Dan E. Wells Outstanding Dissertation Award - Past Winners
Spring 2025
Vuong Dustin Nguyen
Advisor: Shishir Shah
Department of Computer Science
Towards Robust Person Re-Identification: Learning Invariant Features Under Clothing Changes and Occlusions
Honorable Mention
Nina Zamani
Advisor: Michael Murphy
Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
From Friction to Decarbonation: Unraveling Carbonate Rock Dynamics Under Seismic Velocity
Fall 2024
Yu-Huan Hsieh
Advisor: John Suppe
Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
From the Foreland and Retroarc Thrust Belts to the Mantle Transition Zone: First Multi-scale Retrodeformable Transect of the Active 90 mm/yr Taiwan Arc-continent Collision
Spring 2024
Xin Shi
Advisor: Zhifeng Ren
Department of Physics
Advancing Nontoxic, Antimony-based 1–2–2-type Thermoelectric Zintls
Summer/Fall 2023
Ritu Bohat
Advisor: Weiyi Peng
Department of Biology & Biochemistry
Targeting PI3K Isoforms to Improve Effectiveness of T cells Mediated Immunotherapy
Honorable Mention
Chenggang Jiang
Advisor: Thomas Teets
Department of Chemistry
Strategies to Optimize Photophysical Properties in Cyclometalated Iridium Complexes
Spring 2023
Shruti Hariyani
Advisor: Jakoah Brgoch
Department of Chemistry
Expanding the Crystal Chemistry of Rare-Earth Substituted Oxide and Mixed Anion Inorganic Phosphors
Summer/Fall 2022
Xiaolong Wei
Advisor: Jiajia Sun
Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
Uncertainty Quantification in Geophysical Inversion and Geological Differentiation
Spring 2022
Spencer Fuston
Advisor: Jonny Wu
Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
Reconciling North American Tectonics with the Deep Mantle through Structurally Unfolding Subducted Slabs and Mantle Convection Modeling
Honorable Mention
Noah Luecke
Advisor: Kerri Crawford
Department of Biology & Biochemistry
Roots, Shoots, and Seeds, a Plant Microbe Interaction Tryptic: From Sea to Summit
Summer/Fall 2021
Jamie M. Karthein
Advisor: Claudia Ratti
Department of Physics
Equation of State and Net-charge Fluctuations for Strongly-interacting Matter
Spring 2021
Ya Zhuo
Advisor: Jakoah Brgoch
Department of Chemistry
Developing Rare-Earth Substituted Inorganic Phosphors Through Machine Learning
Honorable Mentions
Neil Jerome Egarguin
Advisor: Daniel Onofrei
Department of Mathematics
Active Control of Exterior Wavefields and Applications
Geethal Amila Udalamatta Gamage
Advisor: Zhifeng Ren
Department of Physics
Achieving Ultrahigh Thermal Conductivity and Carrier Mobility in Boron Arsenide Single
Crystals
Summer/Fall 2020
Riddhiman Medhi
Advisor: Randy Lee
Department of Chemistry
Enhancing the Scope of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles via Doping and Plasmonic Coupling
Spring 2020
Jiaxuan Li
Advisor: Yingcai Zheng
Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
Inverting In-situ Anisotropy in Global Subduction Slabs Using Deep Earthquakes and Imaging Binary Mixtures and Fractures
Fall 2019
Naghmeh Hassanzadeh Khayyat
Advisor: Stuart Dryer
Department of Biology & Biochemistry
Regulation and Dysregulation of TRPC6 Channels in Podocytes
Spring 2019
Aria Mansouri Tehrani
Advisor: Jakoah Brgoch
Department of Chemistry
Development of Sustainable Superhard Materials
Honorable Mention
Chenggang Jiang
Advisor: Thomas Teets
Department of Chemistry
Strategies to Optimize Photophysical Properties in Cyclometalated Iridium Complexes