My research aims to improve patient outcomes using bone tissue engineering. To grow bone efficiently, bone cells need scaffolding to cling to and genetic signals to instruct them to build bone. Throughout my graduate career, I have developed synthetic scaffolds that contain different types of gene...

Hip dysplasia, a deformity in which the hip socket inadequately covers the ball side of the joint, frequently leads to early-onset hip arthritis in young adults (25-50 years of age), even after surgical correction to improve the congruity of the joint. My work uses 3D patient-specific computer...

Our current understanding of particle physics relies on the Standard Model. The Standard Model predicts the existence of a Higgs boson and its mechanism, which gives mass to other particles. My research involves searching for the Higgs boson decaying to muons using proton-proton collisions recorded...

My doctoral work focuses on understanding the theory of trisections of 4-dimensional spaces and their relationship with problems in dimension three. A trisection is a decomposition of 4-dimensional space into three standard pieces. Trisections are a novel way of thinking about the fourth dimension...

The Goldman Lie Algebra (GLA) is a Lie algebra which describes the behavior of curves and their intersections and resolutions on surfaces. It carries information about geometric structures with which the surface may be endowed and appears as a classical mechanistic counterpart to the quantum nature...

I research how brains reorganize after injury. By analyzing the brain networks of patients recovering from brain surgery, I can investigate how connections between brain regions alter as the patient recovers. Testing done before and after surgery allows me to determine which brain network properties...

Gene therapy often utilizes a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) drug that requires sophisticated delivery systems due to its instability in the body. My research involves synthesizing and testing multi-component peptide scaffolds that can form nanoparticles with DNA. Different functionalities were...

Prenatal exposure to the pyrethroid class of insecticides is associated with increased risk for low birth weight and neurodevelopmental delay in children. My research aims to investigate the mechanisms responsible for these effects, with a specific focus on understanding how these insecticides...

In an era where data-based decisions are paramount, predictive modeling has become an increasingly important tool in driving innovation. Model selection criteria, quantitative measures that allow for the rank-ordering of a set of considered models, are often used to choose the best predictive model...

Over the years, accurate prediction of streamflow in both space and time has been a challenge. Identifying trade-off between the forecast time-horizon, basin scale, and streamflow forecasting accuracy is a work in progress. Due to interconnections of uncertainties in hydrologic processes and...

The ordinary matter that has so far been observed through different experiments constitutes only about 5% of the energy density of the universe, while a large fraction is in the form of dark matter. Although the nature of dark matter is still unknown, leading hypotheses predict that dark matter...

Higher education leadership disproportionately represents men compared to women. Gender constructions in job advertisements for leadership positions are a potential barrier for women. Perceptions of leadership as masculine and gender-biased job advertisement language may discourage applicants and...

This dissertation is based on ethnographic fieldwork with three queer-led activist organizations in Maine that worked on progressive drug policy, workers' rights, and grassroots capacity-building. I attend to what about queer leadership matters for how activism is conducted across different issues...

Gametes are produced through meiotic division; a tightly regulated process in which the amount of DNA is halved. Gametes are naturally subjected to exogenous agents that induce DNA damage (e.g. UV irradiation). Improper repair of DNA damage can lead to mutations or other chromosomal abnormalities...

Many patients with neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease present with symptoms of cognitive dysfunction. Cognitive symptoms are closely tied to quality of life. However, the underlying brain pathologies that cause these symptoms are poorly understood, leading to...

English learners (ELs) are one of the fastest growing demographic groups in U.S. schools. Yet little has been studied about the ways that districts make curricular decisions for these students at the secondary level. My research analyzes the ways that one Midwestern school district has gone about...

The air we breathe contains particles that affect human health and influence the Earth's climate. My doctoral thesis focuses on expanding our knowledge of under-characterized particle sources. Through field-based measurements in the Midwestern United States, I evaluate the concentration and...

The Web's modular nature is responsible for its tremendous success as well as its chronic insecurity. The modularity allows to build websites by adding third-party as "lego-blocks" - making websites implicitly trust the embedded third-parties. The browsers impose only modest restrictions on third...

Analysis and design of complex mechanical systems may involve uncertainty quantification knowing that in reality the dimensions, loads, properties, etc. are all random. The development of novel uncertainty quantification methods in conjunction with powerful numerical mechanics methods, namely...

Mammalian airways are composed of multiple epithelial cell types, all of which are maintained and replaced by resident epithelial stem cells. Airway basal cells are the stem cells found within the upper airways. Our work is focused on understanding the proteins and molecular pathways that govern...

This research develops an area-comparison model by examining the psychological process of elongation bias and its influence on consumer behavior. We find that individuals compare the area of objects according to how they perceive differences in their dimensions, where the ease of comparison depends...

Since boundary layer transition can have considerable effects on the operating performance, the development of a reliable extension to account for the transition is required in the computational fluid dynamics. To investigate the capabilities and limitations of boundary layer transition models for...

Do team leaders know who has relationship conflict with whom in the team? Do they know who is at the center of team relationship conflict? Is it important for leaders to accurately perceive the relationship conflict relations among members? If so, why and when? The purpose of my dissertation is to...

My research explores patterns in urban predator distributions (e.g., red fox, coyote) and relationships between these patterns and urban landscapes and urban peoples, focusing particularly on understudied cities in Midwestern agricultural landscapes. My dissertation builds an understanding of how...

Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs) are rare, difficult-to-treat cancers with unclear molecular pathogenesis. My research seeks to advance our understanding of a novel pNET driver (protein) called RABL6A, required for pNET cell survival and proliferation. My first project employs a powerful...

Systems of equations are often derived to model fundamental behaviors of physical processes, such as a swinging pendulum. For many applications in the life sciences, however, such equations are incomplete or unknown entirely, and we rely on system measurements to reveal underlying dynamic features...

This dissertation explores a two-stage extension to the generalized-α method developed by Chung and Hulbert. Methods of these types are used to solve differential algebraic equations, which commonly arise in structural dynamics and mechanics. The extension allows us to solve such problems with mixed...

Cardiac fibrosis is a devastating complication of diabetic cardiomyopathy, but its molecular underpinnings are incompletely understood. My research focuses on studying the role of metabolism of norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter, in the heart as a driver of cardiac fibrosis in diabetes. Through a...

My dissertation focuses on immigrant families, and explores how the effects of policies and sociopolitical institutions reverberate within the intimacies of home and family. In a series of three projects, I examine how families make migration decisions, and the role organizations and the state play...

Counseling programs are obligated to provide their students with a multicultural environment, which in theory is known to foster counseling students' learning and growth as culturally sensitive and responsive professionals. However, there has been a paucity of studies addressing the multicultural...

My research focuses on the ways that higher education can become more accessible to prospective students and more productive for enrolled students. I find that college applicants send significantly more applications and enroll in different types of schools when applications are less time-consuming...

The size of data sets is increasing to the point where we cannot store it in a single machine. This is a problem for standard algorithms which make this assumption. Distributed algorithms shine in such cases because they do not require a single machine to store the entire input. In this dissertation...

In neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease brain cells get sick and slowly die. My works has found that if you prevent brain cells from making a small, nuclear protein called Akirin2, the cells similarly get sick and slowly die. By investigating this protein's...

My dissertation examines teachers and administrators currently working at bilingual public schools. This study will provide teacher education programs in universities, like the University of Iowa, with new findings about the assessment needs of teachers in bilingual programs. Even more important...

A string can be knotted up in complicated ways. A standard method of studying a knotted object is to break it up into simpler pieces and then analyze how the pieces fit back together. It is well known that a knotted circle can always be decomposed into two collections of untied arcs. This thesis...

This dissertation explores the value of using an autonomous vehicle in last-mile delivery. Last-mile delivery is the movement of goods from a transportation hub to their final destination. The autonomous vehicle picks up and drops off the delivery person making on foot deliveries, avoiding the need...

Penalized linear mixed models allow researchers to identify genotypes associated with complex phenotypes in the presence of varying levels of population structure and relatedness. However, these models’ performance in the presence of complex and unobserved environmental heterogeneity is not well...

Vinyl chloride (VC) is a common groundwater contaminant and known human carcinogen. Conventional treatment strategies are both difficult and costly. Aerobic bacteria readily and completely detoxify VC under laboratory conditions. Unfortunately, the role of these organisms under real world conditions...

Based on the fact that firms are rarely operating in isolation, my research aims to predict a firm's performance based on the performance of other companies operating in the same supply chain network. Following a network approach, this thesis identifies relevant neighbors of a focal firm beyond...

My research focuses on antiracist pedagogy in English Language Arts (ELA) teacher training, as well as working toward grounded theory on the affordances early career teachers bring to the teaching force. My dissertation, a critical qualitative multi-case study examining how early career ELA teachers...

Dynamical systems arise in vast and diverse areas of science and society. Its analysis helps us understand the long term behavior of evolving systems. Hence, the classification of dynamical systems is important. In my thesis, I employ algebraic invariance properties (e.g. cohomolgy groups) of...

This dissertation contributes to the ongoing reclamation process for early women writers by extending feminist literary history backward by two centuries. In pursuing a comprehensive consideration of Margaret Cavendish's paratextual materials (title pages, frontispieces, prefaces), it re-visions her...

Cooperative ligands are designed to promote cooperativity between a metal and ligand to minimize energy consumption needed to promote chemical reactions. My dissertation is focused on the fundamental studies aimed at understanding the interplay between redox and chemical ligand-centered reactivity...

Emotional responses influence individuals’ participation in social situations and may impact their overall emotional well-being. In my dissertation I am investigating the effect of hearing loss on emotional responses. Specifically, I want to determine if subjects’ emotional responses reflect the...

In order to address disorders of memory such as Alzheimer's and Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) neuroscientists must first understand how the brain works at a basic level. My dissertation work focuses on the brain regions and pathways important for different types of learning and memory. More...

My research focuses on creating more realistic models of infectious diseases to better estimate disease transmission and the effectiveness of interventions, which are of interest to researchers and public health organizations. We have developed an infectious disease modeling framework to account for...

Melanoma prognoses dramatically worsen following metastasis. Determining metastatic drivers supports using novel drugs targeting this grim progression. We uncovered a regulatory network where transcription factor AP-2alpha supports melanoma metastasis by activating interrelated pro-survival genes...

How does native language affect second language learning? Is there a negative effect when the native language and the second language are very different? What factors influence the native language effect? My dissertation investigates how English-speaking Chinese learners' existing knowledge of the...

The primary goals of my research are to 1) examine the presence of temporal clustering in heavy precipitation events around the globe and identify the dominant climate modes responsible for this behavior; 2) assess the capability of global and regional climate models to reproduce the temporal...