Samuel Boucher, Department of History, “Unlikely Brethren: Indigenous-Mennonite Cooperatives in Paraguay, 1940-1980" 
Boucher plans to complete the third chapter of his dissertation, which investigates the history of the Mennonite cooperative movement in the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay from 1940 to 1980. 

Tove Conway, Department of English, “The Species of Surrealism” 
Conway’s project examines several female surrealist artists whose work demonstrates progressive representations of plants and animals. Conway explores women-nature relations to challenge patriarchal traditions, species othering, and gender hierarchies. 

Delaney Hoffman, School of Art, Art History, and Design, “Middle World/Middle Time” 
Hoffman’s process of photographing and of making traditional, silver-gelatin prints in the darkroom is central to the observation and introspection required for the project. 

Carlos Martinez, Department of Religious Studies, “Creating Sanctuary: Religion and Immigration Control in the 21st Century” 
Martinez’s dissertation traces the shift in relationship between federal immigration agencies and religious people and institutions. 

Heidi Senseman, Department of English, “Ars Fidei: On Big Butter Jesus, Noah’s Kentucky Art, and Other Portals to Devotion” 
Senseman’s thesis will analyze art from American evangelical denominations to access and translate religious experience into terms that are hospitable to non-religious audiences. 

Dana Alston, Department of Cinematic Arts, “Cinephiles, Inc.: Media Industry” 
Alston’s dissertation considers how the category of the “cinephile” (traditionally describing someone passionate about film) has evolved into a consumer category for various American media industries. 

Simal Gerot, Department of Political Science, “The Power of Routine: How News Consumption Habits Shape Political Attitudes and Well-Being in the U.S.” 
Binici seeks to better understand the role of the media on the American political landscape.  

Laura Carpenter, Department of American Studies, “Dropouts, Rubber Tire Tramps, and Digital Nomads: Contemporizing American Transient Culture, 1970s – Present” 
Carpenter’s dissertation is an ethnographic study of contemporary Americans living mobile, nomadic working lifestyles and their cultural connections with the historical traditions of American hoboing and tramping. 

Nathan Chaplin, Department of History, “Surveying the Tropics, Constructing the Heartland: Identify Formation in Nicaragua and the Midwest” 
Chaplin’s research will show how doctors, engineers, and scientists across the Heartland came to define themselves as Midwesterners through their experiences in Nicaragua. 

Oriette D’Angelo, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, “Trauma Fiction in Contemporary Latin American Narratives” 
D’Angelo’s dissertation explores how the trauma of political violence is narrated through a contemporary lens and how it influences individual and collective identities. 

Kristen Davis, Department of Health and Human Physiology, “Arterial Stiffness and Hemodynamic” 
Findings from Davis’s research could provide support for exercise rehabilitation as an inexpensive, easily accessible, and effect therapy for postpartum women with a history of preeclampsia, reducing overall cardiovascular disease risk and improving cognitive function. 

Victoria Priola, Department of Anthropology, “Tracing the Threads of Copper Age Textile Production: From Loom Weights to Regional Interactions in Southwestern Iberia” 
Priola’s research explores the role that textile production played in regional interactions through a diachronic and comparative study of the loom weight assemblages from two large population centers, one in Portugal and one in Spain. 

Harindu Rajapaksha, Department of Chemistry, “Computation Guided Insight Into Actinyl Systems and Properties” 
Rajapaksha’s dissertation focuses on understating the chemistry of uranium and neptunium in brine environments.  

Jeremy Strueder, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, “Decomposing the Desirability Bias” 
Strueder’s dissertation examines the cognitive mechanisms underlying wishful thinking to develop new strategies for mitigating the harmful influence of desirability on expectations. 

Jacob Van Grinsven, Department of Mathematics, “Exact Rep(H) module categories for Hopf algebras over the Kac-Paljutkin Hopf Algebra” 
The goal of Van Grinsven’s research is to characterize all exact Rep(H) module categories where H is any finite dimensional Hopf algebra with coradical equal to KP, the Kac-Paljutkin Hopf algebra.