Graduate School Newsblog

Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2018 Recipient -Sanaz Habibi

Published
By

Sanaz Habibi
Chemical Engineering

I joined Michigan Tech as a Ph.D. student in September 2014. Since January 2015, I have been working as a graduate research assistant at Medical micro-Device Engineering Research Lab. (M.D.-ERL). My research focuses on developing and optimizing reliable low-cost point of care tools for rapid and quantitative disease diagnosis.

I want to express my gratitude to Graduate School for providing me the Finishing Fellowship. This fellowship gave me the opportunity to put my entire focus on completing my dissertation. I would also like to thank my Ph.D. advisor Prof. Minerick for her constant support and encouragement.

 

Continue Reading →

Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2018 Recipient – Jingyuan Wang

Published
By

Jingyuan Wang
Electrical Engineering

My research assistant position at Michigan Tech gives me an opportunity to not only work hard but also to work smart and efficiently towards my goals. I feel satisfaction and pride when helping and as a member of my research group. For my PhD research, I am working on demand response, optimal power flow, integration of distributed energy resources, improving computational performances on large-scale power grids with decentralized approaches, and developing Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation on large-scale transmission and distribution systems with Opal-RT, GAMS and Raspberry Pi server.

As a teaching assistant for two years in the past, I have learned that I should not only lead students and help them with problems, but also encourage and motivate them through open communication. By doing this, students show great enthusiasm for their study, which I find incredibly rewarding. Also, as a member of Society of Women Engineers (SWE), I communicate with female engineering alumni from Michigan Tech and learn a lot from them, such as how to balance life, work and family, and how to successfully deal with the issues that I will encounter as a female engineer in the future.
I would like to thank the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the Graduate School for funding my academic endeavor. I would like to thank my PhD advisor, Dr. Sumit Paudyal, for supporting me in the past five years. I appreciated every single insightful discussion about my research with him and every single piece of suggestion that he ever gave me.
Continue Reading →

Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2018 Recipient – Priscilla Addison

Published
By

Priscilla Addison
Geological Engineering

My interest in engineering started in childish defiance of wanting to prove to majority of the people I came across that girls can be engineers too, and pretty great ones at that! But thankfully it ended up being something I enjoyed immensely. My personality is more logical than emotional, so in school I found myself gravitating towards the Math and Physics subjects because of the structure in them. I enjoy that these subjects can help give the breakdown of why and how most things work. During my undergrad, I majored in civil engineering but got more interested in the geotecthnical/geological aspect of the discipline because of the encompassing nature of this subfield. I like the fact that it puts me in the heart of basically everything of the built environment since geological engineering deals with virtually everything that touches the earth! In my current role as a PhD candidate, I have been developing predictive models to isolate locations in the western US that are vulnerable to debris flows occurrences after wildfires. A recent model has been able to predict 8 out of 10 of these disastrous locations, which is a great improvement on the 4 out of 10 that an earlier model was predicting a couple years ago. This makes me so happy because it is a great step towards mitigating/ preventing the devastations usually associated with these events.

Throughout my academic career, I have been so lucky to have met so many wonderful people, especially my advisor, Dr. Oommen, who has been nothing short of supportive through all the highs and lows of this wringer of a grad school journey. He truly is amazing! I am also very thankful to the Graduate School for this award of Finishing Fellowship which is making it possible for me to fully concentrate on writing my dissertation and defending it without worrying about finances anymore. Medaase— this means “thank you” in my native language, Twi.

 

Continue Reading →

Portage Health Foundation Graduate Assistantship Fall 2018 Recipient – Xueling Li

Published
By

Xueling Li
Mathematical Sciences

I am currently a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. My research focuses on developing statistical methods and computational tools to identify genetic variants that influence the susceptibility to complex diseases. I also work with professor Dana Johnson of the School of Business and Economics to better understand service quality and patient satisfaction, and identify opportunities for improved service delivery in rural healthcare using data provided by Aspirus Keweenaw about patients in the local area.

I feel extremely honored and very grateful for the support provided by the Portage Health Foundation, which allows me to pursue such cutting-edge research here at Michigan Tech.

 

Continue Reading →

Workshops on Using an Individual Development Plan (IDP)

Published
By

The Graduate School is pleased to have Dr. Joerg Schlatterer and Dr. Corrie Kuniyoski visit our campus on November 7, 2018 to conduct two workshops on using Individual Development Plans (IDPs) to assist in career development for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.

Please register online so that we can plan for your attendance.

Workshop for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars

Planning for Your Career using an IDP
10-11:30am, MUB Alumni Lounge

Join the Michigan Tech Graduate School and the American Chemical Society (ACS) for a 1.5h interactive career planning workshop geared towards graduate students and postdocs. Workshop participants will learn about the four critical components of career development and planning, how they can relate to their individual situation, and finding their career “sweet spot”. Participants will be introduced to the Individual Development Plan (IDP) concept and how IDPs can help set clear goals toward a desired career path. As an example for online IDPs, the ACS tool ChemIDPTM(ChemIDP.org) will be introduced.

Workshop for Advisors

Individual Development Plan Assisted Mentoring
3-4pm, MUB Alumni Lounge

Adequate preparation of the future workforce is essential for the survival of the U.S. as an economic and innovative powerhouse in the world. Numerous reports from organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, the American Chemical Society (ACS), and the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) have highlighted the importance of mentoring for the successful navigation through college, graduate school, or postdoctoral training and towards securing satisfying jobs. Federal funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation strongly recommend the use of Individual Development Plans (IDPs) and postdoctoral mentoring plans for trainees, respectively.

