Spring 2013

Andrea Appel, College of Science
Parnian Boloori Zadeh, College of Engineering
Jeffrey Breugelmans, College of Engineering
Chris Chanyasulkit, College of Social Sciences & Humanities
Burleigh Hendrickson, College of Social Sciences & Humanities
Elizabeth  Markle, Bouve College of Health Sciences
Aparna Mujumdar, College of Social Sciences & Humanities
Sara Sadler, College of Science
Cihan Yilmaz, College of Engineering

Fall 2012

Young Lae Kim, College of Engineering
Antonella Mazur, College of Science
Stefan Ochiana, College of Science
Liana Pennington, College of Social Sciences & Humanities
Jennifer Sopchockchai (Bankard), College of Social Sciences & Humanities

Spring 2012

Christopher Mathias, College of Social Sciences & Humanities
Desislava Raytcheva, College of Science
Leandra Smollin, College of Social Sciences & Humanities
Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze, College of Social Sciences & Humanities
Hua (Leo) Wang, College of Science

The Graduate Dissertation Completion Fellowships provides Ph.D. candidates who are nearing completion of their dissertation the financial support to spend their final semester writing. The duration of the award is one semester. Learn more »

The post Announcing Dissertation Completion Fellowship Awardees appeared first on Graduate Studies at Northeastern University.

Callum Borchers, a student in the University’s Master of Arts program in Journalism, came because he wanted to learn it.

Working together with three other students in Robinson’s investigative reporting seminar, they exposed details of the Boston Fire Department’s shift-swapping practices that, along with another class’ research, led to a state investigation and a pending pension reform law. “We take on investigative projects because they’re important,” Robinson says, “and not incidentally, they really help students learn how to do a good job.”

The story, like some 20 others that Northeastern students broke in the past four years, appeared on the front page of the Globe.

“I’d never worked on a project that took months to report and write,” Borchers says, “and it really gave me an idea of the magnitude of some of the best journalism that is out there – something I’d never been exposed to before.”

Robinson describes Borchers as the type of graduate student who thrives in the journalism program: he loves the field, he has some background in it and he came to Northeastern with what Robinson describes as “reporting skills”. “I don’t mean to say he has done extensive reporting,” the professor explains, “but he has an inquisitive nature and a skeptical eye and he knows you can’t just interview one or two people when you’re doing a story.”

Borchers is also working with Robinson and his colleagues outside of the classroom -- on a six-month statewide watchdog project under the wing of three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Stephen Kurkjian.

“My biggest concern for going back to school was taking myself out of the professional industry for a year, but I haven’t at all,” Borchers says.

Substantial news reporting and news writing experience is a trademark of Northeastern’s program, which benefits from being in Boston’s large market with varied media outlets.

“When students come to Northeastern,” Robinson details, “they have the added advantage of a faculty that is deeply connected to many of the news organizations in the city, so we have co-op programs, internships and faculty members who help the best students get good jobs.”

Borchers came to Northeastern for the faculty, but also so that he could tailor-fit his master’s degree to build on what he learned as an undergraduate.

His perspective and passion is echoed by Robinson, “it’s a pleasure to come back to teach students who are so smart and so eager to learn as much as they possibly can about what I care about and what they care about” he says, “and that’s journalism.”

Professor Walter Robinson is Distinguished Professor of Journalism at Northeastern, where he leads the Initiative for Investigative Reporting and the New England First Amendment Center. He spent more than 30 years at The Boston Globe, including seven years in the Globe’s Washington Bureau and ten years as the Globe’s Middle East Bureau Chief. He led the Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning team that uncovered the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

Callum Borchers will graduate in December 2011 with a MA in Journalism from Northeastern. He is the former editor of Citizen’s News in Naugatuck, Connecticut, where he won 15 Excellence in Journalism awards. In addition to radio and television work, he has written freelance articles for Boston.com, Patch.com and GateHouse Media News Service.

The Northeastern School of Journalism is part of the College of Arts, Media and Design and admits students from different backgrounds into its Masters of Arts in Journalism program, which features close interaction with faculty and concentrations in Professional Journalism, Journalism in Public Policy and Research. More information can be found here.

Submitted by Beth Giudicessi, October 2011.

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Eligibility: Currently enrolled Ph.D. students at Northeastern who have completed all course requirements including comprehensive exams and dissertation proposal defense, if required, and are nearing completion of their dissertations. These fellowships will be awarded on a competitive basis. Each student must provide the following application materials:

1. Letter of application for the fellowship including information about past and current funding from NU or external sources
2. Description of the current state of the dissertation along with a detailed timetable for completion
3. Copy of an approved dissertation prospectus (if required) and evidence that a substantial amount of the writing has been completed at least in draft form
4. Letter of recommendation from the dissertation advisor that should describe the importance of the work and indicate when it is anticipated that the dissertation will be completed ( the letter must be enclosed in a sealed envelope and signed by the recommender)
5. Expected date of dissertation defense
6. Curriculum vitae
7. Documents (other than the dissertation advisor letter) must be submitted in electronic form (PDF or Word) beginning October 24th. Submit your documents now (submission form will open in a new window).

