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Tag: MAGS Distinguished Thesis Award

Nominations Open for 2025 MAGS Excellence in Teaching Awards

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Nominations are now open for the 2025 MAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Award. Please submit nominations to the Graduate School no later than 4pm, October 21, 2024, following our online instructions. This year, nominations are being accepted from dissertations in the fields of:

  1. Social Sciences
  2. Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering

Michigan Tech may nominate one student in each field. Master’s students who have completed all of their degree requirements between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2024, are eligible. The fields of competition for 2026 will be humanities and biological and life sciences.

Nominations must be delivered to Debra Charlesworth in the Graduate School no later than 4 p.m. on October 21, 2024. Please e-mail nominations to gradschool@mtu.edu.  Contact Debra Charlesworth (gradschool@mtu.edu) if you have any questions about the competition.

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MAGS / ProQuest Distinguished Masters Thesis Award – 2024 – Honorable Mention – Isaac Lennox

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Isaac Lennox, M.S. in Kinesiology, 2023

I am grateful to be recognized as an honorable mention for the MAGS Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award. The completion of my project: “Exercise Is Medicine® on Campus: A National Analysis and Assessment of Community Impact” would not have been able to happen if not for my advisor Dr. Steven Elmer, my committee members Dr. Kamm and Dr. Petushek, as well as support from my lab members and the KIP department. As I work towards my dream of earning a medical degree and becoming a rural physician, Michigan Tech and Houghton will forever have a place in my heart.

Dr. Elmer and his lab introduced me to the American College of Sports Medicine’s Exercise is Medicine® On Campus (EIM-OC) initiative, which calls upon colleges and universities to promote physical activity on their campuses as a vital sign of health. This immediately became the forefront of my master’s thesis, as I was able to perform a national analysis of the distribution and impact of this 15-year initiative, while concurrently promoting physical activity on Michigan Tech’s campus and the surrounding Houghton County. Collectively, the findings from my thesis may help direct EIM-OC efforts to combat physical inactivity and improve health on campuses and their surrounding communities.

I would like to thank Dr. Elmer and the KIP Department for supporting me as a graduate student and providing me with opportunity to travel across the country to disseminate my work at regional and national conferences, as well as on campus and within the local community. Furthermore, I would like to thank the Houghton community for allowing me to contribute to local youth initiatives by teaching junior golf at Portage Lake Golf Course, and volunteer assistant coaching for the Houghton Gremlins JV hockey team. These are memories that I will never forget and I will be forever grateful for.

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Nominations open for the 2024 MAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Award

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Nominations are now open for the 2024 MAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Award. Please submit nominations to the Graduate School no later than 4pm, October 19, 2023, following our online instructions. This year, nominations are being accepted from dissertations in the fields of:

  1. Biological and Life Sciences
  2. Humanities and Fine Arts

Michigan Tech may nominate one student in each field. Master’s students who have completed all of their degree requirements between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2023, are eligible. The fields of competition for 2025 will be Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering; and Social Sciences. Nominations must be emailed to the Graduate School no later than 4pm on October 19, 2023.  Contact Debra Charlesworth (gradschool@mtu.edu) if you have any questions about the competition.

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Nominations open for the 2023 MAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Award

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Nominations are now open for the 2023 MAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Award. Please submit nominations to the Graduate School no later than 4pm, October 11, 2022, following our online instructions. This year, nominations are being accepted from dissertations in the fields of:

  1. Social Sciences
  2. Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering

Michigan Tech may nominate one student in each field. Master’s students who have completed all of their degree requirements between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2022, are eligible. The fields of competition for 2022 will be humanities and biological and life sciences.

Nominations must be delivered to Debra Charlesworth in the Graduate School no later than 4 p.m. on October 11, 2022. Please e-mail nominations to gradschool@mtu.edu.  Contact Debra Charlesworth (gradschool@mtu.edu) if you have any questions about the competition.

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Nominations open for the 2022 MAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Award

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Nominations are now open for the 2022 MAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Award. Please submit nominations to the Graduate School no later than 4pm, October 6, 2021, following our online instructions. This year, nominations are being accepted from dissertations in the fields of:

  1. Biological and Life Sciences
  2. Humanities and Fine Arts

Michigan Tech may nominate one student in each field. Master’s students who have completed all of their degree requirements between July 1, 2019, and June 30, 2021, are eligible. The fields of competition for 2023 will be Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering; and Social Sciences.

