Foluso Adeosun
Date: October 21, 2026, 10:00 a.m.
Hybrid Defense. In-Person: Coral Gables Campus, FICMS, Room 313.
Dissertation Title: Engineering Novel Stimuli-Responsive Soft Matter Platforms through Modulation of Microstructure and Dynamics
Hao Ying
Date: October 21, 2026, 1:00 p.m.
Virtual Defense, Medical Campus.
Dissertation Title: A Novel Distance-Based Method for Unsupervised Learning of Categorical and Continuous Mixed Data: Visualization of Contributors, Variable Selection, and Classification
Isabella Altilio Bove
Date: October 23, 2026, 10:00 a.m.
Hybrid Defense. In-Person: Medical Campus, RMSB, Room 3161. Virtual defense via Zoom: Please contact ida16@miami.edu for online access.
Dissertation Title: Study of BMP Receptor Agonists for Pancreatic Cell Regeneration
Michael Soriano
Date: October 23, 2026, 12:00 p.m.
Virtual Defense, Coral Gables Campus.
Dissertation Title: "Broken Time": Seriality in Nineteenth-Century Radical Print
Samantha McLaughlin
Date: October 23, 2026, 3:00 p.m.
Location: Medical Campus, SCCC, Room 1301.
Dissertation Title: Beyond the Warburg Effect: Metabolic Flexibility and Alternative Bioenergetics
Maia Chester
Date: October 26, 2026, 1:00 p.m.
Virtual Defense, Coral Gables Campus. For virtual access to the defense via Zoom, please contact mac916@miami.edu.
Thesis Title: Trait Mindfulness, Cancer-Related Psychological Distress, and Symptom Burden Prior to Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
Lys Isma Tamarit
Date: October 26, 2026, 2:30 p.m.
Location: Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric & Earth Science Campus, MSC, Room 108_Auditiorium.
Dissertation Title: Investigating the Coral Response to Wounding, Disease and Thermal Stress
Jinghao Huang
Date: October 27, 2026, 10:00 a.m.
Hybrid Defense. In-Person: Coral Gables Campus, MEB, Room 508. Virtual defense via Zoom: Please contact jxh2084@miami.edu for online access.
Dissertation Title: Structure–Property Relationships and Molecular Design of Organic Electrode Materials for Stable and Sustainable Sodium-Ion Batteries
Lucia Pannunzio
Date: October 27, 2026, 11:00 a.m.
Virtual Defense, Medical Campus. For virtual access to the defense, please contact pannunziolucia9@gmail.com.
Thesis Title: Saliva as a Noninvasive Surrogate for Serum Metabolomics in Men with Prostate Cancer
Clement Pollier
Date: October 28, 2026, 1:00 p.m.
Location: Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric & Earth Science Campus, Marine Science Center, Auditorium.
Dissertation Title: Initial Microbialite Architecture Governs the Incorporation and Taphonomic Preservation of Chemical Biosignatures
Rinatte Gruen
Date: October 29, 2026, 10:00 a.m.
Virtual Defense, Coral Gables Campus. For virtual access to the defense, please contact rinatte@miami.edu.
Dissertation Title: Parent Involvement in the Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Adolescents
Praga Vipulanandan
Date: October 29, 2026, 10:30 a.m.
Hybrid Defense. In-Person: Coral Gables Campus, McArthur Engineering Bldg., Room MEB409. Virtual defense via Zoom: Please contact pxv245@miami.edu for online access.
Dissertation Title: A Quantum Tensor Network-Based Approach for Uncertainty Quantification in Machine Learning
Samantha Sierra-Martinez
Date: October 29, 2026, 3:00 p.m.
Hybrid Defense. In-Person: Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric & Earth Science Campus, SLAB, Room 120. Virtual defense via Zoom: Please contact samantha.sierramartinez@miami.edu for online access.
Dissertation Title: Mitochondrial Genomic Variation, Environmental Divergence, and Sex Specific Metabolic Effects in Fundulus heteroclitus
Yukun Chen
Date: October 30, 2026, 10:00 a.m.
Location: Coral Gables Campus, Ashe Administration Bldg., Room 735A.
Dissertation Title: Perceiving What to Do: Moral Perception as Affordance Perception
Abdullah Alsaheal
Date: October 30, 2026, 11:00 a.m.
Hybrid Defense. In-Person: Coral Gables Campus, ISE, Room 289. Virtual defense via Zoom.
Dissertation Title: Prospicient Decision-Making in Dynamic Data-Driven Systems: A Multilevel Framework for Decision-Making Under Resource and Operational Constraints
Tyler Tatro
Date: October 30, 2026, 12:00 p.m.
Hybrid Defense. In-Person: Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric & Earth Science Campus, SLAB, Room 103. Virtual defense via Zoom: Please contact tyler.tatro@miami.edu for online access.
Dissertation Title: Elucidating Smoke-Stratocumulus Interactions in the Southeast Atlantic across Timescales
Connor McCarley
Date: October 30, 2026, 1:45 p.m.
Virtual Defense, Medical Campus.
Dissertation Title: Validation of the PREVENT Risk Scores and Associations with Cognitive Decline and Dementia in a Multiracial/Ethnic Cohort
Asha Peddada
Date: October 30, 2026, 2:00 p.m.
Hybrid Defense. In-Person: Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric & Earth Science Campus, Rosenstiel Library Map & Chart Room. Virtual defense via Zoom: Please contact axp2871@miami.edu for online access.
Thesis Title: "It’s More or Less Like Freedom…”: Waterfront Access, Ecosystem Health, and Impacts on Wellbeing among Urban Fishers in Southeast Florida
Yiming Xi
Date: November 4, 2026, 11:00 a.m.
Virtual Defense, Coral Gables Campus. For virtual access to the defense via Zoom, please contact yxx640@miami.edu.
Dissertation Title: Composite Nanoparticle Synthesis for Producing Products of Value and Waste Conversion
Yingsi Huang
Date: November 4, 2026, 4:00 p.m.
Virtual Defense, Coral Gables Campus. For virtual access to the defense via Zoom, please contact hwangwingsze@gmail.com.
Dissertation Title: Statistical Methods for Data with Endogeneity with Applications to Business
Morgan Rumrill
Date: December 9, 2026, 9:00 a.m.
Hybrid Defense. In-Person: Medical Campus, GCRB, Room 402. Virtual defense via Zoom: Please contact alexander.lupo@miami.edu for online access.
Dissertation Title: The Kinesin KIF20A as a Therapeutic Vulnerability in Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer
