Graduate School Newsblog

Category: News

Interesting stories about and for our students.

Caleb Swain – MAGS Excellence in Teaching Award (Nominee representing Michigan Tech)

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Caleb Swain, PhD in Computer Science, 2026

I am a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science under the advisement of Dr. Soner Onder. My primary research focuses on microarchitectural memory optimization techniques and, more broadly, computer architecture. In addition to my research, I have had numerous opportunities to teach courses within the Computer Science Department, including Introduction to Programming and Systems Programming. These experiences have helped me grow not only as an instructor, but also as a researcher.

I would like to thank the Computer Science Department for the many teaching opportunities provided over the years. I am also grateful to everyone who has contributed to my development as an instructor, including my advisor, fellow PhD colleagues, and of course the many students I have had in my classes. Finally, I would like to thank the Department and Michigan Tech for the opportunity to represent the university in the MAGS competition.

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Tucker D. Nielsen Represents MTU for MAGS Distinguished Thesis Award!

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Tucker D. Nielsen, MS in Rhetoric, Theory and Culture, 2026

I’m fascinated by how we communicate ideas, narratives, and discourse. While I started my undergraduate in Computer Engineering and Computer Sciences, I eventually switched to English in 2020 to better study written and spoken communications. After graduating, I decided to pursue a master’s in Rhetoric, Theory and Culture to research writing center and composition pedagogy, as these are vital spots where students learn to articulate their work and themselves. My undergraduate work in the Writing Center and seeing students complain about first-year composition inspired me to research methods to make the class more relatable to STEM students and those with visual/tactile learning methods.

“Four Lessons to Build Upon” introduces tactile learning methods amongst the abstract concepts of first-year university composition courses. Students in the course I taught used LEGO bricks paired up with the four core assignments to reinforce the communicated abstract concepts. The study aimed to improve students’ understanding of rhetorical concepts used throughout their lives, such as critical thinking, analysis, and visualization. I hope this research is used as a starting ground for college instructors and professors to adopt similar methods for connecting students to rhetorical concepts.

I continue studying rhetoric in my second master’s degree in Industrial Heritage and Archaeology, and my research focus has shifted to authorized heritage narratives within West Lake Superior tourism. My current research involves how people communicate their stories and the agencies at work to utilize these stories across West Lake Superior. My full-time position as the Thompson Scholar Program Coordinator also requires me to engage with rhetoric in assisting students with program requirements, establishing community through public service, and creating programs/recruitment materials.

I’m thankful to the Humanities Graduate Department for nominating me and the Graduate Deans Award Advisory Panel for selecting me to represent Michigan Technological University. I felt the Humanities Department’s support through both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I especially want to thank my advisor Dr. Holly Hassel for her insight into composition pedagogy studies and thorough experience in pedagogical research; she assisted me greatly from the initial research design to the final defense. My committee of Dr. Jennifer Nish, Dr. Mark Rouleau, and M. Bartley Seigel also helped through the defense process and provided their industry insight for my work. I finally thank all the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of Michigan Tech who I’ve worked with for their guidance and support.

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Copper Shores Community Health Foundation Graduate Assistantship – Spring 2026 – Brandon Woolman

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Brandon Woolman, PhD in Applied Cognitive Science and Human Factors, 2026

I joined the Applied Cognitive Science and Human Factors department at Michigan Tech in Fall 2021. With a background in cognitive neuroscience, I was interested in joining the Aging, Cognition, and Action lab. After some training I was onboarded for a project, funded by the National Institute of Health, investigating early-stage Alzheimer’s Disease and long-term retention in two types of movement adaptation: visuomotor rotation and force-field adaptation. The ultimate goal of this work was to identify behavioral markers of cognitive impairment in pre-clinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease that could facilitate earlier diagnosis. This work helped me not only learn valuable research skills but fueled my passion for research.

I have spent my years at Tech investigating the impacts of aging and cognitive decline on motor learning. My dissertation seeks to distinguish the overlapping- and unique- neural networks involved in motor sequence learning and movement adaptation. We plan to measure changes in oxygenated hemoglobin in the pre-frontal cortex using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We expect this region to be of importance to the explicit memory systems involved in motor learning. This work will contribute to our understanding of how healthy aging impacts motor learning, and how this knowledge may help us improve cognitive assessment and neuropsychological evaluations in neurodegenerative diseases in later adulthood.

