Does a big problem need a big solution? Not necessarily. In the field of flood mitigation, engineers typically respond to the question: how large does a project need to be to prevent flooding? Instead, I ask: how many small projects do we need to prevent flooding?

Ponds, dense vegetation, rain barrels outside of buildings and pervious pavements in parking lots and driveways are examples of such small projects. They capture, infiltrate or store water in place, decrease the volume and the speed of water draining down to storm sewage pipes or channels, and reduce the risk of the next flood. They are less expensive than large structures, more environmentally friendly and take less space. Are they also effective? To be effective, they must work together, as a system, because it is the combination of their effects that eventually reduces flooding. To this end, some locations are preferable than others.

My research establishes methods for water resource managers and engineers to determine how many of these projects should be installed, where to install them and how much they would cost. I tested these methods in a rural watershed in Northeast Iowa. I found that small ponds in the upstream half of the watershed are more effective at attenuating floods and can do so more cheaply than in other locations. These methods can be extended to design other projects beside ponds, in larger regions and in urban areas. Multiple small projects can potentially reduce flash floods and river inundations in a sustainable and economical way.

Unlike your bones or your skin, if you hurt your brain, it does not grow back. Despite that fact, people with brain injuries are sometimes able to recover the capacity to think, speak, and move, even though the parts of the brain responsible for those abilities were damaged or destroyed. Scientists believe that people can do this because the brain reorganizes itself, but how that reorganization happens is not understood. My research helps to answer that question by looking at how the brain networks of patients with epilepsy change after brain surgery and how those changes relate to patients’ abilities to learn and remember verbal information. Once we understand the reorganization that happens during recovery and how it affects the way people think and behave, we will hopefully be able to apply that knowledge toward creating targeted treatments for people who are recovering from brain injuries, such as concussion and stroke, to help them reach the best possible outcome.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lamp one fateful night in 1871 and set Chicago ablaze. At least that is how the popular myth goes. Like a tallgrass prairie recovering from a major burn, Chicago was reborn through the turn of the century. Skyscrapers clawed their way upwards and transportation systems zipped passengers from place to place. The city became a glittering world of cement and stone, with fairs and museums and electric lights. Turn-of-the-century animals—horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, dogs, cats, rats, guinea pigs, flies, sea sponges, muskox, and the innumerable other creatures who called Chicago home—all played pivotal roles in the city’s rebirth.

This dissertation is an interspecies history of Chicago’s rise to prominence at the turn of the twentieth century. Each chapter examines a modern urban form that emerged out of human-animal relationships: the street, the stockyard, the fair, and the museum. As in all habitats, one urban species’ behaviors, instincts, and choices impacts those of others. This dissertation applies an ecological lens to each habitat and inhabits a species-specific animal perspective to understand how interspecies relationships built modern industrial structures and then how those structures shaped different animals and people in return. Together, these chapters reveal that the urban systems we think of as modern—public transportation, industrialized meat processing, municipal oversight, and institutions of learning—emerged out of human’s ability to forge relationships with animals as well as their ability to forge relationships with us.

This thesis is about discovering new ways to understand and treat eye diseases, especially those eye diseases which can cause blindness. We all value our ability to see, but often we do not realize just how important it is to us until it is taken away through blindness. One of the most difficult to treat, and even incurable, ways people can become blind is when white blood cells and other parts of the immune system cause damage inside of the eye. While our immune systems are usually helpful in our bodies, they are not perfect and can become broken and make errors--just like other parts of our bodies. When this happens inside of the eye, it can cause blindness. However, one of the ways we can fix a broken immune system is by creating new drugs that make the immune system work correctly. But not all drugs work equally well. The best drugs are those that fix only the medical problem that they are being used for without causing new medical problems. These drugs are very specific in what they do inside the body, and in order to create them we need to know exactly how the body works. My thesis discusses new and specific ways that the eye works, and how that information can be used to make new and better drugs to fix a broken immune system inside of the eye.

Mental health difficulties related to depression and anxiety are some of the most common and severe in the world. Understanding how they change from day-to-day and how they uniquely impact people is crucial to creating better medical treatments and interventions. Before we can do so, we need to be able to accurately measure these symptoms, both to ensure we are able to monitor change and improvements more closely as well as to better understand what treatments work for which people.

The purpose of this study was to assess momentary changes in depression and anxiety over short periods of time and to create a tool to help measure these symptoms as they change throughout the day. This study also evaluated how fluctuations in these symptoms within a person relate to several factors, such as how people experience emotions, their personality traits, and daily stress. The overall result of this research provided a tool for practitioners and researchers in mental health to use to better understand and treat disorders of anxiety and depression.