2020-2021 Doctoral Dissertation Fellows Announced
The Graduate School is pleased to announce the 2020-2021 Doctoral Dissertation Fellows. The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) gives the University's most accomplished PhD candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year. The award includes a stipend of $25,000 for the academic year (September-May), tuition for up to 14 thesis credits each semester (Fall & Spring), and subsidized health insurance through the Graduate Assistant Health Plan. Congratulations!
Aliza Abraham
Mechanical Engineering
The effect of dynamic operation and incoming flow on the wake of a utility-scale wind turbine
Advisor(s): Jiarong Hong
Anna Amramina
History of Science, Technology and Medicine
A Common Language of the Earth: U.S.-Soviet Collaboration in Earth Sciences
Advisor(s): Susan Jones and Sally Kohlstedt
Derek Batiste
Chemistry
Sustainable Aliphatic Polyesters: Competitive, Bio-derived, and Degradable Materials of Tomorrow
Advisor(s): Marc Hillmyer
Kelsie Becklin
Comparative and Molecular Biosciences
Modeling Ewing Sarcoma with Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Advisor(s): Branden Moriarity and Beau Webber
Hannah Berg
Psychology
Deciding which fears to face: Identifying neural predictors of maladaptive avoidance in clinical anxiety and PTSD
Advisor(s): Shmuel Lissek
Lauren Bersie Larson
Biomedical Engineering
Understanding the Role of Extracellular Matrix Mechanics in Cancer Cell Migration
Advisor(s): Victor Barocas and Paolo Provenzano
Ellen Candler
Conservation Sciences
The Extent That Hunter Derived Food Sources Influence the Consumer Community
Advisor(s): Joseph Bump
Angela Carlson
Chemistry
Using azides to form nitrogen heterocycles and selective bromodomain inhibitors
Advisor(s): Joseph Topczewski
Fletcher Carlson
Mechanical Engineering
Increased Renewable Electricity Generation using Thermal Storage
Advisor(s): Jane Davidson
Maria Jose Carreras Valle
Economics
Multistage Production under Trade Policy Uncertainty
Advisor(s): Timothy Kehoe
Jesus David Castano Uruena
Bioproducts & Biosystems Science, Eng & Mgt
Unraveling a fungal mechanism for safely using oxygen radicals to decompose plant tissues
Advisor(s): Jonathan Schilling
Xin Chen
Land and Atmospheric Science
Understanding the fuels of atmospheric chemistry: Comprehensive analyses of volatile organic compounds (VOC) measured from aircraft missions in the past decade
Advisor(s): Dylan Millet
Kate Ciampa
Physics
Building a low-mass tracker and a deep learning pattern recognition system to search for charged lepton flavor violation in the Mu2e experiment
Advisor(s): Ken Heller
Mathia Colwell
Animal Sciences
Intergenerational Effects of Arsenic Exposure on the Mouse Epigenome
Advisor(s): Chris Faulk
Ryan Daley
Chemistry
Palladium and Gold Catalyzed Decarboxylative Aryl Functionalization Reactions
Advisor(s): Joseph Topczewski
Nisarg Desai
Anthropology
Do chimpanzee pant-hoot calls signal group membership or male quality?
Advisor(s): Michael Wilson
Anand Divakaran
Medicinal Chemistry
Development and Cellular Evaluation of Selective N-Terminal Bromodomain and Extra Terminal (BET) Family Bromodomain Inhibition
Advisor(s): William Pomerantz and Daniel Harki
Molly Driessen
Social Work
Student Stories of Resilience after Campus Sexual Assault
Advisor(s): Lynette Renner
Julia Early
Chemistry
Fragmentation Kinetics of Block Copolymer Micelles in Ionic Liquids
Advisor(s): Timothy Lodge
Evan Ellison
Plant Biological Sciences
RNA viral vectors and mobile sgRNAs for heritable gene editing in plants
Advisor(s): Daniel Voytas
Mary Foltz
Rehabilitation Science
The Role of the Intervertebral Disc Morphology on Curve Progression in Adolescents with Idiopathic Scoliosis
Advisor(s): Arin Ellingson
Xiaojun Fu
Physics
Quantum transport in two-dimensional electron systems
Advisor(s): Michael Zudov
Sarah Garcia
Sociology
Trends in Disability among Working-Age Americans: The Role of Labor Force Changes
Advisor(s): Rob Warren
McKinley Green
Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Comm
Participation and Resistance: Queering User Experience for HIV mHealth Technology Design
Advisor(s): Patrick Bruch
Bin Guo
Biostatistics
