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Doctoral Oral Exam Schedule

The Graduate Dean invites all graduate faculty to attend the final oral examinations for the doctoral candidates scheduled as follows:

Doctoral Oral Exams for August 11, 2025 – August 15, 2025

Yingjie Cheng, PhD., Astronomy
Monday, August 11, 2025, 12:00PM, LGRT 1033. 
Dissertation: “Drivers of Galaxy Evolution at Cosmic Noon and Beyond: Gas, Dust, and Disk Instabilities.” Mauro Giavalisco, Chair.

Sarah Vizer, PhD., Management
Monday, August 11, 2025, 11:00AM, ISOM N220. 
Dissertation: “From Boundry Spanning to Role Blurring: Reconfiguring Professional Practice in IPOs.” Christopher Agoglia and Yoon Ju Kang, Co-Chairs.

Jenna Norosky, PhD., Political Science
Tuesday, August 12, 2025, 11:00AM, Thompson 420. 
Dissertation: “’Men Too’: Wartime Sexual Violence Against Men and Boys and the Politics of Silence.” Charli Carpenter, Chair.

Dooseok Jung, PhD., Astronomy
Tuesday, August 12, 2025, 1:30PM, LGRT 1033. 
Dissertation: “Massive Star Hunt Manual.” Daniela Calzetti, Chair.

Leslie Blake-Davis, PhD., Education
Wednesday, August 13, 2025, 3:00PM, via Zoom. 
Dissertation: “Principal Beliefs and Attitudes: Decision-Making about Improving Instructional Quality in Rural Districts in Massachusetts with a Focus on Teacher Evaluation.” Betsy McEneaney, Chair.

Eric Ostrander, PhD., Chemistry
Friday, August 15, 2025, 12:00PM, GSMN 153 and via Zoom. 
Dissertation: “Energetic Materials for Biological and Electronic Applications.” D. Venkataraman, Chair.

Paola Pimentel Furlanetto, PhD., Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Friday, August 15, 2025, 1:00PM, Kellogg Room ELab II. 
Dissertation: “Just Decarbonization in the U.S. Power Sector: A Systems Analysis of Carbon Capture, Air Pollutants, and Policy Design.” Erin Baker, Chair.

Doctoral Oral Exams for August 4, 2025 – August 8, 2025

Katherine Rickelton, PhD., Molecular and Cellular Biology
Monday, August 4, 2025, 1:00PM, LSL 610. 
Dissertation: “Metabolic Contributions to Primate Brain Evolution: Insights from Molecular and Functional Analyses.” Courtney Babbitt, Chair.

Shivangi Bajpai, PhD., Kinesiology
Tuesday, August 5, 2025, 10:00AM, Furcolo W201. 
Dissertation: “Assessing the Utility of Wearable Technology in Monitoring Health of Women and Women Caregivers for Dementia.” Amanda Paluch, Chair.

Chae Young Paek, PhD., Philosophy
Tuesday, August 5, 2025, 10:00AM, via Zoom. 
Dissertation: “Doing Things Together: Shared Agency and Autonomy.” Ned Markosian, Chair.

Xiupe Zhou, PhD., Plant and Soil Science
Tuesday, August 5, 2025, 12:30PM, Paige Lab 202 and via Zoom. 
Dissertation: “Nanoplastics in Water: Roles of Minerals, Antibiotics, and Organic Matter in their Environmental Fate and Process.” Baoshan Xing, Chair.

Noor Mohammed, PhD., Electrical and Computer Engineering
Wednesday, August 6, 2025, 11:00AM, via Zoom. 
Dissertation: “Intra-Body Power Transfer and Backscatter Communication.” Jeremy Gummeson, Chair.

Eric P. Chia, PhD., Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Wednesday, August 6, 2025, 1:00PM, Kellogg Engineering Lab II. 
Dissertation: “Percolation-Driven Tuning of Electrotechnical Behavior in Polydimethylsiloxane-Conductive Protein Nanowire (PDMS-CPN) Polymer Nanocomposites.” Stephen S. Nonnenmann, Chair.

Mingdi Jiang, PhD., Chemistry
Wednesday, August 6, 2025, 10:00AM, Goessmann 153. 
Dissertation: “Polymer-Based Multichannel Sensor Arrays for Advancing Cell-Based Diagnostics and Drug Discovery.” Vincent Rotello, Chair.

