Graduate School Newsblog

Winter Data Science Fellowship Opportunity

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Program: The Data Incubator is an intensive 8 week fellowship that prepares masters students, PhDs, and postdocs in STEM and social science fields seeking industry careers as data scientists. The program is free for Fellows and supported by sponsorships from hundreds of employers across multiple industries. In response to the overwhelming interest in our earlier sessions, we will be holding another fellowship.

Who Should Apply: Anyone who has already obtained a masters or PhD degree or who is within one year of graduating with a masters or PhD is welcome to apply. Applications from international students are welcome. Everyone else is encouraged to sign-up for a future session.

Locations: In addition to the below in-person locations, we will have a remote online session:

  • New York City
  • San Francisco Bay Area
  • Boston
  • Washington, DC.

Dates: All sections will be from 2020-01-13 to 2020-03-06.

Application Link: https://www.thedataincubator.com/fellowship.html#apply?ref=wbWpzdGV2ZW5AbXR1LmVkdQo=

Early Deadline: 2019-10-14.
Regular Deadline: 2019-10-21.
We are assessing and interviewing candidates who apply for the Early Deadline first and then based on remaining availability, will take candidates who applied for the Regular Deadline on a first-come first-serve basis.

Data Science in 30 minutes: Learn how to build a data-science project in our upcoming free Data Science in 30-minutes webcast. Signup soon as space is limited.

Learn More: You can learn about our fellows at The New York Times, LinkedIn, Amazon, Capital One, or Palantir. To read about our latest fellow alumni, check out our blog. To learn more about The Data Incubator, check us out on Venture Beat, The Next Web, or Harvard Business Review.

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Nominations sought for 2020 MAGS Thesis Award

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The Executive Committee of the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) is soliciting nominations for the 2020 MAGS Distinguished Master’s Thesis Awards to recognize and reward distinguished scholarship and research at the master’s level.  Michigan Tech may nominate one candidate in each disciplinary category.

Eligible students:

  • will have earned a master of science degree between July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2019 in the fields of
    • Biological/Life Sciences OR
    • Humanities (history is considered with humanities)
  • will have completed an original thesis that makes an unusually significant contribution to the discipline
  • will not have earned a PhD (or comparable research degree) in any discipline prior to the writing of the master’s thesis

The 2021 competition will seek nominees in the fields of Social Sciences or Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering.

Please see our web page for complete details on eligibility and application procedures.

Nomination packets are due by 4pm, October 3, 2019 to the Graduate School via e-mail (gradschool@mtu.edu) or campus mail (address to Debra Charlesworth). Eligible students with a complete nomination packet will be evaluated by a panel of faculty from the University.

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Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2019 Recipient – Hemanth Kumar Vemprala

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Hemanth Kumar Vemprala
Electrical Engineering

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering, working with my advisor Dr. Bruce A. Mork. Currently, my research focuses on the time-domain modeling approaches for addressing disturbances such as Transformer Inner winding faults and also external events such as Geomagnetic Disturbances (GMD) causing GIC to flow in Bulk Transmission systems. Both these disturbances have an adverse impact on the normal operation of the power system. My research had lead to development and enhancement of the approach to accurately estimate the fault currents which is then used to study and improve the sensitivity of transformer protection. Similarly, GIC/GMD event is intricate and involves complex interaction in the physical world, using EMTP time-domain approaches, various tools and methodologies are developed that helps understand the behavior, study the consequences and to find effective mitigative strategies.
I am very grateful to the grad school and the funding panel for awarding me the finishing fellowship. This will certainly help me to focus on completing the dissertation and publishing my research papers.
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Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2019 Recipient – Siyu Chen

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Siyu Chen
Civil Engineering

Mr. Siyu Chen received his MS degree in Highway Engineering from South China University of Technology in China. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. degree at MTU from Fall 2015 under the supervision of Dr. Zhanping You. His Ph.D. research focuses on investigating the water permeability of asphalt mixture. After the completion of his Ph.D., he would be interested to work as a faculty in an academic institution in China.

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Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2019 Recipient – Mohammed Desouky

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Mohammed Desouky
Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

I earned my bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Military Technical College in 2005 and my MSc in aerospace engineering from Cairo University in 2012. I started at MTU in Spring 2017. My research is on spacecraft attitude determination, dynamics and control. Specifically, I am developing control schemes that enable the spacecraft to carry out attitude maneuver in less time with less power consumption.

I would like to express my gratitude to my entire family for supporting me.  With Special thanks to my father, Abdelrahman, my wife, Eman and my son, Zeyad. I am grateful to the Graduate School for granting me the Finishing Fellowship for Fall 2019. I would also like to thank my advisors Dr. Abdelkhalik and Dr. Gauchia for their academic advice and their constant support and encouragement.

It has been great time at Michigan Tech and I am proud to be a part of it.

