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Advancing Understanding Of Lived Experience Of Unhoused People To Reduce Social Stigma And Promote Community Health: A Theoretically-Guided Photovoice Study, B-Rad Stephen Applegate

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Homelessness is a persistent public health challenge shaped by structural inequities, stigma, and exclusion from social and health systems. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) has increasingly been used to center the knowledge of people who are unhoused, yet limited attention has been given to the theoretical frameworks guiding this work across disciplines. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine theories and methods used in CBPR with unhoused populations and to explore the extension of Margaret Newman’s Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness from a nursing-focused theory to a public health framework for understanding lived experience.

Using a scoping review methodology …

Embodied Women’S Health In The Pacific: Biocultural Pathways Of Hormones, Immunity, And Reproduction, Courtney Callidora Manthey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation examines women’s health through a biocultural framework that integrates biological anthropology, medical anthropology, and public health, with a central focus on the Pacific. It advances embodiment theory as a unifying approach for understanding how lived experience becomes biologically incorporated across the life course, shaping reproductive, endocrine, and immune outcomes. Grounded in research in Sāmoa and situated within broader comparative contexts in the United States and Amazonian populations, this work argues that women’s health cannot be fully understood through biomedical indicators alone, but must instead be interpreted within historically, culturally, and environmentally embedded Pacific contexts and beyond. The dissertation …

From Mandate To Implementation: A Qualitative Content Analysis Of Early Childhood Coursework In Educational Leadership Preparation Programs, Anna Louise Puryear

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Research on principal leadership in the P-3 continuum is limited, even though leadership is second only to teaching in its impact on student outcomes. Most leadership preparation programs emphasize K–12 content, with little focus on early childhood education. Illinois is the only state to codify legislation requiring early childhood content in educational leadership programs, offering a unique case to examine how such mandates are implemented. This study employed qualitative content analysis to investigate how institutions of higher education represent mandated early childhood content in graduate-level coursework. Data sources included program-level documents from 22 Illinois leadership preparation programs and course-level materials …

Promoting Hope And Resilience: Measuring The Psychological Effects Of An Undergraduate Climate Change Education Course, Clare Bridgett Maguire

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The psychological effects of climate change are increasing, which has led to an increase in advocacy to research these effects. Current literature has included a focus on categorizing and understanding the psychological impacts, creating psychometrically sound instruments to measure the effects, and education as a tool to enhance coping strategies. However, limited research exists on measuring the emotional outcomes for students who engage in climate change education at the post-graduate level.

This dissertation explores the effects of an undergraduate-level climate change course on participants’ experiences of eco-anxiety, ecological grief, resilience, and hope to better understand the psychological effects of climate …

Ghostly Grieving In Theatre’S Now Also The Dramaturgy Of Perception And The Body In Contemporary American Ghost Plays, Jacob Mann Christiansen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

“Ghostly Grieving in Theatre’s Now Also” explores how contemporary American plays and playwrights stage the dead as a way of understanding theatre’s unique language for dealing with the shared, complex human experience of grief. Focusing on theatrical ghosts and other “impossible” presences, I articulate how these figures function as dramaturgical devices. I also argue that theatre’s ghosts “set the stage” (as it were) for communicable meaning-making by inviting audiences into the tasks of creation and mourning.

My work draws on performance theory (especially phenomenological accounts of theatrical storytelling), on dramaturgical analysis, and on grief studies. In this dissertation project, I …

Evolution Of A Nitrogen-Fixing Endosymbiont And Integration With Its Diatom Host, Heidi Elizabeth Abresch

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Endosymbiosis, where one cell lives inside of a different cell, is ubiquitous in nature and has enormous impacts on the ecology and evolution of both the host and the endosymbiont [1, 2]. These relationships exist along a continuum ranging from facultative—where both partners are able to live independently—to completely obligate—where partners can only survive in the presence of the other. The most famous examples being the chloroplast and mitochondrion [3]. After hundreds of millions or even billions of years of coevolution, highly-integrated endosymbionts are coordinated with the host on the genetic, metabolic, and cellular levels, but we do not understand …

