Where did you grow up? 
Baltimore County, Maryland. If you visit, the Baltimore Aquarium is incredible, and the Inner Harbor area is great for a casual day by the water!

What drew you to your field? 
Since I was very young, I have been obsessed with marine science. I would check out all the library books that I could carry about the ocean and the organisms living in it. In high school, I joined an environmental science team for a competition, and specialized in aquatic sciences. Then, in college, I was a geochemistry major. During a summer internship, I realized that improving water quality would drastically improve the health and safety of people. It was then that I changed my focus to water quality.

How would you explain your current research to someone outside of your field? 
When it rains, sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants can become overwhelmed by the excess water volume. They can then discharge partially treated or untreated sewage into the Hudson River. Epidemiological studies have shown that contact with water contaminated by human sewage causes higher rates of illness (particularly gastrointestinal issues) in humans. I am trying to predict the persistence of sewage-derived bacteria in the water, because we then can better inform people and limit the risk of exposure during recreational activities on the Hudson River.

What is your favorite thing about being a student at Columbia GSAS?
The Students of Color Alliance (SoCA). It was revamping itself when I started my studies here, and I immediately joined the board as communications director. Through SoCA, I have found a community for support when dealing with the unique challenges of being a student of color in an academic space. This year, I have stepped up to be one of SoCA’s co-chairs, and am excited about what we can do to support students of color and foster community!

Is there a common misconception about a topic in your field that you wish you could correct?
The impact of plastic straws on overall plastic pollution in the ocean. While plastic straws do contribute, they are a small part of a 150-million-metric-ton problem. (Also, we should remember that plastic straws are important for the quality of life for people with disabilities.) The conversation should focus instead on how can we each reduce our overall plastic consumption: shopping with reusable bags, bringing our own cups to get our morning coffee, etc. Our plastic footprint is much greater than the straws that we use.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
On paper, it would be graduating from MIT in just over four years with a bachelor’s and master’s degree. But to me, one of the most important ways that I have contributed is by fostering diversity and inclusion in STEM fields through mentoring, advocacy, and outreach. At Columbia, I’ve supervised research experiences for two undergraduates interns, and recently mentored five students in the GSAS Summer Research Program. I am an active participant in science outreach through Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, and use social media both to share science and to promote awareness of issues related to diversity and inclusion.

What is your favorite blog or website?
When I’m in the lab doing routine tasks, I will often turn on a podcast. I’m a big fan of More Perfect, Radiolab, Freakonomics, and Naked Oceans. I appreciate that each of these podcasts will explore a (sometimes controversial) topic in-depth.

Where is your favorite place to eat on or around campus?
My kitchen. I love learning from cooking shows, and am always trying different seasonal recipes. I recently bought a pressure cooker, and that was a game changer. Cooking and baking is just like science, except you get to eat something (ideally) tasty at the end!

GSAS Writing Studio consultants will support the dissertation-writing work of their fellow graduate students in several ways: by facilitating peer groups and leading workshops; and meeting with writers in one-on-one draft conferences. Consultants will receive formal training and will work closely with the Director of the GSAS Writing Studio. Rather than editing or correcting, consultants will support writers by listening, helping them to clarify and articulate ideas, and offering concrete drafting and revision strategies drawn from the consultant’s own writing experience as well as from staff-development trainings.

Consultants will be paid $25 per hour, and typically will work five to ten hours per week. (Please note the time limits associated with specific doctoral student fellowships.)

Requirements:

• a strong interest in writing
• an interest in talking about writing (their own and others')
• knowledge about the conventions of academic writing
• confidence with facilitating group discussions
• excellent command of written English
• willingness to be creative and flexible
• engaged and empathetic demeanor
• ability to commit to regular peer-group meetings
• ability to attend an orientation meeting as well as regular staff development sessions

To Apply: Please send a CV, a cover letter expressing your interest in working with graduate writers, and a writing sample of 15-25 pages to gsas-writingstudio [at] columbia.edu by October 1. After this date, applications will be reviewed as they are received.

DISSERTATIONS DEFENDED

Anthropology
Damick, Alison. Complex ecologies: The micro-evidence for storage landscapes and resilience in early Bronze Age Lebanon. Sponsor: Brian Boyd.

Duruiz, Deniz. Sweated labor of Kurdish enclosures: Dispossession, racialization, and rural labor migration in Turkey. Sponsor: Nadia Abu El-Haj.

Fierman, Julia. There are traitors among us: Loyalty and the practice of populist fellowship. Sponsors: Claudio Lomnitz and Elizabeth Povinelli.

Grinberg, Yuliya. Sensored: Quantified self, self-tracking, and the limits of digital transparency. Sponsor: Marilyn Ivy.

Kurt, Firat. Folds of authoritarianism: Political mobilization, financial capitalism, and Islamism in Turkey. Sponsor: Rosalind Morris.

Applied Mathematics
Lipat, Bernard. Quantifying and understanding the linkages between clouds and the general circulation of the atmosphere. Sponsors: Lorenzo Polvani and George Tselioudis.

Applied Physics
Lin, Yi. Surface electron dynamics for intercalated graphene (and other 2D materials) on a metal template. Sponsor: Richard Osgood.

Qi, Hongjian. Computational genomics and genetics of developmental disorders. Sponsors: Yufeng Shen and Chris Wiggins.

Wang, Dennis. Optical and electronic studies of air-sensitive van der Waals materials encapsulated by hexagonal boron nitride. Sponsors: Irving Herman and Abhay Pasupathy.

Art History and Archaeology
Campbell, Thomas. Real to reel: The cassette publication as networked space. Sponsor: Branden Joseph.

Damman, Catherine. Unreliable narrators: Staging performance in the 1970s. Sponsor: Branden Joseph.

Gollnick, Elizabeth. Diffusion: Light artists in postwar California. Sponsor: Branden Joseph.

Teti, Matthew. From minimalism to performance art: Chris Burden, 1967-1971. Sponsor: Branden Joseph.

Young, Gillian. Telepresence: Joan Jonas and the emergence of performance and video in the 1970s. Sponsor: Branden Joseph.

Astronomy
Chen, Jingjing. A bayesian approach to the understanding of exoplanet populations and the origin of life. Sponsor: David Kipping.

Fernandez, Ricardo. An object-oriented, python-based moving mesh hydrodynamics code inspired by astrophysical problems. Sponsor: Greg Bryan.

Generozov, Aleksey. Stellar and gas dynamics in galactic nuclei. Sponsors: Zoltan Haiman and Brian Metzger.

Hendel, David. Dynamics and detection of tidal debris. Sponsor: Kathryn Johnston.

Núñez, Alejandro. The relationship between stellar rotation and magnetic activity as revealed by M37 and Alpha Persei. Sponsor: Marcel Agueros.

Pearson, Sarah. Stellar streams, dwarf galaxy pairs, and the halos in which they reside. Sponsor: Kathryn Johnston.

Zheng, Yong. The cycle of gaseous baryons between the disk and halo. Sponsor: Mary Putman.

Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics
Kribelbauer, Judith. Systematically mapping the epigenetic context dependence of transcription factor binding. Sponsor: Harmen Bussemaker.

Biological Sciences
Ding, Hongxu. Single cell RNA-Seq. Sponsor: Andrea Califano.

Enikolopov, Armen. On the role of sensory cancellation and corollary discharge in neural coding and behavior. Sponsor: Nathaniel Sawtell.

Glenwinkel, Lori. Prediction of transcription factor target genes with TargetOrtho for neuron type specification in C. elgans. Sponsor: Oliver Hobert.

Kovalchuke, Lyudmila. Regulation of parkin protein levels by L-DOPA. Sponsors: Lloyd Greene and Oren Levy.

Melamed, David. Investigating the role of signaling pathways in adult stem cells governed by population asymmetry. Sponsor: Daniel Kalderon.

Newcomb, Susan. Multi-level analysis of the regulation of EGFR signaling to pattern the fly tarsus. Sponsor: Richard Mann.

Rahe, Dylan. Mutations that affect cell fate restriction in C. elegans development. Sponsor: Oliver Hobert.

Wang, Wei. Allosteric coupling, nucleotide binding and ATP hydrolysis by Hsp70 chaperones. Sponsor: Wayne Hendrickson.

Wu, Yixuan. Structure studies of pre-snRNA 3'-end processing machinery. Sponsor: Liang Tong.

Biomedical Engineering
Durney, Krista. Investigations of articular cartilage delamination wear and a novel treatment strategy to delay osteoarthritis progression. Sponsor: Gerard Ateshian.

Hoi, Jennifer. Diffuse optical imaging for monitoring surgical interventions in peripheral arterial disease. Sponsor: Andreas Hielscher.

Jin, Weiyang. Multidimensional T cell mechanosensing. Sponsor: Lance C. Kam.

Ma, Ying. Quantitative analysis of resting-state and activity-evoked neurovascular coupling using wide-field optical mapping. Sponsor: Elizabeth Hillman.

Palacci, Henri. Applications of modern statistical mechanics: Molecular transport and statistical learning. Sponsor: Henry Hess.

Qu, Dovina. Tissue engineering strategies for interface fibrocartilage regeneration. Sponsor: Helen Lu.

Biostatistics
Lee, Jihui. Functional data analysis approaches to time-varying network and wearable device data. Sponsor: Arthur Jeff Goldsmith.

Park, Hyung. Semiparametric regression models for estimating interactions between a treatment and scalar/functional predictors. Sponsor: Robert Ogden.

Sun, Ming. Statistical methods for modeling biomarkers of neuropsychiatric diseases. Sponsor: Yuanjia Wang.

Business
Avadhanula, Vashist. The MNL-bandit problem: Theory and applications. Sponsor: Assaf Zeevi.

Karlinsky Shichor, Yael. Automation, decision making and B2B pricing. Sponsor: Oded Netzer.

Cellular, Molecular, and Biomedical Studies
Eberle-Singh, Jaime. Leveraging the cell cycle to target pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Sponsor: Kenneth P. Olive.

Ladewig, Erik. Spatiotemporal genomic architecture informs glioblastoma's cellular history. Sponsor: Raul Rabadan.

Lee, Annie. Aβ42 oligomers trigger synaptic loss through coordinated AMPK-dependent activation of mitochondrial fission and mitophagy. Sponsor: Franck Polleux.

Madubata, Chioma. Genomic and machine-learning analysis of germline variants in cancer. Sponsor: Raul Rabadan.

Mahadevia, Darshini. The role of dopaminergic modulation in aggression. Sponsor: Mark Ansorge.

Szymanski, John. Calcium imaging of the entire muscle system of Hydra reveals extensive cellular multi functionality. Sponsor: Rafael Yuste.

Chemical Engineering
Buenning, Eileen. Controllable free volume in polymer-grafted nanoparticle membranes: Origins, characterization and applications. Sponsor: Sanat Kumar.