The Office of the Provost and a subcommittee of faculty members will review applications according to the overall strength of the materials submitted and with regard to the likelihood of timely completion of a quality dissertation. Application packages that are not complete or that are late will not be considered and it is the applicant’s responsibility to provide all required materials.

Award: The stipend for one semester will be the larger of either $8,000 or ½ the current academic year stipend rate for the department where the student’s primary affiliation resides. In addition, both the student’s registration fee and health fees will be covered by the award. The award must be used during the semester for which it is awarded and may not be deferred. Students are expected to complete their dissertations during the period of the award and may not hold any employment, internal or external, or awards during that term including outside fellowships, research assistant appointments, or teaching assistant appointments. PhD students that are holders of the University Excellence Fellowship are eligible for this award.

Up to three awards are available for spring 2012. Application Deadline for spring 2012 awards is November 7, 2011 at 5:00pm.

Please address all advisor letters to: Senior Vice-Provost for Research and Graduate Education, 110 Churchill Hall.

The post Dissertation Completion Fellowships appeared first on Graduate Studies at Northeastern University.

Among those selected for the highly-competitive U.S. delegation to Lindau was Emily Corcoran, a Ph.D. student in Chemistry and a Northeastern University Excellence Fellowship recipient.

Corcoran's research uses molecular probes to identify how certain sub-populations of cancer patients respond to drug treatments and fit ideally into the focus of this year’s meetings: physiology and medicine.

"There are many different types of cancer," Corcoran explains, "and one of the biological processes that can go wrong has to do with a certain family of proteins that we're trying to target. There are drugs for them that are FDA-approved, but the problem is that only certain, smaller populations of patients respond to those drugs."

Rather than the traditional method of taking a biopsy, which is invasive, the Northeastern team uses molecular probes to obtain images of cancerous cells. By administering probes that resemble drugs used in cancer treatments, scientists are able to identify and label the presence of certain proteins in a tumor, and their presence gives doctors an idea if a patient will respond to a certain treatment.

Corcoran came to the University straight from her undergraduate studies to research the clinical applications of organic chemistry, but found her way into her current project through collaboration with her advisor, Dr. Robert Hanson.

"I really like the school because of the translational research that goes on," Corcoran says, "and one thing I noticed right away is the faculty. There's easy, open access." She plans to continue work on the project during the remaining two years of her program before continuing to one day become a Principal Investigator.

The Lindau Meetings were not Corcoran’s first conference abroad. In September 2010, she presented her research at the International Symposium on Technetium and Other Radiometals in Chemistry and Medicine (TERACHEM), a highly specialized meeting in Bressanone, Italy.

This trip took her to a similarly scenic location: Lindau is an island-city in the eastern side of Lake Constance near the German-Swiss border.

Despite its picturesque setting in the Alps, Corcoran was most excited to meet with Dr. Ei-ichi Negishi, the Japanese chemist and 2010 Nobel Prize winner best known for his discovery of the Negishi coupling. "You learn about him in class," Corcoran says, "and to be able to see him in person is pretty awesome."

The 25 Nobel Laureates in attendance offered lectures and small-group sessions on their research, on how to generate cutting edge ideas and, as Corcoran says, on "how to pattern your life and career on how to make an impact on the scientific community."

Though her research is still in beginning stages, Corcoran recognizes that it - and that of other meeting attendees - is contributing to and fortifying what she calls the "ongoing investigation in to how to personalize medicine and cancer treatment."

The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings aim to "provide a globally recognised forum for the transfer of knowledge between generations of scientists." More information can be found at www.lindau-nobel.org.

Northeastern University's Department of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry offers programs leading to the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, as well as an interdepartmental program leading to the M.S. in Biopharmaceutical Regulatory Science. Details are available at http://www.northeastern.edu/chem/graduate_studies/.

Submitted by Beth Giudicessi, June 2011

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Her students praise her for constructive feedback and for helping them write in new ways, calling her "excellent," "effective," and "interesting."

Another word to describe Jennifer Sopchockchai, a PhD candidate in English and the 2011 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award winner in the humanities, social and behavioral sciences, is "agile."

Sopchockchai came to Northeastern after completing her undergraduate degree at Brown University in 2005. "Part of the reason I came to Northeastern," she says, "is because our program in the English Department gives students the opportunity to teach right away."

After a few training sessions and workshops, she found herself in front of 19 students as the instructor for ENGL1111: College Writing.