I am grateful for the support from the Copper Shores Community Health Foundation for helping fund my final semester at Michigan Tech. I would also like to thank my advisor, Dr. Kevin Trewartha, for his support and guidance throughout my graduate school journey. I am excited to complete my PhD and continue my passion for health-related research.

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Good News From The Graduate School

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Good NewLetter from the Graduate School Header Image

All of us in the Graduate School are excited to support you and help you succeed. Be sure to check your email frequently for updates from the Graduate School. Throughout the year, visit the Graduate School Blog for news, updates, and funding opportunities.

Academic Audit

Take a moment to explore and bookmark the Experience page and save the “My Graduate Degree” card under the Academics tab to your homepage (shown at right) for easy access.

The Academic Audit is a helpful tool on the My Graduate Degree card that allows graduate students to easily track their progress toward degree completion. It provides a clear overview of completed coursework, remaining program and Graduate School requirements, and a direct link to the graduation application. Reviewing your Academic Audit regularly can help you plan ahead, avoid surprises, and stay on track toward completing your graduate degree.

What you’ll also find on Experience:

  • Registration and Class Details
  • Forms and Deadlines
  • Degree Progress Checklist – where you can update your expected graduation term
  • Hold Information – see items that may prevent you from registering or graduating
  • Billing Information
  • Payroll and Direct Deposit Information
My Graduate Degree MTU Experience Card Image

Additional Resources

Upcoming Deadlines:

Deadline Date Description
February 6, 2026 Submit your Graduation Application – required to complete your degree in spring or participate in spring commencement
February 23, 2026 Summer 2026 CSCHF Graduate Assistantship applications due
February 24, 2026 Summer 2026 Finishing Fellowship applications due

Upcoming Events

  • Michigan Tech is hosting Engineering Ethics: What Every Engineer Needs to Know, a seminar designed to introduce students and professionals to the ethical responsibilities that guide engineering practice. This event is a great opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to reflect on the broader impact of engineering work and the importance of integrity, accountability, and public welfare in the profession.

  • The Graduate Student Government (GSG) is once again hosting this year’s Graduate Research Colloquium (GRC), taking place on Wednesday, March 18. The GRC offers a unique opportunity for graduate students to showcase their research across the campus-wide community while developing their presentation skills for upcoming conferences.

Winter Carnival and Local Events

As winter settles into the Copper Country, Michigan Tech comes alive with one of its most iconic traditions, Winter Carnival. Held each February, this long-standing celebration showcases the creativity, resilience, and school spirit of the Michigan Tech community. From massive snow statues built by student organizations to campus-wide events, outdoor and indoor activities, Winter Carnival is the true highlight of the season.

For more ideas on how to spend your free time, be sure to check out the Local Area Events Calendar, there’s something for everyone. To explore additional seminars, workshops, and Graduate School sponsored events, visit the MTU Events Calendar. This calendar highlights upcoming opportunities across campus, making it easy to stay informed and engaged throughout the semester.

Beyond the Classroom

The Graduate Student Government (GSG) is your key to connecting with the grad student community. They organize tons of activities, from professional development workshops and the Graduate Research Colloquium to social events and mixers. Getting involved with the GSG is a fantastic way to meet people from different departments, share your ideas, and help shape a fun and supportive campus environment.

The Graduate School offers resources focused on graduate life and well-being, including social connections, wellness support, and involvement opportunities. These resources are designed to help graduate students maintain balance and feel supported throughout their time at Michigan Tech. Learn more on the Graduate Life & Well-Being page.

Have any questions? Please reach out to the Graduate School anytime via email: gradschool@mtu.edu, phone: (906) 487-2327, or visit us in the Admin Building on the 4th floor.

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Copper Shores Community Health Foundation Graduate Assistantship – Spring 2026 – Natalia Krakhaleva

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Natalia Krakhaleva, PhD in Chemical Engineering, 2026

With sincere gratitude, I would like to thank the Copper Shores Community Health Foundation and the Graduate Dean Awards Advisory Panel for selecting me to receive the Graduate Assistantship. It is an honor to have my work recognized in this way.