Nominations must be delivered to Debra Charlesworth in the Graduate School no later than 4 p.m. on October 6, 2021; e-mail nominations to gradschool@mtu.edu are preferred.  Contact Debra Charlesworth (gradschool@mtu.edu) if you have any questions about the competition.

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Nominee for MAGS Distinguished Thesis Award – Mitch Timm

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I arrived at Michigan Tech in 2017, after completing my bachelor’s in mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota the previous year, deciding to pursue my graduate degree at Michigan Tech for its nationally ranked engineering program (and weather). I completed my masters at Michigan Tech in 2018 and am currently a Ph.D. student under my advisor Prof. Hassan Masoud.

My research consists of the study of complex fluids and transport phenomena; simply speaking I study the interactions of fluids with solid objects and how certain materials are transported within fluids by utilizing the combined tools of theoretical (mathematical), computational (computer simulation), and experimental analysis. Though to many people this may seem impractical or pointless, this research has numerous real-world applications. For example, for my master’s thesis, I researched the rate of evaporation of a liquid droplet when it rests on an inclined surface (sessile drop). Most people are familiar with sessile droplets from when it rains on your windshield or when you wash the dishes, however, most people don’t understand that it is these droplets that can lead to the stubborn stains on these surfaces. This is also known as the coffee ring effect. By understanding the way in which these droplets evaporate and deposit the suspended particles therein on these surfaces, we can develop ways to avoid this, or even utilize it to our advantage.

It is for this research and subsequent thesis that I have been nominated to represent the university for the MAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Award Competition.

I am extremely grateful and humbled to be nominated for this competition, and I especially want to thank my advisor Prof. Masoud, Dr. Predebon, and the graduate committee for this nomination and for recognizing my hard work. It is times like these that I am reminded of the fantastic community at Michigan Tech and am glad I decided to come here for my graduate education.

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Nominations open for the 2021 MAGS Distinguished Thesis Award

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Nominations are now open for the 2021 Council of Graduate Schools (CGS)/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award. Please submit nominations to the Graduate School no later than 4pm, October 8. 2020, following our online instructions. This year, nominations are being accepted from dissertations in the fields of:

  1. Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering
  2. Social Sciences

Michigan Tech may nominate one student in each field. Master’s students who have completed all of their degree requirements between July 1, 2018, and June 30, 2020, are eligible. The fields of competition for 2022 will be humanities and biological and life sciences.

Nominations must be delivered to Debra Charlesworth in the Graduate School no later than 4 p.m. on October 8. 2020; e-mail nominations to gradschool@mtu.edu are preferred.  Contact Debra Charlesworth (gradschool@mtu.edu) if you have any questions about the competition.

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Nominee for MAGS Distinguished Thesis Award – Erin Eberhard

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The Graduate School is pleased to announce the nomination of two theses to the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools 2020 Distinguished Master’s Thesis Competition. These theses represent the best in their discipline at Michigan Tech, and represented Michigan Tech in the regional competition.


Erin Eberhard represents the field of Biological/Life Sciences.  She earned a Master of Science degree in 2017 in Biological Sciences, and is continuing her work at Michigan Tech as a PhD candidate.  Her thesis was entitled, “Co-Occurrence of Nitrogen Fixation and Denitrification Across a Stream Nitrogen Gradient in a Western Watershed.” She was nominated by her advisor, Dr. Amy Marcarelli.  Erin’s work sought to address several long-standing assumptions about nitrogen (N) cycling in stream ecosystems.  According to her advisor, “Her MS research has transformed research in our lab and broadened our ecological understanding of N cycling processes in stream ecosystems.”  Her work can be accessed on Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech.

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Nominee for MAGS Distinguished Thesis Award – Emily Simmons

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The Graduate School is pleased to announce the nomination of two theses to the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools 2020 Distinguished Master’s Thesis Competition. These theses represent the best in their discipline at Michigan Tech, and represented Michigan Tech in the regional competition.

Emily Simmons represents the field of Humanities.  She earned a Master of Science degree in Rhetoric, Theory and Culture in 2018.  Her thesis was entitled, “Accessing Library Space: Spatial Rhetorics from the U.S. to France and Back Again.” She was nominated by her advisor, Dr. Andrew Fiss. In his nomination, Dr. Fiss said that Emily’s work “…provided a framework for the development and implementation of a new evaluation tool that linked urban public libraries in Toulouse, France with those in the small, rural communities local to Michigan Tech.” Her work, “… strengthened both our opportunities for international, inter-university exchange and also the research profile of the Humanities department as a whole.”  Her work can be accessed on Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech.

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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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