Though Sopchockchai's own research efforts are broad – she has earned a Graduate Certificate in Cinema Studies in addition to her work in English – her interests in the 20th century British novel, science fiction, narrative theory, film theory and popular culture seem narrow compared to the range of her students', whose majors include those in business administration and the sciences.

"The burden's really on me as a writing instructor to make what we do in my class relevant to the students," Sopchockchai says. When she found herself teaching a class on writing for the technical professions, she turned to her four roommates, who are engineers, saying, "they’ve been a great resource for figuring out how to teach my students who are also engineers."

She has integrated new media, including blogs, Twitter and electronic portfolios, into her classes, saying that it helps to apply everyday experiences to the traditional texts and theoretical ideas she asks her students to consider. When discussing themes of identity formation, Sopchockchai found that "Suddenly Thoreau became accessible because I combined Thoreau with facebook."

Sopchockchai has been praised for her innovation and flexibility in the classroom, and has been a leader outside of it as a graduate assistant in Northeastern's Humanities Center. The Center has allowed her to keep in contact with her former students, such as when she helped host a workshop between them and actor Stephen Lang (Avatar, 2009).

In addition to teaching, grading and working at the Center, Sopchockchai is working on her dissertation, which focuses on late Victorian popular fiction, including H.G. Wells, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to argue that it historicizes issues of realism, perception, observation and representation in ways similar to the classic realist novel.

After she completes her PhD, she hopes to continue in academia. "I'd love to keep teaching," Sopchockchai says, "in English, in English and film, in anything that I feel as though I could contribute."

With her record at Northeastern as evidence, it seems that Sopchockchai will contribute to her field and beyond it.

More information on the Outstanding Graduate Awards can be found online, http://www.northeastern.edu/gpsa/gradawards/.

Northeastern's Department of English offers a part- or full-time MA program, as well as a full-time PhD program. Details can be found at http://www.english.neu.edu/graduate_studies/.

Submitted by Beth Giudicessi, May 2011

The post Meet Jennifer Sopchockchai: 2011 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award Winner in the Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences appeared first on Graduate Studies at Northeastern University.

As the University grew, so did Zaarour, the 2011 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award winner in the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering, by gradually coming to love a profession he didn't expect: teaching.

"I never thought I was going to get into this field,” he admits, “I was thrown into it and I liked it a lot."

Zaarour started tutoring as an undergraduate and became a Teaching Assistant while earning his first master's degree. He then began teaching part-time classes, primarily mathematics for engineers. In 2006, he was awarded the College of Engineering’s Outstanding Teacher Award. Positive reviews meant he was assigned more classes, which lead him to teach probability and statistics – an area closely related to his research interests.

With each class, teaching won Zaarour over. "That was one of the main factors in terms of deciding to get a PhD," he says, "I like teaching a lot and they said I did an okay job, so I continued. Year after year I started thinking that maybe this was something I could actually do for a living."

In September, Zaarour will do just that when he begins his full-time teaching career at Northeastern. "It helps that I was a student at the same time I was teaching my own classes," he reflects, "the transition is not going to be that much different."

As a "quadruple Husky," Zaarour will bring a deep understanding of the University to the faculty. He was one of the first students to start the Dog Pound student section at hockey games, and he remembers when Northeastern had fewer research centers. As a graduate, he is proud to say "the school is moving up."

Zaarour will also bring passion to the role: on addition to being a classroom instructor, he has volunteered helping incoming minority and first-generation engineering students, and conducted extra review sessions for students preparing for the first exam towards becoming a professional engineer. In these projects as well as in his courses, Zaarour is consistently highly-rated.

Feedback gives Zaarour satisfaction and pushes him to be his best. "Teaching is one of those things that you’re not doing for glory or money," he affirms, "you can only teach if you really like to teach."

More information on the Outstanding Graduate Awards can be found online, http://www.northeastern.edu/gpsa/gradawards/.

Northeastern's Department of Mathematics, in conjunction with the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, offers programs in Operations Research leading to the MS and PhD degrees. Details can be found at http://www.math.neu.edu/graduate-programs and http://www.mie.neu.edu/.

Submitted by Beth Giudicessi, May 2011

The post Meet Nizar Zaarour: 2011 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award Winner in the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering appeared first on Graduate Studies at Northeastern University.

New Jersey native Yogesh Patel grew up in a family of engineers and doctors, so his work in Dr. Charles DiMarzio's Optical Science Laboratory -- which develops biological and medical imaging modalities - is in ways a natural fit. Patel's background and his work in biomedical optics and nanotechnology converge in the lab, which is working to revolutionize traditional methods of detecting skin cancer by developing a non-invasive imaging modality for use in clinical settings. As a second-year IGERT student, Patel has been exposed to hospitals and industry partners throughout the country. This experience has increased his interest in science policy and has led him to consider working in the area after his graduation in 2012.