My name is Natalia Krakhaleva, and I am a third-year Ph.D. candidate in Chemical Engineering at Michigan Technological University. I am working on developing electrochemical biosensors that can be used for non-invasive vitamin D screening with tear fluid. Vitamin D deficiency is a common health concern linked to metabolic, immune, and neurological disorders. Improving access to early diagnostic technologies, particularly for rural populations in the Upper Peninsula with limited healthcare access and reduced sunlight exposure, is the long-term aim of this work to support preventive health strategies and improve regional well-being.
Through my graduate studies, I have had the privilege of working under the guidance of Dr. Adrienne R. Minerick and Dr. Yixin Liu, whose mentorship has shaped my scientific approach and encouraged the purposeful alignment of my research with community health needs. I am thankful to the Department of Chemical Engineering for their continuous support and for creating an environment that promotes scientific excellence and collaborative growth.


Alongside my academic work, my commitment to community engagement and student support is reflected in my role as Chair of the Graduate Society of Women Engineers and as a Student Mental Health and Well-Being Ambassador, where I promote inclusion, leadership development, and resilience.
This assistantship will allow me to dedicate focused time to advancing my dissertation research and further strengthening the public health relevance of my work, particularly its application within local communities. I am grateful for the Foundation’s confidence in my work and remain determined to contribute engineering solutions that improve quality of life within the region.

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Copper Shores Community Health Foundation Graduate Assistantship – Spring 2026 – Shuo Sun

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Shuo Sun, PhD in Statistics, 2026

I began my Ph.D. journey in Statistics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Michigan Technological University in 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, just after welcoming my newborn baby. Balancing academic life, research responsibilities, and family has been both challenging and deeply rewarding. Over the past several years, I have greatly enjoyed my experiences at Michigan Tech—teaching undergraduate statistics courses, assisting in math labs, conducting research, and engaging with the university community.

My research focuses on developing and applying advanced statistical and computational methods for biomedical and clinical data analysis. Specifically, I work on high-dimensional gene network modeling, machine learning–based fracture-risk prediction, domain adaptation for cross-cohort data, and reinforcement learning for personalized cardiac therapy. These projects combine theory, computation, and real-world health data to create interpretable and generalizable models that advance precision medicine and biomedical discovery.

Outside of academics, I enjoy sports and have been an active member of the Michigan Tech Basketball Club for three years. I also spend my free time reading, exploring music, and staying active with my family.

I am sincerely grateful for the support of the Copper Shores Community Health Foundation (CSCHF), which provides me with the valuable opportunity to focus more deeply on my research and complete meaningful work that connects statistical innovation with real-world health improvement.

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Finishing Fellowship Award – Spring 2026 – Yi Xu

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Yi Xu, PhD in Statistics, 2026

I am deeply honored to receive the Finishing Fellowship Award from the Graduate School and the Graduate Dean Awards Advisory Panel. I sincerely thank the Department of Mathematical Sciences for the academic advising and continued support. I am especially grateful to my advisor, Dr. Yeonwoo Rho, for her unwavering encouragement and guidance throughout my doctoral program. I also extend my thanks to the faculty in the math department for their professional instruction and feedback throughout my coursework.


I have had the privilege of working under my advisor, Dr. Yeonwoo Rho, on functional data analysis. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Rho for her invaluable guidance and mentorship, from shaping my research to encouraging my professional development. My research focuses on statistical methods for detecting change points in the mean or variance in high-dimensional or functional time series using random projections, with applications in finance, climate science, and biomedical science.


Alongside my research, I have worked as a Graduate Teaching Instructor for undergraduate math courses. I would like to thank my teaching supervisor, Ann Humes, who provided comprehensive training and helped me develop an instructional framework. I am also grateful to my teaching mentors, Tim Wagner and MaryFran Desrochers, for their guidance on effective teaching practices. These experiences have strengthened my commitment to high-quality instruction.

In addition, I have been proud to serve as the department representative in the graduate student government. I appreciate my colleagues for their participation and engagement, which have contributed to a supportive community. This service has also strengthened my leadership and collaboration skills.
I look forward to continuing to contribute through research, teaching, and service. This fellowship will provide crucial support as I complete my dissertation and prepare for the next stage of my academic career.

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Finishing Fellowship Award – Spring 2026 – Varsha Kumar

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Varsha Kumar, PhD in Electrical Engineering, 2026

I’m a PhD student in Electrical engineering. My research focus on understanding the effects of boundaries which lead to the formation of high-quality factor resonance in finite-size dielectric metasurface. I have performed theoretical studies and computational studies using electromagnetic full wave simulations to understand the nature of the complex resonance response from the fragmented metasurface. The high-quality factors enabled by the finite metasurface are beneficial for enhanced light matter interactions that are important for sensing, lasing, wave-guiding, filtering and imaging applications. I also had the opportunity to instruct labs as a graduate teaching assistant for many semesters, which helped me develop my teaching skills.