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Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2019 Recipient – Nancy Henaku

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Nancy Henaku
Rhetoric, Theory and Culture

I am currently a doctoral candidate on the Rhetoric, Theory and Culture (RTC) program in the Department of Humanities. Generally, my research examines the intersections between discourse and socio-political processes with a specific emphasis on postcoloniality and transnationality. For my doctoral dissertation, I argue for a Global Southern perspective on women’s politics, suggesting that a serious engagement with postcolonial (African) women’s politics provides critical insights into the complexities of female political power and the role that language and rhetoric play in constructing this complexity. Besides suggesting a multitheoretic framework for unravelling the socio-discursive complexities that I identify in my discursive data, the dissertation also contributes to discussions in transnational feminist research by highlighting the connections between discourses on/about an African woman and discursive patterns identified from a broader transnational context. Because my doctoral project is itself an effort to recover an African woman’s political contributions, I have had to cover significant ground in order to highlight the complex issues in the texts examined. I am currently completing the final chapters of my dissertation and looking forward to my defense and graduation in Fall 2019. The Finishing Fellowship will therefore facilitate my work on the final sections of my dissertation. I am extremely grateful to the Michigan Tech Graduate School and the Graduate Dean Awards Advisory Panel for this generous financial support. I am also grateful to Dr. Victoria L. Bergvall—my advisor—for her support and intellectual guidance and to the Department of Humanities for supporting my academic endeavors since I started the PhD program.

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Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2019 Recipient – Danielle Rupp

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Danielle Rupp
School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science

I am a fourth year PhD Candidate in the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. My area of study revolves around boreal ecosystems—particularly northern wetlands—and how these areas are responding to climate change. The research that I pursue at Michigan Tech specifically involves carbon cycling, microbial response, and plant community shifts due to hydrologic change. Other research I have been involved with during my time at Tech includes the investigation of permafrost thaw and its effects on nutrient cycling in and around thermokarst features. In so doing, I have spent the past three summers living and working in and around Fairbanks, Alaska—an area in which permafrost thaw and climate change are daily realities for both the landscape and the people who live there. During my time at Michigan Tech, I also had the opportunity to attain a Masters in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which expands my technical skillset for any future career.

I am incredibly grateful to the graduate school for awarding me a Finishing Fellowship. The extra time to finish writing and publishing my research will make me a competitive candidate for many potential future careers. Careers I am interested in pursuing include nonprofit environmental research, land- or water-based management positions in federal agencies, land trusts, or non-profits, or environmental state-based careers in Alaska or other northern climates.

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Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2019 Recipient -Amol Paithankar

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Amol Paithankar
Mining Engineering

I am a Ph.D. candidate studying Mining Engineering in the Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences. I came to Michigan Tech in Fall 2015 to pursue MS in Mining Engineering, after working for 4 years in the mining industry in India.  I started working under the guidance of Dr. Snehamoy Chatterjee, where I worked on multiple-point geostatistics and mine production scheduling. After finishing MS in 2017, I decided to continue for a Ph.D. at MTU. As a Ph.D. candidate, I am developing a mining complex optimization algorithm to solve a large scale stochastic open-pit mine optimization problem. I want to thank my advisor Dr. Snehamoy Chatterjee for his guidance and generous support.

I am very grateful to the Graduate School for the support provided through the Doctoral Finishing Fellowship. This support is instrumental in this final stage of my graduate studies.  I am mainly writing my final research papers, and look forward to completing my dissertation in a timely manner and take on new challenges.

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Graduate Student Support group

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Group Description:
Graduate Student Support Group (weekly, starting Tuesday, Sept. 18th, at 5:30 pm) Please contact Pat Frueh at pjfrueh@mtu.edu, if you have questions and would like to join the group.
Open to: Tech graduate students who may be suffering from some of the challenges associated with graduate school, like working in isolation, procrastination, impostor syndrome, and feeling overwhelmed.
 
Description: Connect with others around the unique experience of advanced education and exchange coping ideas, gain perspective and find some balance as you manage with the demands of grad school.
 
Patricia Frueh, Psy.D.
Assistant Director, Counseling Services
Michigan Technological University
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Nominations open for KCP Future Faculty Fellowships

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Applications are being sought for KCP Future Faculty Fellowships, a program funded by the State of Michigan.  Applications are due no later than 4pm on October 8, 2019 for funding starting in Spring 2020 or later.  KCP fellowships provide students up to $20,000 (MS students) or $35,000 (PhD students) to pursue their degrees.  Funds may be used to support students (or faculty/staff) pursuing degrees at Michigan Tech.  For Michigan Tech students, the Graduate School and nominating department must also contribute matching funds to help support the student.

The purpose of the King-Chávez-Parks Future Faculty Fellowship Program is to increase the pool of academically and economically disadvantaged candidates pursuing faculty teaching or administrative careers in post-secondary education.

Complete information about eligibility criteria and materials needed for an application is available on our web page.

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