The following students in Arts, Sciences & Engineering are recipients of the 2014–15 Outstanding Dissertation Award.
Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences
Winner
Kyoung-Lae Kang, visual and cultural studies, “Guilt Cinema: Memory, Boundaries, and Ethical Criticism in Postcolonial Korea” (Advisor: Sharon Willis)
Commendation
Jeffrey Ludwig, history, “Christopher Lasch: A Life, Volume One: History as Social Criticism” (Advisor: Robert Westbrook)
Social Sciences
Winner
Miguel Rueda, political science, “Three Essays on Electoral Manipulation” (Advisor: Gretchen Helmke)
Commendations
Heng Liu, economics, “Essays on Dynamic Mechanism Design” (Advisors: Paulo Barelli and Srihari Govindan)
Meredith Martin, psychology, “Delineating the Functions of Attachment and Affiliation in Early Adolescents’ Internal Working Models of their Best Friendship” (Advisor: Patrick Davies)
Natural Sciences
Winner
James Baker, physics, “Development of a Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Biosensing Platform” (Advisor: Benjamin Miller)
Commendation
Ilker Yildirim, brain and cognitive sciences, “From Perception to Conception: Learning Multisensory Representations” (Advisors: Robert Jacobs and Daniel Gildea)
Engineering and Applied Sciences
Winner
Kyle Fuerschbach, optics, “Freeform, φ-Polynomial Optical Surfaces: Optical Design, Fabrication and Assembly” (Advisor: Jannick Rolland)
Commendations:
Li Chen, Electrical and Computer Engineering, “Increasing Coverage and Improving Efficiency for RFID Systems and Wireless Sensor Networks” (Advisor: Wendi Heinzelman)
Walter Lasecki, computer science, “Crowd Agents: Interactive Intelligent Systems Powered by the Crowd” (Advisors: Jeffrey Bigham and James Allen)
Amy Van Hove, biomedical engineering, “Enzymatically-responsive Poly(ethylene glycol) Hydrogels for the Controlled Delivery of Therapeutic Peptides” (Advisor: Danielle Benoit)