Developing Identity After Goodbye: Social Identity Theory And How Adolescent Survivors Navigate Suicide Loss, Elizabeth Susan Lawton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Adolescents who lose a loved one to suicide, known as suicide-loss survivors, face a disruption to identity development, a life stage defined by identity formation (Adler et al., 2018) and group belonging (Pittman & Richmond, 2008). Suicide bereavement is complicated not only by grief but also by stigma, which can fracture social ties and undermine self-concept. Social identity theory (SIT) provides a framework for examining how young adults, now ages 18 to 30, reconstruct their social identities after experiencing suicide loss in adolescence. Research in other stigmatized contexts shows that adopting positive in-group identities can buffer against stigma and protect …

Á’Po’Taki Iiyika’Kimaa Work/Try Hard For Such A Time As This, Misamsai’Piaakíí Longtime Charging Woman Kimberly Lynn Paul

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This body of work adds to a recent shift in the academic landscape, valuing interdisciplinary research and Indigenous worldview. Predominant is the reversal of extractive research norms within Indigenous populations and the biosystems they steward, instead claiming Piikani (Blackfeet) led community-needs-based research valuing Indigenous data sovereignty, research methodologies, ethics, equity, and Indigenous empowerment. This research proffers requisite historical information providing the ‘why’ context, followed by three of the author’s studies: in toxic dumping, food sovereignty, and Piikani well-being. Under an environmental justice framework, the first study presents a cursory investigation of decades-long illicit toxic waste disposal reports linked to observed …

The Subadults Of Casas Grandes: A Bioarchaeological Study, Holli Kaye Mcdonald

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Across the span of nearly eight hundred years, from AD 700-1450, the societies of the Casas Grandes region waxed and waned and left an astounding representation in the archaeological record. Best-known through the temporally older site of Convento (occupied during what is known as the Viejo Period) and the later site of Paquimé (occupied during the Medio Period), gradual cultural expansion and florescence across this period are witnessed through a variety of findings across decades of anthropological investigation.

Along with the artifacts and architecture unveiled during initial excavations at Paquimé and Convento, remains of 654 individuals were catalogued as well. …

The Forensic Implications Of Hydrochloric Acid (Hcl) Exposure On Dna Preservation In Human Teeth, Shaelyn Lee Zimmerman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Identity is a human right, and forensic anthropological methods are often aimed at returning identity to decedents. Three main pathways are used for the identification of human remains: fingerprints, dental records, and DNA analysis. Identification efforts may be hindered when perpetrators attempt to obscure the victim’s identity. In cases where corrosive substances, such as hydrochloric acid (HCl) are used, dental comparison and fingerprinting often fail and genetic analysis becomes the best chance of achieving personal identification.

Previous studies have shown teeth are an excellent source of DNA. Large, multi-rooted teeth, such as molars, are often preferred because they contain the …

Skeletal Dna Mapping Of The Post-Cranial Skeleton For The Identification Of Human Remains In A Modern Forensic Context, Mykala Denise Ward

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Human identification is a central goal of forensic anthropology and forensic molecular anthropology, particularly when remains are skeletonized, fragmented, degraded, or otherwise visually unidentifiable. Although skeletal elements such as teeth, the petrous portion of the temporal bone, and major long bones are commonly prioritized for DNA sampling, they are not always available, intact, or suitable for destructive analysis. This dissertation evaluates DNA preservation across the post-cranial skeleton to determine whether anatomical location, biological sex, and age-at-death influence DNA quantity and downstream forensic genetic success.

