Oral Defense Dates

  • Agrima Seth

    Program: Information

    Dissertation Title: Cultural Variability & Bias in Online Social Interactions & Large Language Models

    Date: 7 Jul 2025

    Time: 9:00 a.m.

    Location: 3470 LEINWEBER COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION BUILDING

    Chair: Kentaro Toyama

  • Kassidy Jungles

    Program: Pharmacology

    Dissertation Title: The Implementation of Combination Therapies for the Treatment of Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)

    Date: 7 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: KAHN AUDITORIUM, HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/92278477768 PW:KJTHESIS

    Chair: James M Rae

  • Chenyi Zhu

    Program: Mechanical Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Fundamental Studies of Sprays in Energy-Intense Systems: Case Studies of Pre-chamber Jet Combustion and Freezing Water Sprays

    Date: 7 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:30 a.m.

    Location: 2540 G. G. BROWN LABORATORY: ZOOM: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/97794260995 (PASSWORD: SPRAYS)

    Chair: Margaret S Wooldridge

  • Anupon Tadee

    Program: Environmental Health Sci

    Dissertation Title: Occupational Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment for Professional and Student Researchers

    Date: 7 Jul 2025

    Time: 11:00 a.m.

    Location: SPH II 1112

    Chair: Rick Neitzel

  • Shuai Che

    Program: Nuc Eng & Radiol Sciences

    Dissertation Title: Developing Experimental and Modeling Capabilities to Advance Molten Salt Reactor Technology for Molten Salt Pumps and Heat Exchangers

    Date: 7 Jul 2025

    Time: 12:00 p.m.

    Location: LURIE ENGINEERING CENTER (JOHNSON ROOMS ABC)

    Chair: Adam Burak and Xiaodong Sun

  • Levi Hooper

    Program: Clin Pharm Translational Sci

    Dissertation Title: Quantitative Approaches to Kidney Function Assessment: Advancing Measured Glomerular Filtration Rate Techniques to Broaden Access in Patients with Kidney Impairment

    Date: 7 Jul 2025

    Time: 12:00 p.m.

    Location: NUB 2548

    Chair: Amit Pai and Kathleen A Stringer

  • Di Wang

    Program: Biostatistics

    Dissertation Title: Integration Methods for Incorporating Published Prediction Models with a New Time-to-Event Dataset

    Date: 7 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: M4034, SPH II; HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/MEETING/REGISTER/SYREFZNPSYQVLTRSKFGLMG

    Chair: Zhi He

  • Yimin Zhou

    Program: Mechanical Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Enhancement of Boiling and Evaporation Heat Transfer through Surface Structure Design for Two-Phase Thermal Management

    Date: 7 Jul 2025

    Time: 3:00 p.m.

    Location: 2540 GGB

    Chair: Solomon Adera

  • Shubham Atreja

    Program: Information

    Dissertation Title: AppealMod: Introducing Productive Friction to Support Volunteer Moderators

    Date: 7 Jul 2025

    Time: 4:00 p.m.

    Location: LEINWEBER COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION BUILDING 3470

    Chair: Libby Hemphill

  • Tejaswi Tripathi

    Program: Mathematics

    Dissertation Title: Exponential Last Passage Percolation in the Upper Large Deviation Regime and Multi-Point Distributions for other LPP Models

    Date: 8 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: 1866 EAST HALL

    Chair: Jinho Baik

  • Carmen Ramos

    Program: Nutritional Science

    Dissertation Title: The Role of Coparenting Dynamics in Early Childhood Feeding and Promotion of Young Children's Healthy Weight

    Date: 8 Jul 2025

    Time: 12:00 p.m.

    Location: SPH1 2695

    Chair: Kate Bauer

  • Emily Cornish

    Program: History of Art

    Dissertation Title: Indigenous Women and Photography in the Hawaiian Kingdom

    Date: 8 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/97031661154?JST=3

    Chair: Kevin Gray Carr and Stacy Kamehiro

  • Ariella Hoffman-Peterson

    Program: Health Service Org & Policy

    Dissertation Title: Innovating with Trust: Regulation and Organizational Field Maturity in the Era of Emerging Health Technologies

    Date: 8 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/91510886169?JST=2

    Chair: Jodyn Platt

  • Nan Cheng

    Program: Physics

    Dissertation Title: Symmetry-Driven Phenomena in Complex Media

    Date: 10 Jul 2025

    Time: 9:00 a.m.