Lininger, Christianna. The mechanistic description of the open potential for the lithiation of magnetite nanoparticles. Sponsor: Alan West.

Labrador, Natalie. Membrane coated electrocatalysts for photo/electrochemical energy storage and conversion processes. Sponsor: Daniel Esposito.

Wan, Weiming. Reactions of biomass derived oxygenates on metal and carbide surfaces. Sponsor: Jingguang Chen.

Chemical Physics
Evans, Tyler. Polarons and polaritons in cesium lead bromide perovskite. Sponsor: Xiaoyang Zhu.

Mayers, Matthew. Electronic properties of next-generation materials for solar energy conversion. Sponsor: David Reichman.

Mukherjee, Soumyodipto. Algorithms for discrete and continuous quantum systems. Sponsor: David Reichman.

Chemistry
Boltaev, Umed. Targeting neurons with small molecule probes: From imaging to modulation. Sponsor: Dalibor Sames.

Brucks, Spencer. Bringing cyclopropenium to life. Sponsor: Luis Campos.

Champsaur, Anouck. Tuning the synthesis assembly and properties of Cobalt Selenide clusters. Sponsor: Colin Nuckolls.

Etkin, Grisha. Cove-edge graphene nanoribbon semiconductors: From molecules to devices. Sponsor: Colin Nuckolls.

Hamachi, Leslie. Control over cadmium chalcogenide nanocrystal heterostructures via precursor conversion kinetics. Sponsor: Jonathan Owen.

Low, Jonathan. Modulating the conducting orbitals of single molecules through chemical design. Sponsor: Luis Campos.

Milton, Margarita. Perylene diimide: A versatile building block for complex molecular architectures and stable charge storage material. Sponsor: Colin Nuckolls.

Muñoz, Alberto. Structural and electronic effects of n-heterocyclic carbenes on reactivity. Sponsor: Tomislav Rovis.

O'Brien, Evan. Functional transformations of hierarchical nanomaterials. Sponsor: Xavier Roy.

Pinkard, Andrew. From superatoms to solid-state compounds: Assembly directed by ligand control. Sponsor: Xavier Roy.

Quinlivan, Patrick. Main group and transition metal complexes supported by carbon, sulfur, and selenium donor ligands. Sponsor: Gerard Parkin.

Radtke, Mark. Stable cyclopentadienes for catalysis. Sponsor: Tristan Lambert.

Sanders, Samuel. Intramolecular singlet fission in acenes. Sponsor: Luis Campos.

Thullen, Scott. Novel methodologies for the photochemical and photocatalytic generation of nitrogen containing pharmacophores. Sponsor: Tomislav Rovis.

Xu, Yunyao. Allostery study of a potassium channel KcsA by solid-state NMR. Sponsor: Ann McDermott.

Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Brudastova, Olga. Stochastic response determination and spectral identification of complex dynamic structural systems. Sponsor: Ioannis Kougioumtzoglou.

Luo, Longxi. Computer vision sensing systems for structural health monitoring in challenging field conditions. Sponsor: Maria Feng.

Ma, Siwei. Rheological, chemical and mechanical properties of cementitious materials with nanoclays and Diutan gum. Sponsor: Shiho Kawashima.

Na, SeonHong. Multiscale thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical coupling effects for fluid-infiltrating crystalline solids and geomaterials: Theory, implementation, and validation. Sponsor: WaiChing Sun.

Zhu, Siyu. Particle dynamics simulation toward high-shear mixing process in many-particle systems. Sponsor: Huiming Yin.

Communications
Berret, Charles. Symbolic barriers: The shifting politics of cryptography in the 20th century. Sponsor: Michael Schudson.

Computer Science

Li, Dingzeyu. Efficient acoustic simulation for immersive media and digital fabrication. Sponsor: Changxi Zheng.

Rasooli, Mohammad Sadegh. Cross-lingual transfer of natural language processing systems. Sponsor: Michael Collins.

Earth and Environmental Engineering
Guerin, Marceau. Role of tree structure for drought resilience: Insights from a semi-arid ecosystem. Sponsor: Pierre Gentine.

Farnham, David. Identifying and modeling spatio-temporal structures in high dimensional climate and weather datasets with applications to water and energy resource management. Sponsor: Upmanu Lall.

Zhang, Qian. Metal-modified transition metal carbides for electrochemical applications. Sponsor: Ngai Yin Yip.

Earth and Environmental Sciences
Anderson, Weston. ENSO life cycles and global food security. Sponsor: Richard Seager.

Boswell, Steven. Enhanced surface melting of the Fennoscandian ice sheet during stadials. Sponsor: Douglas Martinson.

Clifton, Olivia. Constraints on ozone removal by land and implications for 21st Century ozone pollution. Sponsor: Arlene Fiore.

Coffel, Ethan. Extreme heat and its impacts in a changing climate. Sponsor: Radley Horton.

Costa, Kassandra. Geochemical fingerprints of paleoceanographic variability in the subarctic pacific over the last 500,000 years. Sponsor: Jerry McManus.

Frischkorn, Kyle. Physiological ecology of trichodesmium and its microbiome in the oligotrophic ocean. Sponsors: Hugh Ducklow and Sonya Dyhrman.

Pascolini-Campbell, Madeleine. Variability of hydroclimate in the North American Southwest: Implications for streamflow, the spring dry season and ecosystems. Sponsor: Richard Seager.