Surface cortical bone samples were collected from predetermined anatomical locations across four modern skeletonized individuals. DNA …

Between Care And Protection: Constraints On Political Authority In Kamala Harris's 2024 Presidential Campaign, Marissa Barbara Pax

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Competing expectations about strength, care, and protection shape how presidential leadership and authority are constructed in contemporary U.S. politics, particularly for members of marginalized communities. This thesis examines Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign as a case study to explore how candidates negotiate competing understandings of political authority through appeals to Lakoff’s (2002, 2008) Strict Father Morality and the Nurturant Parent Morality. An analysis of her campaign reveals that Harris repeatedly appeals to both moral frameworks, constructing authority through empathy, mutual responsibility, and care while also emphasizing threat identification, protection, discipline, and moral strength. Although Harris successfully mobilizes the rhetorical resources …

Unmuted: An Augmentative And Alternative Communication User’S Experience In Accessing And Engaging In Mental Health Care, Kanbi Faith Knippling

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Communication accessibility is a critical yet underexamined factor influencing access to and engagement in mental health care for individuals who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Existing literature suggests that AAC users experience significant barriers to obtaining communication-accessible mental health services, including limited provider preparation, communication-related assumptions, and broader structural inequities. Despite growing recognition of these concerns, little research has explored how AAC users experience and navigate mental health counseling or how communication accessibility shapes participation in care.

This single-case study explored communication accessibility within the context of an adult AAC users' experiences accessing and engaging in mental health counseling. …

A Psychogeography Of The Lower Colorado River Basin, Arren L. Kimbel-Sannit

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Dried-up canals. Superheated strip malls. Proliferating data centers. Infinite appetite for growth despite its apparent circumstances. Arizona may well be the state of the American future. This multi-genre series of essays from Arren Kimbel-Sannit offers a personal, political-economic and ecological critique of growth and accumulation in Arizona — from the perspective of someone who grew up in its suburban expanses, reported on its politics, and long sought to clarify his relationship with home.

Learning In The Wild: A Discourse Analysis Of Literacy Practices And Educational Outcomes In Montana’S Youth Climate Activism, Tyler Moore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis examines youth climate activism in Montana as a site of literacy practice, civic learning, and critical climate engagement. Focusing on the University of Montana Climate Response Club, the study asks how youth climate activists use literacy practices to interpret climate issues and participate in civic action, and how those practices reflect elements of critical climate literacy. The study defines critical climate literacy as a set of socially situated practices through which young people read, interpret, question, and respond to climate change as both an environmental issue and a civic problem shaped by power. Rather than treating climate literacy …

Building Trust Through Partnership: A Community Advisory Board Self-Evaluation Within A Blackfeet Nation Community-Based Participatory Research Collaboration, Lauren Dupuis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Community Advisory Boards (CABs) are frequently used within community-based participatory research (CBPR) to promote community engagement, shared decision-making, and cultural responsiveness. Although CABs are widely utilized in Indigenous research partnerships, relatively few studies have evaluated CAB function from the perspectives of Indigenous community members. Our study describes the development of a CAB established through a collaborative partnership between the University of Montana and the Blackfeet Nation and evaluates the quality and impact of the partnership from the perspectives of CAB members. We conducted a mixed-methods partnership self-evaluation with members of a CAB supporting an Indigenous healthcare research initiative. Three of …

Growing Agroecology: Two Case Studies From The U.S. Student Farm Movement, Amelia B. Armstrong

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Scholars and activists identify agroecology as a crucial science, practice, and movement to move towards more just, equitable, and sustainable agriculture and food systems. Yet, the exploitative industrial food system, that deepens inequalities like food insecurity (Clapp et al., 2025), reduces farmer autonomy (Rotz, 2015), and contributes to increased carbon emissions (Lin et al., 2011) and biodiversity decline (Rotz, 2015), still dominates. Understanding and mobilizing the different spaces that teach agroecology, then, is a crucial step in challenging the dominant industrial food system. Agroecology education in university settings is an important domain to investigate as potential contributors to this movement, …

Thistlebloom Moondog, Gary W. Jensen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

An aging grieving artist decides to write a memoir as part of a self-healing process, using samples of song lyrics from his extensive collection of original Americana songs as narrative prompts.  Steeped in wanderlust, aspiration, paradox and dysfunction, his is a tale of vexing sub-clinical troubles rooted in the mire of developmental and religious trauma.

