2022-2023 Dissertation Fellowship Awardees
The Graduate and Professional School offered 10 fellowships in the fall and 5 in the spring during the 2022-2023 academic year.
The 2022-2023 Dissertation Fellowship awardees are listed below. These Dissertation Fellows are in the writing stage of their dissertation and expected to graduate in August or December of 2023.
Round 1
Amanda Beckman is a doctoral candidate in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Interdisciplinary Program. In her dissertation research, she is investigating how management efforts and various sources of anthropogenic selection have impacted the evolutionary trajectory of turkeys. She has collaborated with hunters and wildlife agencies across North America to collect hundreds of turkey feathers as sources of DNA that will inform her analysis of population structure and hybridization between subspecies of wild turkeys at an unprecedented scale. Additionally, she investigates the genomic impacts of turkeys’ close association with humans in different contexts. Collectively, her dissertation will provide evidence that research on turkeys can advance our understanding on the modern evolutionary pressures that shape populations. Other important outcomes of Beckman’s dissertation are the engagement and education of the turkey hunting community – a key stakeholder group for funding conservation initiatives – and providing a valuable new source of information for wildlife agencies to use in future management decisions.
Paloma Cuello del Pozo is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology in the College of Liberal Arts. Her research studies ancient diets and mobility patterns of archaeological human insular populations, with a focus on the lifestyles of the ancient aboriginals of the Canary Islands. Paloma's research will reveal a comprehensive body of data within Canary archaeology. Additionally, via collaborative efforts with national and international universities, she will publish a new set of radiocarbon dates and paleogenetic data to improve the current chronological framework for human settlement patterns. A native of the Canary Islands, Paloma aims to contribute to the preservation of ancient Canarian patrimony to better understand sociohistorical elements of modern Canarian society.
Melanie Florkowski is a doctoral candidate in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Interdisciplinary Degree Program in the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences. Her research focuses on understanding the microbiome and its influence on behavior and cognition in wild animals. Specifically, Florkowski’s dissertation investigates how the diversity of the gut microbiome influences the way wild birds explore and respond to their environment, as well as forage for food. By advancing our understanding of the connections between the gut microbiome and behavior, Florkowski’s research will provide insight on how the microbiome can be used to aid in conservation efforts of endangered bird species.
Yadira Gamez is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts. Her research focuses on how the Latinx community represents itself in spaces such as TikTok, zines, and small press-published memoirs. By studying Latinx self-representation in these spaces, Gamez demonstrates how the Latinx community is overcoming its imposed mainstream image by actively shaping itself and communities around.
Chengsong Hu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering in the College of Engineering and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. His research focuses on developing algorithms and hardware systems for perception-guided robots to perform autonomous control of weeds. Hu’s dissertation research will explore the bottlenecks of current technology for weeding robots, including the lack of annotated images to train accurate weed detection models, the absence of realistic virtual environments for robot perception algorithm development, the approach to construct semantic maps of the agricultural field to monitor weed population dynamics, and the system to precisely perform weed control actuation. His research will provide both theoretical and practical foundations for the future development of fully autonomous robots in food production.
Trang Le is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Her research aims to understand the perceptions of urban green infrastructure in coastal communities along the Gulf Coast. Le’s research will contribute to the understanding of public perceptions of green infrastructure, as well as provide a novel methodological application in the study of green infrastructure and flood risk management. Le’s research will also provide valuable information concerning the promotion and development of green infrastructure and the mitigation of future flood hazards for local government communities in the Gulf Coast region.
Ashish Nerlekar is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Nerlekar’s research aims to educate the public and scientific community about the importance of global grasslands and savannas. Because grasslands are not viewed as being ancient or having “old growth,” we know very little about their ecology, as compared to, for example, old-growth forests. Nerlekar’s dissertation addresses this knowledge gap by ascertaining the drivers of plant community assembly in old-growth grasslands of Texas and India. In a recent study, he showed that old-growth grasslands have high biodiversity and once destroyed, take at least a century to recover their lost biodiversity, which is counter to the widely held assumption that grasslands are quick to recover post destruction. In an era of unprecedented global biodiversity loss, Nerlekar’s dissertation will have direct implications on saving imperiled global grassland biodiversity. Specifically, by studying how changing land use and disturbance regimes affect old-growth grassland biodiversity, Nerlekar will generate data to aid the re-structuring of global conservation policies.
