Digital Commons Network^™

Cecily A. Becker, Cecily A. Becker

Faculty CVs

No abstract provided.

A Four-Year Mixed Methods Cohort Study Of Professional Learning Interventions In Teacher Education Colleges In Kenya, Tanzania, And Uganda, Nyagwegwe Wango, Nipael Mrutu, Jane Rarieya, Fortidas Bakuza

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

In teacher professional learning reforms, maintaining pedagogical transformation is still a major problem, especially in settings with limited resources and policy transitions. During the four years that the Foundation for Learning (F4L) initiative was implemented in teacher education institutions in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda (2022–2025), this study looks at longitudinal patterns of improvement. The study employs a retrospective mixed-methods approach to examine two structured cycles of cohort-level data, which include interview datasets, lesson plan documents, mentoring records, questionnaire summaries, and classroom observation reports. Cycle comparisons show enhanced consistency in structured practicum feedback systems over time, better alignment between lesson objectives …

Evolution Of Propagator Wakes On The Kolbeinsey Ridge From An Integrated Geophysical Perspective, Ethan Stowell

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Oceanic lithosphere is formed following the extension and rifting of a continent, with new material generated at mid-ocean ridges. While ridges generally spread in the direction of extension, individual spreading centers are offset by perpendicular transform faults that break the ridges into individual segments. Ridge propagation, in which one ridge segment grows at the expense of another’s shortening, has been identified in global investigations as a poorly understood component of axial reorganization. This process leaves propagator wake structures composed of faults and pseudofaults visible as lows in Earth’s gravitational field, and transferred lithosphere with a distorted magnetic signature. This study …

Staying Connected In A World Of Constant Communication, Chris Gorecki Dds

Journal of the Macomb Dental Society

This article features a monthly column from the Macomb Dental Society Executive Director, Dr. Christopher Gorecki.

Rural And Urban Availability Of Substance Use Treatment Facilities, Aaron P. Smith, Tyrone F. Borders

Rural & Underserved Health Research Center Publications

Overview of Key Findings

• Rural counties have higher per capita numbers of substance use disorder treatment facilities than urban counties on average, but also greater variability and large pockets of unmet need.

• The highest proportions of residents living in counties without any treatment facilities are concentrated in rural areas within the Midwestern and Southern United States.

• Rural and urban treatment facilities offer medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) at similar rates, with inpatient facilities most likely to provide MOUD, followed by residential and outpatient settings.

Co-Creating The Garden With The Soil, Water, Plants, And Bees: Unsettling Gardening With A Different Axiology And Epistemology, Kathleen Cameron

Social Justice and Community Engagement Major Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Neoliberalism And The Crisis Of Hope: How Capitalist Culture Constrains The Aspirations Of Low-Income And Racialized Youth In Canada, Andrew Okingo

Social Justice and Community Engagement Major Research Papers

This Major Research Paper examines how neoliberalism shapes the aspirations, self-perceptions and imagined futures of low-income and racialized youth in Canada. Drawing on Critical Political Economy, Postcolonial Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Intersectionality, the study uses a qualitative semi-systematic literature review and an autoethnographic lens to critically examine how neoliberal ideologies influence young people’s experiences. The findings suggest that neoliberalism not only produces material conditions of economic and social precarity but also individualizes structural inequality, encouraging youth to interpret systemic barriers as personal failures. These processes can constrain aspirations and contribute to an erosion of hope when pathways toward desired …

Probabilistic Modeling Of Hurricane Hazards And Structural Reliability Of Offshore Wind Turbines Under Climate Change, Susmita Bhowmik

All Dissertations

Hurricanes are among the most destructive natural hazards in the United States, especially along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Climate change is expected to affect hurricane activity by changing important environmental conditions. At the same time, offshore wind energy is expanding, creating a need to understand hurricane risks to offshore wind turbines.