    Location: WEST HALL ROOM 335. ZOOM LINK: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/8790406115

    Chair: Xiaoming Mao

  • Kayla Marcotte

    Program: Hlth Infrastruc and Lrng Systs

    Dissertation Title: Optimizing an Assessment Model: Investigating How Multiple Observations from Workplace-based Assessments Can Be Used to Build Accurate Measurement Systems in Graduate Medical Education

    Date: 10 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: TAUBMAN HEALTH SCIENCES LIBRARY (ROOM 2903)

    Chair: Andrew E Krumm

  • Hayley Lillo

    Program: Chemistry

    Dissertation Title: Multinuclear Nickel Complexes Featuring Unusual Oxygenic Ligands: Hydrogen Peroxide Activation, Catalase Reactivity, and Efforts Toward C?H Activation

    Date: 10 Jul 2025

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: 1706 CHEMISTRY

    Chair: Joshua Buss

  • Marianthie Wank

    Program: Biostatistics

    Dissertation Title: Clinical Trial Design and Statistical Methods for Partially Randomized Patient Preference, Sequential, Multiple-Assignment, Randomized Trials

    Date: 11 Jul 2025

    Time: 8:00 a.m.

    Location: SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH BUILDING 2 M4034, HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/MEETING/REGISTER/B4MKAOOOQZU4YYHVKVF

    Chair: Tom Braun and Kelley Kidwell

  • Zhichen Liu

    Program: Civil Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Inverse Learning and Intervention of Transportation Network Equilibrium

    Date: 11 Jul 2025

    Time: 9:30 a.m.

    Location: GGB 2029

    Chair: Yafeng Yin

  • Maximilian Jerdee

    Program: Physics

    Dissertation Title: Inference and Information in Network Structure

    Date: 11 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: WEISER 747

    Chair: Mark Newman

  • Scott Neville

    Program: Mathematics

    Dissertation Title: Combinatorics of Quiver Mutations

    Date: 11 Jul 2025

    Time: 12:00 p.m.

    Location: 210 WH

    Chair: Sergey Fomin

  • Haojie Zhu

    Program: Civil Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Dense Learning for Advancing Safety Performance of Autonomous Vehicles

    Date: 11 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: GGB 2029 CONF ROOM

    Chair: Henry Liu

  • Luchen Zhang

    Program: Pharmaceutical Sciences

    Dissertation Title: Development of Small-Molecule Antagonists or Agonists of STING for Treatment of Autoimmune Diseases or Cancer

    Date: 14 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: NCRC B520 ROOM 1140; ZOOM: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/94533406820 (PASSCODE: 051951)

    Chair: Duxin Sun

  • Jose Ortiz Tavarez

    Program: Physics

    Dissertation Title: Physical Networks, Exploring the Role of Real Space Topology in Physical Response

    Date: 14 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: 4404 RANDALL

    Chair: Nicholas Kotov and Xiaoming Mao

  • Masahiro Abe

    Program: Environmental Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Financial Modeling of Extreme Flood Events on Corporate Property Damage and Business Interruption Loss: A Geospatially-Informed Facility Portfolio Approach

    Date: 14 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: GGB 2029, HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/99959859021 PW:730087

    Chair: Peter Adriaens

  • Chalem Bolton

    Program: Sociology

    Dissertation Title: Three Essays on Economic Inequality and Insecurity in the United States

    Date: 14 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: LSA 4147

    Chair: Greta R Krippner and Robert Allen Manduca

  • William Weaver

    Program: Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

    Dissertation Title: The Marginality Manifesto: Computational Morphometrics of Half a Million Herbarium Specimens Reveals Lineage-Specific Evolutionary Dynamics in Climate-Leaf Trait Relationships

    Date: 14 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: BSB 3150 AND HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/WEBINAR/REGISTER/WN_-UJR9SPTRKATNVGC28ICLA

    Chair: Stephen A Smith

  • Rahaf Alharbi

    Program: Information

    Dissertation Title: Reimagining Privacy and Transparency in Visual Assistance Technologies with Blind People

    Date: 14 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: ZOOM: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/94066323760?JST=2

    Chair: Robin Brewer and Sarita Schoenebeck

  • Kat Roemmich

    Program: Information

    Dissertation Title: Reshaping Privacy Norms in the Age of Emotion AI: Socio-Technical Pathways for Emotional Privacy, Human Agency, and Dignity

    Date: 14 Jul 2025

    Time: 3:00 p.m.

    Location: LEINWEBER-4-4526 (8)

    Chair: Florian Schaub

  • Linda Huber

    Program: Information

    Dissertation Title: Computing Care: Governing U.S. Healthcare Through Markets and Data

    Date: 15 Jul 2025

    Time: 8:00 a.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/95047727766?PWD=UXJYE97PCCX1MHPW5CUNIBXGZKD2IQ.1

    Chair: Silvia Lindtner

  • Agamjot Sangotra

    Program: Molecular & Cellular Pathology

    Dissertation Title: Novel Strategies to Target the Polyglutamine Androgen Receptor in Spinal and Bulbar Muscular Atrophy

    Date: 15 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: BSRB (ABC SEMINAR ROOMS)

    Chair: Andrew P Lieberman

  • Easton Huch

    Program: Statistics

    Dissertation Title: Robust Methods for Causal Inference and Policy Learning with Applications to Mobile Health

    Date: 15 Jul 2025

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: WEST HALL 438, HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/92910902423?PWD=KLJTM607UKOIHGZGJVCWK0MY777UUB.1&JST=3

    Chair: Walter Dempsey and Fred Feinberg

  • Cheyenne Pettit

    Program: History

    Dissertation Title: Tempting the Nation: Venereal Disease and Imperial Belonging in Canada's Great War, 1914-1920

    Date: 16 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/96185521813 AND EIHS CONFERENCE ROOM

    Chair: Joshua H Cole and Kali A K Israel

  • Crystal Zanders

    Program: English and Education

    Dissertation Title: Unseen: Black Autistic Women's Masking Practices, Pressures, and Possibilities

    Date: 16 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/91078361262 PW: 474155

    Chair: Anne Leslie Curzan and M Remi Yergeau

  • Sam Ankenbauer

    Program: Information

    Dissertation Title: Skimming the Deep Keel: The Coordination Work of Older Adults in Precarious Moments

    Date: 16 Jul 2025

    Time: 2:15 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/9477636206

    Chair: Robin Brewer

  • Anubha Singh

    Program: Information

    Dissertation Title: Governing Onions: Between the Forms and Fantasies of Designing the Future of Agriculture in India

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 8:00 a.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/7505284466 (PASSCODE: 023661)

    Chair: Patricia Garcia and Silvia Lindtner

  • Adam Ard

    Program: Medicinal Chemistry

    Dissertation Title: Discovery and SAR-Guided Development of Small-Molecule SERCA2a Activators for Cardiovascular Applications

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 9:00 a.m.

    Location: RACKHAM GRADUATE SCHOOL, EARL LEWIS ROOM HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/96012409511 PW: SERCA

    Chair: Martin C Clasby

  • Galen Ng

    Program: Naval Architect & Marine Eng

    Dissertation Title: Hydroelastic Optimization of Composite Appendages

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 9:30 a.m.

    Location: 236 NAVAL ARCHITECTURE AND MARINE ENGINEERING BUILDING (ROSENBLATT ROOM)

    Chair: Joaquim R R A Martins

  • Prabhjot Kaur

    Program: Nuc Eng & Radiol Sciences

    Dissertation Title: Improving the Probabilistic Method of Sequence Reconstruction and Developing a 3D Compton Imaging System with CdZnTe

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: JOHNSON ROOMS, LURIE ENGINEERING CENTER, 3RD FLOOR LEC 3213ABC

    Chair: Zhong He

  • Yulan Chu

    Program: Cell & Developmental Biology

    Dissertation Title: Cell Cycle-activated Nuclear Receptor Phosphorylation Maintains Organotypic Progenitor Cell Identity and Lineage Fidelity

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: KAHN AUDITORIUM, 109 ZINA PITCHER PL, ANN ARBOR, MI 48109, USA

    Chair: Benjamin Allen

  • Guoxin Zheng

    Program: Physics

    Dissertation Title: Study of Electrical, Magnetic, and Thermal Properties in Kagome Materials

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 11:00 a.m.

    Location: AP267 CONFERENCE ROOM

    Chair: Lu Li

  • Cassidy Pyle

    Program: Information

    Dissertation Title: Investigating Affirmative Action Discussions on Social Media

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 12:00 p.m.

    Location: ZOOM: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/95382147017

    Chair: Nazanin Andalibi and Nicole Ellison

  • Papa Yaw Owusu-Obeng

    Program: Environment and Sustainability

    Dissertation Title: Balancing Local Priorities with Regional Decarbonization: Pathways for Utility-Scale Solar Expansion

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 12:30 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/99355167093

    Chair: Michael T Craig

  • Sang Hyun Lee

    Program: Electrical & Computer Engineer

    Dissertation Title: Multiscale THz Polarization Activity: From Chiral Phonons to Micro- and Macrostructures

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: NCRC G063 & G064

    Chair: Nicholas Kotov and Theodore B Norris

  • Usha Kadiyala

    Program: Biophysics

    Dissertation Title: Spatiotemporal Coordination of Growth and Patterning in Early Embryonic Development

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: 1640 CHEM

    Chair: Qiong Yang

  • Solangel Troncoso

    Program: Psych & Women's and Gender Stu

    Dissertation Title:

    Date: 17 Jul 2025

    Time: 3:00 p.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/99591121371?JST=3

    Chair: Susan A Gelman

  • Lingxiao Zhou

    Program: Physics

    Dissertation Title: Coherent Manipulation of Two-Dimensional Semiconductors for Photonic Devices

    Date: 18 Jul 2025

    Time: 9:00 a.m.

    Location: RANDALL 4404; OR HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/3491695633

    Chair: Hui Deng

  • Deepthi Suresh

    Program: Biomedical Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Improving Student Outcome Expectations for Biomedical Quality Engineering

    Date: 18 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: JAMES AND ANNE DUDERSTADT CENTER 1180 – PRESENTATION ROOM, HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/93869079483

    Chair: Paul Anthony Jensen

  • Doruk Aksoy

    Program: Aerospace Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Incremental Tensor Decompositions for Scientific Machine Learning and Bayesian Inference

    Date: 18 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: FRB2300 AND HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/2519051905

    Chair: Alex Arkady Gorodetsky

  • Dicle Taskin

    Program: Architecture

    Dissertation Title: The Pan-American Highway Project: Imageries, Infrastructures, and Landscapes of Hemispheric Integration, 1923-1970

    Date: 18 Jul 2025

    Time: 11:00 a.m.

    Location: HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/91937519368 PW: DEFENSE

    Chair: Joy Knoblauch

  • Adaeze Eneli

    Program: Pharmaceutical Sciences

    Dissertation Title: Understanding the Critical Quality Attributes Influencing Doxil? Performance in Vitro and in Vivo

    Date: 18 Jul 2025

    Time: 12:00 p.m.

    Location: NCRC BUILDING 10 RESEARCH AUDITORIUM, HTTPS://UMICH.ZOOM.US/J/91940700142 PW: DOXIL

    Chair: Anna A S Schwendeman

  • Andrew Cruz

    Program: Chemistry

    Dissertation Title: Outcompeting and Suppressing the Intramolecular Heck Arylation in Bimolecular Palladium-Catalyzed Alkene Difunctionalization Reactions

    Date: 18 Jul 2025

    Time: 1:00 p.m.

    Location: CHEMISTRY ROOM 1640

    Chair: John P Wolfe

  • Andrew Bennett

    Program: Chemistry

    Dissertation Title: Ionic Cocrystals as Green Oxidizers

    Date: 18 Jul 2025

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: CHEM 1400

    Chair: Adam J Matzger

  • Daniel Liao

    Program: Mechanical Engineering

    Dissertation Title: Interfacial Engineering of Anode-Free Solid-State Batteries

    Date: 18 Jul 2025

    Time: 2:00 p.m.

    Location: LURIE 4231

    Chair: Neil P Dasgupta

  • Chao Huang

    Program: Materials Science & Engin

    Dissertation Title: The Science and Pharmaceutical Application of Nano-Materials Made via?Organic Vapor Jet De-sublimation

    Date: 18 Jul 2025

    Time: 3:00 p.m.

    Location: G126 CONF ROOM – CHE B28, NCRC

    Chair: Max Shtein

  • Leyao Zhang

    Program: Biostatistics

    Dissertation Title: Supervised Feature Discovery and Uncertainty Quantification in High-Dimensional Regression

    Date: 21 Jul 2025

    Time: 9:00 a.m.

    Location: M4034, SPH II

    Chair: Peter Xuekun Song

  • Emily Oliphant

    Program: Materials Science & Engin

    Dissertation Title: Bridging Bonds and Bands: A Toolkit for Interpreting the Crystal Chemistry of Electronic Structure

    Date: 21 Jul 2025

    Time: 10:00 a.m.

    Location: EECS 1303

    Chair: Emmanouil Kioupakis and Wenhao Sun