East Asian Languages and Cultures
Chang, Jian Ming. Communist miscellany: The paperwork of revolution. Sponsor: Eugenia Lean.

Eaton, Clay. Governing Shonan: Japanese civil servants and Asian communal leaders in wartime Singapore. Sponsor: Carol Gluck.

Schlachet, Joshua. Nourishing life: Diet, body and society in early modern Japan. Sponsor: Carol Gluck.

Sun, Myra. Birth of the author and its discontents: Literary modernity and the cultural politics of authorship in Republican China, 1915-1937. Sponsor: Lydia Liu.

Walker, Jeffrey. Battle in the village: Literature, agrarianism, and the fight for the Japanese countryside (1910-1938). Sponsor: Paul Anderer.

Zhang, Chi. From a Tang-based perspective to a Song-centered understanding: Loyalty, filial piety, and multiple Chinas in the Japanese cultural imagination, 12th - 16th centuries. Sponsor: Haruo Shirane.

Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
Clark, Benjamin. Managing water availability in small-holder agriculture in the tropics. Sponsor: Ruth DeFries.

Electrical Engineering
Ahmed, Asif. Exploring of novel applications for optical communications using Si nanophotonics. Sponsor: Richard Osgood.

Bahadori, Meisam. Physical layer modeling and optimization of silicon photonic interconnection networks. Sponsor: Keren Bergman.

Colon, Aida Raquel. Applications for monolithically integrated piezoelectric RF MEMS. Sponsor: Ioannis Kymissis.

Tien, Kevin. Hetergenous integration for switch-mode power electronics. Sponsor: Kenneth Shepard.

Ukani, Nikul. Sparse algorithms for encoding, decoding and identification of neural circuits. Sponsor: Aurel Lazar.

Yang, Hao. Advanced application in nanophotonics. Sponsor: Richard Osgood.

English and Comparative Literature
Bartell, Brian. Signs of neon: Racial capitalism, technology, and African American aesthetics in the long 1960s. Sponsor: Brent Edwards.

Richardson, Erica. Beyond the Negro problem: The engagement of sociology and the literary in the age of the new Negro. Sponsor: Farah Griffin.

Roberts, Zachary. Picturing reality: American literacy realism and the model of painting, 1875-1900. Sponsors: Nicholas Dames and Ross Posnock.

Shepard, Meredith. The art of reconciliation in Rwanda. Sponsor: Joseph R Slaughter.

VanWagoner, Benjamin. Doubtful gains: Economic risk in early modern maritime drama, 1592-1625. Sponsor: Jean Howard.

Zhang, Rachel. The constant paradox: Constancy, genre, and literary tradition in the English Civil Wars. Sponsor: Molly Murray.

Environmental Health Sciences
Loth, Meredith. Translocator protein 18 kDa (TSPO): From biomarker to function. Sponsor: Tomas Guilarte.

Epidemiology
Ferris, Jennifer. Risk factors for double primary breast and ovarian cancer in women across the risk spectrum. Sponsor: Jeanine Genkinger.

Kulick, Erin. Long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and trajectories of cognitive decline in northern Manhattan. Sponsor: Mitchell Elkind.

French and Romance Philology
Badea, Gabriela. Allegories of selfhood in late medieval devotional literature. Sponsor: Sylvie Lefèvre.

Germanic Languages
Swellander, Michael. Understanding the present: The representation of contemporary history in Ludwig Börne, Heinrich Heine, and Georg Büchner. Sponsor: Andreas Huyssen.

History
Aumoithe, George. Epidemic preparedness in the age of chronic illness: Public health and welfare politics in the United States, 1965-2000. Sponsor: Alice Kessler-Harris.

Freeman, Mary. The politics of correspondence: Letter writing in the campaign against slavery in the United States. Sponsor: Barbara Fields.

Luo, Weiwei. Making property in late imperial China: Virtue, justice, and accountability. Sponsor: Madeleine Zelin.

Zárate, Arthur. The making of a Muslim reformer: Muhammad al-Ghazál (1917-1996) and Islam in postcolonial Egypt, 1947-1967. Sponsor: Marwa Elshakry.

Industrial Engineering
Lo, Irene. Matching markets with incomplete information. Sponsors: Jacob Leshno and Jay Sethuraman.

Latin American and Iberian Cultures
Espinoza Staines, Adrian. Suturas discursivas del nacionalismo revolucionario en México (1925-1646). Sponsor: Graciela Montaldo.

Microbiology, Immunology, and Infection
Corrigan, David. Differential roles of PRDM16 in normal and malignant hematopoiesis. Sponsor: Hans-Willem Snoeck.

Music
DeGraf, Galen. Navigating musical periodicities: Modes of perception and types of temporal knowledge. Sponsor: Joseph Dubiel.

Music (D.M.A.)
Macklay, Sky. Piece: Microvariations for large ensemble, Paper: An audiovisual analysis of XXX_Live_Nude_Girls by Jennifer Walshe. Sponsor: George Lewis.

Neurobiology and Behavior

Dempsey, Conor. Learning and generalizing of sensory predictions in cerebellum-like structures. Sponsor: Nathaniel Sawtell.

Jenkins, Blair. Cellular and molecular mechanisms of mammalian touch receptor patterning. Sponsor: Ellen Lumpkin.

Qian, Cheng. Internal tracheal sensory neuron wiring and function in Drosophila larvae. Sponsor: Wesley Grueber.

Shakman, Katherine. Cross compartmental modulation and plasticity in the Drosophila mushroom baby. Sponsor: Richard Axel.

