Doctoral Exam Schedule

Emily Allego, Biochemistry, “Decoding Structural Interactions, Functional Interfaces, and Cellular Impacts of Phase II Detoxification Enzymes: UDP-Glucose Dehydrogenase and Glutamate Cysteine Ligase,” March 5, 2025, 1:00 p.m., Polk 128A, Major Professor: Dr. Joe Barycki.

Charlotte O. Moore, Comparative Biomedical Science, “The Maintenance of Bartonella spp. in Vector and Reservoir Populations,” March 5, 2025, 3:00 p.m., CVM Main Building B-112. Major Professor: Dr. Ed Breitschwerdt.

Margaret Borden, Learning and Teaching in STEM, “Investigating Mathematics Teachers’ Interactions with Curricular Resources: Selecting and Adapting for Project-Based Learning”, March 5, 2025, 10:00 a.m., Friday Institute Room 109, Major Professor: Dr. Erin Krupa.

Sera Harold, Learning and Teaching in STEM, “Native Plants-Focused Facebook Groups’ Impacts on Users’ Norm Perception, Efficacy, and Pro-Environmental Behaviors”, March 5, 2025, 11:00 a.m., Center for Technology & Innovation Room 317, Major Professor: Dr. Carla Johnson.

Aryssa Simpson, Biomedical Engineering, “,” March 5, 2025, CVM Main Building, B112. Major Professor: Dr. Ashley C. Brown.

Ethan Woods, Biological and Agricultural Engineering, “Composting and Enhanced Rock Weathering: The environmental impact and economic feasibility of two emerging carbon removal pathways,” March 5, 2025, 10:00 a.m., Weaver Admin 101. Major Professor: Dr. Joe Sagues.

Hannah Desrochers, FWCB, “The Emotional and Political Landscape of Urban White-Tailed Deer Management: Investigating Drivers of Decision-Making in an Urban Landscape”, March 6, 2025, 2:00 p.m., Biltmore Hall 1003, Major Professor: Dr. Nils Peterson.

Hyoshin Kim, Statistics, “Bayesian Methods for Dichotomous, Large, and Massively Large Data,” March 6, 2025, 11 a.m., SAS 5202. Major Professors: Dr. Emily Hector and Dr. Sujit Ghosh.

Cody Taylor, Public Administration, “Three Essays on Managing Publicness,” March 6, 2025, 12 p.m., SPIA Conference Room. Major Professor: Dr. Jeffrey Diebold.

Isaac Dobes, Mathematics, “Local Unitary Invariants of Multipartite Quantum States via Hypermatrix,” March 6, 2025, 1 p.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Nathan Jing.

Ryne A. Croute Jones, Public Administration, “Nonprofit Organizational Adaptations Following Philanthropic Windfalls,” March 6, 2025, 3 p.m., SPIA Coe Conference. Major Professor: Dr. Amanda J. Stewart.

Victor Cadilla, ELPHD, “Can Protecting Civil Rights Influence Student Outcomes? Three Studies of the Office for Civil Rights Resolution Agreements”, March 7, 2025, 1:00 p.m., Remote, Major Professors: Dr. Jenn Ayscue and Dr. Lam Pham.

Rachel Harred, Computer Science, “Keeping Students in the Pipeline: A Data-Driven Approach to Increasing Persistence in Computer Science,” March 7, 2025, 1:00 p.m., EBII-3211/Zoom. Major Professor: Dr. Tiffany Barnes.

Shawnda Cherry, Educational Leadership, “It’s Still Just Good Teaching: A Case Study of the Perceptions of Rural Teacher Residents About Culturally and Historically Responsive Education”, March 7, 2025, 10:00 a.m., Remote, Major Professor: Dr. Jenn Ayscue.

Sydney Earl, Psychology, “A Randomized Controlled Trial: Can A Growth Mindset Plus Self-Compassion Intervention Reduce Internalized Weight Stigma?,” March 7, 2025, 12 p.m., Ricks Hall Conference Room. Major Professor: Dr. Jennifer Burnette.

