Oral Defense Dates

  • Elizabeth Ledbetter

    Program: History of Art

    Dissertation Title: The Visual Poetics of Wonder in the Fatimid World (969-1171 CE)

    Date: 27 Jul 2026

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: ZOOM: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/9574384196

    Chair: Christiane J Gruber

  • Jiongming Wang

    Program: Biostatistics

    Dissertation Title: Statistical Methods for Analyzing Genetic Data in Biobanks

    Date: 27 Jul 2026

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: 1750 SPH I

    Chair: Jean Morrison and Sebastian K Zoellner

  • Lei Zhang

    Program: Civil Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Characterization of Soil Particle Size Distributions by Water Pressure During Sedimentation

    Date: 27 Jul 2026

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: GGB 2029

    Chair: Roman D Hryciw

  • Hyungchan Cho

    Program: Business Administration

    Dissertation Title: Unveiling Operational Performance Levers and the Value of Operational Information

    Date: 28 Jul 2026

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/92589357800

    Chair: Damian R Beil and Andrew Wu

  • Keanu Heydari

    Program: History

    Dissertation Title: General Intelligence: Iranian Student Activism and the Documentary Politics of Sojourn in France, 1945-1979

    Date: 28 Jul 2026

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/97754750861?JST=3

    Chair: Joshua H Cole

  • Ziqiao Xu

    Program: Chemistry

    Dissertation Title: Ultra-fast Drug Screening Enabled by Contrastive Learning on Chemical Spaces

    Date: 28 Jul 2026

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: CHEM 1706

    Chair: Charles L Brooks III

  • Oluka Okia

    Program: Mechanical Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Scalable Manufacturing of Laminated Perovskite Solar Cells

    Date: 30 Jul 2026

    Time: 11:00 a.m.

    Location: ROOM 3150 HERBERT H. DOW BUILDING, VIRTUAL: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/93496957853 PASSCODE: 925994

    Chair: Neil P Dasgupta

  • Abdul Ansari

    Program: Philosophy

    Dissertation Title: The Work of Love

    Date: 30 Jul 2026

    Time: 12:00 p.m.

    Location: 2271 ANGELL HALL

    Chair: Sarah Buss and Peter Railton

  • Sonya Royzenblat

    Program: Cellular & Molecular Biol

    Dissertation Title: Peeling Back the Layers of Escherichia Coli Chromatin Architecture

    Date: 31 Jul 2026

    Time: 11:00 a.m.

    Location: BOB AND BETTY BEYSTER BUILDING (KAHN AUDITORIUM)

    Chair: Lydia Freddolino

  • Daniel Kupor

    Program: Chemical Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Engineering Localized Particle-Based Drug Delivery to Adipose Tissue

    Date: 31 Jul 2026

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: NCRC B10 RESEARCH AUDITORIUM OR HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/96291737439 PASSCODE: ADIPOSE

    Chair: Lola Eniola-Adefeso

  • Donia Ahmed

    Program: Biomedical Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Engineered Disease Models for Investigating the Role of Extracellular Matrix Cues in Epithelial Cell Fate

    Date: 31 Jul 2026

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: GM CONFERENCE ROOM – LURIE ENGINEERING CENTER

    Chair: Brendon Baker and Claudia Loebel

  • Cameron Gruich

    Program: Chemical Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Reliable Machine Learning for Molecules and Materials: From High-Throughput Data to Actionable Uncertainty

    Date: 31 Jul 2026

    Time: 3:30 p.m.

    Location: NCRC BUILDING 28 ROOM G126

    Chair: Bryan Goldsmith

  • Omar Abed

    Program: Ind Interdept Degree Prog

    Dissertation Title: Cytokine Muteins and Targeted Depots for Selective and Localized Regulatory T Cell Expansion

    Date: 3 Aug 2026

    Time: 9:00 a.m.

    Location: NCRC B10 – SOUTH ATRIUM, HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/91065082569 PW:TREGIL2

    Chair: James J Moon and James J Moon

  • Tara Lonsdorf

    Program: Earth & Environmental Sciences

    Dissertation Title: Climatic and Topographic Controls on Meteoric Waters of the North American Cordillera: New Insights from Stable Isotopes

    Date: 3 Aug 2026

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: NORTH UNIVERSITY BUILDING, 2540; ZOOM: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/9732938548?OMN=96072879053

    Chair: Nathan A Niemi

  • Xiaping Li

    Program: Engineering Education Research

    Dissertation Title: Exploring Course Engagement among Engineering College Students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: The Roles of Instructional Practices and GenAI

    Date: 4 Aug 2026

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: THE LURIE ENGINEERING CENTER JOHNSON ROOMS (3RD FLOOR); ZOOM: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/94300480181

    Chair: Cindy Finelli

  • Charlotte Boucher

    Program: Political Science

    Dissertation Title: Negotiated Citizenship: Managed Relations with a Violent State

    Date: 5 Aug 2026

    Time: 10:30 a.m.

    Location: WALKER, HAVEN HALL

    Chair: Rob Mickey

  • Lucy Smith

    Program: English & Women's and Gender S

    Dissertation Title:

    Date: 5 Aug 2026

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/97576556916

    Chair: Mary C Kelley and Mary C Kelley and Mary C Kelley and Jason Randolph Young and Jason Randolph Young and Jason Randolph Young

  • Lucy Smith

    Program: History & Women's & Gender Stu

    Dissertation Title: Circulation, Economy, and Meaning of Teeth in George Washington's America

    Date: 5 Aug 2026

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/97576556916

    Chair: Mary C Kelley and Mary C Kelley and Mary C Kelley and Jason Randolph Young and Jason Randolph Young and Jason Randolph Young

  • Woohyeon Baek

    Program: Materials Science & Engin

    Dissertation Title: Size-dependent Thermodynamic and Nucleation-kinetic Insights in Material Formations

    Date: 6 Aug 2026

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: DOW 2166

    Chair: Wenhao Sun

  • Shailaja Humane

    Program: Applied Physics

    Dissertation Title: Advancing Inertial Confinement Fusion through Bayesian Optimization and Multi-physics Simulations

    Date: 6 Aug 2026

    Time: 12:00 p.m.

    Location: COOLEY BAER ROOM

    Chair: Carolyn Christine Kuranz

  • Joao De Barro Cavalcanti

    Program: Aerospace Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Resource-Aware Adaptive Model Predictive Control for Maneuver Load Alleviation of Flexible and Very Flexible Aircraft

    Date: 6 Aug 2026

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: 1044 FXB (UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/92892873542 PC: 1044 FXB (UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/92892873542 PC: MPC4ASE)

    Chair: Carlos E S Cesnik and Ilya Kolmanovsky

  • Emma Portugal

    Program: Linguistics

    Dissertation Title: Variation in the Perception and Production of Dialect Vowels in Gava?, Armenia

    Date: 7 Aug 2026

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/92655057956

    Chair: Savithry Namboodiripad

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