College of Sciences Celebrates Summer 2020 Ph.D. Grads

A doctorate degree represents one of the highest honors in academia. The 2020 Summer term’s Ph.D. graduates not only earned this honor, they did so with the extra stress of doing their work remotely. The College of Science recognizes and applauds the hard work applied to receive this degree.

Chemistry

Ziyang Huang, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Swadeshmukul Santra, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Magnesium based materials for crop protection and reduction of copper usage in the agricultural field

Kathleen McCormac-Miller, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Melanie Beazley, Ph.D.
Dissertation: The Effects of Dissolved Oxygen on Phosphorus Cycling in Benthic Freshwater Systems 

Clinical Psychology

Annelise Cunningham, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Kristi Alexander, Ph.D.
Dissertation: How is she managing? Examination of a woman’s emotion regulation strategy in the relationship between anxiety, depression, and prenatal attachment.

Samuel Eckrich, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor, Mark Rapport, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Working memory in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: an investigation of short-term and central executive memory components using functional near-infrared spectroscopy.

Michael Gramlich, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor, Sandra M. Neer, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Neurological Reactivity to Personalized Odors and Sounds in Combat-related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Madeline Marks, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Clint Bowers, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Habituation Trajectory During Exposure Therapy: Comparing Trauma Frequency and Trauma Type 

Rosanna Scott, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Daniel Paulson, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Cognitive and vascular risk factors for depression: Testing an integrated theoretical framework 

Christopher Spencer, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Jeffrey Bedwell, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Maladaptive personality traits and acute psychological distress in individuals with head and neck cancer 

Brittany Stevenson, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Robert Dvorak, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Loss of Control Eating as an Escape from Aversive Self-Awareness

Chelsea Wiener, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Jeffrey Cassisi, Ph.D.
Co-chair: Cerissa Blaney, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Brief Behavioral Health Intervention Program for Patients with Stable Coronary Artery Disease

Conservational Biology

Juan Bogota, Ph.D.,
Faculty Advisor: William Crampton, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Biodiversity and Community Composition of Freshwater Fish Assemblages in the Lower Amazon

Human Factors & Cognitive Psychology

Pooja Patel, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Corey Bohil, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Impacts of State & Trait Anxiety on Category Learning

Theresa Kessler, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Peter A. Hancock, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Neurophysiological Correlates for Trust in Robots 

Industrial Organizational Psychology

Betsir Zemen, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Clint Bowers, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Examining the Role of Item Scrolling in Mobile Cognitive Assessment

Mathematics

Majid Noroozi, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Marianna Pensky, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Estimation and Clustering in Block Models

Ramchandra Rimal, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Marianna Pensky, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Estimation and Clustering for network and indirect data

Wei Yan, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Jiongmin Yong, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Mean Field Optimal Control and Related Problems

Planetary Sciences Physics

Wesley Chambers, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Daniel T. Britt, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Experimental and Computational Investigation of Plume Surface Interactions in Vacuum Microgravity

Leos Pohl, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Daniel T. Britt, Ph.D.
Dissertation: The Physical Properties of Asteroids

Physics

Westley James, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Jacquelyn J. Chini, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Investigating the inclusiveness of STEM courses and reducing barriers by applying the universal design for learning framework

Justin Reyes, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Eduardo Mucciolo, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Tensor Network States: Optimizations and Applications in Quantum Many-Body Physics and Machine Learning

Chi Hong Yuen, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Viatcheslav Kokoouline, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Theoretical Studies of Collisions Involving Three Bodies and Electron-Molecule Collisions Relevant to Astrophysical and Atmospheric Conditions

Security Studies

Xiongwei Cao, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Michael Mousseau, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Cute Panda or Evil Dragon? Market Economy, Conflict Behavior and China’s Peaceful Rise

Sandor Fabian, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Andrew Boutton, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Improving Foreign Militaries – The Effects Of U.S. International Military Education and Training Programs

Joshua Lambert, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Jonathan Powell, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Food, Familiarity, and Forecasting: Modeling Coups with Computational Methods

Sociology

Lain Graham, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Timothy Lee Hawthorne, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Mapping Sense of Place in Hopkins, Belize: Creating Spatial Narratives to Understand Development using Participatory GIS 

Corey Pomykacz, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Jason Ford, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Marijuana Use Among Adults in the United States: Comparing Correlates of Use, Assessing the Impact of Education, and Evaluating Use and Health amid Justice-Involved Populations

Alec Szalewski, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisors: Lin Huff-Corzine, Ph.D., and Amy Reckdenwald, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Family Mass Homicide: An investigation

Angela Vergara, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor: Fernando Rivera Ph.D.
Dissertation: Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria: Responses to Trauma and Constructing a New Life in Central Florida