Neil Dey, Statistics, “Valid Inference in Machine Learning,” March 7, 2025, 3 p.m., SAS Hall 5202. Major Professors: Dr. Jonathan P. Williams and Dr. Ryan Martin.

Manaswini Ganjam, Forestry and Environmental Resources, “Modeling Forest Carbon Sequestration to Understand the Influence of Stand Age, Management Practices, and Climate Inputs”, March 7, 2025, 11:00 a.m., Partners II Conference Room, Major Professors: Dr. Justin Baker and Dr. Maricar Aguilos.

Bethany Lewis, TELS, “Advancing Elementary Multilingual Learners: An Investigation of Writing Rsearch, Teacher Experiences, and Genre-Based Compositions.”, March 7, 2025, 10:00 a.m., J. B. Hunt Library Room 4505, Major Professors: Dr. Angela Wiseman and Dr. Jackie Relyea.

Bangmin Liu, Animal Science, “Functional Roles of Adrenomedullin for Conceptus Growth and Development During the Peri-Implantation Period of Pregnancy in Pigs,” March 7, 2025, 2:00 p.m., Polk Hall 8A. Major Professor: Dr. Xiaoqiu Wang.

Christie McCray, Community College Leadership, “Exploring Sense of Belonging for Black Single Mothers in Community College”, March 7, 2025, 1:00 p.m., Belk Center Conference Room, Major Professor: Dr. Audrey Jaeger.

Varun Tiwari, Geospatial Analytics, “Advancing Climate-Resilient Agriculture and Disaster Management: Applications of Remote Sensing and Machine Learning in Data-Scarce Bangladesh”, March 7, 2025, 3:00 p.m., Jordan Hall Room 5103, Major Professor: Dr. Mirela Tulbure.

Megan Dillon, Genetics, “Dogs of Chornobyl: Genomic Assessments of a Unique Population Following Multi-Generational Exposure to Extreme Environmental Contamination,” March 10, 2025, 9 a.m., CVM RB 101. Major Professor: Dr. Matthew Breen.

Enrique Pena, Electrical Engineering, “Integrating Low-Cost, High-Throughput Phenotyping Systems in Post-Harvest Operations of Sweet Potatoes and Peanuts,” March 10, 2025, 12:00 p.m., PSB-4152. Major Professor: Dr. Michael Kudenov.

Christina Marlow, Psychology, “Children’s Moral Judgements of Complex Morally Relevant Scenarios,” March 10, 2025, 1 p.m., Withers Hall, Room 135. Major Professor: Dr. Kelly Lynn Mulvey.

Abasiama-Arit Aniche, Agrictultural Education & Human Sciences, “How can women engage in leadership in agriculture and agripreneurship in rural communities of Akwa-Ibom State Nigeria?” March 11, 2025, 10:00 a.m., Remote, Major Professor: Dr. Katherine McKee.

Vanessa Rondon Berrio, Biological and Agricultural Engineering, “Advancing the formate bioeconomy via microbe discovery, metagenomics, genetic engineering, and techno-economic analysis,” March 11, 2025, 1:00 p.m., Weaver Admin 101. Major Professor: Dr. William Joe Sagues.

Joseph Gakpo, Agricultural Education & Human Services, “A Predictive Model for Student Success and Recommendations to Enhance Equity and Improve Training of Agricultural and Life Sciences Professionals,” March 12, 2025, 11:00 a.m., Ricks 220. Major Professors: Dr. John Dole and Dr. Katherine McKee

Fangtong Zhou, Computer Science, “Generalized and Robust Learning for Efficient Network Optimization,” March 12, 2025, 12:00 p.m., Zoom. Major Professor: Dr. Ruozhou Yu.

Timothy Ablondi, Mathematics, “Generators, Relations, and Koszul Duality for Equivariant Hypertoric,” March 12, 2025, 1 p.m., SAS 3282. Major Professor: Dr. Andrew Manion.

