece that traces the cultural assimilation of Italian Americans in my home state of Rhode Island throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Growing up, I heard stories of the discrimination my community faced in the years after their immigration, largely from southern Italy. However, like with other ethnic groups, many specifics of the journey from cultural outsiders to engrained members of society have been erased—or written over. The first step in my process is to fully understand the historical/societal shifts which shape the lives of my characters, always seeking out the strange, the peculiar, and the emotional which I can mine to engage an audience.
Tell us about the broad impact you’d like to have.
I think like most artists, my first goal is to create an experience that leaves those in the audience with some sort of emotional impact. With this particular piece, though, I’m also hoping to draw awareness to the cyclical nature of assimilation, and lead my viewers to recognize their place within it—wherever that may be.
What excites you about the environment in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences?
I don’t come from an academic background. My undergraduate years were spent in an acting conservatory, and I was working in the New York theater scene when the pandemic hit. It’s been incredible to find myself in an institution which values both the academic and the artistic and is able to provide resources and support as I incorporate research practices more and more into my work.
What are your hobbies and pursuits outside of work?
Moments of free time are few and far between these days, but when I can find them, I love trying out new board games and discovering cooking recipes. I also try to spend as much time getting lost in the woods as possible!
Any favorite things to do in Iowa City?
My goal for the spring semester has been to walk through all of the paths in Hickory Hill Park. Each time I think I’ve found the last one, another pops up! For more festive activities, I’m partial to the playwrights gathering at Deadwood on Monday nights, after our weekly Workshop.
Manuela Lizarazu, Neuroscience
What is the focus of your work?
An important problem in modern neuroscience is unraveling novel brain pathways to understand how they function. People respond to stressful life events differently, and as we learn more about the brain pathways involved in stress, we believe that this information may be applied to understand and treat mental disorders. Responses to stress are regulated by a network of limbic forebrain structures, whereas dysfunction in these neural systems are implicated in the pathogenesis of stress-related psychiatric illness.
My work seeks to identify key brain regions that coordinate stress response features (i.e., behavioral, endocrine, autonomic), as we predict that these sites will enhance our understanding of how the brain organizes adaptive responses to stress and how perturbations lead to maladaptive changes. In the lab, I use intersectional viral approaches to characterize prefrontal cortex input to a brain nucleus called the BST, and to interrogate its involvement in regulating context fear generalization in adult rats.
Tell us about the broad impact you’d like to have.
My goal as a biomedical engineer and neuroscientist is to be able to comprehend the structure and function of the different biological systems at its maximum level by incorporating my engineering skills. My passion comes from my sister, who has Cornelia de Lange syndrome. I want to keep exploring the human body through graduate school to further on be part of an industrial company that will allow me to design medical devices or molecular components for neurodegenerative diseases.
What excites you about the environment in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences?
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences provides multiple opportunities for students to grow both academically and personally by developing new knowledge, laboratory techniques, and leadership skills. I have been able to start new student organizations that support different ethnicities in STEM, as well as guide others through the different areas of study that the university provides.
What are your hobbies and pursuits outside of work?
I was a part of the Iowa Women's Golf team at Iowa for 4 years. I also have always enjoyed cooking and hanging out with friends outdoors.
Any favorite things to do in Iowa City?
Having picnics by the lake and enjoying Iowa City businesses are my favorite things to do.
Samuel Boucher, History
What is the focus of your work?
My research focuses on the Low German Mennonite colonies throughout Latin America and the various factors that led to their relative economic success. My proposed research for my dissertation will investigate the cooperative model of Indigenous (Enxet, Toba, Chiripa, and Ayoreo) Mennonites in the Chaco of Paraguay.
When asked about their success, German Mennonite colonists seem to follow a Weberian explanation. Their cultural values—specifically hard work and thrift—are responsible for their success, they claim. On the other hand, Mennonite scholars such as J. Winfield Fretz have argued that the cooperative models that the Mennonite imported from Russia are largely responsible for their economic growth.
Theoretically, according to Fretz, the application of this model by other communities should yield similar results. Yet, recent historical and sociological research has upended this narrative. Paola Canova (2020) has shown that Indigenous Mennonite cooperative success has been limited and largely used to re-enforce the economic dependency of the indigenous communities on the German Mennonite colonial structure. Instead, Canova proposes that Mennonite success was largely due to the racialized structure of Paraguayan society that privileged white settlers over their indigenous neighbors.
By comparing the cooperative movements of the German Mennonites and indigenous Mennonites, my dissertation aims to elucidate their interrelationship as well as evaluate the degree to which the whiteness of the German Mennonite colonies in Paraguay provided them with privileges and advantages in the racialized hierarchy of Paraguayan society.
Tell us about the broad impact you’d like to have.
I hope to begin this research in the spring of 2024 working with José Soler, Director de Dirección General de Relaciones Internacionales y Cooperación (General Director of International Relations and Cooperation) within the Ministerio de Desarrollo Social (Ministry of Social Development) who is interested in the development of the indigenous communities of the Chaco in Paraguay. He is especially interested in my project as it will reveal the basis of Mennonite success in the Chaco and how to create a more equitable space for other communities. More broadly-speaking, this research seeks to reveal the ways in which perception creates privilege within society.
What excites you about the environment in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences?
Perhaps surprisingly, I like the comparatively small size of my department. At other larger universities, I feel like it is easier to feel unsupported and lost in the crowd where the departments are so much bigger and more competitive. At the University of Iowa, the office of the Department of History has been amazing. They consistently look out for their graduate students (helping with grants and opportunities) and check in to make sure one is always on track in their progress towards their degree. For me, this support has been essential and has made my experience here enjoyable, yet challenging.
What are your hobbies and pursuits outside of work?
It is hard not to be all-consumed by the readings and discussions of graduate level history, but I have tried to maintain a balance. To this end, I joined an adult hockey league in Cedar Rapids. I also enjoy going on walks around town and taking short jogs through Hickory Hill Park to clear my head. Beyond reading works of history, I also enjoy reading fantasy, science fiction, and other works of literature—at this moment, everything by Brandon Sanderson.
Any favorite things to do in Iowa City?
My wife and I have a foodie streak and we enjoy trying different restaurants every weekend. The restaurant I love Fufu has been a hidden gem. We are also members of Public Space One, and we frequently go to events hosted at the Close House, such as art exhibits and workshops. On occasion, we go downtown to catch an independent film at FilmScene or a show at the Englert Theatre. More often, we simply grab a beer and chat at Big Grove Brewery after a busy day.