Illusions Of Fairness And Sacrifice, Brady Schwertfeger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The American West is a shifting landscape. An incongruous expanse of isolation and urbanity, wilderness and extraction, wealth and welfare, clear water and fire. Fifteen years ago, I moved to my mother’s ancestral homeland of Montana, and have been here ever since. Before that, I was born and raised in Texas, both the West and the South (and often something else entirely), depending on who you ask. My experiences in this region have shaped me indelibly, and have inspired this collection of essays built around culture, politics, and justice in the West. “Pinedale, Wyoming” considers the musician as itinerant wanderer …

The Experience Of A Single Parent Participating In Child-Parent Relationship Therapy: An Instrumental Single-Case Study, Matthew Nicholas Schramm

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Traditional family structures in the United States have shifted significantly, with single-parent households facing systemic barriers that increase parental stress and strain the parent-child relationship. As this bond is critical for healthy child development, accessible mental health support is essential for these families (Parache et al., 2023).

Child Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT), a ten-week evidence-based program, strengthens this bond by training caregivers to use play as a therapeutic tool (Landreth & Bratton, 2020). This instrumental single case study (Stake, 1995) examined one single-parent's experience of CPRT delivered in a condensed four-week telehealth format, addressing the limited representation of single-parent households …

Governance By Numbers And The Architecture Of Anxiety A Human-Capital Efficiency Analysis In Global Higher Education, Sukanya Kemp

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

There has been a movement of global university rankings from the margins to the center of higher education governance. These metrics are now treated as external performance indicators in institutional strategy formation. In this dissertation an Architecture of Anxiety created by these rankings was explored, specifically examining how ranking volatility functions as a signal of environmental uncertainty and resource risk. To bypass the Transparency Barrier inherent in global financial data, given the effects of internal political considerations on data reporting, a human-capital-centered approach was adopted. By utilizing academic staff full-time equivalents (FTE) as the primary analytical input, universities were reframed …

Real-Time Immersive Wildfire Simulation: A Game Engine Approach, Jake Bova

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Wildfires are growing in frequency, size, and severity, placing escalating demands on firefighting resources and putting lives, property, and ecosystems at risk. Accurate prediction of fire behavior is critical to suppression planning, evacuation decisions, and firefighter training, yet the operational models that fire managers rely upon face a persistent tradeoff. High-fidelity physics-based models capture fire–atmosphere interactions faithfully but are computationally expensive, often running far slower than real time on CPU hardware, while faster empirical models sacrifice the dynamic coupling between a fire and the wind field it generates. Furthermore, most existing tools produce abstract, two-dimensional outputs that offer limited visual …

Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Mountain Front Recharge Flow Paths And Their Contribution To Alluvial Aquifer Water Supply, Mikaela Bollag-Miller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Mountain Front Recharge (MFR) is a critical recharge source for alluvial basin aquifers throughout the Intermountain West, yet the spatial and temporal dynamics of distinct recharge pathways remain poorly constrained. This study investigates the seasonal and spatial dynamics of MFR pathways and evaluates their impact on the Missoula Aquifer, a sole-source alluvial aquifer in western Montana, USA. MFR includes both surface-water inflows from mountain areas and Mountain Block Recharge (MBR), the groundwater contribution to the basin aquifer. A valley-scale water balance was employed to estimate first-order contributions and temporal fluctuations of MBR flow paths. A three-layer steady-state MODFLOW groundwater model …

Preserving Their Institutions While Living Among Strangers: Heritage Adaptation Exhibited Within Missoula, Montana’S Chinese Community, 1860 – 1940, Sophia Hattie Etier

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation by publication reconstructs the history, cultural institutions, and adaptive strategies of Missoula, Montana’s Chinese community between 1860 and 1940, arguing that the population underwent a long-term, multi-generational process of heritage adaptation shaped by exclusion, isolation, and demographic decline. Drawing from Kalervo Oberg’s 1954 culture shock model, the study proposes a new theoretical framework—heritage shock—that extends the four-stage adjustment process from individuals to cultural communities. This model demonstrates how diasporic populations collectively navigate periods of arrival, crisis, adjustment, and long-term adaptation when confronted with sustained external pressures. Using an interdisciplinary methodology that integrates archival research, archaeological and faunal analysis, …

Winding Roads: A Qualitative Phenomenological Study Of Female Educational Leadership, Nicole Casper

