Anna Kulczycka ‘24

Anna Kulczycka is a senior working with Professor Terence McDonnell to write a thesis surrounding the evolution of fast fashion and how consumer behaviors contribute to the phenomenon. Previously, Kulczycka worked with Terence McDonnell for his project titled, “Embodied Simulations: A Qualitative and Experimental Study of How Body-Object Interactions Shape Meaning-making, Empathy, and Prosociality”. She works to qualitatively evaluate whether and how qualities of objects (media and sensory inputs) activate distinct meaning-making processes, such as embodied metaphor, emotional empathy, or cognitive empathy and experimentally test whether embodied simulations are more likely than alternatives at promoting empathy, prosociality, and overconfidence. Kulczycka also worked with Professor Julia Kowalski exploring how people distinguish between “politics” and “welfare” in shaping social development. With a focus on India, post-Independence to the present day, Kulczycka worked on this project with Kowalski to help us better understand and evaluate differences in democratic processes across the post-colonial world.

Thesis Title: Fast Fashion Over Time and Consumers