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For Red Sox fan Brian Plouffe, Northeastern offers state-of-the-art facilities that are easily accessible from his home in Rhode Island. Though Plouffe's daily commute is quick, presenting his research has taken him to more distant places, including Denver, San Francisco and Groningen, the Netherlands. Plouffe focuses on diagnostic medicine, bioengineering and microfluidics. Having just finished his second year with the IGERT program, Plouffe is working in the lab of Dr. Shashi Murthy using magnetic particle-based techniques to separate circulating tumor cells from blood. After he graduates in May 2011, he hopes to apply his work as a scientist in the medical device or diagnostic medicine field.

The post Brian Plouffe appeared first on Graduate Studies at Northeastern University.

Originally from Kiev, Ukraine, Tatyana Chernenko came to Northeastern to study chemistry under the advisement of Dr. Max Diem, who specializes in optical methods for medical diagnosis. Her interests in imaging, microscopy, pharmaceutical research, nanotechnology and nanomedicine culminated during her two years with the IGERT program, where she began using infrared micro-spectroscopy to non-invasively monitor sub-cellular behavior and the intracellular delivery of drugs. Because of her interdisciplinary experience, Chernenko is now a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Though she appreciates the scientific collaboration allowed by Boston's role as a research hub, her favorite part of the city is the view of the skyline from the Harvard Bridge.

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Northeastern graduate students Tatyana Chernenko, Yogesh Patel and Brian Plouffe are refining traditional methods of health care by using nanotechnology to develop non-invasive cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Each is a trainee in Northeastern's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) doctoral program in Nanomedicine Science and Technology. The program, directed by Dr. Srinivas Sridhar, aims to educate the next generation of scientists and technologists from a number of fields by providing the necessary business, ethical and global perspectives to address scientific and engineering challenges that will be needed in the rapidly emerging area of applying nanotechnology to human health.

The work of these IGERT students concentrates on using nanoparticles, which are sized between an atom and a living cell. By working with such tiny particles, Chernenko, Patel and Plouffe are able to more closely detect and locate cancerous cells and treat them.

"Understanding what is wrong on the intracellular level is the only way we can prevent it in the future," Chernenko says, adding, "nanotechnology can localize the drug then deliver it to a specific site of action."

Chernenko's focus is optical imaging. After introducing nanoparticles to deliver drugs within the cell, she uses non-destructive infrared imaging to monitor how the cell reacts to stimuli. Chernenko originally came to Northeastern as a PhD student in Chemistry, but is now what she calls a "shared entity" between the Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences departments.

"I came to Northeastern basically for one professor," she says, "IGERT has helped me see science cannot exist in one niche - it's a synergy of biology, microbiology, chemistry and physics."

Similarly, Patel, an Electrical Engineer, is applying his math and science background to medicine.

"I was actually not very familiar with nanotechnology prior to coming to Northeastern," he says, attributing the IGERT program with broadening his research depth and allowing him to "interact with chemistry students, biology students and other engineering fields which I wouldn't be able to had I just been focused primarily on my research."

Patel is developing an imaging modality to detect skin cancer non-invasively. He describes the current medical technique as "cut-first and ask questions afterward." He hopes his research will change the methodology by leading to a detection device for use in clinical settings.

As a Chemical Engineer, Plouffe also foresees his work having clinical applications. He magnetically manipulates nanoparticles to diagnose, separate and track cancer cells to determine a treatment's effectiveness. Plouffe says the science behind circulating tumor cells is well-understood, but there is no instrument to efficiently or economically remove the cells from blood.

Once the technology advances, he hopes it "can affect multiple diseases - not just cancer." After completing his PhD, Plouffe looks forward to applying his experience commercially. "Northeastern allows me to really get into networking," he details, "Northeastern...has a lot of connections not just here in Boston but throughout the world."

Collectively, the students have collaborated with Harvard and Tufts Medical Schools, Children's and Massachusetts General Hospitals in Boston, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York, and with industry partners, including Pfizer and Novartis.

They have also benefitted from Northeastern's location. "Boston seems to be a very nice hub," says Chernenko, "and a congolmerate of different labs and fields and people who are very much interested in collaborating and progressing in the field of technology on the whole to better human health and environment."

It is predicted that nanotechnology will play a vital role in eliminating suffering and death caused by cancer as well as other diseases. As the global market for nanotechnology is anticipated to grow to $1 trillion by 2015, Northeastern graduate students' contributions to new devices, drug delivery techniques and diagnostic tools demonstrate translational research that is not only impacting patient care, but that is ahead of its time.

Northeastern's Nanomedicine Science and Technology program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health. For more information, see http://www.igert.neu.edu/.

Submitted by Beth Giudicessi, March 2011.

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