MARS
MARS is a repository service of Mason Publishing and the Data and Digital Scholarship Services (DDSS) at the George Mason University Libraries. MARS provides enduring, stable, well-indexed access to a wide range of scholarship from the Mason community, such as Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs), articles, presentations, reports, and creative work. Learn more about publishing, sharing, and preserving research data with the George Mason University Institutional Dataverse, and our other repository services.
To start publishing your content in MARS, please contact us by using our online form. Questions? Please email publish@gmu.edu.
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Recent Submissions
Sweeping the Dust Off of the Syllabus with Broadly Inclusive Teaching Strategies
(2026-02) Yoho, Rachel
Why bother putting effort into a syllabus that the students do not read? The syllabus can be a dense, lengthy document weighed down by university and departmental required statements and expectations. But students do read the syllabus, even if only for certain sections and on an occasional, as-needed basis. Updating the syllabus beyond changing the due dates each semester likely is a low priority for instructors among many competing demands on their time, unless they are redesigning the course. However, the syllabus also can be a useful way to establish the path for the course in terms of both the logistics and the implementation.
A House Is Not a Home & Other Stories
(2023-04-05) Ghani, Bareerah Y; Brkic, Courtney
This thesis is a short story collection set in Karachi, Pakistan. The narratives employ magical realism to probe domestic life. The focus is on familial relationships and intimacies to interrogate the intersections of identity, intergenerational trauma, grief, and faith in the context of Pakistani culture and its patriarchal implications.
Into the Black
(2023-04-25) Runyon, Stephanie A; Ngalabak, Helon
The following thesis is a novel in progress, set at an all-women’s college. It follows three college-age girls as they cope with finding the dead body of a professor on campus. The reader is taken through different twists and turns, as we see the group of friends try to solve the mystery of the murder. The main character, Morgan, holds dark secrets herself that she is learning to cope with. Coming from a dysfunctional family, all she has is her friends to ground her and even they do not know the internal battle Morgan is having within herself. Through a series of events, Morgan becomes the prime suspect in the murder investigation. The question is, did she, do it? As she and her friends try to prove Morgan’s innocence, they uncover a dark secret connected to a legend that surrounds the school, and a local cult. Through a difficult coming-of-age process, Morgan truly comes to know what it means to value friendship and that sometimes, it is better to let go of the people you love. This novel explores the themes of feminism, relationships/friendships, family, and mental illness.
The Ellipses
(2023-04-25) Moore, Ivan; Arthurs, Alexia
The novel follows Ezra, a trans person who returns to their hometown of Austin, Texas to complete a Masters in Social Work. Bored and socially isolated, they decide to take a mixed martial arts class. They are shocked to discover that their first love from high school is the instructor. Fabrizio doesn’t recognize them. It soon becomes clear that due to a pre-existing brain injury, he’s forgotten his teenage years and the romantic relationship. Ezra chooses to pursue a friendship with him anyway without revealing the nature of their connection in high school. The work explores their motivations for doing so, as well as the complex relationship that develops as a result.
Characterization of Gordonia Rubripertincta Bacteriophage with Myoviridae Morphology
(2023-04-27) Madden, Bonnie; Scherer, Anne
Bacteriophages are significant drivers of bacterial evolution. As bacteria mutate to avoid infection, phages evolve and develop ways to break down and avoid bacterial defenses. This race for survival has resulted in a broad spectrum of diversity within the phage population. The Actinobacteriophages are a group of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) phages belonging to the order of Caudovirales. Based on their tail structures, these phages are further classified across three families: Siphoviridae, Myoviridae, or Podoviridae. Currently, 343 phages using Gordonia rubripertincta NRRL B-16540 (Gordonia) as a host are registered in The Actinobacteriophage Database at Phages DB.org. Interestingly, only nine of these phages are known to have a Myoviridae morphology. However, the other 334 Gordonia phages have Siphoviridae morphologies. Five of the nine Myoviridae phages were isolated, characterized, and registered by George Mason University students. These five phages presented difficulties while using the standard protocol during the DNA extraction process and required a modified protocol to obtain the required starting material for downstream applications such as genome sequencing. Within these Myoviridae Gordonia phages, unique capsid proteins have been identified as being likely responsible for the difficulties experienced using the standard DNA extraction protocol. This study focuses on five novel Myoviridae Gordonia phage genomes in cluster DQ and the phylogenetic and morphological relationships between these cluster DQ phages and other Gordonia phages. In addition, the protocol for the modified DNA extraction is discussed. The information presented expands our knowledge of phages and this will further increase their value in both basic and applied research. Finally, due to their lytic nature, adding these phages will be powerful tools for future therapies, such as treating antibiotic-resistant infections.