Dissertations: May 17, 2021

Art History and Archaeology

• Du, Xiaohan. Yishan Yining (1247-1317) and the development of Zen calligraphy in medieval Japan. Sponsor: Robert Harrist.
• Schneller, David. Beyond foreign origins: Transformation, adaptation, and local production in archaic Greek sanctuaries. Sponsor: Ioannis Mylonopoulos.

Biomedical Informatics

• Kang, Tian. Towards unified medical evidence computation from literature for evidence-based medicine. Sponsor: Chunhua Weng.

Business

• Gritckevich, Aleksandr. Essays on digital advertising. Sponsor: Miklos Sarvary.
• Peddireddy, Venkat Ramana. Estimating maintenance capex. Sponsor: Shivaram Rajgopal.

Cellular, Molecular, and Biomedical Studies

• Murithi, James. Dissecting the mechanisms of resistance to antiplasmodial compounds in Plasmodium falciparum. Sponsor: David Fidock.

Chemical Engineering

• Lin, Zhexi. Catalytic transformation of biomass-derived oxygenates on transition metal carbide, nitride, and oxide surfaces. Sponsor: Alan West.

Chemistry

• Hassan, Isra. Asymmetric lactam synthesis with a monomeric streptavidin artificial metalloenzyme. Sponsor: Tomislav Rovis.
• Sun, Mengzhen. Machine learning applications in proteins: Structure prediction and interaction prediction. Sponsor: Richard Friesner.

Computer Science

• Zhong, Peilin. New primitive for tackling graph problems and their applications in parallel computing. Sponsors: Alexandr Andoni and Mihalis Yannakakis.

Earth and Environmental Sciences

• Min, Elizabeth. Quantifying the effects of herbivores and climate change on Arctic tundra carbon cycling. Sponsor: Kevin Griffin.
• Patterson, Angelica. Seeing the forest for the trees: The physiological responses of temperate trees in a warmer world. Sponsor: Kevin Griffin.

Economics

• Goff, Leonard. Essays in applied econometrics and labor economics. Sponsors: Simon Lee and Suresh Naidu.
• Nguyen, Dieu Hoa. Essays on school choice and academic performance: Evidence from Vietnam. Sponsors: Cristian Pop-Eleches and Miguel Urquiola.

DISSERTATIONS DEFENDED

Economics

• Warnes, Pablo. Essays in urban economics. Sponsors: Donald Davis and David Weinstein.
• Zhang, Ye. Field experiments in entrepreneurial finance. Sponsors: Harrison Hong and Jack Willis.
• Zytnick, Jonathon. Essays on law and economics. Sponsor: Suresh Naidu.

Epidemiology

• Oskar, Sabine. Exposure to phthalates during critical windows of susceptibility and breast tissue composition: Implications for breast cancer risk. Sponsor: Jasmine McDonald.

French and Romance Philology

• Ferreira, Caio. Beyond the plausible: On the relationship between history, tragedy and epic poetry in Corneille, Voltaire and Schiller. Sponsor: Pierre Force.

Germanic Languages

• Schulz, Miriam. Keyner iz nit fargesn: Soviet Yiddish antifascism and the Holocaust. Sponsor: Jeremy Dauber.

History

• Jones, Christopher. Power and elite competition in the neo-Assyrian empire, 745-612 B.C.. Sponsor: Marc Van De Mieroop.
• Matthews, Adam. Sacred space and legal practice in Catalonia & Southern France, 850-1100. Sponsor: Adam Kosto.
• McElroy, Micah. The disruption of philanthropy in the San Francisco Bay area, 1945-2010. Sponsor: Elizabeth Blackmar.

Latin American and Iberian Cultures

• Durán-García, Omar. Biomedicine, homosexualities, and medical cultures in Mexico, 1953-2006. Sponsor: Ana Lee.

Mathematics

• Rezchikov, Semen. Floer homology via twisted loop spaces. Sponsor: Mohammed Abouzaid.