Statistical Methods and Computational Tools for Integrative Analysis of Multi-source Multi-way Data
Advisor(s): Baolin Wu and Lynn / Eric Eberly / Lock
Yiwang Guo
Pharmaceutics
The development of drugs with optimal therapeutic performance aided by an artificial stomach and duodenum
Advisor(s): Changquan Calvin Sun
Maria Heath
Linguistics
Tweeting Out Loud: Typographical Tone of Voice on Social Media
Advisor(s): Claire Halpert and Brian Reese
Younkyung Hong
Education, Curriculum and Instruction
A Phenomenological Exploration of the Hegemonic Insider-Outsider in Teacher Education
Advisor(s): Mark Vagle and Annie Mason
Sheng-Yin (Dima) Huang
Chemistry
Novel Receptors and Polymers for the Treatment of Hyperphosphatemia
Advisor(s): Valerie Pierre
Kathryn Huether
Music
Centering the Sonic: Voice and Affect in Holocaust Memory, Memorials, and Museums
Advisor(s): Karen Painter
Bomi Jeon
English
Looking through the Everyday: Space, Time, and Experience in British Fiction and Cinema After 1940
Advisor(s): Siobhan Craig
Emily Jesser
Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology
Disruption of JAK/STAT signaling enhances macrophage-mediated tumor-promoting signals within the breast tumor microenvironment
Advisor(s): Kathryn Schwertfeger
SeungGyeong Ji
Feminist Studies
Consoling the Soul: Abortion, Religion, and the Population Control Regime in South Korea (1974-2019)
Advisor(s): Susan Craddock and Richa Nagar
Jason Jones
Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, & Biophysics
Structural Enzomolgy of soluble Methane Monooxygenase Substrate Regulation
Advisor(s): John Lipscomb
Lisa Kaler
Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Dev
The Construction of Suicide: A Critical Analysis of University and Student Suicide Discourses
Advisor(s): Karen Miksch
Adam Kaplan
Biostatistics
Informing Bayesian Inference with Context-Driven Prior Distributions in the Context of Genome-Wide Association Studies, Medical Device Adaptive Clinical Trials, and Imaging Genetics
Advisor(s): Eric Lock and Mark Fiecas
Kaveh Khaliji
Electrical Engineering
Gas Sensing via Graphene Plasmons
Advisor(s): Tony Low
Brittany Krzyzanowski
Geography
Sharing Fine Resolution Protected Health Information: Using Regionalization to create HIPAA Compliant Aggregations
Advisor(s): Steve Manson and Michael Oakes
Siu Yi Kwang
Chemical Physics
Understanding Photovoltaics with Spatially-offset Femtosecond Stimulated Raman Spectroscopy
Advisor(s): Renee Frontiera
Ian Lane
Entomology
Conserving the diversity and heterogeneity of prairie bee communities through ecological restoration
Advisor(s): Daniel Cariveau
Tatiana Lenskaia
Biomedical Info and Comp Biol
Scalable computational methods for exploring virus-host interactions
Advisor(s): Dan Boley
Yan Li
Computer Science
Eco-routing for Next Generation Navigation Apps: A Spatial Big Data Approach
Advisor(s): Shashi Shekhar
Siyu Li
Political Science
Norms and Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Age of Polarization
Advisor(s): Timothy Johnson
Wei-Han Lin
Biomedical Engineering
3D Bioprinted Myocardial Tissue as a Testbed for Medical Devices and Drugs
Advisor(s): Brenda Ogle
En-Chih Liu
Chemistry
Allylic Azides: A Divergent Building Blocks for Heterocycles
Advisor(s): Joseph Topczewski
Runchao Liu
Communication Studies
Sounding Orientalism: Sonic Affect, Musical Radicals, and Countercultural Troubles
Advisor(s): Gilbert Rodman
Arash Mahnan
Kinesiology
Wearable non-invasive neuromodulation technology for the symptomatic treatment of the voice disorder spasmodic dysphonia
Advisor(s): Juergen Konczak
Ryan Mahutga
Biomedical Engineering
Understanding the Aorta in Health and Disease: Coupling Experiments in Mice with Computational Models of Growth
Advisor(s): VIctor Barocas
Corinne Mathieu
Education, Curriculum and Instruction
Redesigning Materials for Content and Language Integration in Secondary Immersion: A Design-Based Research Study
Advisor(s): Diane Tedick
Ryan Matzke
Mathematics
Minimization of Repulsive-Attractive Energies on Compact Manifolds
Advisor(s): Dmitriy Bilyk
Eddah Mburu
Epidemiology
Incidence patterns, care continuum and impact of treatment on survival among breast cancer patients in Ghana and the United States (US).