I sincerely thank the Graduate school and the Graduate Dean Advisory Panel for this fellowship. I’m grateful to my advisor Dr. Elena Semouchkina for her guidance and support.

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Finishing Fellowship Award – Spring 2026 – Gabriel Ahrendt

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Gabriel Ahrendt, PhD in Geophysics, 2026

I began my PhD research at the beginning of the pandemic, TA-ing labs online and trying to carry out experimental research in a quarantined lab. This taught me a degree of flexibility and spontaneity that has carried through the rest of my degree. Over the course of my PhD I’ve TA’d geology classes, a multi-university course on climate science and policy, I’ve taught the Summer Youth Program for geology, organized a workshop in Washington DC on the UN framework Convention on Climate Change, sampled geological areas for the USGS mapping and exploration efforts, organized social and research events for graduate student government, was coordinator of the GSG softball league, sat on the advisory boards of a forest conservation campaign and an international ecological network, helped organize physics and geological conferences at MTU, and even organized a couple music and art festivals. I like to think that, starting a PhD directly after Peace Corps service, I continued my community focused ethos and incorporated it into my degree.

My research has focused on deciphering the early processes of Earth and solar system evolution, including planetary magnetic field evolution, tectonic dynamics, and paleoenvironmental conditions. While these processes have shaped the modern Earth system, many aspects remain poorly understood. Within this framework, I have carried out three research projects using paleomagnetic, rock-magnetic, geochemical, and electron microscopy methods.

The first project, analyzing Iron-Nickel alloys in meteorites has demonstrated the possibility of analyzing primary magnetic signals in a large suite of meteorites that were previously thought to be bereft of primary magnetic signals. The second project on Iron formations has demonstrated a novel way to interpret paleoenvironments of formation based on rock -magnetic analysis. The third project on Upper Peninsula dike swarms provide a more detailed reconstruction of the 2.1–1.85 billion-year-old tectonic history of the Lake Superior region, constrain its geodynamic evolution, and offer crucial insights into the Earth’s magnetic field history, including the timing of the solid inner core formation.

I am grateful to the Graduate school, my advisor, and my committee for this opportunity to carry out interesting and novel research while also being an active and engaged community organizer.

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Finishing Fellowship Award – Spring 2026 – Katrina Carlson

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Katrina Carlson, PhD in Applied Cognitive Science & Human Factors, 2026

It has been such an honor and privilege to be part of the Department of Psychology and Human Factors at MTU as a graduate student since the Fall of 2020. I have always had an interest in psychology and research, but when I started with one class at a time while working full-time, I did not have a clear direction. I have been fortunate to work with outstanding professors and inspiring fellow students. Kelly Steelman, as Department Chair, first presented me with the question that had been studied at Michigan Tech for the last 30 years, first started with research by Sheryl Sorby: Why do engineering students with improved spatial skills through a remedial course end up doing better in their other STEM courses and have a higher retention rate than students who did not take the course? It intrigued me.

Research for my Master’s degree in Applied Cognitive Science and Human Factors, which I earned in Spring 2024, began with the relationship between spatial skills and Engineering Self-efficacy, with assistance from my co-advisor, Michelle Jarvie-Eggart. While there were increases in scores pre- to post-semester for the remedial group, there was no significant difference between the two groups.

My dissertation research has focused on assessing spatial visualization skills, the ability to mentally rotate 3D shapes. These skills are assessed using receptive measures of ability, such as the demonstration of understanding on a multiple-choice test, such as the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test with Rotations (PSVT: R) or the Mental Rotations Test (MRT). I have developed, with one of my advisors, Shane Mueller, an assessment of productive spatial visualization skills, or the ability to produce a physical demonstration of spatial knowledge. The evaluation is digital and scorable, and it is now available online. Research to date has indicated a strong correlation between scores on the productive assessment and a traditional receptive measure, indicating the reliability of the productive measure. Current research is examining the validity of the measure for first-year engineering students.

I would like to express my gratitude to the Graduate Dean Awards Advisory Panel for granting me this award. I also want to thank my advisors, along with the faculty, staff, and students of the PHF Department, for their inspiration and continued support.

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