AS Graduate Students Win Top Thesis Prizes
Posted on June 6, 2016 by Arts and Sciences
College of Arts and Sciences Graduate students received top honors at the 23rd Annual Graduate Research Forum on March 23, 2016, offering further evidence of the high-quality research and scholarship of the Graduate Programs available in the College.
Each year, a Committee selects the USA Thesis of the Year in each of two categories: Life Sciences and Social Sciences, Business, and Education.
This year, Audra D. Edwards, a History graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences, won the Social Sciences award with her thesis: U.S. funded Propaganda Goes to Chile". Her thesis advisor is Dr. Donald Devore of the History Department.
Dillon G. Patterson, a Biology Graduate student in A&S, won this year's Life Sciences Category award with this thesis, "A Significant Percentage of Small Nucleolar RNAs are Processed into MicroRNA's" His thesis advisor is Dr. Brian Axsmith of the Biology Department.
The Graduate Research Forum's Three Minute Thesis exercise challenges graduate students to present a compelling presentation of their thesis topic and its significance in only three minutes. This year, two Arts and Sciences students took first and second place in this competition as well. Maddie Kennedy, a graduate student in Marine Sciences, took first prize with her presentation: "impacts of Wintering Redhead Ducks on Shoalgrass". Ms. Kennedy is working under the supervision of Dr. Kenneth Heck of the Marine Sciences Department. Allso, Trenton O'Neal, a graduate student in Biology, took the "People's Choice" award this year with his presentation on "Identification and Characterization of Bacterial Genes Utilized in Triclosan Degradation". His menor is Dr. Sinead Ni Chadhain of the Department of Biology.
Finally, Arts and Sciences is proud to announce that two graduate students were recognized for their theses being among the most-access master's theses nationwide according to ProQuest. Rachael Hess and Adrienne Gannon, both graduate students in the Communication Department, received this recognition. Very few master's theses receive the number of citations that these two did.
Mr. Trenton O'Neal: People's Choice winner presenting his 3 minute thesis.
Congratulations to the winners this year!