Advisor(s): Shalini Kulasingam and Beth Virnig
Daniel McDonough
Kinesiology
Effect of YouTube-Delivered Health Education on Overweight/Obese College Students' Physical Activity and Health: A 12-week Randomized Controlled Trial
Advisor(s): Zan Gao
Margaret McEachran
Conservation Sciences
Assessing the risk of fish pathogen introduction via the release of live baitfish by recreational anglers
Advisor(s): Nicholas Phelps
Keavy McFadden
Geography
Schools for Sale: Contested Geographies of Education, Finance, & Governance in Chicago
Advisor(s): Vinay Gidwani
Hannah McVeigh
Political Science
Representation in State Legislatures: Race, Gender, and Cosponsorship
Advisor(s): Kathryn Pearson
Alyssa Merbler
Educational Psychology
Validating Movement-Based Sleep Assessment in Cerebral Palsy
Advisor(s): Frank Symons
Kathleen Miley
Nursing
A Data-Driven Approach to Identify the Brain and Cognitive Mechanisms of Social Functioning in Health and Early Schizophrenia.
Advisor(s): Fang Yu and Niloufar Hadidi
Jamie Mosel
Natural Resources Science and Management
Drought, Forest Management, and Climate Adaptation in North-central Minnesota
Advisor(s): Matthew Russell and Rebecca Montgomery
Devika Narayan
Sociology
Between the Cloud and a Hard Place: A Study of Creative Destruction in the Age of Digital Platforms.
Advisor(s): Michael Goldman and Rachel Schurman
Eric Nazareno
Plant Pathology
A look into both worlds: finding new sources of oat crown rust resistance and discovering virulence factors in Puccinia coronata f.sp. avenae
Advisor(s): Melania Figueroa and Shahryar Kianian
Amy Nippert
Neuroscience
Regulation of Blood Flow in the Brains of Diabetic Mice
Advisor(s): Eric Newman
Jaclyn Noshay
Plant Biological Sciences
Uncovering the Genetics and Epigenetics of the Maize Genome
Advisor(s): Nathan Springer
William Nunn
Chemical Engineering
The direct conversion of heat to electricity using fast switching of ferroelectric oxides
Advisor(s): Bharat Jalan
Ryan O’Dell
Music Theory
The Analysis of Multimedia through the Lens of Music Theory: A Model for Analyzing the Interaction of Auditory, Visual, and Narrative Stimuli in Multimediatic Artforms
Advisor(s): Sumanth Gopinath
Kristi Oeding
Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences
Customizing Speech in Noise Programs for Optimum Intelligibility and Comfort
Advisor(s): Peggy Nelson and Evelyn Davies-Venn
Ryan Oto
Education, Curriculum and Instruction
"Why work here? This place is so ghetto": Portraits of teaching with and for racial justice in an urban school
Advisor(s): J.B. Mayo
Bruno Poggi Cevallos
Mathematics
Schrodinger Operator: Optimal Decay of Fundamental Solutions and Boundary Value Problems
Advisor(s): Svitlana Mayboroda
Nithya Rajan
Feminist Studies
The Politics of Labor, Livelihood, and Living: Afghan Refugee Women’s Experiences in India
Advisor(s): Richa Nagar and Sima Shakhsari
Joshua Reno
Classical and Near Eastern Studies
Holy Obscenity: Sexual Invective in the Pauline Corpus
Advisor(s): Stephen Ahearne-Kroll and Melissa Sellew
Rebeca Rodriguez
Chemistry
SERS Detection of Food Contaminants with Linear Polymer Affinity Agents
Advisor(s): Christy Haynes
Omme (Leila) Saberi
Earth Sciences
Impacts of Glacier Retreat on Water and Ecological Resources in a Warming World
Advisor(s): Crystal Ng
Alireza Sadeghi
Electrical Engineering
Scalable learning robust to uncertainties and adversaries with applications in cyber-physical systems
Advisor(s): Georgios Giannakis
Oscar Camilo Salgado Barrero
Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology
Understanding mechanisms of immune tolerance
Advisor(s): Kristin Hogquist
Joseph Sannicandro
Comparative Studies In Discourse and Society
Impossible Spaces: The Problem of Mediation in Italian Aesthetics and Politics, 1967-1983
Advisor(s): Laurie Ouellette and Michael Gallope
Agnès Schaffauser
French
Figures of the Migrant: Ethics and Aesthetics in Francophone Literature and Cinema
Advisor(s): Hakim Abderrezak and Ioana Vartolomei Pribiag
Megan Schmit
Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, & Biophysics
Genetic mechanisms driving natural killer cell deficiency
Advisor(s): Anja Bielinsky
Daniel Schubring
Physics
Exploring Hidden Corners of Sigma Models
Advisor(s): Mikhail Shifman
Craig See
Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
Effects of mycorrhizal fungi on ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycling
Advisor(s): Sarah Hobbie and Peter Kennedy
Andrei Semenov
Child Psychology
Improving Child Executive Functions Through Parent/Child Interactions
Advisor(s): Peggy Nelson and Evelyn Davies-VennPhil Zelazo
Haram Seo
Business Administration
Who creates the norm?: Evidence from corporate philanthropy in contentious social issues
Advisor(s): Aseem Kaul and Jiao Luo
Leah Shepard-Carey
Education, Curriculum and Instruction
Sustaining Multilingualism and Diverse Ways of Sensemaking: Exploring the Possibilities of Multilingual Literacy Pedagogies with Young English Learners.