This 1 hour interactive workshop will introduce the IDP process as a mentoring tool and share related resources available to advisors. The IDP process consists of four components: 1) self-assessment, 2) career exploration, 3) skill strengthening, and 4) goal setting. ChemIDPTM, the IDP tool and workshop developed by the ACS for trainees in the chemical sciences, will serve as an example of how use of IDPs has the potential to prepare faculty and trainees for efficient mentor-mentee discussions.

Speaker Biographies

Joerg Schlatterer, PhD

Joerg Schlatterer leads the ACS Graduate and Postdoctoral Scholars Office. Dr. Schlatterer studied chemistry in Berlin and received his PhD in Heidelberg (Germany) in 2004. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Florida before moving on to become a research associate and subsequently a faculty member in biochemistry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Dr. Schlatterer published more than 16 peer-reviewed articles and filed 4 patents and patent applications. At Einstein Dr. Schlatterer also co-created and directed the Career & Professional Development Program for Graduate Students & Postdoctoral Researchers. Dr. Schlatterer worked as Assistant Dean of Faculty Professional Development at Columbia University Medical Center before joining the National Science Foundation in summer 2014 as a National Science Foundation Program Director for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Joerg joined the American Chemical Society to lead the Graduate and Postdoctoral Scholars Office in March 2017.

Corrie Kuniyoshi, PhD

Corrie Kuniyoshi is a Senior Program Manager in the ACS Graduate & Postdoctoral Scholars Office in the Learning and Career Development Department of the ACS. She received her Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, examining oxidation pathways of guanine and cycloaddition reactions of fullerenes. Dr. Kuniyoshi’s work and interests focus on the intersection of STEM graduate career development with innovative technology. Dr. Kuniyoshi has gained over 10 years of work experience, organizing career workshops, symposia, and events for graduates and postdocs searching for academic jobs and acting as managing editor for a newsletter and executive editor of a magazine focused on graduate education. For the last 4 years her work has focused exclusively on strategic development and delivery of career planning resources in the creation of technology tools, programs, and articles focused on the myriad career options available to scientists with M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. Two of the projects she is most proud of include co-leading the development and implementation of ACS’s ChemIDPTM (ChemIDP.org), a comprehensive interactive individual development plan platform available (free) online, and developing the Graduate Postdoctoral Chemist Magazine (www.acs.org/gradchemist). As a Myers-Briggs certified facilitator (and INTJ) she greatly enjoys facilitating personality assessment workshops and discovering more about how personality plays a role in career choices and the workplace environment.

Continue Reading →

Nominations sought for 2019 MAGS Thesis Award

Published
By

The Executive Committee of the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) is soliciting nominations for the 2019 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, 2016 to June 30, 2018 in the fields of
    • Social Sciences OR
    • Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering
  • 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 2019 competition will seek nominees in the fields of Biological/Life Sciences or Humanities.

Please see our web page for complete details on eligibility and application procedures. Each department or school may nominate one student from either or both categories.

Nomination packets are due by 4pm, October 18, 2018 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.

Continue Reading →

EndNote Basic and Cite While You Write Workshop

Published
By

Use EndNote software to manage your citations and save time during this workshop from 1 to 2:30 p.m. tomorrow (Oct. 4) in Library 242. In this session, you will:

  • Add references to an EndNote library
  • Import references from databases and PDFs
  • Organize your citations
  • Use the Cite While You Write tool to incorporate references into Microsoft Word

No prior knowledge of EndNote is required for this workshop. Register online.

Continue Reading →

Copyright for Graduate Students

Published
By

Who owns the copyright to my dissertation? When using an image from another work, do I need copyright permission? If I do, how much does it cost? What are the benefits of making my thesis open access? Get the answers to these and other questions at the library workshop, “Copyright and Your Dissertation, Thesis or Master’s Report.”

This workshop will examine the role U.S. Copyright law plays in the thesis or dissertation writing and publishing processes. The use of copyrighted material, publishing agreements and the role of the Digital Commons at Michigan Tech repository will be explored.

Join us at 12:05 p.m. tomorrow (Sept. 26) in Library 242. Registration is required.

(Note: for students of UN0500, this will be the same workshop presented to your class on Sept 11.)

Continue Reading →

EndNote Workshop in the Library

Published
By

Use EndNote software to manage your citations and save time. The workshop will take place from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Monday (Sept. 17) in Library 242.

In this session, you will:

  • Add references to an EndNote library
  • Import references from databases and PDFs
  • Organize your citations
  • Use Cite While You Write tool to incorporate references into Microsoft Word

No prior knowledge of EndNote is required for this workshop.

Continue Reading →

Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2018 Recipient – Huaguang Wang

Published
By

Huaguang Wang
Materials Science and Engineering

Huaguang WangMr. Huaguang Wang received his BS and MS degrees in Metallurgical Engineering from Central South University in China. Currently, he is pursuing her Ph.D. degree at MTU from Fall 2015 under the supervision of Dr. Bowen Li. His Ph.D. research focuses on nano-composite materials synthesis, mineral processing, and microwave technology. After the completion of his Ph.D., if an opportunity arises from his hometown university, he would be interested to take on a faculty position to perform research and teach. Secondary to that is to find R&D positions in the United States.
Continue Reading →