Jennifer Fawcett, Agricultural Education & Human Science, “From Spark to Proficiency: Exploring Prescribed Burn Association Members’ Motivations, Learning Experiences, and Training Needs Through an Andragogical lens,” March 13, 2025, 10:00 a.m., Ricks 220. Major Professor: Dr. KSU Jayaratne.

Sathvik Prasad, Computer Science, “Systems and Techniques to Characterize Robocalls,” March 14, 2025, 9:30 a.m., EBII 2240. Major Professor: Dr. Bradley Reaves.

Albert Anthony Tucci, Bioinformatics, “Efforts in Exposing Vulnerable Mechanisms: From Hybrid Seed Development to Alzheimer’s Disease Analysis,” March 14, 2025, 10 a.m., Thomas Hall 3503. Major Professors: Dr. Robert Franks and Dr. Jung-Ying Tzeng.

Qidong Zhao, Computer Science, “Novel Profiling Techniques for Emerging Architectures and Applications,” March 14, 2025, 10:00 a.m., Zoom. Major Professors: Dr. Xu Liu/Dr. Jiajia Li.

Albert Anthony Tucci, Bioinformatics, “Efforts in Exposing Vulnerable Mechanisms: From Hybrid Seed Development to Alzheimer’s Disease Analysis,” March 14, 2025, 10 a.m., 3503 Thomas Hall. Major Professors: Dr. Robert Franks and Dr. Jung-Ying Tzeng.

Christopher Pascual, Biological and Agricultural Engineering, “Optimizing Nutrient Conversion and Recovery in Marine Aquaponics,” March 14, 2025, 10:30 a.m., 101 DSW. Major Professor: Dr. Steven Hall.

Megan Carr, Biological and Agricultural Engineering, “Coastal Bacterial Water Quality at the Watershed Scale and in a Changing Climate,” March 14, 2025, 1:00 p.m., Weaver Admin 101. Major Professor: Dr. Natalie Nelson.

Stephen Ippolito, Horticultural Science, “Weed Hosts for Root-Knot Nematodes and Potential Herbicides for Their Control in Sweetpotato,” March 14, 2025, 1:00 p.m., 216 Scott Hall. Major Professor: Dr. Katherine Jennings.

James Dudit, Horticultural Science, “Functional Characterization of a Candidate Bacterial Wilt Resistance Gene in Tomato,” March 14, 2025, 2:15 p.m., 121 Kilgore Hall. Major Professor: Dr. Wusheng Liu.

Roslyn Bethea, ELPHD, “A Qualitative Study of the Impact of the One-College Model in a Community College”, March 17, 2025, 9:00 a.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. John Lee.

Qirui Cui, Plant Biology, “Elucidating the Domain Functions of the DEMETER 5-Methylcytosine DNA Glycosylase and Exploring DME’s Applications in Seed Size Manipulation in Arabidopsis and Related Species,” March 17, 2025, 9:00 a.m., Zoom. Major Professor: Dr. Tzung-Fu Hsieh.

Michael Wilkinson, Psychology, “Mitigating the Mental Cost of Using Virtual Reality,” March 17, 2025, 9 a.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Jing Feng.

Doreen Mushi, TELS, “Exploring the Development of Learning Analytics Skills in STEM Education Researchers: An Instrumental Case Study of a Community of Practice”, March 17, 2025, 10:00 a.m., Remote, Major Professors: Dr. Kevin Oliver and Dr. Shiyan Jiang.

Diego Castedo Pena, Mathematics, “Formations in Leibniz Algebras and Other Topics,” March 17, 2025, 10 a.m., SAS 3282. Major Professors: Dr. Kailash Misra and Dr. Ernest Stitzinger.

