Graduate School Newsblog

Day: August 3, 2018

Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2018 Recipient – Yogesh Kumar Ahlawat

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Yogesh Kumar Ahlawat
Biological Sciences

Yogesh Kumar AhlawatI started my PhD at Michigan Tech in Spring 2015. My research focuses on genetic alteration in phenypropanoid pathways for an increased saccharification. As a part of my PhD dissertation, I manipulated certain phenyloxidases like laccases and peroxidases along with some transcription factors with the help a utility promoter using Poplar as my model plant. Cell wall provides the integrity, structural support and act as food reserves and constitutes cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose. Lignin imposes recalcitrance in the plant cell wall thereby hindering the release of sugar for biofuels. I produced about 200 genetically modified plants with alterated lignin and hence further investigated them for their wood and biochemical properties.

It has been great time at Michigan Tech since last 4 years. I want to express my sincere thanks to the Graduate School for providing this opportunity to the graduate students in their finishing semester. I feel proud to be a part of Michigan Tech.
Biologist Husky.
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Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2018 Recipient – Shuaidong Zhao

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Shuaidong Zhao
Civil Engineering

ShuaidongZhaoI am honored to receive the Doctoral Finishing Fellowship. Thanks to the support from the Graduate School for enabling this opportunity. In August 2014, I came to Houghton as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Michigan Tech after I obtained my Master degree in Urban Planning from Renmin University of China. At Michigan Tech, my primal research focus is to apply optimization, control theory, and data-driven methods to investigate dynamic transportation modeling of connected and automated vehicles, as well as interdependence between transportation network and power grid systems.

I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to work with my advisor, Dr. Kuilin Zhang in the emerging area of connected, automated, and electric vehicles in smart cities. His leadership and high standard of excellence has helped me grow into my potential. I also would like to give my special thanks to my dissertation committee members, other faculty and students in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Michigan Tech for their big support throughout my journey of Ph.D. studies.

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Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2018 Recipient – Mingxi Fang

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Mingxi Fang
Chemistry

Mingxi FangI joined Dr. Haiying Liu’s group at Michigan Tech in spring, 2014. This is my 5th year as a PhD student in chemistry major. My research interests focus on design and synthesis of novel near-infrared fluorescent probes for biological sensing and imaging application. Near-infrared fluorescence is very useful in biomedical research because it penetrates deep tissue without dealing damage to bio-systems.  Besides research experience, I have been teaching General Chemistry, Instrumental Analysis, Quantitative Analysis (laboratory) and Recitation class (lecture) as a graduate teaching assistant since 2014. Those precious experience really helps me a lot in life as well as academia.

I also like sports. I learned to ski in Houghton as I never saw so much snow in winter before. Downhill skiing is so exciting and relaxing that I can relieve and take a deep breath from research when things did not go well.

I really want to express my gratitude to Graduate School and the Dean’s Advisory Panel for providing me the Finishing Fellowship in fall semester. The fellowship will help me focus on writing dissertation and finishing defense in a timely manner.

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Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2018 Recipient – Wenping Deng

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Wendping Deng
Forest Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology
wenping deng

I started my PhD in Michigan Tech. in August 2015 after working as a lecturer for ten years in Northeast Forestry University, China.

My PhD research is focused on developing appropriate statistical and machine learning models to reconstruct gene regulatory network from gene expression data. In these 3 years, I developed a backward elimination random forest (BWERF) algorithm for reconstructing multilayered hierarchical gene regulatory network, and a new graphical Gaussian model (JRmGRN) for joint reconstruction of multiple gene regulatory networks using data from multiple tissues or conditions. Reconstructing gene regulatory networks helps elucidating the nature of complex biological processes and disease mechanisms in a variety of organisms. Comprehending the associations between genes has important ramifications in pathological studies for explaining disease pathways and identifying biomarkers for prognosis and diagnosis.
I would like to give my sincere gratitude to the Graduate School at Michigan Tech. for this financial support, which gives me an opportunity to put all my efforts on completing my PHD degree this semester.

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Graduate Student Conference Award

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Donate to the “Graduate Student Conference Award” project. This is a collaborative initiative between the Graduate School and the Graduate Student Government to foster, encourage, and recognize graduate research. Professional and scholarly conferences are key avenues for presenting one’s research out to the larger community. In addition to sharing knowledge and learning more about the work done by fellow researchers, such conferences also play a key role in graduate students’ professional development.

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