Advisor(s): Martha Bigelow and Lori Helman
Kaicheng Shi
Materials Science and Engineering
Probing Dark Exciton Transport in Organic Semiconductors
Advisor(s): Russell Holmes
Robin Sifre
Child Psychology
Brain Development and Attention Coordination in Infancy
Advisor(s): Jed Elison and Dan Berry
Karthik Srinivasan
Electrical Engineering
Magneto-Optic Isolators - The Missing-Link in Integrated Photonics
Advisor(s): Bethanie Stadler
Anna Stadelman
Epidemiology
Development and external validation of a clinical prediction tool for the diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis
Advisor(s): David Boulware and Claudia Munoz-Zanzi
Caitlin Taborda-Whitt
Sociology
“The Gift that Pays? Money, Morals, and Bodies in the Plasma Fractionation Market”
Advisor(s): Penny Edgell and Kathy Hull
Matthew Tchepikova-Treon
American Studies
"X-Rated Sound: Exploitation Cinema & One Hundred Years of 1972"
Advisor(s): Maggie Hennefeld
Yi Hui Tee
Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics
Resolving the Dynamics of Particles in Turbulent Wall-Bounded Flow
Advisor(s): Ellen Longmire
Anh Tran
Entomology
Migration or Overwintering? Investigating the Cold Survival Strategy of an Invasive Pest Species
Advisor(s): Sujaya Rao and Mary Rogers
Dao Tran
Social and Administrative Pharmacy
Impact of Concurrent Antibiotic Use on Effectiveness of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Patients with Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
Advisor(s): David Stenehjem
Elisah VandenBussche
Chemical Engineering
Non-Equilibrium Energy Transport Studied Using Ultrafast Electron Microscopy
Advisor(s): David Flannigan
Nicolaas VanMeerten
Educational Psychology
A Game-Based Solution to the Lack of Training and Assessment Opportunities for Spatial Reasoning
Advisor(s): Keisha Varma
German Vargas Gutierrez
Plant Biological Sciences
The role of functional traits in tropical dry forest drought tolerance across ecological and temporal scales
Advisor(s): Jennifer Powers
Cody Walters
Neuroscience
Representational dynamics underlying risky decision-making
Advisor(s): A. David Redish
Pu Wang
Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
Exploring the coexistence of unicellular and multicellular life
Advisor(s): Michael Travisano
Heng Wang
Mechanical Engineering
Electromagnetic Position Estimation Using High-Permeability Materials: Design, Modelling, and applications
Advisor(s): Rajesh Rajamani
Ya-Feng Wen
Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology
Reducing Health Disparities in Cardiovascular Diseases through Individualized Approaches
Advisor(s): Robert Straka
Emily Willoughby
Psychology
Tracing cases and consequences of human intelligence through genetic and cognitive data
Advisor(s): James Lee and Matt McGue
Yiming Wu
Physics
The interplay between superconductivity and non-Fermi liquid in quantum ctritical metals
Advisor(s): Andrey Chubukov
Masoud Zabihi
Electrical Engineering
In-Memory Processing Using Spintronic Computational RAM (CRAM)
Advisor(s): Sachin Sapatnekar
Jingchen Zhang
Family Social Science
Parenting gets under the skin: Impact of a parenting intervention on parent-child physiological co-regulation in military families
Advisor(s): Abigail Gewirtz
Rachel Zmora
Epidemiology
Mortality and Cause of Death Following Pediatric Cardiac Surgery for Congenital Heart Defects
Advisor(s): Kamakshi Lakshminarayan