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Best Dissertation Award Winners

The committee selected three Best Dissertations for the Fall 2024/Spring 2025/Summer 2025 competition. The Best Dissertation Award went to the following students:

Fall 2024/Spring 2025/Summer 2025

  • Austin Morales
    Austin Morales, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Michael P. Harold and Dr. Praveen Bollini
    Department Chemical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Controlling Oxygen Speciation through Forced Dynamic Operation of Chemical Reactors During Ethane Oxidative Dehydrogenation
  • Zheren Baizhikova
    Zheren Baizhikova, Ph.D.
    Second Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Roberto Ballarini
    Department Civil Engineering
    Dissertation Title Stochastic Buckling Analysis of Thin Shells with Geometrical Imperfections

Past Winners

Fall 2023/Spring 2024/Summer 2024

  • Swapnil Sharma
    Swapnil Sharma, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Vemuri Balakotaiah
    Department Chemical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Analysis of Natural Convection Effects in Insulation Layers of Cryogenic Storage Tanks
  • Theophilus Kaaya
    Theophilus Kaaya, Ph.D.
    Second Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Zheng Chen
    Department Mechanical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Dielectric Elastomer Tubular Actuators: Modeling, Control, and Biomedical Applications

Fall 2022/Spring 2023/Summer 2023

  • Feng Fang
    Feng Fang, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Yingchun Zhang
    Department Biomedical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Brain Controllability Analysis
  • Adam Mallette
    Adam Mallette, Ph.D.
    Second Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Jeffrey Rimer
    Department Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
    Dissertation Title Regulating Zeolite Nucleation using Alkali Cations and Higher Valence Elements
  • Kosar Mozaffari
    Kosar Mozaffari, Ph.D.
    Second Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Pradeep Sharma
    Department Mechanical Engineering
    Dissertation Title The Interaction of Nonlinear Deformation and Electrostatics with Applications for Designing New Materials and Explaining Natural Phenomena

Fall 2021/Spring 2022/Summer 2022

  • Jacklyn Hall
    Jacklyn Hall, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Praveen Bollini
    Department Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
    Dissertation Title Biomimetic Active Sites in Metal-Organic Framework Catalysts for Hydrocarbon Transformations
  • Nam-In Kim
    Nam-In Kim, Ph.D.
    Second Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Jae-Hyun Ryou
    Department Materials Science and Engineering
    Dissertation Title Flexible Piezoelectric Sensors Based on Single-Crystalline III-N Thin Films for Personal-Healthcare and Extreme-Environment Applications

Fall 2020/Spring 2021/Summer 2021

  • Thuy T.D. Le
    Thuy T.D. Le, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Jeffrey Rimer
    Department Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
    Dissertation Title Modulation of Zeolite Composition and its Catalytic Effect on Methanol-to-Hydrocarbon Reaction
  • Furui Wang
    Furui Wang, Ph.D.
    Second Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Gangbing Song
    Department Mechanical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Intelligent Detection of Bolt Looseness using Structural Health Monitoring Methods and Percussion Approach

Spring 2020

  • Aseem Chawla, Ph.D.
    Advisor(s) Dr. Jeffrey Rimer
    Department Chemical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Controlling Microporous and Mesoporous Domains in Zeolite Crystallization
  • Musa Ozturk, Ph.D.
    Advisor(s) Dr. Nuri Ince
    Department Biomedical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Pharmacological and Electroceutical Modulations of Local Field Potentials in Parkinson’s Disease

Summer/Fall 2019

  • Jie Chen
    Jie Chen, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Jae-Hyun Ryou
    Department Materials Science and Engineering
    Dissertation Title Flexible Piezoelectric Generators and Pulse Sensors Using Single-Crystalline III-N Thin Films
  • Fang Hao, Ph.D.
    Second Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Yan Yao
    Department Electrical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Materials and Interfacial Engineering for High-Performance All Solid-State Batteries
  • Donghwan Kim
    Donghwan Kim, Ph.D.
    Second Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Hyongki Lee
    Department Geosensing Systems Engineering
    Dissertation Title Ensemble Learning Regression for Estimating River Discharge Using Remotely Sensed Data and Hydrological Model

Spring 2019

  • Chih-Hao Liu, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Kirill V. Larin
    Department Biomedical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Translational Optical Coherence Elastography
  • Wenbo Luo, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Venkat Selvamanickam
    Department Mechanical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Fabrication and Electromechanical Study of Symmetric Tape Round (STAR) ReBCO Wires

Summer/Fall 2018

  • Kyoseung Sim, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Cunjiang Yu
    Department Materials Science and Engineering
    Dissertation Title Materials and Manufacture of Soft and Curvilinear Electronics

Spring 2018

  • Manmohan Singh, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Kirill V. Larin
    Department Biomedical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Quantifying Tissue Biomechanical Properties with Noncontact Dynamic Optical Coherence Elastography
  • Jun Mao, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Kenneth White and Dr. Zhifeng Ren
    Department Mechanical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Defect Engineering in Thermoelectric Materials
  • Chong Dai, Ph.D.
    Second Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Yandi Hu
    Department Civil and Environmental Engineering
    Dissertation Title Heterogeneous Nucleation, Growth, and Recrystallization of Nanoparticles under Environmentally Relevant Conditions

Summer/Fall 2017

  • Rui Li, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Jeffrey D. Rimer
    Department Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
    Dissertation Title Multifaceted Approaches to Tailor Zeolite Properties and Elucidate the Role of Precursors in Nonclassical Crystallization
  • Meysam Heydari Gharahcheshmeh, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Venkat Selvamanickam
    Department Materials Science and Engineering
    Dissertation Title Structural and Electromagnetic Study of Heavily Doped ZR-Added Rebco Coated Conductors Fabricated by Reel-to-Reel MOCVD

Spring 2017

  • Katy N. Olafson, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Peter G. Vekilov and Dr. Jeffrey D. Rimer
    Department Chemical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Deciphering the Molecular Interactions between Antimalarials and Hematin Crystal Surfaces

Summer/Fall 2016

  • Fatemeh Ahmadpoor, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Pradeep Sharma
    Department Mechanical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Statistical Mechanics of 2D Materials: From Biological Membranes to Graphene

Summer/Fall 2015

  • Maruti K. Mudunuru, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Kalayana B. Nakshatrala
    Department Civil and Environmental Engineering
    Dissertation Title On Enforcing Maximum Principles and Element-wise Species Balance for Advective-Diffusive-Reactive Systems
  • Nikhil Walani, Ph.D.
    First Place
    Advisor(s) Dr. Ashutosh Agrawal
    Department Mechanical Engineering
    Dissertation Title Mechanics of Cellular Transport

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