Doctoral Exam Schedule

Stacy Schkoda, Toxicology, “Novel sex-specific targets of developmental exposure to flame retardants,” June 6, 2023, 11:30 a.m., 3503 Thomas Hall. Major Professor: Dr. Heather Patisaul.

Hassan Iqbal, Computer Science, “Characterizing and Improving the Performance of Realtime Cloud Applications,” June 6, 2023, 1:00 p.m., Room 3211. Major Professor: Dr. Muhammad Shahzad.

Ashley Bittner, Civil Engineering, “Field evaluation of air quality sensors in ambient and near-source biomass burning environments,” June 8, 2023, 9:00 a.m., FWH 3301. Major Professor: Dr. Andrew Grieshop.

Jake Deslauriers, Genetics, “Cyfip2 controls the acoustic startle threshold and visually-mediated behaviors,” June 8, 2023, 10:00 a.m., THM 3503. Major Professor: Dr. Kurt Marsden.

Perusi Muhigaba, Applied Social Psychology, “To be Black, Transgender and Gender Nonconforming (TGNC), and Navigate Care: An Examination of Visual Conformity, Health Care Discrimination, and Health Care Access and Utilization among Black and White TGNC Adults,” June 8, 2023, 1:00 p.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Vanessa Volpe.

Laura McGee, Marine, Earth, & Atmospheric Sciences, “Effect of Hurricane Translation Speed and Intensity on Upper Ocean Properties in the U.S. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico,” June 9, 2023, 10:00 a.m., 1132 Jordan Hall. Major Professor: Dr. Roy He.

Shun Mao, Marine Science, “Gulf Stream Variability and Coastal Circulation Near Cape Hatteras: Views from Advanced Ocean Reanalyses,” June 9, 2023, 1:30 p.m., 1132 Jordan Hall. Major Professor: Dr. Roy He.

William Anderson, Applied Mathematics, “Reduced-order Nonlinear Solutions for time-dependent PDEs,” June 12, 2023, 1:00 p.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Mohammad Farazmand.

Sudeep Sarma, Chemical Engineering, “Computational redesign of peptides as detectors, drugs and biomaterials,” June 12, 2023, 1:00 p.m., EBI-3018. Major Professor: Dr. Carol Hall.

Amira Hijazi, Industrial Engineering, “Resource Allocation Using Mathematical Optimization and Machine Learning,” June 13, 2023, 10:00 a.m., FWH 4103. Major Professors: Dr. Osman Ozaltin/ Dr. Reha Uzsoy.

Xin Li, Industrial Engineering, “Artificial intelligence models to improve organ allocation and public health decisions,” June 14, 2023, 10:00 a.m., FWH-4103. Major Professor: Dr. Osman Ozaltin.

Byeongmo Seo, Design, “Development of HVAC Optimal Control Algorithms for Energy Efficiency Improvement in Commercial Buildings using Machine Learning and Digital Twin Technologies,” June 14, 2023, 10:30 a.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Soolyeon Cho.

Jacob Guymon, Mechanical Engineering, “Nanometer Level Surface Correction for Fine Optics,” June 14, 2023, 3:30 p.m., Conference Room RB1. Major Professor: Dr. Mark Pankow.

Zhe Zhang, Civil Engineering, “Characterization and Prediction of Modulus and Cracking Performance of Asphaltic Materials,” June 15, 2023, 9:30 a.m. Room 3280. Major Professors: Dr. Shane Underwood/Dr. Richard Kim.

Nishita Jadoo, Physics, “Extended body motion in General Relativity,” June 15, 2023, 10:00 a.m., Riddick 415. Major Professor: Dr. J. David Brown.

Somdutta Ghosh, Physics, “Impact of the equation of state on core-collapse supernova explosion, nucleosynthesis yields, and neutrino emission,” June 15, 2023, 2:00 p.m., Riddick 415/Zoom. Major Professor: Dr. Carla Frohlich.

Dakai Wang, Electrical Engineering, “Soft-switching High-Power Converters for Electric Vehicle Applications,” June 15, 2023, 3:00 p.m., Energy Board Room, Keystone Science Center. Major Professor: Dr. Wensong Yu.