Mashrur Rashik, PhD., Computer Science
Friday, August 8, 2025, 11:00AM, LGRC A311. 
Dissertation: “Human-Centered Design of Contextually Appropriate Conversational Agents for Enhancing Public Interaction, Engagement, and Multimodal Experiences.” Narges Mahyar, Chair.

Shib Dasgupta, PhD., Computer Science
Friday, August 8, 2025, 2:00PM, CS 243. 
Dissertation: “Box Embeddings as Set-Theoretic Representations for Information Retrieval and Recommender Systems.” Andrew McCallum, Chair.

Mary Chase Sheehan, PhD., Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Friday, August 8, 2025, 9:30AM, Marcus Hall Gunness Student Center. 
Dissertation: “Simulation Guided Energy Delivery Designs for Pulsed Electric Field Applications.” Govind Sromathveeravalli, Chair.

Sheraden ‘Denny’ Bobot, PhD., Education
Friday, August 8, 2025, 10:00AM, via Zoom. 
Dissertation: “Exposing Administrative Gaps in Trans Inclusion within Higher Education: An (Auto)ethnographic Exploration of Trans Kinship Networks at UMass Amherst.” Ezekiel Kimball, Chair.

Doctoral Oral Exams for July 28, 2025 – August 1, 2025

Daniil Ivanov, PhD., Chemistry
Monday, July 28, 2025, 2:00PM, LSL N360. 
Dissertation: “Multimodal Mass Spectrometry-Based Methods for Assessment of Structure and Heterogeneity of Biopolymers and their Complexes.” Igor Kaltashov, Chair.

Zhaojie Zhang, PhD., Chemistry
Tuesday, July 29, 2025, 2:00PM, GSMN 153. 
Dissertation: “Uncovering the Roles of Charge Extraction and Passivation at Interfaces in Perovskite Solar Cells.” D. Venkataraman, Chair.

Kate Edwards, PhD., Comparative Literature
Wednesday, July 30, 2025, 11:00AM, Heter Hall 301 and via Zoom. 
Dissertation: “Transformative Encounters: Metamorphoses in Eastern and Central European Media.” Rachel Green, Chair.

Manya Budhiraja, PhD., Economics
Wednesday, July 30, 2025, 11:00AM, Crotty Hall 308 and via Zoom. 
Dissertation: “Essays in Labor Market Power and Productivity Growth.” Deepankar Basu, Chair.

Jay English, PhD., Molecular and Cellular Biology
Thursday, July 31, 2025, 1:00PM, LSL N610. 
Dissertation: “Distinct Synaptic Mechanisms Drive NRXN1 Variant-Mediated Pathogenesis in Human Patient IPSC Induced Neuronal Models of Autism and Schizophrenia.” ChangHui Pak, Chair.

Shahrooz Pouryousef Delezi, PhD., Computer Science
Thursday, July 31, 2025, 10:00AM, via Zoom. 
Dissertation: “Resource Allocation in Quantum Networks.” Donald Towsley, Chair.

Kit Straley, PhD., Organismic and Ecolutionary Biology 
Thursday, July 31, 2025, 1:00PM, Morrill II Room 222. 
Dissertation: “Behavioral Flexibility of a Declining Songbird, the Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina), in A Human-Altered Landscape.” Paige Warren, Chair.

Elizaveta Shestoperova, PhD., Chemistry
Thursday, July 31, 2025, 11:00AM, LSL N410 and via Zoom. 
Dissertation: “Assessing the Ubiquitin Code with Novel Mass Spectrometry-Based Tools.” Eric Strieter, Chair.

Benjamin Alan Gregg, PhD., Astronomy
Friday, August 1, 2025, 2:00PM, LGRT 533. 
Dissertation: “Exploring the Physical Connections Between Newly Formed Stars, Gas, and Dust Across Nearby Galaxy Environments.” Daniela Calzetti, Chair.

Jesse Selover, PhD., Mathematics
Friday, August 1, 2025, 10:00AM, LGRT 1681. 
Dissertation: “Combinatorial Problems in Spaces of Matrices.” Alejandro Morales, Chair.

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