Dissertations: August 10, 2020

DISSERTATIONS DEFENDED

Applied Mathematics

• Stein, Oded. Smoothness energies in geometry processing. Sponsor: Eitan Grinspun.

Architecture

• Ray, Rosalie. Building political support for roadspace reallocation. Sponsor: Elliott Sclar.

Art History and Archaeology

• Kobasa, Clare. Sacred impressions: Printmaking in seventeenth-century Sicily. Sponsor: Michael Cole.

Astronomy

• Sandford, Emily. The shape of planets and planetary systems. Sponsor: David Kipping.
• Teachey, Alexander. On the detection and characterization of exomoons through survey and targeted observations. Sponsor: David Kipping.

Biological Sciences

• Kahl, Lisa. Strategies in pseudomonas aeruginosa for metabolic homeostasis in response to environmental factors. Sponsor: Lars Dietrich.
• Littleford, Hana. Investigations into a bHLH code for C. elegans somatic gonad regulatory cell fate and function. Sponsor: Iva Greenwald.

Biomedical Engineering

• Blumenfeld, Nicole. Engineering technology for accessible precision therapeutics and diagnostics. Sponsor: Samuel Sia.

Business

• Lemaire, Alain. Essays on the use of computational linguistic in marketing. Sponsor: Oded Netzer.

Cellular, Molecular, and Biomedical Studies

• Baldera-Aguayo, Pedro. Engineering yeasts for in situ production of fungal tetracyclines. Sponsor: Virginia Cornish.

Chemical Engineering

• Winter, Lea. Upgrading Carbon and Nitrogen to fuels and chemicals using heterogeneous and plasma catalysis. Sponsor: Jingguang Chen.

Chemistry

• Greenberg, Matthew. Formation mechanism of monodisperse colloidal semiconductor quantum dots in solution: A study of nanoscale nucleation and growth. Sponsor: Jonathan Owen.
• Matragrano, Joseph. Engineering yeast G protein-coupled receptors for biosensor development. Sponsor: Virginia Cornish.
• Wang, Jihang. A chemical platform for non-genetic targeted voltage imaging in the brain. Sponsor: Dalibor Sames.

Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics

• Petromichelakis, Ioannis. Path integral techniques and Gröbner basis approaches for stochastic response analysis and optimization of diverse nonlinear dynamic systems. Sponsor: Ioannis Kougioumtzoglou.

Communications

• Tahir, Madiha. Grounding drone warfare. Sponsors: David Stark and Elizabeth Povinelli..

Computer Science

• Atlidakis, Evangelos. Structure and feedback in cloud service REST API fuzzing. Sponsor: Roxana Geambasu.
• Waingarten, Erik. New methods in sublinear computation for high dimensional problems. Sponsor: Xi Chen.

Earth and Environmental Sciences

• Baek, Seung Hun. Hydroclimatic black swans: Characterization of the oceanic and atmospheric drivers of spatially widespread droughts in North America. Sponsor: Jason Smerdon.
• Blatter, Daniel. Constraining fluid properties in the mantle and crust using Bayesian inversion of electromagnetic data. Sponsor: Kerry Key.
• Maurer, Joshua. Mountain glacier change across regions and timescales. Sponsor: Joerg Schaefer.
• Rao, Mukund. Hydroclimate variability and environmental change in Eurasia over the past millennium and its impacts. Sponsor: Edward Cook.
• Tejada Lara, Julia. Testing foundational tenents of stable isotope analyses in neotropical mammalian communities, and implications for terrestrial paleoecology. Sponsors: John Flynn and Joaquim Goes.

Electrical Engineering

• Abrams, Nathan. Development of silicon photonic multi chip module transceivers. Sponsor: Keren Bergman.
• Chen, Tingjun. Algorithms and experimentation for future wireless networks: From Internet-of-things to full-duplex. Sponsor: Gil Zussman.
• Zhang, Fengqi. Applications of analog techniques in power management integrated circuits. Sponsor: Kenneth Shepard.
• Zhang, Yihan. Integrated circuit design for miniaturized, trackable, ultrasound based biomedical implants. Sponsor: Kenneth Shepard.

English and Comparative Literature

• Eckert, Sierra. The research aesthetic: Information and the form of the Victorian novel. Sponsor: Nicholas Dames.
• Peh, Li Qi. Dispassionate descriptions: Disciplining emotion in the long eighteenth century. Sponsor: Jenny Davidson.