Nursing
Bick, Irene. Hospitalization risk factors of home health care patients with dementia. Sponsor: Dawn Dowding.

Reading, Meghan. Optimizing the collection and use of patient-generated health data. Sponsor: Jacqueline Merrill-Matzner.

Woo, Kyungmi. Factors associated with telehealth initiation among heart failure patients at home. Sponsor: Dawn Dowding.

Nutritional and Metabolic Biology
Tsai, Yi-Ting. Therapy and mechanism of mendelian eye diseases. Sponsor: Stephen Tsang.

Xu, Katherine. Cell specific response of the kidney to injury and infection. Sponsor: Jonathan Barasch.

Operations Research
He, Fei. Simulation techniques in levy-driven SDEs and stochastic optimization. Sponsor: Jose Blanchet.

Guo, Kevin. Price dynamics & trading strategies in the commodities market. Sponsor: Siu Tang Leung.

Pei, Yanan. Exact simulation and unbiased estimation in Monte Carlo. Sponsor: Jose Blanchet.

Zhong, Mingxian. Some problems in graph theory and scheduling. Sponsor: Clifford Stein.

Pharmacology and Molecular Signaling
Smith, Brendan. Microglial signaling in the spinal cord after peripheral nerve injury. Sponsor: Joachim Scholz.

Physics
Abitbol, Maximilian. Studying the effects of galactic and extragalactic foregrounds on cosmic microwave background observations. Sponsor: Bradley Johnson.

Andrade, Erick. Visualizing quasiparticle scattering of nematicity in NaFeAs and of topological surface states in MoTe2. Sponsor: Abhay Pasupathy.

Gao, Zhenghan. Phase diagrams of water confined by hydrophobic and hydrophilic plates. Sponsor: Ozgur Sahin.

Kinigstein, Eli. Structural and optical characterization of layered lead halide perovskites. Sponsor: Abhay Pasupathy.

Margalit, Ben. Transients from the birth and death of compact objects. Sponsor: Brian Metzger.

Political Science
Lazarev, Egor. Laws in conflict: The politics of legal pluralism in Chechnya. Sponsor: Timothy Frye.

Liu, Hanzhang. Upward mobility and authoritarian stability: Merit-based elite recruitment in China. Sponsor: Andrew Nathan.

Parietti, Guido. On the concept of power. Sponsor: David Johnston.

Schwartz, Stephanie. Homeward bound: Return migration & local conflict after civil war. Sponsor: Virginia Page Fortna.

Snegovaya, Maria. Ex-communist party choices and the electoral success of the radical right in central and eastern Europe. Sponsor: Donald Green.

Psychology
Barulli, Daniel. Strategic flexibility and age-related cognitive change. Sponsor: Yaakov Stern.

Braun, Erin Kendall. Brain mechanisms of adaptive memory: Neuromodulation and behavior in humans. Sponsor: Daphna Shohamy.

Gerraty, Raphael. Learning and large-scale brain networks. Sponsor: Daphna Shohamy.

Frazer, Kirsten. The long-term effects of breast-feeding on cognition and educational attainment across race. Sponsor: Geraldine Downey.

Williamson, Caitlin. The role of social context in modulating gene expression, neural activity, and neuroendocrine response in individuals of varying social status. Sponsor: James Curley.

Xu, Judy. Understanding the behavioral and neurocognitive relation between mind wandering and learning. Sponsor: Janet Metcalfe.

Religion
Dalton, Krista. Rabbis and donors: The logics of giving in the ancient Mediterranean. Sponsor: Beth Berkowitz.

Ugolnik, Zachary. The mirror of glory: Sense and subjectivity in near Eastern mysticism. Sponsor: John McGuckin.

Slavic Languages
Denischenko, Irina. Avant-garde poetics of language in central and eastern Europe. Sponsor: Valentina Izmirlieva.

Myers, Holly. Writers, readers, and the political being: The story of the Soviet-Afghan war in competing ideologies for the post-Soviet state. Sponsor: Liza Knapp.

Nieubuurt, Brendan. Flesh made word: Inscription and the embodied self in Mandelstam and Nabokov. Sponsor: Valentina Izmirlieva.

Social Work
Vargas, Laura. The effects of violence on health service utilization and access in Mexico. Sponsor: Julien Teitler.

Zhao, Rong. Gender pay equity and women's pay increase trajectory in the U.S. nonprofit vs. for-profit sectors. Sponsor: Julien Teitler.

Sociology
Kobas, Tolga. Understanding patrimonial resilience: Lessons from the Ottoman empire. Sponsor: Gil Eyal.

Statistics
Cheng, Edward. Selected legal applications of Bayesian methods. Sponsor: David Madigan.

Hirshberg, David. Minimax-inspired semiparametric estimation and causal inference. Sponsor: Arian Maleki.

Lu, Feihan. Bayesian modeling strategies with applications to complex healthcare data. Sponsors: David Madigan and Michael Sobel.

Mena, Gonzalo. Statistical machine learning methods for the analysis of neural data. Sponsor: Liam Paninski.

Wan, Phyllis. Applications of distance covariance to extremes and time series and inference for linear preferential attachment. Sponsor: Richard Davis.

TC / Clinical Psychology
Colvin, Leigh. The psychological factors and neural substrates associated with metacognition among community-dwelling and neurologic cohorts of older adults. Sponsor: Barry Farber.

