2016-2017 Graduate Grant Recipients

Clovis Bergere, PhD Candidate in Childhood Studies (May 2017)
Proposed Dissertation Title: Social Networking and the Mediation Youth in Urban Guinea

Theresa Murzyn, PhD Candidate in Childhood Studies
Proposed Dissertation Title: Investigating the Moderating Effect of Rejection Sensitivity and Other Personality Variables on the Online Social Behavior

Abigail Todhunter-Reid, PhD Candidate in Childhood Studies (May 2017)
Proposed Dissertation Title: In-School Arts Education, Motivation, and Achievement: A Longitudinal Approach

Wenyi Wang, PhD Candidate in Computational & Integrative Biology
Proposed Dissertation Title: Virtual Nanoparticles and Quantitative Nanostructure Toxicity Relationship

Rasheda Weaver, PhD Candidate in Public Affairs (May 2017)
Proposed Dissertation Title: Social Enterprise and Institutional Voids: Exploring the Capabilities of the Social and Economic Bottom-Line

Childhood Studies (MA/PhD)

Ryan Bunch
PhD, Childhood Studies
Conference Title: Mid-Atlantic Popular American Culture Association
Conference Location: Atlantic City, NJ
Presentation Title: Performing Objects, Child Subjects, and Disney’s It’s a Small World
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Meredith Bak

Katherine Fredricks
PhD, Childhood Studies
Conference Title: Midwest Popular Culture Association (MPCA) Conference
Conference Location: Chicago, IL
Presentation Title: “My Good Little Christian Girl Shouldn’t Act Like This:” Girlhoods, Sexual Regulation, & the Neoliberal Subject in Lifetime Network’s Preachers’ Daughters
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Kate Cairns

Rosemarie Pena
PhD, Childhood Studies
Conference Title: 40^th Annual Conference of German Studies Association
Conference Location: San Diego, California
Presentation Title: Round table 4: BEST revisited: Black Studies in Germany, Europe and the US Series of Roundtable
Faculty Adviser:  Dr. Sarada Balagopalan

Janice Stiglich
PhD, Childhood Studies
Conference Title: American Anthropological Association
Conference Location: Minneapolis, MN
Presentation Title: We Are Not Invisible in Dignified Work: Constructions of Working Children in Lima, Peru
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Kate Cairns

Samantha White
PhD, Childhood Studies
Conference Title: International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport
Conference Location: Paris, France
Presentation Title: Labor, Resistance, and Protest Among Athletics at Historically Black Colleges
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Sarada Balagopalan

Elisabeth Yang
PhD, Childhood Studies
Conference Title: International Society for Intellectual History
Conference Location: Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
Presentation Title: Horace Bushnell’s Notion of the Essentia Organica in “Christian Nurture” and his Child-Centered Anthropology
Faculty Adviser: Dr. John Wall

Computational & Integrative Biology (MS/PhD)

Catherine Guay
PhD, Computational & Integrative Biology
Conference Title: 2016 Society of Developmental Biology Annual Meeting
Conference Location: Boston, MA
Presentation Title: High-throughput spatial cis-regulatory analysis by turning chaos into order
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Jongmin Nam

Ruchi Lohia
PhD, Computational & Integrative Biology
Conference Title: Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society
Conference Location: New Orleans, LA
Presentation Title: Mechanism Underlying Conformational Effects of a disease-associated hydrophobic-to-hydrophobic substitution on an intrinsically disordered region
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Grace Brannigan

Sean McQuade
PhD, Computational & Integrative Biology
Conference Title: SANOFI Mount Sinai Systems Pharmacology Symposium
Conference Location: New York, NY
Presentation Title: Modeling Human Lipid Metabolism for Multiple Classes of Virtual Patient
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Benedetto Piccoli

Sruthi Murlidaran
PhD, Computational & Integrative Biology
Conference Title: Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society
Conference Location: New Orleans, LA
Presentation Title: Relative Affinities of General Anesthetics for pseudo-symmetric intersubunit binding sites of heteromeric GABA(A) receptors
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Grace Brannigan

Sung Won Oh
PhD, Computational & Integrative Biology
Conference Title: American Chemical Society 252nd National Meeting
Conference Location: Philadelphia, PA
Presentation Title: Logic-Gated Multienzyme Pathways Circuit
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Jinglin Fu

Nicole Revaitis
PhD, Computational & Integrative Biology
MS, Biology (May 2013)
Conference Title: Society for Developmental Biology Annual Meeting
Conference Location: Boston, MA
Presentation Title: Analysis of cis-regulatory module in Drosophila oogenesis
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Nir Yakoby

Sreelekha Revur
PhD, Computational & Integrative Biology
Conference Title: 2016 Meeting for Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phages
Conference Location: Madison, WI
Presentation Title: Identification of novel stalk-specific penicillin binding proteins in Caulobacter crescentus
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Eric Klein

Catherine Rosenberg
PhD, Computational & Integrative Biology
Conference Title: Lymphedema Education Awareness Conference
Conference Location: Grand Junction, CO
Presentation Title: A Numerical Analysis of the Mathematical Approaches Available to Calculate Limb Volume in Lymphedema Patients
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Desmond Lun

Daniel Russo
PhD, Computational & Integrative Biology
Conference Title: Society of Toxicology
Conference Location: Baltimore, MD
Presentation Title: CIIProCluster: Developing Read-Across Predictive Toxicity Models Using Big Data
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Hao Zhu

Linlin Zhao
PhD, Computational & Integrative Biology
Conference Title: 252nd American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition
Conference Location: Philadelphia, PA
Presentation Title: Experimental Errors in QSAR modeling sets: What we can do and what we cannot do
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Hao Zhu

Public Affairs (MS/PhD)

Spencer Clayton
PhD, Public Affairs
MS, Public Affairs (October 2015)
Conference Title: 47th Annual Conference of the Urban Affairs Association
Conference Location: Minneapolis, MN
Presentation Title: Gentrification and Displacement: How Government Policy Disrupts Communities
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Richard Harris

Straso Jovanovski
PhD, Public Affairs
MS, Public Affairs (October 2015)
Conference Title: 66th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems
Conference Location: Seattle, WA
Presentation Title: The Spatial Dimensions of Concentrated Poverty and Health: An Analysis of U.S. Metropolitan and Micropolitan Areas, 2001-2010
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn

David Okereke
PhD, Public Affairs
MS, Public Affairs (May 2017)
Conference Title: Urban Affairs Association Conference
Conference Location: Minneapolis, MN
Presentation: Assessing Economic Revitalization among New Jersey Municipalities: A Camden Case-Study
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn

Christopher Wheeler
PhD, Public Affairs (May 2017)
MS, Public Affairs (May 2016)
Conference Title: Urban Affairs Association Conference
Conference Location: Minneapolis, MN
Presentation Title: Race, Land Use Regulation and Housing Affordability in Metropolitan America
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Paul Jargowsky

Curtis Williams
PhD, Public Affairs
MS, Public Affairs (May 2016)
Conference Title: APPAM Fall Research Conference
Conference Location: Washington, DC
Presentation Title: Breaking the Rules or Breaking the Law?: The Criminalization of School Discipline
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Paul Jargowsky

Zachary Wood
PhD, Public Affairs
MS, Public Affairs (October 2015)
Conference Title: Association for Research on Nonprofits and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA)
Conference Location: Washington, DC
Presentation Title: Advocating Against the Grain: Toward a New Typology of Advocacy Behavior to Enhance Democracy
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Lorraine Minnite

Biology

Alessio Russomanno
MS, Biology (May 2017)
Conference Title: 58th Annual Drosophila Research Conference
Conference Location: San Diego, CA
Presentation Title: Characterization of eggshell diversity among Drosophilidae species: signaling, patterning, and morphogenesis
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Nir Yakoby

Chemistry

John Collins
MS, Chemistry
Conference Title: Foundations of Nanoscience 2017
Conference Location: Snowbird, UT
Presentation Title: DNA Crowded Enzyme Complexes with Enhanced Activity and Stability
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Jinglin Fu

Creative Writing

Juliana Roth
MFA, Creative Writing
Conference Title: Creating4Change Film Symposium at the University of Michigan
Conference Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Presentation Title: The University: Season 1
Faculty Adviser: Prof. Lauren Grodstein

Criminal Justice

Mitchell Larson
MA, Criminal Justice
Conference Title: American Society of Criminology
Conference Location: New Orleans, LA
Presentation Title: Social Capital and College Success: Voices from Inner-City Students
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Michelle Meloy

Shelby Tucker
MA, Criminal Justice (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Society of Criminology
Conference Location: New Orleans, LA
Presentation Title: Surviving the Dark Times: The Effect of Informal and Formal Mentors on Educational Attainment of At Risk Youth
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Michelle Meloy

Wayne Webb
Criminal Justice and Public Policy – MA/MPA (January 2017)
Conference Title: American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting
Conference Location: New Orleans, LA
Presentation Title: Unmasking the Hidden Influences to College Success in a Disadvantages Urban Environment: Voices from Inner-City College Students
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Michelle Meloy

English

Renee Drouin
MA, English (May 2017)
Conference Title: Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Conference
Conference Location: Salt Lake City, UT
Presentation Title: “I Dare Say: Early Integration of the Audio-Essay in First Year Composition”
Faculty Adviser: Dr. William FitzGerald

Brynn Kairis
MA, English (May 2017)
Conference Title: Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Conference
Conference Location: Salt Lake City, UT
Presentation Title: “I Dare Say: Early Integration of the Audio-Essay in First Year Composition”
Faculty Adviser: Dr. William FitzGerald

Physical Therapy

Jessica Abramo
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: The Effects of Chronic Exercise on Lung Function in Adults with Cystic Fibrosis
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Robert Dekerlegand

Alexandria Achille
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: Influence of neuromuscular control and strength training of core musculature on distal function: a systematic review
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Richard Ferraro

David Chen
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: The Effect of six minutes of walking on perceived fatigue and physical performance in people with multiple sclerosis: A systematic review
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Evan Cohen

Michelle Heinemann
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: The Effectiveness of Movement Based Therapy of Exercise on Gait in Persons with Peripheral Neuropathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Faculty Adviser: Dr. David Kietrys

Adam Huynh
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: Influence of neuromuscular control and strength training of core musculature on distal function: a systematic review
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Richard Ferraro

Mark Krimmel
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: The Effectiveness of Movement Based Therapy of Exercise on Gait in Persons with Peripheral Neuropathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Faculty Adviser: Dr. David Kietrys

Megan Meszaros
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: The Effects of Chronic Exercise on Lung Function in Adults with Cystic Fibrosis
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Robert Dekerlegand

William Owen
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: Effectiveness of Physical Therapy Interventions on Physical Measures of Health After Cesarean Section Delivery: A Systematic Review
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Adrienne Simonds

Amanda Palombo
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: Effectiveness of Physical Therapy Interventions on Physical Measures of Health After Cesarean Section Delivery: A Systematic Review
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Adrienne Simonds

Ayesha Rele
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: Effectiveness of Physical Therapy Interventions on Physical Measures of Health After Cesarean Section Delivery: A Systematic Review
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Adrienne Simonds

Stephanie Silva
DPT, Physical Therapy (May 2017)
Conference Title: American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: The Effectiveness of Movement Based Therapy of Exercise on Gait in Persons with Peripheral Neuropathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Faculty Adviser: Dr. David Kietrys

Psychology

Madeliene Alger
MA, Psychology (May 2017)
Conference Title: Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: The Effects of Open Body Postures on Power and Persuasion
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Christopher Nave

Michelle Dixon
MA, Psychology (May 2017)
Conference Title: Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: Personality, Person Perception, and Impression Management: Does Impression Efficacy and Motivation Predict Change in Personality
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Christopher Nave

Vaani Pardal
MA, Psychology (May 2017)
Conference Title: Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Conference Location: San Antonio, TX
Presentation Title: The Role of Implicit Gender Stereotypes in Face-to Face Negotiation Outcomes
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Sean Duffy

Alex Titus
MA, Psychology (May 2017)
Conference Title: Association for Psychological Science
Conference Location: Chicago, IL
Presentation Title: Sex Differences in Preferences for Humor by Men or Women: Is Humor in the Sex of the Perceiver?
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Sean Duffy

Teaching Spanish

Krista Herrera
MAT, Teaching Spanish (May 2017)
Conference Title: Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies
Conference Location: University of Virginia
Presentation Title: Music as a Second Language in “The Tree” by Maria Luisa Bombal
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Carla Giaudrone

Childhood Studies (MA/PhD)

Eva Lupold
PhD, Childhood Studies
Research Topic: Accessibility and Digital Environments
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Meredith Bak

Biology

Zachary Cook
MS, Biology
Research Project: Comparative properties of soil ecosystems along an urban-rural gradient
Faculty Adviser: John Dighton

Denise Hassinger
MS, Biology
Research Project: Macrozoobenthos Polychaetes from the Florida Keys
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Daniel Shain

Tiffany Lutz
MS, Biology
Research Project: The effects of elevation and body size on the food web complexity and structure of Ecuador web-building spiders
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Angelica Gonzalez

John Rapacz
MS, Biology
Research Project: Spatial Learning and the Hoppocampus in Carassius auratus
Faculty Adviser: Dr. William Saidel

Creative Writing

Monidipa Mondal
MFA, Creative Writing
Research Project: The Complete Works of Edith Wharton
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Carol Singley

English

Kristi Collemacine
MA, English
Research Project: Complete Edition of the Works of Edith Wharton
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Carol Singley

Damiano Consilvio
MA, English
Research Project: Complete Edition of the Works of Edith Wharton
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Carol Singley

Rebecca Grubb
MA, English (May 2017)
Research Project: Complete Edition of the Works of Edith Wharton
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Carol Singley

Teaching Spanish

Madison Rogers
MAT, Teaching Spanish
Research Project: Conceptual Tools as Mediators in the Production of L2 Spanish
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Prospero Garcia