Living With Coyotes, Owen H. Agnew

Capstones

Coyotes have been slowly moving into New York State from Canada since the 1930s. They reached Westchester County and the Bronx decades ago, and their numbers have been slowly rising. Sighting in Manhattan reached an all-time high last spring, and pet attacks in Westchester County have increased slightly in the last several years. But the slight increase in sightings and pet attacks in recent years has been amplified on social media in towns like Chappaqua, New York, where anxiety and fear about coyotes has pitted neighbors against neighbors.

Main character Frank Vincenti is a Long Island barber and a self-proclaimed …

Brooklyn Trash Problems, Christina Diaz

Capstones

Walk through the streets of New York and at some point you’ll inevitably pass by a wafting smell of garbage, but residents of North Brooklyn are handling more than their share of the smelly load and they’re tired of getting dumped on.

A newly formed coalition of neighbors and environmental activists has begun a turf war against Brooklyn Transfer LLC, a waste transfer station located on Thames Street in East Williamsburg, which handles private commercial waste through ­­­­­­­­­­­­­Five Star Carting.

Link to Map: https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1769408

When Birth Control Hurts You: An Essure Investigation, Mia A. Garchitorena

Capstones

Thousands of women report having suffered from injuries and malfunctions related to Essure permanent birth control, including chronic pain, heavy bleeding, migration, or perforation. Many of these women also claim that Essure has caused nickel allergies, hair loss, bloating, rashes, unintended pregnancies, and death. What was promised to be an easy solution has become a life-altering problem.

As patient complaints have increased, experts have gone back and studied the science behind the approval of the Essure device. Their findings are startling: There were flaws with the studies that supported the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the device, the experts …

Geisha On Fire, Beimeng Fu

Capstones

Masae Satouchi is not an average Japanese woman. When she lived in Shiga Prefecture, a country town an hour away from Kyoto, her ex-boyfriends were uncomfortable with her eccentricity. She liked to wear colorful clothes, they didn’t. “I was too colorful to live in Japan,” she says. Japan is, of course, a modern, industrialized nation. The society, however, is famously conservative and does not allow for much unique self-expression. The situation is particularly difficult for Japanese women. Japan ranks 105 out of 136 in global gender gap index. Most women their quit jobs after having their first child.

Losing Ground, Alison Kanski

Capstones

Climate change and sea level rise are slowly decimating beaches. But the U.S. government and loyal residents won't let go of the beaches so easily.

A determined resident of the Rockaways in New York fights for the money and attention from governments to sustain his lifelong home and stop it from washing away.

Neurologists Look At Causes Of Baffling Brain Condition, Maggie Freleng

Capstones

It can be hard getting help for someone with mental illness, but almost impossible when that person doesn't think they are sick. At at least half of people with schizophrenia, for example, insist that the voices they hear are real. People who do not know they are ill often refuse therapy and medication -- and their symptoms can spiral out of control. Doctors call this lack of awareness anosognosia. Neurologists are trying to discover what causes this baffling condition--and how to treat it.

The Reanimation Of The Zombie Genre, William Engel

Capstones

The following piece is an examination of the evolution of the zombie in popular media. It begins with a brief recap of the zombie’s history, beginning with its roots in 19th century Haitian folklore, followed by its usage in the format of film. The most notable and enduring entries in the zombie film genre served as scathing critiques of contemporary human issues, encapsulating all of the fears and insecurities of its audience. In recent years, however, due to the way the international film market has changed, the zombie film has lost its emotional power and edge. Contemporary zombie filmmakers are …

Byrd, Maya Dangerfield

Capstones

In April 2015, William Byrd Wilkins or ‘Byrd’, 50, a theatre and television actor, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In August, his friends crowd-funded an all expense paid trip to New York for Byrd who wasundergoing chemotherapy in his rural hometown of Louisburg, North Carolina. Originally described as ‘an opportunity to reconnect’ the trip soon developed into a ‘living funeral’ as Byrd and his friends grappled with Byrd’s terminal prognosis. As he visited his favorite New York haunts and met with friends, Byrd wrestled with the decision to end his chemotherapy upon his return home.