Stolove, Catherine. Linguistic context sensitivity as a predictor of prolonged grief symptoms. Sponsor: George Bonanno.

TC / Cognitive Science in Education
Bradley Zrada, Melissa. When do spontaneous gestures emerge and improve thought. Sponsor: Barbara Tversky.

Shi, Yuchen. Joint reflection promotes students' use of evidence in argumentative writing. Sponsor: Deanna Kuhn.

TC / Counseling Psychology
Galgay, Corinne. Affective costs of whiteness: Examining the role of White guilt and White shame. Sponsor: Robert Carter.

TC / Economics and Education
Chan, Eric. Essays on the role of parents in educational outcomes and inequality. Sponsor: Peter Bergman.

TC / Intellectual Disabilities and Autism
Javed, Suzzanna. Functions of challenging behaviors and strategies utilized to decrease challenging behaviors reported by teachers and parents of children with and without autism spectrum disorder. Sponsor: Hsu-Min Chiang.

TC / Kinesiology
Whitworth, James. Exploring resistance training as a potential standalone treatment for anxious adults who screen positive for posttraumatic stress disorder. Sponsor: Joseph Ciccolo.

TC / Teaching of Social Studies
Eckers, Jennifer. How teachers make historical explanation meaningful for democratic citizenship. Sponsor: Sandra Schmidt.

Urban Planning
Bhatt, Jigar. Politics by other means: Economic expertise, power, and global development finance reform. Sponsor: Robert Beauregard.

Bradshaw, Amanda. Electricity market reforms and renewable energy: The case of wind and solar in Brazil. Sponsor: Robert Beauregard.

Pan, Xiaohong. Essays on aging Americans' travel preferences: Behavioral survey analyses. Sponsor: Lance Freeman.

DISSERTATION PROPOSALS FILED

Anthropology
Az, Elif. The burden underground: Coal mining, agriculture and populism in Aegean Turkey.

Carr, Danielle. Why and how should this dissertation exist, instead of not exist?: A prospectus.

Davies, Nile. Becoming natives: Place and the politics of presence in Sierra Leone.

Tarnowski, Jan. Syria: the image in revolution.

Applied Mathematics
Bieli, Melanie. The extratropical transition of tropical cyclones.

Evans, Owen. Reactive flow in brittle media: "Applications to reaction-driven cracking in nature systems".

Applied Physics
Xu, Wentao. Multiscale modeling using mesh-free methods.

Art History and Archaeology
Lores-Chavez, Isabella. Portraits and counterfeits: Willem Kalf's still life transformations, 1640-1680.

Biomedical Engineering
Karakatsani, Maria. Optimization and application of focused ultrasound-induced blood-brain barrier opening for the amelioration of neurodegenerative disorders.

Robinson, Samuel. Bone mechanobiology of modeling and remodeling and the effect of hematopoietic lineage cells.

Vecchioni, Simon. Electronically-functional DNA nanotechnology for the self-assembly of nanoelectronic components.

Biomedical Informatics
Yahi, Alexandre. Simulating drug effects in multi-modal EHR data with deep generative modeling.

Business
Castelo, Noah. Marketing human-like machines and machine-like humans.

Chemical Engineering
Horn, Justin. Development of photo-active bioconjugates for spatiotemporal control of immune signaling.

Inaba, Yuta. Engineering acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans using advanced genetic tools for biotechnology applications.

Koh, Clement. Matrix polymer chain length and miscibility of nanoparticles.

Minevich, Brian. Self-assembled 3D arrays of inorganic and organic nano-objects.

Yan, Xiong. Engineering organizations of macromolecules in confined environments by DNA nanostructures.

Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Yum, Sang Guk. Extreme storm surge return period prediction using the tidal gauge data from the city of Busan, South Korea and estimation of damage to structures from storm-induced surges in South Korea.

Classics
de Klerk, Carina. Status matters in aristophanes.

Computer Science
Dutta, Preetam. Machine learning based user modeling for insider threat and privacy risk mitigation.

Shi, Kevin. New perspectives on learning and optimization.

Smith, Brian. Techniques for making computers' abilities our own.

Computer Science
Tang, Yang. Making data storage efficient in the era of cloud computing.

Earth and Environmental Sciences
Gloege, Lucas. Spatial patterns of aquatic biogeochemistry with management.

Kinney, Sean. Chronological constraints on Earth system processes during the Mesozoic.

Rasmussen, Daniel. The Aleutian arc through and through: Generation, transport, and eruption of volatile-baring magmas.

Yehudai, Maayan. Geochemical studies of marine sediments from the Atlantic Ocean: Implications for past transitions in ocean circulation and dust deposition.

East Asian Languages and Cultures
Huang, Yanjie. Production over reproduction: Transformation of urban households in Cold War China, 1959-1985.

Kung, Ling-Wei. Intelligence collection, trans-regional trade, and international relations between China and inner Asia, 1697-1921.

Shahaf, Nataly. "Jotting Down" history through art and its institutions.

St. Amant, Guy. Scriptural authority in the Buddhist traditions.

Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
Fuong, Holly. Social animals detecting danger: Differentiating relevant cues and reliable social partners in a noisy forest.

Rocha Moreira, Lucas. Comparative genomics of adoption in North American woodpackers.

Schmiege, Stephanie. Ecophysiological controls of conifer distribution in a tropical highland forest in Vietnam.

English and Comparative Literature
Lowe, Amanda. Hybrid products: American literature and the poetics of ecoformation.

