Campus & Community

Graduate Dean’s Award Recipients Announced

Monday, March 21, 2022, By Ellen de Graffenreid

graphic with headshots

Nine graduate students have been selected to receive the Graduate Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Work. Award recipients represent a broad array of disciplines and were selected based on students’ outstanding accomplishments in research and creative work, as well as the quality and impact of proposed presentations.

A total of 53 submissions were reviewed within broad disciplinary categories by a panel of faculty members serving on the Graduate Faculty Council. All winning entrants will receive $500 and an award certificate, and will briefly present their work at a the awards event on March 25.

“Our 2022 recipients and honorable mentions are tremendous examples of talented and resilient scholars who have produced exceptional work. They are excellent representatives of the graduate student community as a whole and of their specific disciplines. We can’t wait to see what they will do next,” says Peter Vanable, dean of the Graduate School.

2022 Recipients

  • Oluseyi Agbelusi, “In Search of the Ancestors: British Anti-Slavery, Trade, and Nascent colonialism in coastal Sierra Leone,” anthropology
  • Nina Benway, “Speech Classification and AI-Guided Treatment for Residual Speech Sound Disorder,” speech-language pathology
  • Manya Gadhok,”Soulmates,” film
  • Jessica Powers, “Longitudinal Associations Between Pain and Use of Cigarettes and E-Cigarettes in the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (Path) Study,” clinical psychology
  • Andrew Ridgeway, “Fostering Information Literacy Through Competitive Speech and Debate,” composition and cultural rhetoric
  • Phillandra Smith, “W(h)ite Out: An Analysis of Presentations of Race and Ethnicity in U.S. Inclusive Education Textbooks,” special education
  • Chenyan Wang,”Stem Cell-Derived Models with Spatial or Temporal Heterogeneity for Heart Disease Modeling,” bioengineering
  • Noah Wason, “How Do You Study a Black Box?,” composition and cultural rhetoric
  • Xiaoyan Zhang, “Loneliness and Depression Among American Older Adults: Can Resilience Resources be Buffers?,” human development and family science

2022 Honorable Mentions

  • Kent Jason Cheng, social science
  • Julia Giannini, physics
  • Derron Hilts, counseling and counselor education
  • Christopher “Seth” Knievel, communication and rhetorical studies
  • Yingya Li, information science and technology
  • Kelsey Olney-Wall, museum studies
  • Sweta Roy, bioengineering