Environmental Health Sciences

• He, Mike. Air pollution and adverse health effects: Assessing exposure windows and sensitivity to modeling choices. Sponsor: Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou.

Epidemiology

• Fink, David. Effect modification by socioeconomic conditions on the effects of prescription opioid supply on drug poisoning deaths in the United States. Sponsor: Deborah Hasin.

Germanic Languages

• Price, Joshua. "A velt mit veltlekh": On the translation of world literature into Yiddish, 1869-1950. Sponsor: Jeremy Dauber.

Mechanical Engineering

• Park, Sangwoo. Towards a wearable and functional active hand robot for stroke patients. Sponsor: Matei Ciocarlie.
• Yu, Miao. Microstructure analysis and surface planarization of excimer-laser annealed Si thin films. Sponsor: James Im.

Neurobiology and Behavior

• Gilboa, Dar. Efficient nonconvex optimization in neural network training. Sponsor: John Wright.

Nursing

• Abraham, Cilgy. Predictors and outcomes of nurse practitioner burnout in primary care practices. Sponsor: Lusine Poghosyan.

Operations Research

• El Housni, Omar. Tractable policies in dynamic robust optimization. Sponsor: Vineet Goyal.
• Goutam, Kumar. Modeling customer preferences through choice models and assortment optimization. Sponsors: Vineet Goyal and Henry Lam.

Philosophy

• Cabezas Gamarra, César. Structural racism and the explanation of durable racial inequality. Sponsor: Robert Gooding-Williams.

Physics

• Telford, Evan. Magnetotransport studies of correlated electronic phases in Van der Waals materials. Sponsor: Cory Dean.

Political Science

• Joyce, Renanah. Exporting might and right: Great power security assistance and developing militaries. Sponsor: Robert Jervis.
• Mangonnet, Jorge. Property formation, labor repression, and state capacity in imperial Brazil. Sponsor: Maria Victoria Murillo.

Statistics

• Wang, Yixin. Multiple causal inference with Bayesian factor models. Sponsor: David Blei.

TC / Clinical Psychology

• Kao, Chienwen. Examining social networks of infant and young child caregiving in Uganda and its association with maternal depression. Sponsor: Helen Verdeli.

TC / Cognitive Science in Education

• Gao, Jun. Using different instructional supports to help students learn emergent processes. Sponsor: John Black.

TC / Educational Leadership

• Oconnor, Christy. A longitudinal developmentally intentional leadership institute for teacher leaders. Sponsor: Eleanor Drago-Severson.

TC / Measurement and Evaluation

• Lu, Rui. Feature selection for high dimensional causal inference. Sponsor: Bryan Keller.

Urban Planning

• Marcello, Elizabeth. State public authorities, local politics, and democratic planning: New York's Empire State Development Corporation. Sponsor: Robert Beauregard.

DISSERTATION PROPOSALS FILED

Applied Physics

• Stewart, Ian. Transport barrier formation on HBT-EP.

Art History and Archaeology

• Dostal, Alexandra. Rope, linen, thread, paper: Gender, labor, and the textile industry in eighteenth-century British art.

Biomedical Engineering

• Antrobus, Romare. Microbial cellulose biofabrication for textile and tissue engineering.
• Ji, Robin. Applications of focused ultrasound driven microbubble cavitation for blood-brain barrier opening.

Chemical Engineering

• Qu, Jianzhou. First-principles modeling of membrane-coated electrocatalysts.

Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics

• Suh, Hyoung Suk. Computational microporomechanics for phase-changing geomaterials.

Computer Science

• Koh, John. Easy public key cryptography and key management.

History

• Colpa, Luz. Looking for love: Affect, marriage and immigration between France and Senegal, 1939-1980.
• Guadarrama Dominguez, Luis Andrei. Transportation, real estate, and the politics of urban development in Mexico City, 1860-1980.

Mechanical Engineering

• Al Aali, Ibraheam. Optimal sizing and control of ice thermal storage in chilled water systems combined with solar PV and variable electricity rates.

Music

• Stoumbos, Mary. Hearing the canary in the coal mine: An investigation of privately funded music programs in New Jersey public schools.

Nursing

• Bilazarian, Ani. Primary practice capabilities and emergency department utilization in high-need high-cost patients.
• Breder, Kelseanne. Social networking, health and wellbeing in LGBT older adults.
• Schwartz, Jessica. Clinician trust in predictive clinical decision support for in-hospital deterioration.