French and Romance Philology
Haziza, David. Redemption through sin in French romanticism: Antinomianism from Sade to Baudelaire.

History
Bar Sadeh, Roy. Islamic modernism and the eurasian origins of the idea of minority, 1857-1947.

Corban, Robert. Bitter harvest: The weaponization of agriculture in Mussolini's new order, 1925 - 1945.

Donovan, Joshua. The transnational nationalism of the unorthodox orthodox: Liberalism, identity, and diaspora in Greek Orthodox Syria and Lebanon.

Fofana, Idriss. The "international solution" to the labor question in Africa: A legal history of Chinese and West African migrant labor in the Congo free state, 1860-1919.

Glasserman, Aaron. Ruling death: Ritual law, and the bureaucratization of Islam in Modern China.

Houwink ten Cate, Lotte. The darker side of intimacy: Familial violence in Western Europe, 1970-1997.

Padilla-Rodriguez, Ivon. Hidden in the fields: Invisible agricultural child labor in the American Southwest and the limits of citizenship, 1938-1990s.

Roady, Peter. How the National Security Establishment survived the 1970s.

Subramanian, Divya. Global townscape: The rediscovery of urban life in the late 20th century.

Turtur, Noelle. Settling Ethiopia: Between fascist colonialism and western neocolonalism, 1935-1950.

Woodsum, Antonina. Fiesta Immemorial.

Yan, Laura Wing Mei. Port lives: Migrant workers and the makings of Singapore and Dubai, 1938-1979.

Zhao, Wenrui. Dissecting sight: Eye surgery and vision in early Modern Europe.

Latin American and Iberian Cultures
Durán-García, Omar. Disgust(ing) subjects: Queer bodies and the politics of disgust in contemporary Mexico.

Materials Science and Engineering
Hu, Jiayang. Two dimensional nanoparticle self-assembly on liquid surfaces.

Mechanical Engineering
Bucher, Tizian. Laser forming of metal foam: Mechanisms, efficiency and prediction.

Ji, Xiaoqiang. On new stable inverse theorems.

Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies
Baker, Rana. The printing press as an assemblage: Science, politics, and techno-economics in nineteenth and early twentieth century Egypt.

Music
Cancel-Bigay, Mario. Rethinking anticolonial experience, meta-colonial discourse and the archive: Bands of Puerto Rican nueva canción and chanson québécoise with multi-national members.

Fantinato Geo de Siqueira, Maria. Spectrums of excess: Loudness in Amazonian festivities and rethinking the common Latin America.

Fort, Anthony. The composing listener: How experiences of rhythm and harmony in 20th-century modernist music are affected by the listener's mode of attention.

Garcia Molina, Andres. Aural economies and precarious labor: Street-vendor songs in Cuba.

Ivanova, Velia. The musical heritage of incarceration: The dissemination and management of the Lomax collection prison songs (1933-2018).

Wetmore, Thomas. The arithmetics of sound: Race, space, place and technology in urban jazz performance.

Political Science
Jacobs, Jeffrey. "Our word is our weapon": Essays on language, resistance, and revolution.

Mohamed, Ahmed Ezzeldin. The pious voter: On the relationship between religion and political accountability in the Muslim World.

Soboleva, Irina. Cognitive theory of democratic withdrawal.

Psychology
VanTieghem, Michelle. Developmental adaptations in stress physiology, neurobiology, and behavior following early caregiving adversities.

Zee, Katherine. Self-regulatory & co-regulatory mechanisms of social support.

Religion
Clark, Quinn. Muslim saint shrines in North India and the politics of belonging.

Hammett, Michael. A creative tension: Humans, animality, and transformation in Christian Europe, 1400-1700.

Meyer, Verena. Genealogies and difference: Coherence and paradox in Javanese Muslims' theo-political discourses.

Sociology
Son, Joonwoo. Governing the unofficial readings of statistics: The Japanese state bureaucracy and the varieties in the use of national income statistics, 1946-1970.

Wojtkiewicz, Daniel. Ontological change of disease categories and clinical implications of genetic tests in ASD diagnosis.

Sociomedical Sciences
Grilo, Stephanie. An intersectional approach to mixed-race identity and impact on sexual and reproductive health for mixed-race adolescents in the United States.

Tomita, Yoka. Lights out in Gotham: A social history of dying in New York, 1911-1976.

DISSERTATIONS DEFENDED

Applied Physics
Bullen, Peter. Domain broadening in periodic poling of thinned lithium niobate and broadband stimulated Raman spectroscopy with incoherent stokes source for numerical analysis of blood. Sponsor: Ioannis Kymissis.

Architecture
Rhee, Chae-Young. Designing natural advantages: Environmental visions, civic ideals, and architecture for community, 1920-1970. Sponsor: Felicity Scott.

Biological Sciences
Oh, Julyun. The Mrell complex in the DNA damage response. Sponsor: Lorraine Symington.

Rajagopalan, Krithika. Characterization of a novel serine/threonine kinase and phosphatase pair in Escherichia coli. Sponsor: Jonathan Dworkin.

Cellular Physiology and Biophysics
Belcher Dufrisne, Meagan. Structural and functional investigation of bacterial membrane biosynthesis. Sponsor: Filippo Mancia.

Computer Science
Bhardwaj, Kshitij. On multicast in asynchronous networks-on-chip: Techniques, architectures, and FPGA implementation. Sponsor: Steven Nowick.

Rudolph, Maja. Exponential family embeddings. Sponsor: David Blei.

