Graduate Student Recognition

The College of Arts and Sciences celebrated the hard work of CoAS graduate students at its annual Research Day on April 6, 2010. A total of 118 undergraduate and graduate students presented their research in fields ranging from history to physics, biology to international area studies. Six graduate students were awarded prizes in the following two categories: Graduate Humanities/Social Sciences and Graduate Natural Sciences.

Graduate Humanities/Social Sciences

• First-place: Michael Keesler for “Future Dangerousness as an Aggravating Factor in Capital Litigation” (Advisor: Dr. David DeMatteo)
  Major: Psychology; Project Field: Psychology
• Second-place: Alexandra Nelson for “Coping with Fertility Treatment: Infertility-related Stress and Social Support Among Women Receiving In Vitro Fertilization” (Advisor: Dr. Pamela A. Geller)
  Major: Psychology; Project Field: Psychology
• Third-place: Maisa Ziadni for “Enhancing Mindfulness in a Written Emotional Expression Exercise” (Advisor: Dr. Jacqueline Kloss)
  Major: Psychology; Project Field: Psychology

Graduate Natural Sciences

• First-place: Jianli Hu for “Septins Regulate the Formation and Maturation of Axonal Filopodia to Collateral Branches” (Advisor: Dr. Elias Spiliotis)
  Major: Biological Science; Project Field: Biological Science 
• Second-place: Keerthy Chandrasekar for “Role of Tip60 in APP mediated axonal arborization in Drosophila melanogaster” (Advisor: Dr. Felice Elefant)
  Major: Biological Science; Project Field: Biological Science 
• Third-place: Lori Lester for “The Effects of Anthropogenic Sound on the Behavior of the Northern Diamondback Terrapin” (Advisor: Dr. Harold W. Avery)
  Major: Environmental Science; Project Field: Environmental Science
  
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• Michael Kwan (PhD student in Management) won the Best Doctoral Paper Award in the Entrepreneurship/Information Technology/Innovation Track at the Southern Management Association Meeting in Asheville, NC from November 11 to November 14, 2009.
  
  
• Milka Osoro, a third year graduate student at the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, won the Les Ecoles de la Chambre Syndicale, De la Couture Parisienee -- the grand prize -- at the Arts of Fashion Symposium and Competition. Osoro won a year’s tuition to study at Paris’s Chambre Syndicale de la Mode, the top couture design school run by the French government which includes all the top French design houses as members.  The award was presented at the Arts of Fashion finale fashion show, held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Wednesday, October 28, 2009.
  
  Osoro was one of fifty students from more than 20 countries to submit garments in the annual competition. Each student prepared sketches for two garments that were judged by a panel of fashion experts and professors during the semifinals held in Los Angeles in May 2009. Osoro spent the last month working 12-14 hour days in Drexel’s fashion studios completing her designs. AWCoMAD fashion professors Renee Weiss-Chase and Lisa Hayes advised Osoro on her garments.
  
  In 2005, AWCoMAD fashion student Megan Stein was the first American to win the Arts of Fashion's top honor. Student Jaeyoon Yeong won the Jean-Charles de Castelbajac Award and recently opened his own boutique, carrying his collection, in New York City.

• Annette Sieg, an environmental science graduate student at the College of Arts and Sciences, was quoted in a November 12, 2009 DNAIndia.com article about leatherback turtles.
  NewsLink – DNAIndia.com