Yunshu Zhang, Statistics, “On the doubly robust estimators of causal effects in observational studies: theories and practices,” June 16, 2023, 9:00 a.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Shu Yang.

Jacob Smith, Materials Science & Engineering, “The Study of Heterogeneous Platinum Nanocatalyst Synthesis and in Operando Aging via In Situ Transmission Electron Microscopy,” June 16, 2023, 9:00 a.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Nina Blake.

Arsen Iskhakov, Nuclear Engineering, “Development of Data-Driven Methods for Engineering and System
Scale Thermal-Hydraulic Modeling,” June 16, 2023, 9:30 a.m., BU-1121. Major Professor: Dr. Nam Dinh.

Margaret Tobey, Operations Research, “Data Science and Machine Learning Methodologies for Detecting Human Trafficking Risk in the Illicit Massage Industry,” June 16, 2023, 1:00 p.m., FWH 4361. Major Professors: Dr. Maria Mayorga/Dr. Osman Ozaltin.

Brandyn Moore, Chemical Engineering, “Discovery of Peptide Ligands for the Light-Responsive Purification of Hematopoietic Stem Cells and the Universal Purification of Exosomes,” June 19, 2023, 9:00 a.m., EBI-2018. Major Professors: Dr. Stefano Menegatti/Dr. Michael Daniele.

Kade Young, Statistics, “Optimal Design and Analysis Approaches for Supersaturated Screening with the Lasso,” June 20, 2023, 9:00 a.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Jonathan Stallrich.

Cole Takasugi, Nuclear Engineering, “Improvement of High-to-low Multi-physics Modeling for Sodium- cooled Fast Reactor Cores,” June 20, 2023, 2:30 p.m., LMP 304. Major Professors: Dr. Kostadin Ivanov/Dr. Maria Avramova.

Kasia Dobrzycka, Statistics, “Extrapolation Control and Sequential Design for Gaussian Process Computer Experiments,” June 21, 2023, 10:00 a.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Jonathan Stallrich.

Haihan Zhou, Physics, “Accurate effective core potential constructions, fixed-node errors and node nonlinearity effects in quantum Monte Carlo methods,” June 22, 2023, 8:00 a.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Lubos Mitas.

Matthew Pech, Chemistry, “The Design, Synthesis, and Characterization of Azaacenes Toward Organic Electronics,” June 22, 2023, 2:00 p.m., TOX 2104. Major Professor: Dr. Christopher Gorman.

Rebekah Rhodes, Earth Science, “Evaluating Paleogene climate of North America at a range of spatiotemporal scales,” June 23, 2023, 10:00 a.m., 1132 Jordan Hall. Major Professor: Dr. Ethan Hyland.

Asya Atik, Civil Engineering, “Incident Response Network Design and Route Optimization and Hot-spot Predicition,” June 23, 2023, 2:00 p.m., Zoom. Major Professors: Dr. Leila Hajibabai/Dr. Ali Hababaie.

Yuan Gao, Chemistry, “Classical Correlation Model of Surface Enhanced Spectroscopies,” June 26, 2023, 9:00 a.m., Dabney 210. Major Professor: Dr. Stefan Franzen.

Venkata Sailaja Pappala, Earth Science, “Geochemical and lithium isotopic insights to chemical weathering and associated carbon feedbacks in Alaskan and Himalayan proglacial systems,” June 26, 2023, 9:00 a.m., 1132 Jordan Hall. Major Professor: Dr. Carli Arendt.

Yichi Zhang, Statistics, “Inference and Fast Computation for Low-rank Matrix Model and Causal Inference,” June 26, 2023, 9:00 a.m., Remote. Major Professors: Dr. Minh Tang and Dr. Shu Yang.

Michael Spencer, Materials Science & Engineering, “Toward Understanding the Role of Confinement in the Electrochemical Reactivity of Guest Molecules and Expanded Transition Metal Oxides,” June 26, 2023, 10:00 a.m., EBI. Major Professor: Dr. Veronica Augustyn.

Ryan Wilmington, Physics, “Optical Characterization of Nanoscale Quantum Materials for Photonics Applications,” June 26, 2023, 10:00 a.m., Partners II 1514. Major Professor: Dr. Kenan Gundogdu.