Smith, Brian. Transparent interaction: Communicating with a computer as if it were not there. Sponsors: Steven Feiner and Shree Nayar.

Earth and Environmental Sciences
Li, Xiaoqiong. Asian summer monsoon response to greenhouse gases and anthropogenic aerosols. Sponsor: Mingfang Ting.

Ramesh, Nandini. Questions raised by the global warming hiatus: The predictability of tropical pacific decadal variability and subsurface warming of the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Sponsor: Mark Cane.

Genetics and Development
Abarinov, Elena. Mechanisms underlying Nkx2.2-mediated repression of motor neuron identity. Sponsor: Lori Sussel.

History
Kaplan, Abram. The myth of Greek algebra: Progress and community in early-modern mathematics. Sponsor: Matthew Jones.

Vendell, Dominic. Scribes and the practice of politics in the Maratha empire, 1707-1827. Sponsor: Nicholas Dirks.

Mechanical Engineering
Olsen, Timothy. Selection of aptamers for precision medicine. Sponsor: Qiao Lin.

Song, Bing. From model-driven to data-driven iterative learning control. Sponsor: Richard Longman.

Music
Holt, Kevin. Get crunk! The performative resistance of Atlanta hip-hop party music. Sponsor: Kevin Fellezs.

Operations Research
Wang, Shuangyu. Three papers in revenue management. Sponsor: Garud Iyengar.

Philosophy
Fine, Jonathan. Beauty on display: Plato and the concept of the Kalon. Sponsor: Wolfgang Mann.

Physics
Greene, Zachary. XENONIT: Spin-independent WIMP dark matter results and a model to characterize the reduction of electronegative impurities in its 3/2 ton liquid xenon detector. Sponsor: Elena Aprile.

McCarrick, Heather. Design and performance of kinetic inductance detectors for cosmic microwave background polarimetry. Sponsor: Bradley Johnson.

Political Science
Cooper, Jasper. Power inequality, violence and the State: Evidence from Africa and Melanesia. Sponsor: Macartan Humphreys.

Lotito, Nicholas. Soldiers and societies in revolt: Military doctrine in the Arab spring. Sponsors: Virginia Page Fortna and Jack Snyder.

Sociology
Arjomand, Noah. Behind the bylines: Fixing world news in Turkey. Sponsor: Diane Vaughan.

Urban Planning
Lobo, Bruno. Strategic planning and urban development in New York City, Paris and Sao Paulo 2001-2012. Sponsor: Robert Beauregard.

DISSERTATION PROPOSALS FILED

East Asian Languages and Cultures
Kaplan-Reyes, Alexander. Flowers on the battlefield: Intimacy and hierarchy om the construction of warrior masculinities, 1521-1636.

Business
Zou, Yuan. Dancing with the giant: ETF flow, growth, and valuation.

Liu, Shi. Harm in harmony: A socioecological perspective on east Asian collectivism.

Carlson, Natalie. Three essays on enabling entrepreneurial growth in low-income economies.

Kanze, Dana. Three essays exploring motivational influences on organizational goals in the context of entrepreneurship.

Lu, Jiaqi. Managng customer churn and information deadlock.

Qian, Pengyu. Stochastic modeling and control of ridesharing systems.

History
Enriquez Flores, Fabiola. The politics of devotion: Militant Chatholicism and the fight for the Spanish Empire in Cuba and Puerto Rico, 1868-1898.

Nursing
Tark, Aluem. Associations between physician orders for life-sustaining treatment (POLST) maturity status and nursing home resident outcomes.

Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
Shatou, Suad. Wat are you afraid of? Anxiety-production and fear politics in Zionist discourse.

Read about the recent achievements of GSAS students:

• Ashkan Behzadi, DMA student in Music Composition, was a finalist in the Graham Sommer Competition for Young Composers at McGill University, and won second prize.
• History PhD candidate Madeline Wokerwas named a Spring 2019 fellow of the Camargo Foundation Core Program, and her article “Edwin Seligman, initiator of global progressive public finance” will be published in the Journal of Global History in November 2018.
• Jeremy Simmons, doctoral candidate in Classical Studies, received prestigious fellowships from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Social Science Research Council to support his research on trade and exchanges between the Roman Empire and India. He is documenting his work on his website, Following the Monsoon.
• The Uptownercovered E3B doctoral student Meredith VanAcker’s research on tick exposure in New York City.
• Stylianos Dimou, DMA student in Music Composition, presented his most recent work, "...for Violectra," at the Gaudeamus New Music Festival on September 8.
• Amanda Martin-Hardin, doctoral student in History, published an article (titled “Nature in Black and White: Summer Camps and Racialized Landscapes in the Photography of Gordon Parks”) in the journal Environmental History.
• Germanic Languages PhD student Ross Shields, who will defend his dissertation this month, was awarded a residency at the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies as well as a visiting research position at the Zentrum fuer Literatur- und Kulturforschung.
• The Heyman Center for the Humanities named doctoral candidates Liz Dolfi (Religion), Alma Igra (History), Paul Katz (History), Warren Kluber (Theatre), and Emily Rutherford (History) as its 2018-2019 graduate student fellows.
• Classical Studies PhD student Giulia Bonasiowill give a presentation (“Kalokagathia and the Unity of the Virtues in the Eudemian Ethics”) at the fourth annual Canadian Colloquium for Ancient Philosophy later this month.

Do you have news to share? Write to us at gsas-communications [at] columbia.edu">gsas-communications [at] columbia.edu.