Vinit Sehgal is a doctoral candidate in the interdisciplinary Water Management and Hydrological Science Program at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Using one of NASA’s satellites, Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), Sehgal’s research helps in translating soil hydrological processes from coarse satellite scales to process scales, and vice-versa. Sehgal uses hydrology, soil physics, and satellite remote sensing principles to derive global ecological indicators from satellite soil moisture to quantify interactions between soil, vegetation, and climate. His research will continue to explore hydro-climatology, the development of emulators of large-scale terrestrial hydrology, and the impact of climate change on soils.
Vaishali Swaminathan is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering in the College of Engineering. Her research focuses on remote and proximal imaging methods for precision nitrogen management in field cotton. She works to explore the integration of computer vision and statistical tools in production agriculture systems for the non-destructive extraction of measurable plant features. Swaminathan’s research will aim to facilitate cross-platform/cross-sensor applications, while the methods developed for her dissertation will contribute to improving the efficiency of precision management technology in a more sustainable manner.
Jieun Yi is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational Human Resource Development in the School of Education and Human Development. Her dissertation research explores women’s experience with flexible work arrangements (FWA) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through her research, she will provide a comprehensive understanding of employees’ FWA experience and uncover the unique challenges that women experience with FWA. Her research will make theoretical contributions to both women’s career development and human resource development. Her practical insights for individual employees, human resource professionals, and policymakers will be valuable to improve the use of FWA.
Round 2
Simon Kiacz is a doctoral candidate in the ecology and evolutionary biology interdisciplinary program in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. His work primarily focuses on parrots and how urbanization may threaten or benefit certain populations. The goal of Kiacz’s research is to advance knowledge about how some threatened species – like Red-crowned Parrots – take advantage of, interact and thrive within human dominated landscapes. By helping us understand exactly which environmental and landscape factors drive threatened wildlife populations to urbanized areas, his research will help inform conservation efforts.
Anna Marin is a doctoral candidate in the department of geography in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research examines water insecurity among the homeless, uncovering linkages between infrastructure, policy and daily practices that create barriers for the homeless in Seattle to access water for sanitation and hygiene. Her dissertation will contribute a methodological tool relevant to policy decision-makers, advocates and communities seeking to improve clean water access for the homeless. In the context of increasing city ordinances that criminalize homeless survival behaviors, Anna’s dissertation draws awareness to ethical considerations of policy responses and technologies that can exacerbate stigmatization and ultimately reduce access to clean water resources.
Seth Polsley is a doctoral candidate in the department of computer science and engineering in the College of Engineering. His research examines the connection between children’s fine motor development and their sketching capabilities. Specifically, he uses sketch recognition and computational features related to accuracy and timing to estimate a child’s fine motor control and shape comprehension. The goal of this project is to create assistive tests and diagnostics for parents, teachers and therapists to help identify and address potential delays in the development of motor-related skills. Given the connection between fine motor control and achievement in reading, writing, math, etc., his research also seeks to develop meaningful ways to create technology that better supports children’s schooling and readiness.
Laura Rodriguez is a doctoral candidate in the interdisciplinary water management and hydrological science program at the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research seeks to (1) assess droughts, (2) quantify available groundwater volumes across international borders, and (3) forecast the rate of increase in total dissolved solids (TDS) within two aquifers in Southern Texas, a groundwater-dependent area vulnerable to droughts and water pollution. These approaches are grounded in the development of numerical models for groundwater flow and contaminant transport, as well as remote sensor products analysis. Rodriguez’s research helps develop groundwater strategies that inform policymaking, address challenges that accompany a growing population, and support agriculture expansion - the greatest user of groundwater in southern Texas.
Mehri Yavari is a doctoral candidate in the department of communication and journalism in the College of Arts and Science. Her research explores the power relations between individuals and states and its implication in the framework of social movements. She emphasizes how women practice, employ their agency, and respond to imposed rules, offering a unique perspective on transnational feminism and women in the global south. Her research also investigates how women’s actions can impact both their public perception and future, allowing non-governmental organizations and policymakers to contribute to their well-being by tailoring to their specific needs without undermining their agency.