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The experiences of female superintendents were examined in this study to provide insight into the commonalities in their leadership journeys within public school organizations. A phenomenological, qualitative approach, aligned with Moustakas’s (1994) framework, was used to explore participants’ shared experiences. Comprehensive interviews were conducted with 17 female superintendents serving during the 2022–2023, 2023–2024, and/or 2024–2025 academic years in the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Through phenomenological reduction, three overarching commonalities emerged: (a) barriers, (b) challenges, and (c) supporting factors. The findings illuminate how organizational, societal, and gendered influences interact to shape female leadership advancement toward assistant superintendent or …

Instructor Created Video: Differences In Perception Of Administrative Support In Respiratory Care, Brian Daniel Cayko

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Background: The recent proliferation of online education has highlighted the need to reduce transactional distance and increase the community of inquiry presence between the instructor and students and between students. This quantitative non-experimental study examined the differences in perception of administrative support for instructor-created video (ICV) between faculty and administrators within Commission on Accreditation of Respiratory Care (CoARC) higher education programs of Respiratory Care. Methodology: The Difference in Perception of Administrative Support (DPAS) survey was utilized to collect data from 93 valid participants through a snowball sampling method. Analysis was performed using an independent samples t test and Cohen's d …

Beyond Words: The Horse-Human Encounter In Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy For Residential Substance Use Treatment, Leah Finch Lungren

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Equine-assisted psychotherapy (EAP) has emerged as a promising experiential therapeutic intervention, yet the lived experience of adults participating in EAP within residential substance use disorder (SUD) treatment settings remains underexplored. This hermeneutic phenomenological study examined the lived experience of 12 adults who participated in EAP groups during residential SUD treatment across three treatment facilities in the United States. The primary research question was: What is the lived experience of participating in EAP for adults in residential SUD treatment? Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed through iterative hermeneutic interpretation guided by van Manen’s (1990) existential framework.

Six themes emerged …

Archaeology Of Yellowstone's Cascade Corner: Findings And Diet Breadth Modeling, William Brent Powell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the summer of 2025, archaeologists from the University of Montana conducted a pedestrian survey through the southwest corner of Yellowstone National Park to take inventory of cultural resources. Over nearly 50 miles of trail survey, the team identified and recorded 17 new archaeological sites, mostly consisting of sparse lithic scatters on the surface. The findings indicate recurrent use of the Bechler area since the Paleoindian period. This thesis aims to provide a comprehensive and detailed report on those findings, followed by an interpretation of the data through the lens of optimal foraging theory and diet breadth modeling. The first …

Integrating Hippotherapy Into Interprofessional Aphasia Rehabilitation: A Feasibility Pilot Study, Bethany H. Wenger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Background and Significance: Stroke remains a leading cause of disability in the United States, affecting over 2.5 million individuals annually. Stroke-related motor and communication deficits often co-occur, increasing challenges for recovery, increasing social isolation, depression, and dependency. Hippotherapy has emerged as a novel treatment approach for neurorehabilitation; however, its application within interprofessional models for individuals with stroke-related motor and communication impairments remains underexplored. This study examines the feasibility, fidelity, and acceptability of an interprofessional intervention using hippotherapy for adults with chronic post-stroke aphasia, the purpose of which is to generate methodological guidance for future controlled trials.

Methods: A non-randomized, single-group …

Integrating Perspectives Of People With Aphasia: A Holistic Approach To Community Aphasia Groups Within An Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia Program, Mckinlee A. Mihelish

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Introduction: People with aphasia (PWA) experience chronic communication deficits that impact daily life. Community Aphasia Groups (CAGs) are commonly used to address these challenges and have demonstrated psychosocial and communicative benefits; however, they lack standardized structure and are implemented with variability across settings. Additionally, much of the existing research focuses on group-level outcomes rather than participant-driven priorities, limiting clinicians’ ability to tailor interventions. This study examined what PWA want from CAG participation and how these priorities may change over time.

Methods: This quantitative study investigated priority changes among PWA participating in a CAG within a summer 2025 Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia …