Dissertations: June 28, 2022
DISSERTATIONS DEFENDED
Anthropology
Carr, Danielle. Political anatomies of the cyborg: Liberal subjects and neural engineering. Sponsors: Nadia Abu El-Haj and Rosalind Morris.
Applied Physics
Karp, Jonathan. Theoretical studies of unconventional superconductivity in materials with strong electronic correlations. Sponsors: Chris Marianetti and Andrew Millis.
Art History and Archaeology
Zhu, Cathy. Born in a golden light: Omens, art, and succession in the Southern Song (1127-1279). Sponsor: Robert Harrist.
Biological Sciences
Cros, Cyril. C. elegans Sine oculis/SIX-type homeobox genes act as homeotic switches to define neuronal subtype identities. Sponsor: Oliver Hobert.
Biomedical Engineering
Brudnicki, Philip. Development of a fibrous, collagen-based analog of the extracellular matrix. Sponsor: Helen Lu.
Harimoto, Tetsuhiro. Engineering bacteria: From cancer and to granulomas. Sponsor: Tal Danino.
Karageorgos, Grigorios Mario. High frame rate imaging of arterial wall mechanics and blood flow dynamics for atherosclerosis diagnosis and monitoring. Sponsor: Elisa Konofagou.
Marshall, Brittany. The role of the subacromial bursa in rotator cuff tendon response to injury and healing. Sponsor: Stavros Thomopoulos.
Shi, Lingting. Mechanosensing of human regulatory T cell induction. Sponsor: Lance C. Kam.
Sundaresh, Sowmya. Brain tissue biomechanics and pathobiology of blast-induced traumatic brain injury. Sponsor: Barclay Morrison.
Sutton, Michael. The influence of microtubules and microtubule-based structures on Osteoclast and CD4+ T cell function. Sponsor: Lance C. Kam.
Thibodeaux, David. Neuronal and hemodynamic functional connectivity in the awake mouse. Sponsor: Elizabeth Hillman.
Wu, Josephine. Engineering spatiotemporal cues for directed cartilage formation. Sponsor: Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic.
Biomedical Informatics
Bear Don't Walk, Oliver. Manually and automatically extracting race and ethnicity from clinical notes to support clinical informatics. Sponsor: Noémie Elhadad.
Biostatistics
Hu, Bo. The joint modeling of longitudinal covariates and censored quantile regression for health applications. Sponsors: Bin Cheng and Ying Wei.
Business: Finance
Mansouri, Seyed. Three essays in corporate finance and economic development. Sponsor: Daniel Wolfenzon.
Cellular Physiology and Biophysics
Papa, Arianne. Elucidating the mechanism of beta-adrenergic regulation of calcium channels in the heart. Sponsor: Steven O. Marx.
Cellular, Molecular, and Biomedical Studies
Colón Ortiz, Crystal. Vascular-glial signaling in neurovascular injury. Sponsor: Carol Troy.
Wayne, Charlotte. Roles of Th17 cytokines in microglial and neurovascular responses to recurrent intranasal Streptococcus pyogenes infection. Sponsor: Dritan Agalliu.
Chemical Engineering
Alkhodairi, Husam. Compatibilization of immiscible polymer blends using polymer-grafted nanoparticles. Sponsor: Sanat Kumar.
Massad, Nadim. Engineering enzymes for cofactor recycling and carbon fixation. Sponsor: Scott Banta.
Chemical Physics
Callahan, James. Applications of coupled cluster theory to models of extended systems of fermions. Sponsor: Timothy Berkelbach.
Greene, Samuel. Stochastic electronic structure methods for molecules and crystalline solids. Sponsor: Timothy Berkelbach.
Chemistry
Parenti, Kaia. Controlling multiexciton dynamics in intramolecular singlet fission. Sponsor: Luis Campos.
Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Douba, Ala Eddin. Nano-engineered cement for 3D printing concrete. Sponsor: Shiho Kawashima.
Classical Studies
Noé, Mariana. Virtue and change in Plato's laws. Sponsor: Katja Vogt.
Sokolowski, Deborah. Inventing Roman Bithynia: Rural cultures and identities in the 1st-3rd centuries CE. Sponsors: Francesco de Angelis and John Ma.
Classics
Lambert, Catherine. Bad readers in ancient Rome. Sponsor: Nancy Worman.
Van Geel, Lien. Soror Augusti: The literary lives and afterlives of Octavia Minor. Sponsors: Katharina Volk and Gareth Williams.
Computer Science
Bayat, Niloofar. Internet subscription plans: Thresholding, throttling, and zero-rating. Sponsors: Vishal Misra and Daniel Rubenstein.
Kwiatkowski, Robert. Deep self-modeling for robotic systems. Sponsor: Hod Lipson.
Roellke, Dennis. Detection, triage, and attribution of PII phishing campaigns. Sponsor: Salvatore Stolfo.
Vodrahalli, Kiran. Sparse, low-rank & memory-bounded: Resource-efficient learning methods. Sponsor: Alexandr Andoni.
Watkins, David. Learning mobile manipulation. Sponsor: Peter Allen.
Earth and Environmental Engineering
Fan, Hanqing. Developing ion-selective membrane technologies at the water-energy nexus. Sponsor: Ngai Yin Yip.
Massmann, Adam. Theory and causality: Estimating ecosystem response to aridity. Sponsor: Pierre Gentine.
McCartney, Stephanie. Advancing membrane technologies for recovery of phosphorus and nitrogen from human urine. Sponsor: Ngai Yin Yip.
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Zhou, Yuxin. Atlantic meridional overturning circulation instabilities during the last glacial cycle. Sponsor: Jerry McManus.
East Asian Languages and Cultures
Chambers, Harlan. Revolutionary times: Temporalities of mobilization and narrative in China’s Revolution. Sponsor: Lydia Liu.
Kaplan-Reyes, Alexander. Flowers on the battlefield: Intimacy and hierarchy in the construction of Japanese warrior masculinities, 1507-1636. Sponsors: David Lurie and Gregory Pflugfelder.
Wu, Dongming. The bronze economy and the making of the southern borderlands in the Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BCE). Sponsor: Feng Li.
Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
Akana, Palani. Patterns, mechanisms, and implications of spatial variability in the ecological processes regulating nutrient access by forest trees. Sponsor: Duncan Menge.
Anujan, Krishna. The role of community assembly filters in governing the biodiversity-productivity relationship: Tests of theory on real gradients. Sponsor: Shahid Naeem.
Siller, Stefanie. Epigenetic modification of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis during early life of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus). Sponsor: Dustin Rubenstein.
Economics
Saluja, Arpita. Essays on organizational economics. Sponsor: Suresh Naidu.
Electrical Engineering
Buchanan, Sam. Deep learning through the lens of low-dimensional structure. Sponsor: John Wright.
English and Comparative Literature
Newby, Diana. Passive life: Vitalism and British fiction, 1820-1880. Sponsor: Sharon Marcus.
Park, Yea Jung. Fictions of discernment in late medieval England. Sponsor: Eleanor Johnson.
Terlunen, Milan. All along...! The prehistory of the plot twist in nineteenth-century fiction. Sponsors: Sharon Marcus and Dennis Tenen.
Tripathi, Ameya. Documents of revolution: Literacy, translation and internationalism in the Spanish Civil War. Sponsor: Sarah Cole.
Environmental Health Sciences
Rowland, Sebastian. The twin crises of climate change and air pollution: Characterizing the acute cardiovascular effects of temperature and uncertainties of fine particulate matter concentrations. Sponsor: Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou.
Epidemiology
Mao, Jialin. Applying a multilevel framework to investigating racial and ethnic disparities in robot-assisted surgery and associated outcomes for prostate cancer. Sponsor: Parisa Tehranifar.
Reeping, Paul. The effect of gun-free zones on crimes committed with a firearm and active shootings in the United States. Sponsor: Charles Branas.
French and Romance Philology
Carter, Noni. Homo narrans: In pursuit of science's fictions of the 'human' in 18th-century speculative science and 20th- and 21st-century speculative literature. Sponsor: Madeleine Dobie.
Raichlen, Katherine. Papering over: Family, identity and twentieth-century Jewish migration in Francophone literature and film. Sponsor: Madeleine Dobie.
Genetics and Development
Crowley, Laura. Investigating heterogeneity in the mouse prostate epithelium. Sponsor: Michael Shen.
Goldberg, Elizabeth. The role of NSD1 in oral squamous homeostasis and HNSCC tumorigenesis. Sponsors: Chao Lu and Cathy Mendelsohn.
History
Donovan, Joshua. Imagining antioch: Sectarianism, nationalism, and migration in the Greek Orthodox levant, 1860-1958. Sponsors: Marwa Elshakry and Rashid Khalidi.
Enríquez Flores, Fabiola. The politics of devotion: Militant Catholicism and the fight for the Spanish Empire in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Sponsor: Caterina Pizzigoni.
Ryan, Thomas. War at the exhibition: Militarism and mass culture in South Korea, 1946-1973. Sponsors: Lien-Hang Nguyen and Anders Stephanson.
Turtur, Noelle. Making fascist empire work: Italian enterprises, labor, and organized-community in occupied Ethiopia, 1896-1943. Sponsor: Victoria De Grazia.
Woodsum, Antonina. Fiesta immemorial: Colonial and carceral relations with native nations in Southern California. Sponsor: Karl Jacoby.
Italian
Mecozzi, Lorenzo. The retrospective novel: The romance of the self. Sponsor: Elizabeth Leake.
Sbuttoni, Claudia. The value of dust: Memory and identity at Italy's margins. Sponsor: Elizabeth Leake.
Latin American and Iberian Cultures
Alberdi, Begoña. El arte nuevo de cocinar: género, trabajo y tecnologías en Chile y Argentina, 1890-1945. Sponsor: Graciela Montaldo.
Becerra, Felipe. Oficina fantasma: tecnología, escritura y prácticas editoriales en América Latina (1964 – 1984). Sponsor: Graciela Montaldo.
Materials Science and Engineering
Cao, Wei. Spin-pumping effects in ferromagnetic thin film heterostructures measured through ferromagnetic resonance. Sponsor: William Bailey.
Mechanical Engineering
Cornell, Rodger. Kinetic experiments and data-driven modeling for energetic material combustion. Sponsor: Michael Burke.
Conlon, Terence. Assessing the impact of electrification on energy system planning: Analyses in New York State and Ethiopia. Sponsor: Vijay Modi.
Ismail, Ayman. Higher order repetitive control for external signals with uncertain periods. Sponsor: Richard Longman.
Fobi Nsutezo, Sally Simone. Data driven decision support for low access electricity settings. Sponsor: Vijay Modi.
Wang, Chao. Assessment of crosslink density in collagen models and ultrafast laser crosslinking of corneal and cartilage tissues as novel treatment modalities. Sponsor: Sinisa Vukelic.
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies
Ambler, Catherine. Masters of the distant meanings: Unity and multiplicity in the Persian poesis of freshness. Sponsor: Hamid Dabashi.
El Houdaiby, Ibrahim. Universalizing Egypt, 1854-1876: Suez Canal, debt, corvee, and the rise of modern government. Sponsor: Timothy Mitchell.
Halliwell, John. Creed & credit: An anthropology of debt and bankruptcy in Islamic law. Sponsor: Brinkley Messick.
Malak, Karim. Counting colonialism: Calculation, Egypt, Britain and the Ottoman Empire 1805-1954. Sponsor: Timothy Mitchell.
Music
Dawes, Laina. "Freedom ain't free:" Race and representation(s) in extreme heavy metal. Sponsor: Kevin Fellezs.
Turner, Madeleine. Rethinking Beethoven's middle style: Form, time, and disruption in the chamber music of 1806-15. Sponsor: Elaine Sisman.
Neurobiology and Behavior
Paquelet, Grace. Single-cell activity and network properties of dorsal raphe serotonin neurons during emotional behaviors. Sponsor: René Hen.
Nursing
Estrada, Leah. Racial and ethnic differences in palliative care services and potentially avoidable hospitalizations at end of life in nursing homes nationwide. Sponsor: Patricia Stone.
Idnay, Betina Ross. Improving eligibility prescreening for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias clinical trials with natural language processing. Sponsor: Rebecca Schnall.
Kueakomoldej, Supakorn. Optimizing the nurse practitioner workforce and patient outcomes in community health centers. Sponsor: Lusine Poghosyan.
Operations Research
Fu, Weilong. Innovative derivative pricing and time series simulation techniques via machine and deep learning. Sponsor: Ali Hirsa.
Gao, Yuan. New optimization models and methods for classical, infinite-dimensional, and online fisher markets. Sponsor: Christian Kroer.
Hanguir, Oussama. Algorithms for matching problems under data accessibility constraints. Sponsor: Clifford Stein.
Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine
Croce, Katherine. Using selective autophagy to determine protein aggregation's pathogenic contribution to neurodegenerative disease. Sponsor: Ai Yamamoto.
Pharmacology and Molecular Signaling
Aaron, Nicole. the role of Pparγ acetylation and Adipsin in adipose tissue dysfunction. Sponsor: Li Qiang.
Daniels, Jacob. Molecular insights into Ferroptosis as a therapeutic target for Huntington’s disease. Sponsor: Brent Stockwell.
Physics
Harrellson, Steven. Hydration solids. Sponsor: Ozgur Sahin.
Vazquez-Carson, Sebastian. Doppler and sisyphus cooling of calcium monohydride molecules. Sponsor: Tanya Zelevinsky.
Political Science
Mohamed, Ahmed Ezzeldin. Religious cycles of policy responsiveness: How religious seasons regulate public opinion and government responsiveness in the Muslim world. Sponsor: Daniel Corstange.
Pocasangre Meneses, Oscar. The political consequences of long-term violence in Mexico. Sponsor: Maria Victoria Murillo.
Ragazzoni, David. From parliamentarism to party democracy: Parliaments, parties, and leaders, Weber to Kelsen. Sponsors: Turkuler Isiksel and Nadia Urbinati.
Psychology
Goldring, Megan. A componential model of stress reactivity in daily life. Sponsor: Niall Bolger.
Religion
Dolfi, Elizabeth. Trafficking in restoration: Building God's kingdom in the evangelical anti-trafficking movement. Sponsor: Courtney Bender.
Esparza, Daniel. Broken engagements: A study of forgiveness. Sponsor: Mark Taylor.
Slavic Languages
Pekov, Alex. Toward a transmediterranean genealogy: Matrilineal legacies in Sephardi women writers from the former Yugoslavia and the Maghreb. Sponsor: Valentina Izmirlieva.
Social Work
Aivadyan, Christina. Assessing the impact of state-level confidentiality-relevant laws on U.S. adolescents' HIV testing practices. Sponsor: Elwin Wu.
Giorgio Cosenzo, Luciana. Examining the sociocultural context of insomnia among Latinx adults: A three-paper dissertation. Sponsor: Carmela Alcántara.
Kwon, Sarah. Three essays on child care policy. Sponsor: Jane Waldfogel.
Sociology
Brensinger, Jordan. Producing "unique" consumers: Identity theft and insecurity in the data. Sponsor: Gil Eyal.
Statistics
Davison, Andrew. Statistical perspectives on modern network embedding methods. Sponsor: Tian Zheng.
Deb, Nabarun. Blessing of dependence and distribution-freeness in statistical hypothesis testing. Sponsors: Sumit Mukherjee and Bodhisattva Sen.
Ratcliffe, Bridget. Statistical approach to tagging stellar birth groups in the Milky Way. Sponsors: Melissa Ness and Bodhisattva Sen.
Ward, Owen. Latent variable models for events on social networks. Sponsor: Tian Zheng.
TC / Clinical Psychology
Mandavia, Amar. Modeling mechanisms of human immunodeficiency virus and sexually transmitted infections contraction among serodiscordant couples. Sponsor: Barry Farber.
Sardana, Srishti. Social capital, interpersonal social support, and mental health outcomes in Syrian refugees and host population in Lebanon: A dynamic networks approach. Sponsor: Helen Verdeli.
TC / Cognitive Science in Education
Tang, Jean. The neurobehavioral basis of parallel individuation and the approximate number system. Sponsor: Peter Gordon.
TC / Counseling Psychology
Scott-Mclaughlin, Randolph. The effect of student race and class intersections on the assignment of school-based resources. Sponsor: Laura Smith.
TC / English Education
Gordon, Noah. Unanswered questions: An educational autobiography of endless apprenticeship. Sponsor: Sheridan Blau.
Oujo, Maria. Latino students and digital storytelling: Producers of knowledge in a college English classroom. Sponsor: Ruth Vinz.
TC / Philosophy and Education
Ignaffo, Timothy. Toward a pedagogy of paidia. Sponsor: Robert McClintock.
TC / School Psychology
Khoo, Olivia. Youth mental health first aid for educators of immigrant-origin youth: A mixed-method evaluation of the virtual delivery approach. Sponsor: Prerna Arora.
Kurtz, Rosemarie. Sleep disturbance as a predictor of memory impairment in multiple Sclerosis. Sponsor: Stephen Peverly.
TC / Science Education
Whitaker, Audrey Rabi. Examining validity and coherence in a cognitively-based science performance assessment. Sponsor: Ann Rivet.
TC / Teaching of Social Studies
Blanco, Martha. Testimonio as pedagogy of disruption: Central American teachers engagement with youth testimonios about immigration and the effects of American empire. Sponsor: Christine Baron.
Urban Planning
Dublin-Boc Sor, Jenna. Roles of historic districts in neighborhood land use activism. Sponsor: Lance Freeman.
DISSERTATION PROPOSALS FILED
Biomedical Engineering
Kline Schoder, Alina. Brain macrophage and extracellular vesicle response to focused ultrasound neuroimmunotherapy.
Lee, Sang Won. Deep learning strategies for COVID-19 post-infection management and pandemic preparation.
Zhu, Hongkun. State-dependent functional connectivity in epilepsy patients.
Biomedical Informatics
Zhang, Linying. Casual machine learning on observational healthcare data for treatment effect estimation and health equity assessment.
Chemical Engineering
Komurcuoglu, Cem. Understanding atomic scale degradation kinetics of Ni-rich cathodes from first-principles.
Mendez, Nicholas. Durable semicrystalline polymer nanocomposite design through crystallization-induced ordering.
Ooi, Whai Shin. Rationale ligand design to enhance hydrometallurgical extraction and recovery of metals and critical elements from unconventional resources.
Sun, Kerry. Interfacial instability of LiFePO4-Argyrodite solid electrolytes in solid-state Li-ion batteries.
Turaczy, Kevin. Two way approach for CO2 integration with polymer waster upcycling.
Zhou, Jessica. A biometric platform for modeling the intestine.
Classical Studies
Lovisetto, Giovanni. Body scripts. Modifying masculinity in ancient Greece.
Classics
Harmsworth, Geoffrey. Crowds and power: Urban society and popular politics in the Greek cities of the Roman Empire.
Computer Science
Barker, Martha. Using dataflow as an abstraction for hardware design.
East Asian Languages and Cultures
Kim, Stella. Bodies of virtue: Reproduction and motherhood in early modern Korea.
Lethen, Hana. Configurations of attachment: Madness and gender in Nō theater.
Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
Monagan, Ivan. Traits and environment predict extinction vulnerability to habitat fragmentation in Madagascar's herpetofauna.
Economics
Campbell, Zakary. Applied microeconomic and behavioral economic studies of the justice system.
Cremin, John. Social learning with motivated beliefs.
Guo, Jeffrey. Essays in experimental economics.
Jiang, Michelle. Essays on information, networks, and choice in the labor market.
Jiao, Dian. Religiosity and firm productivity: Evidence from Indian firms.
Kumar, Utkarsh. Essays in development economics.
Lal, Parijat. Essays in development and public economics.
Morrison, Wendy. Optimal redistribution with non-homothetic preferences and capital-task complimentarity and the labor income channel of monetary policy.
Parimoo, Suneil. Essays in economic theory.
Rivera, Roman. Essays on the economics of policing and crime.
Scanlan, Susannah. Information choice in forecast factor structure.
Shore, Edward. Essays on analysis.
Vaughn, Mitchell. Essays in international macroeconomics.
Velloso, Bruno. Growth opportunities and risk factors facing emerging market firms.
Zhang, Qianyang. The essays on urban amenities and housing market capitalization.
French and Romance Philology
Desjardins-Mooney, Zachary. The State and the everyday in postwar France (1965-1985).
Langewiesche, Anna. Historical utopian novels in France.
Manansala, Katherine. Authoring the nation: Revolutions in literary property and the invention of France.
History
Le, Adrienne. The Vietnamese Buddhist anti-war movement, 1960-75.
Latin American and Iberian Cultures
Battezzati, María Agustina. Constelaciones artísticas: procesos de transformación, anacronismos y desfasajes en Argentina. 1990s - 2000s.
Blanco Martínez, Miguel Ángel. Artivist trends for feminist worlds: A cultural analysis of social mobilization in Spain during the cycle 2010s-2020s.
Bucchioni, Tulio. Queer Marxism out of the West: Cold War gay and queer imaginaries in Brazil, Cuba and East Germany.
Music
Wilson, Imogen. Queer nostalgia in analyzing popular music.
Woods, Grant. By right of inheritance: Empire and identity in the first British folk revival.
Nursing
Turi, Eleanor. Primary care workforce availability, nurse practitioner care environment, and ED utilization among older adults with drug use disorders in rural areas.
Philosophy
Hu, Yitu. Moral objectivity.
Medina-Kirchner, Christopher. Repeated administrations of amphetamine derivatives alone and in combination with other psychoactive substances.
Morse, Devin. Communication and liability.
Slavic Languages
Kim, Yulia. Violent poetics: Russian formalism and the early-Soviet avant-garde.