Microbiology, Immunology, and Infection

• Kaiser, Katherine. Regulation of the alveolar regeneration by pro-repair Treg cells during influenza virus infection. Sponsor: Nicholas Arpaia.

Music

• Smith, Thomas. Hearing with American law. Sponsor: George Lewis.
• Weinstein-Reiman, Michael. Touch and modernity in French keyboard pedagogy, 1715-1915. Sponsor: Benjamin Steege.

Neurobiology and Behavior

• Sendhilnathan, Naveen. The role of the cerebellum in reinforcement learning. Sponsor: Michael Goldberg.

Religion

• Clark, Quinn. Love and money: Debating Muslim saint shrines in "UP". Sponsor: Katherine Ewing.
• Meyer, Verena. Memory and difference: Coherence and paradox in Javanese Muslims' stories of the past. Sponsor: Katherine Ewing.

Slavic Languages

• Drennan, Erica. Reading and judging: Russian literature on trial. Sponsor: Irina Reyfman.

Statistics

• Yao, Yuling. Toward a scalable Bayesian workflow. Sponsor: Andrew Gelman.

TC / Applied Behavior Analysis

• Baldonado, Lauren. The effects of the establishment of bidirectional naming for unfamiliar stimuli on reading comprehension for first grade students. Sponsor: R. Douglas Greer.
• Chang, Hung. Establishment of conditioned reinforcement for observing books through observational interventions and effects on rate of learning for preschoolers. Sponsor: R. Douglas Greer.

TC / Clinical Psychology

• Hull, Thomas. Context sensitivity: A prognostic patient characteristic for digital psychotherapy. Sponsor: George Bonanno.
• Scalora, Suza. Investigating a spirituality mind-body intervention for enhanced and healthier perception in an undergraduate population: An open-trial pilot study. Sponsor: Lisa J. Miller.

TC / Measurement and Evaluation

• Yang, Jiaxi. Sequential rerandomization in the context of small samples. Sponsor: Bryan Keller.

TC / Politics and Education

• Mantas-Kourounis, Eleni. In the trenches: The local politics of civic education. Sponsor: Jeffrey Henig.

TC / School Psychology

• Portillo, Natalie. Opinion writing of native Spanish and native English speakers in college developmental education courses. Sponsor: Stephen Peverly.

DISSERTATION PROPOSALS FILED

Applied Physics

• Ruta, Francescoluigi. Infrared nanoscopy of anisotropic and topological quantum materials.

Biomedical Engineering

• Hu, Hanze. Engineering biomimetic formulations for drug and gene delivery.

Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics

• Vlassis, Nikolaos. AI-generated interpretable plasticity theory for path-dependent solids.
• Wu, Chunlin. Virtual experiments and designs of composites with the inclusion-based boundary element method (iBEM).
• Zadshir, Mehdi. Modeling and experimental study of thermal management systems for infrastructure surface materials.

Classical Studies

• Kuang, Shenda. Herodotus' historiai: A phenomenological study.

Computer Science

• Alubala, Amos. Resilient continuous authentication.
• Piccolboni, Luca. Architecting and securing the interface of accelerators in heterogeneous SoCs.

Economics

• Awadey, Amanda. Topics in education and development economics.
• Koh, Yu Kyung. Essays in family economics.
• Sacher, Szymon. Text-based industry denition, competition and mergers using large scale NLP methods.
• Seol, BooKang. Why community-driven development (CDD) projects often fail to develop social institutions.

History

• Giovanopoulou, Afroditi. Recasting global law: Prgamatism in the history of the Postwar Order (1939-1957).
• McIntosh, Whitney. Anti-state, anti-war, and anti-politics: Modern libertarian intellectual culture, 1965-2000.

Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies

• El-Shafei, Alaa. Markets of law: Egypt's age of legal reform, 1840-1914.