Dissertations: July 2025

Dissertations Defended

Astronomy

Chengcheng Xin
Study of the physics and detectability of compact black hole binaries using multi-messenger observations
Advisor: Zoltan Haiman

Alina Sabyr
Cosmology and astrophysics with non-Gaussian signals and spectral distortion
Advisor: Zoltan Haiman

Biological Sciences

Anne van Vlimmeren
Rewiring of cell signaling by pathogenic mutations in the tyrosine phosphatase SHP2
Advisors: Marko Jovanovic and Neel Shah

Chemical Physics

Yujing Wei
Accurate and scalable electronic structure methods and machine learning potentials for molecules and materials simulation
Advisor: Richard Friesner

Morgan Thinel
Quantum localization in metals
Advisors: Xiaoyang Zhu and Abhay Pasupathy

Chemistry

Shixuan Wei
Visible-light-activated photopolymerization and dynamic covalent chemistry for adaptive materials
Advisor: Luis Campos

Naixin Qian
Advancing chemical specificity in raman microscopy: From method development to applications
Advisor: Wei Min

Ziyuan Jiang
Characterizing mechanisms of regulation and pathogenicity in SHP2 using deep mutational scanning
Advisor: Neel Shah

Earth and Environmental Sciences

Sarah Smith
Understanding regional aerosol variability and trends through satellite constraints on source region drivers and arctic processes
Advisors: Mingfang Ting and Yutian Wu

Maria Rosabelle Ong
Untapping a new climate archive: Colpophyllia natans climate reconstructions in the tropical Atlantic
Advisor: Nathalie Emami

East Asian Languages and Cultures

Cameron Foltz
Constructing Qinghai: Pastoralist settlement, monastic territorialization, and state incorporation (1850-1935)
Advisor: Gray Tuttle

History

Nicholas Shepard
Embodied politics: A social movement history of the public bathroom in the modern United States
Advisor: George Chauncey

Alice Gorton
Earth hunger: Agriculture, settler colonialism, and the rise of the global grain trade, 1846-1914
Advisor: Susan Pedersen

Italian

Giulia Ricca
The insipid woman. Speech, love, beauty in the betrothed
Advisor: Elizabeth Leake

Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies

Nadeem Mansour
A new ruling class and its empires: The case of nineteenth-century Egypt
Advisor: Timothy Mitchell

Physics

Rocco Vitalone
Cryogenic ultrafast nanoscopy of complex materials
Advisor: Dmitri Basov

Religion

Xiao Xiao
The forge and the mediator: Narrative, memory, and the making of Kiyomizudera
Advisor: Michael Como

Sociology

Flavien Ganter
Operationalizing symbolic boundaries in a multidimensional world: Estimands, designs, and applications of conjoint experiments
Advisor: Thomas DiPrete