Liver Transplantation Today: A Look At Geographic Disparities, Karen Shakerdge

Capstones

At any given time about 15,000 people wait for a new liver across the country but only a fraction receive one before it’s too late. Why transplant centers consider some patients before others involves a matrix of factors that has changed over time.

Female Fighters Fight Toward Equal Footing, Desiree A. Mathurin, Ryan Wallerson

Capstones

A staple in the boxing world met a primary member of the judo world in an octagon ring housed in the MGM Grand on November 15, 2015. Dubbed by some as the biggest upset of the year,Holly Holm faced off against Ronda Rousey for the Women’s UFC Bantamweight championship and delivered the sweet science to Rousey

Reshaping The Event Horizon‑ Marketing Utopia At Music Festivals, Justin D. Joffe

Capstones

Imagine a world where every leisure activity is tracked, recorded, and then analyzed as market research according to your age and gender demographic. Imagine the next phase after smartphone payments, when a chip linking your finances isn’t in your phone, but on your wrist. Imagine a vast field of fellow fun-­‐seekers, eating, drinking and dancing in hedonistic, chemically enhanced utopia. Such a scene certainly requires some open-­‐ mindedness and improvisation, sure, a willingness to submit oneself to a vulnerable environment of whimsy. Now imagine being subtly exposed to advertisements in such a mindset. It’s no Orwellian controlled dystopia, really. You’ve …

She's Having A Baby And Cancer, Ashley Lewis

Capstones

In October 2011, Megan Harris, a 38-year-old high school teacher from Atlanta, Georgia, found out she was pregnant with a new addition to her happy family of three. But she didn’t know until three months later that she’d be planning a funeral rather than a nursery.

400 Meters, Luke Tress

Capstones

A short documentary on the closest Israeli village to the Gaza border, one year after the 2014 war.

Restaurant Owners Owing Millions Of Dollars To Workers Close Down, Only To Open Again Under Related Owners, Rajashree Chakravarty

Capstones

Many restaurants in New York city have cases registered against them for failing to adhere to the labor laws of the state. In most of the cases, workers demand the wage that they have lost over the course of their work but face a hard time retrieving the money from the employers. In many cases, the owners declare bankruptcy and close down the restaurant for the time being but open again under a different name or under the ownership of a related family member. Though the court cases are ruled in the workers’ favor, they do not get the money …

The Long Road Back, Brooke Williams

Capstones

This project is a documentary film about the criminal case of Lorenzo Johnson. Johnson was convicted of a murder in the mid-90s and sentenced to life imprisonment in the state of Pennsylvania. Johnson has always maintained his innocence. In 2012, a federal appeals court sided with Johnson and released him. He returned to his home state of New York to speak out against wrongful convictions. However, less than 6 months later, the Supreme Court decided Johnson's original conviction should be upheld and he was forced to return to prison to serve the remainder of his life without the possibility of …

Battle Echoes Never Fade: Soldiers' Trauma At The End Of Life, John E. Eller

Capstones

Soldiers suffer moral injuries when wartime experiences go against their own moral compass, such as killing innocent civilians or mutilating the bodies of enemies. Many soldiers bury the shame and guilt leftover from battle for years or decades, but these memories can surface unbidden as veterans near death.

Heartbreak And Defiance: Stories Of Crisis In Puerto Rico, Andrea C. González-Ramírez

Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Sixty-Six Percent, Natalie Abruzzo

Capstones

The Sixty-Six Percent represent the percentage of women in the U.S. who are overweight. They are regarded as full-figured or “plus” size in the world of women’s apparel. Even though more than half of American women wear a “plus” size - size 14 and up - designs for these women account for a fraction of women’s apparel - Only 37% of women's wear is plus-size.

The Sixty-Six Percent is coming at an important time in a broader conversation about de-stigmatizing what it means to be a plus-size woman in America. Fat shaming has become taboo and mainstream media as well …

Webcam Child Sex Abuse, Lena Masri

Capstones

Webcam child sex is a booming global industry, a twist in pedophilia as fast growing and difficult to police, according to law enforcement officials.