Yilu Zhou, Electrical Engineering, “Development of a Novel Monolithic Array of Metal Oxide Sensors,” June 26, 2023, 10:00 a.m., MRC 454. Major Professors: Dr. Veena Misra/Dr. Bongmook Lee.

Mark Abdelshiheed, Computer Science, “Combining Reinforcement Learning and Three Learning Theories to Bridge Declarative, Procedural, and Conditional Knowledge Gap,” June 26, 2023, 2:00 p.m., Zoom. Major Professor: Dr. Min Chi.

Tanchumin Xu, Bioinformatics and Statistics, “Advances in causal inference and the study of interlocus gene conversion,” June 27, 2023, 9:30 a.m., Ricks 336. Major Professor: Dr. Jeffrey Thorne.

Ekin Yalvac, Industrial Engineering, “Design of a Home Delivery Logistics Network,” June 27, 2023, 10:00 a.m., FWH-4103. Major Professor: Dr. Michael Kay.

Zvikomborero Machikiti, Chemical Engineering, “A Systematic Approach to Tuning Adhesion Strength in Polymer-Polymer Systems,” June 27, 2023, 11:00 a.m., EB-2018. Major Professors: Dr. Jan Genzer/Dr. Kirill Efimenko.

Soumya Sharma, Civil Engineering, “Studying the Impacts of Emerging Truck Technologies at Macroscopic and Microscopic Level,” June 27, 2023, 1:00 p.m., FWH 3280. Major Professors: Dr. George List/Dr. Billy Williams.

Ashwin Iyer, Biomedical Engineering, “Real time Integration of Ultrasound-Imaging Derived Muscle Contractility in Closed Loop Control of Functional Electrical Stimulation and a Powered Exoskeleton,” June 29, 2023, 9:00 a.m., EBIII-4142. Major Professor: Dr. Nitin Sharma.

Tanmay Das, Civil Engineering, ” Autonomous Vehicles’ Safety and Mobility Operating under Mixed Traffic Conditions,” June 29, 2023, 11:00 a.m., Zoom. Major Professors: Dr. Nagui Rouphail/ Dr. Billy Williams.

Venkata Bhuvaneswari Vukkum, Material Sciences & Engineering, “Study On Improving The Corrosion Performance Of Additively Manufactured 316L Stainless Steel,” July 3, 2023, 11:00 a.m., EBI-3018/Hybrid. Major Professor: Dr. Rajeev Gupta.

Bei Xu, Electrical Engineering, “Development of Advanced Grid-Support Functionalities using Battery Energy Storage Systems,” July 7, 2023, 1:00 p.m., Zoom. Major Professor: Dr. Ning Lu.

Kasra Darabi, Materials Science & Engineering, “Understanding Process-Structure-Property Relationship in Organic-inorganic Hybrid Perovskites,” July 7, 2023, 1:00 p.m., EBI-3018. Major Professor: Dr. Aram Amassian.

Md Ferdous Pervej, Electrical Engineering, “Collaborative Edge and On-Device Learning in Wireless Networks under Resource Constraints,” July 10, 2023, 12:15 p.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Huaiyu Dai.

Lide Cha, Chemistry, “Investigation of Aziridination & Cyclopropanation Enabled by Non-Heme Iron Enzymes,” July 10, 2023, 1:00 p.m., Dabney 210. Major Professor: Dr. Wei-Chen Chang.

Hassan Ali Khan, Computer Science, “Demystifying the Opaque Algorithms: A Measurement Framework to Characterize the Usage Behaviors of the Gig Economy Services,” July 10, 2023, 1:00 p.m., Remote. Major Professors: Dr. Muhammad Shahzad/Dr. Guoliang Jin.

Tzu-Yu Chen, Chemistry, “Study of Isonitrile-forming Enzymes and Their Applications,” July 12, 2023, 9:30 a.m., Dabney 210. Major Professor: Dr. Wei-Chen Chang.

Russel Sui, Statistics, “Subsampling and Active Learning,” July 13, 2023, 11:00 a.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Sujit Ghosh.

Yajie Liu, Civil Engineering, ” Data-driven Flight Mission Planning of Small Unmanned Aerial Systems for Producing Survey-Grade Geospatial Products,” July 17, 2023, 1:00 p.m., Zoom. Major Professors: Dr. Kevin Han/Dr. William Rasdorf.

Annie Tang, Statistics, “Sparsity-encouraging data-driven priors in high-dimensional problems,” July 18, 2023, 1:30 p.m., 5202 SAS Hall. Major Professor: Dr. Ryan Martin.

Gongfan Chen, Civil Engineering, “Enhance Collaboration Reliability at Task Level for Construction Projects Using Blockchain Technology, ” July 19, 2023, 10:00 a.m., Zoom. Major Professor: Dr. Min Liu.

Minerva Lissette Bonilla Ventura, Civil Engineering, “Strategies for Improving Construction of Alternative Intersections and Interchanges,” July 20, 2023, 10:00 a.m., Zoom. Major Professor: Dr. William Rasdorf.

Abdelrahman Elmeliegy, Civil Engineering, “Viscoelasticity Imaging of Soft Tissue through Correlation-base Full-waveform Shear Wave Elastography,” July 21, 2023, 1:30 p.m., FWH 3361. Major Professor: Dr. Murthy Guddati.

Han Wang, Statistics, “Statistical Methods for Missing Data and Composite Outcomes in Estimating Optimal Treatment Regimes with Electronic Health Record Data,” July 24, 2023, 3:00 p.m. Major Professors: Dr. Wenbin Lu and Dr. Rui Song.

Indrila Ganguly, Statistics, “Selected Topics in Modern Statistical Inference: Scalable Resampling, Spatiotemporal Forecasting, and Posterior Consistency for Multivariate Densities,” July 25, 2023, 10:00 a.m., Remote. Major Professors: Dr. Srijan Sengupta and Dr. Sujit Ghosh.

Subhankar Bhadra, Statistics, “Efficient statistical inference methods for problems in network science,” July 25, 2023, 1:00 p.m. Major Professor: Dr. Srijan Sengupta.

Kelsey Mirrielees, Materials Science & Engineering, “Defects in Wide Bandgap III-V and II-VI Semiconductors, July 31, 2023. 10:00 a.m., EBI-3018. Major Professor: Dr. Douglas Irving.

Shichen Yin, Material Science & Engineering, “Thin-film Semiconductor Devices: Organic Light-emitting Diode and Lead Sulfide Quantum Dot Short-wave Infrared Photodetector,” August 1, 2023, 3:00 p.m., Hybrid-EBI-3018. Major Professor: Dr. Franky So.

Luowei Wen, Electrical Engineering, “Selective Gate Driver Balancing the Reliability and Efficiency for SiC Electric Vehicle Traction Inverter,” August 3, 2023, 10:00 a.m., Energy Board Room, Keystone Science Center. Major Professors: Dr. Iqbal Husain/ Dr. Wensong Yu.

Priscille Koutouan, Industrial Engineering, “The Effect of Screening Behavior Assumptions and Heterogeneity on Preventive Health Interventions Evaluation using Simulation Mdeling,” August 14, 2023, 2:00 p.m., Room 4361. Major Professor: Dr. Maria E. Mayorga.

Xuan Liu, Statistics, “Generalized Score Test on Categorical Data with Missingness,” August 16, 2023, 10:00 a.m., Remote. Major Professor: Dr. Daowen Zhang.

Paul Miller, Chemistry, Synthesis and Characterization of Donor-Bridge-Donor Biradical and Biradicaloid Complexes,” August 17, 2023, 1:00 p.m., 304 Partners III. Major Professor: Dr. David Shultz.

Echo Pan, Functional Genomics, “CRISPR and Functional Genomics of LAB,” September 12, 2023, 1:00 p.m., Seminar 1322C/PSI. Major Professor: Dr. Rodolphe Barrangou.

Divyakumar Mahiman Badheka, Electrical Engineering, “Information Contained in Electromagnetic Fields in MU-MIMO Communication,” September 18, 2023, 2:30 p.m., EBII-2095. Major Professor: Dr. Brian L. Hughes.