Jodie Roberson, ELPHD, “Teachers’ Motives for and Experiences of Teaching in a Rural Locale After Teaching in an Urban Locale: A Phenomenological Study of the Reverse Migration of Rural Teachers”, March 17, 2025, 12:30 p.m., Center for Technology and Innovation Room 325, Major Professor: Dr. Tamara Young.

Tiara Griffis, Teaching and Learning Sciences, “Desptie Good Intentions: Understanding Narcissistic Parenting Behaviors and its Impacts on Involvement, Engagement, and Relationships within School Context”, March 17, 2025, 1:00 p.m., Remote, Major Professor: Dr. Micha Jeffries.

Edwin Benjamin Rajo Gomez, Animal Science, “Optimizing Efficiency and Productivity in Beef Cattle: The Role and Interplay of Physiological and Nutritional Parameters,” March 17, 2025, 1:00 p.m. Major Professor: Daniel Poole.

Modesta Abugu, Horticultural Science, “Volatile Composition, Sensory Attributes and Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) Associated with Flavor Traits in Cooked Sweetpotato (Ipomoea Batatas),” March 17, 2025, 2:00 p.m., 121 Kilgore Hall. Major Professors: Dr. Craig Yencho and Dr. Massimo Iorizzo.

Chelsi Campbell, Psychology, “The Association Between Psychological Capital and Self-Reported Organizational Constraints,” March 17, 2025, 2:00 p.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Lori Foster.

Kathleen Bordewieck, Learning and Teaching in STEM, “Engaging the Public: Wildlife Biologists’ Experiences with Education.”, March 17, 2025, 2:00 p.m., Friday Institute Room 201, Major Professor: Dr. M. Gail Jones.

Ayesha Cooray, Economics, “Essays on Agricultural Production and Surface Water Quality”, March 17, 2025, 2:00 p.m., Nelson Hall 3302, Major Professors: Dr. Junjie Wu and Dr. Roderick Rejesus.

Shraddha Yadav, Textile Technology Management, “Beyond Product Descriptions: How Vegan and Recycled Narratives Shape Consumer Choices for Sustainable Running Shoes,” March 17, 2025, 2:00 p.m., Zoom. Major Professor: Dr. Yingjiao Xu.

Sally Bond, Education Research and Policy Analysis, “Threshold Concepts in the Practice of Evaluation Capacity Building”, March 18, 2025, 12: 00 p.m., Remote, Major Professor: Dr. Tamara Young.

Rayshawn Locklear, Learning and Teaching in STEM, “Teacher Questioning in High School Mathematics: A Case Study”, March 18, 2025, 12:00 p.m., Remote, Major Professor: Dr. Karen Hollebrands.

Soham Milind Mudalgikar, Operations Research, “Factor Detection and Elgenportfolio Based Factor Models: A Random Matrix Approach,” March 18, 2025,12:00 p.m., SAS 3282. Major Professor: Dr. Andrew Papanicolaou.

Jayla Moody, ELPHD, “”But Then You Remember Your Purpose”: A Phenomenological Exploration of Black Undergraduate Women’s Critical Purpose Development at a Predominantly White Institution”, March 18, 2025, 11:00 a.m., Remote, Major Professor: Dr. Joy Gayles.

Kylan Schatz, Mathematics, “Fusion Categories: Quantum Symmetries and Categorical Obstruction Theory,” March 18, 2025, 2 p.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Corey Jones.

Amanul Haque, Computer Science, “Understanding Online News Discourse and Influence on Social Media Using Language Models and Multi Agent Social Simulations,” March 24, 2025, 3:00 p.m., Zoom. Major Professor: Dr. Munindar Singh.

Katie Peachey, TELS, “A Word from the Herd: A Social Design-Based Study Exploring Humanizing Writing Communities in an Out-of-School Space”, March 26, 2 025, 11:00 a.m., Friday Institute Room 109, Major Professor: Dr. Crystal Lee.

Ahmad Bennakhi, Electrical Engineering, “The Bounds of Quantum Computing in the Context of the B-SAT Problem and Optimizing FPGA-based State Vector Simulation,” March 27, 2025, 11:00 a.m., EBII-3001. Major Professors: Dr. Paul Franzon/Dr. Greg Byrd.

