Congratulations to Serena Wang (Adviser, Professor Anne Stone) and Emily Weiss (Adviser, Professor Jeffrey Taylor), who are among 10 students chosen through a competitive application process for this year’s Dissertation Showcase!

Imagine summing up years of dissertation research and writing in a lively, three-minute public presentation. Ten students will do just that at The Graduate Center’s fourth annual “Inside The Graduate Center: A Dissertation Showcase” on Wednesday, May 19. The online event is an opportunity for doctoral students to edify and intrigue audience members by sharing their discoveries and insights about a range of topics, from how robots make decisions to the influence of Chinese composers on New York culture.

“The Dissertation Showcase is a true highlight of the year,” said Graduate Center President Robin L. Garrell, who will host the 2021 event. “It gives all of us the opportunity to meet our extraordinary graduate students, each of whom has become an expert in their field, and to learn about their innovative, fascinating, and important research.”

Some of this year’s topics include how cannabis affects psychopharmacology, how to generate energy from water evaporation, detecting bias in potential jurors, the ties between immigration status and socio-economic status, and what asteroids tell us about the origins of life.

The 10 students in this year’s showcase, selected through a competitive application process, are:

Guillermo Yrizar Barbosa, Sociology (Adviser, Professor Robert C. Smith)

Jasmine Bayron, Earth and Environmental Sciences (Adviser, Professor Denton S. Ebel)

Virginia Diaz-Mendoza, Criminal Justice (Adviser, Professor Richard E. Ocejo)

Natalie Gordon, Psychology and Law (Adviser, Professor Margaret Kovera)

Jojo Karlin, English (Adviser, Distinguished Professor Nancy K. Miller)

Raj Korpan, Computer Science (Adviser, Professor Susan L. Epstein)

Roxana Piotrowska, Chemistry (Adviser, Professor Rein V. Ulijn)

Melanie Blair Thies, Clinical Psychology (Adviser, Professor Justin Storbeck)

Serena Wang, Music (Adviser, Professor Anne Stone)

Emily Weiss, Music D.M.A.-Performance (Adviser, Professor Jeffrey Taylor)

This year, for the first time, The Graduate Center will give an award to the student who does the best job communicating his or her research to the public.

The event is free and open to the public. Learn more and register online.

“Inside the Graduate Center: A Dissertation Showcase” is made possible through the generous support of Joanna Migdal.

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