Bike-Geist Nyc, Jack D'Isidoro

Capstones

More people ride bicycles in New York City than ever before, and that number continues to grow. At the turn of the 20th century, this city was the epicenter of a cultural obsession with bicycles, and is on the verge of a second renaissance with these simple machines. This project highlights different iterations of bicycle culture within modern New York City, and the socioeconomic, interpersonal, and self-expressive stories it produces.

3 Kings Of Bangkok, Alden F. Nusser

Capstones

A portrait of three Elvis impersonators in Bangkok, Thailand.

Leaving Home, Keeping The Faith, Damian J. Geminder

Capstones

This capstone explores how outreach to immigrant and non-English-speaking communities is vital to the health of the American Catholic Church.

Greenpoint's Superfund Problem, Helina Selemon

Capstones

A feature observing a community living in the shadow of a superfund site, a toxic industrial site in need of cleanup, that was recently purchased for development. The story looks at the complicated nature of this particular superfund and the problems the community around it has--including potential health risks during cleanup, rapid development, and an inescapable industrial past.

Strangers In Their Own Lands: A Story Of Japanese Brazilians, Ken Aragaki

Capstones

Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan. Since the first dispatch of Japanese immigrants in 1908, more than 240,000 people moved from Japan to Brazil between the early 1900s and the 1970s. Many of them settled outside the city of São Paulo and started working as coffee farmers under unfamiliar and harsh conditions. Today, according to some estimates, more than 1.6 million people of Japanese descent live in Brazil.

As Japan became the world’s economic power, it sought foreign workers to fill its booming labor market. The government turned to Japanese Brazilians and started granting them …

The Push For Plus: How A Small Part Of The Fashion Industry Hopes To Make Big Changes To The Plus-Size Women’S Fashion Market, Alexa Pipia

Capstones

67 percent of the American female population is plus-size, yet 85 percent of the clothing sold to women in the country does not fit them and is not created with them in mind. A select group of designers, stylists, models, modeling agencies, and students are taking initiative on how to take the stigma out of plus-size fashion.

South Africa's Forgotten Freedom Fighters, Kimberly H. Conner, Natasha Scully

Capstones

More than two decades have passed since the end of apartheid, yet freedom is elusive for those who battled to bring democracy to South Africa. There are more than 16,000 military veterans living in South Africa, according to the Department of Military Veterans database. The real figure is likely much larger since the database is still under development. Many of these veterans are caged by the psychological, social and financial consequences of their past.

How Can We Build A Moral Robot?, Kristen E. Clark

Capstones

Artificial intelligence is already starting to drive our cars and make choices that affect the world economy. One day soon, we’ll have robots that can take care of our sick and elderly, and even rescue us in rescue us in emergencies. But as robots start to make decisions that matter—it’s raising questions that go far beyond engineering. We’re stating to think about ethics.

Bertram Malle and Matthias Scheutz are part of a team funded by the department of defense. It's their job to answer a question that seems straight out of a sci-fi novel: How can we build a moral …

Startup Elsewhere, Michaela Ross

Capstones

Immigrants have made outsized contributions to American innovation and entrepreneurship, but the headwinds they face in the U.S. are now driving them to return to their native countries to startup their tech companies.

U.S. immigrants make up only 13% of the country’s overall population, but they have filed over a quarter of the country’s global patent applications, won a third of America’s Nobel prizes in the sciences in the last hundred years and make up over half of all computer science Ph.D. students in U.S. universities. Immigrants also build businesses at twice the rate of native-born Americans, and over the …

How N.Y.’S Biggest For-Profit Nursing Home Group Flourishes Despite A Record Of Patient Harm, Jennifer Lehman

Capstones

How N.Y.'s Biggest For-Profit Nursing Home Group Flourishes Despite a Record of Patient Harm

The state’s “character-and-competence” reviews are supposed to weed out operators with histories of violations and fines— but regulators don’t always act on the full story.

Sound Affects, Catherine Roberts, Cole Rosengren, Jessica Bal, Samuel Lieberman, Dave Gershgorn, Gabriela Sierra Alonso

Capstones

IN A CITY OVERFLOWING WITH SOUND, NOISE AND RUCKUS, WHAT CAN WE LEARN?

In this multimedia, multi-story project, we explore sound in New York City. We learn what New York City can tell us about sound, and what sound can tell us about New York City.