Ana-Maria Topliceanu, Learning and Teaching in STEM, “Mentoring Experiences of Graduate STEM Students”, April 16, 2025, 9:00 a.m., Center for Technology and Innovation Room 317, Major Professor: Dr. Margaret Blanchard.

Ralph Clark, Psychology, “Exploring How Driver’s Training and Crosswalk Guarding Apparatus Can Improve Pedestrian Safety at Roundabouts,” April 16, 2025, 10:30a.m., Withers Hall Conference Room 135. Major Professor: Dr. Christopher Mayhorn.

Brent Vizanko, Civil Engineering, “Simulating Changes in Water Demand due to COVID-19 for Water Distribution Systems,” April 17, 2025, 1:00 p.m., FWH – 3280. Major Professor: Dr. Emily Zechman Berglund.

Hangjin Liu, Electrical Engineering, “A Machine Learning Approach for Predicting Factors that Impact Sweetpotato Traits and Predicting Crop Grades,” April 18, 2025, 10:00 a.m., PSB-4-4106. Major Professor: Dr. Cranos M. Williams.

Junyeong Jung, Electrical Engineering, “Design of electric Machines with Harmonic Loss Minimization for Aviation using Alternative Materials,” April 23, 2025, 10:00 a.m., Engery Board Room/FREEDM. Major Professor: Dr. Iqbal Husain.

Gaurav Dhungel, Forestry and Environmental Resources, “Long-term Sustainability of Oaks in the US: Role of Management and Markets.”, April 24, 2025, 9:00 a.m., Partners II Suite 2500, Major Professor: Dr. Justin Baker.

Caitlin Niven, Forestry and Environmental Resources, “Influence of Temperature and Precipitation on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and Global Environmental Health”, April 25, 2025, 11:00 a.m., Jordan Hall Addition Room 1214, Major Professor: Dr. Ayse Ercumen.

Logan Dameris, Toxicology, “The Effects of Cadmium Exposure During Critical Windows of Susceptibility on Liver Health and the Role of the Imprinted Gene Network,” April 29, 2025, 12 p.m., TOX 2104&2102. Major Professor: Dr. Michael Cowley.

Taylor O’Lear Reid, Prestage Department of Animal and Poultry Science, “Evaluating the Effects of Dietary Interventions and Housing Environments on Laying Hen Productivity and Pullet Development,” April 29, 2025, 1:30 p.m., Scott 216. Major Professor: Dr. Kenneth Anderson.

Jamie Breunig, Chemistry, “Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Heterocyclic Containing Natural Products,” April 30, 2025, 9 p.m., DAB 210. Major Professor: Dr. Joshua Pierce.

Mai Abdlmigeed, Chemical Engineering, “Investigation of Green Bio-Base and Mesoporous Zr-MOF Composites Using Atomic Layer Deposition for Organophosphate and Chemical,” May 6, 2025, 1:00 p.m., Room 2015. Major Professor: Dr. Gregory Parsons.

Ivan Raigosa-Garcia, Forestry and Environmental Resources, “Loblolly pine plantations productivity: Characterization, response to fertilizer and herbicide application, and its effects on net present value and carbon management”, May 8, 2025, 3:00 p.m., Jordan Hall Addition Room 1214, Major Professors: Dr. Rachel Cook and Dr. Justin Baker.

Karishma Rajeev Matange, Chemical Engineering, “Driving scalability of DNA based data storage systems through innovation in write and access functionalities,” June 13, 2025, 11:00 a.m., EBI-2018. Major Professor: Dr. Albert Keung.

Tianyu Li, Chemical Engineering, “Engineering Vibrio natriegens for degrading and assimilating Poly(ethylene terephthalate),” June 18, 2025, 10:00 a.m., EBI-2018. Major Professor: Dr. Nathan Cook.