This dissertation develops a stochastic hurricane simulation framework to estimate hurricane wind hazards for coastal and offshore regions along the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast. The framework generates synthetic hurricane tracks using updated storm-frequency data and is validated against historical records from HURDAT2, NOAA buoy wind observations, …

Optimal Management Of Electric Vehicle Fast Charging Stations Via Lyapunov Optimization And Reinforcement Learning, Mohammad Hossein Abbasi

All Dissertations

The transportation sector is responsible for 28% of global energy-related emissions, with road transport accounting for most of these emissions. While electric vehicles (EVs) are essential for decarbonizing transportation, widespread adoption depends on fast, efficient charging. Fast charging reduces charging time but accelerates battery degradation, whereas slow charging increases range anxiety. In addition, fast charging stations (FCSs) impose significant stress on distribution grids, making their operation a critical challenge. Optimizing FCS operation can conflict with EV fast-charging objectives, yet existing research largely treats these problems independently despite their strong interdependence.

Current fast-charging methods focus on individual cells or small battery …

A Surface-Bound Detection Architecture For Label-Free Evanescent-Wave Sensing Of Cobalt In Complex Fluids, Jeremiah W. Carpenter

All Dissertations

Cobalt exposure is a clinical concern in orthopedic implant surveillance, where cobalt-chromium wear debris can release ions detectable in blood and urine, and an environmental concern in mining-affected and industrial water systems. Reference laboratory methods, including inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, provide sensitive quantification but require centralized instrumentation, trained personnel, and controlled sample handling, which limits their availability for routine screening in decentralized clinical and environmental contexts. This dissertation develops a surface-bound detection architecture for label-free evanescent-wave sensing of cobalt in complex fluids. The architecture rests on a physical necessity argument grounded in interfacial optics: at physiologically and environmentally relevant …

Smart Process Planning For Automated Fiber Placement, Matthew J. Godbold

All Dissertations

Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) is a preeminent manufacturing technology for producing high-performance composite structures, offering precise material placement, reduced waste, and the potential for highly optimized lightweight designs. While AFP has been widely adopted in aerospace applications, its broader use across industries such as automotive, wind energy, maritime, and sporting goods remains limited. A key barrier to wider adoption is the traditional separation of design, manufacturing, and inspection processes, which drives up cost and results in inefficiencies, sub-optimal designs, and limited feedback between lifecycle stages. In current practice, manufacturing is treated as an isolated process, disconnected from early-stage design decisions …

Use Of A Task Analysis Application With Video-Prompting To Increase Social Skills For Individuals With Moderate To Severe Intellectual Disabilities, Zachary Hurley

All Dissertations

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities present deficits in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, which can limit an individual’s ability to function independently. Given the different levels of intellectual functioning and adaptive skills, individuals with moderate intellectual disabilities require a level of support in daily situations and environments. However, individuals with severe to profound intellectual disabilities require the most extensive amount of support in daily skills. Research demonstrates that the use of video-based instruction is an effective tool in increasing social skills among individuals with intellectual disabilities. Additionally, conclusions derived from the current review of literature identified gaps in …

An Investigation Of The Use Of Self-Regulated Strategy Development With A Mnemonic On The Fraction Computation Performance Of Students At-Risk For Emotional/Behavioral Disorders, Melissa D. Hullett

All Dissertations

Interventions that help students organize their thinking can reduce cognitive load and support academic, behavioral, and social success. Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) is an evidence-based instructional framework that combines strategy instruction with self-regulation to promote student independence and improve student confidence. A mnemonic has been shown to help scaffold support across all content areas to the level of mastery required by Stage 4 of the SRSD framework ("Memorize It"). In mathematics, where executive functioning demands are high, interventions to scaffold content must provide the metacognitive support needed for a diverse student population. This study used a multiple-baseline design to examine …

Integrated Power, Energy, And Thermal Management For Autonomous Hybrid Off-Road Vehicles: Multi-Timescale Modeling, Predictive Control, And Resilient Thermal Design, Anirudh Sundar

All Dissertations

Electrification and autonomy are increasingly important for off-road vehicles operating in construction, agriculture, mining, defense, and other demanding environments. These platforms must deliver high tractive power under unstructured terrain, harsh ambient conditions, low-speed operation, and large auxiliary loads. While hybrid and electrified powertrains offer improved efficiency, mobility, and auxiliary power capability, they also introduce significant challenges in managing tightly coupled power, energy, and thermal subsystems. In particular, lithium-ion batteries, power electronics, electric machines, and internal combustion engine-generator systems operate across different temperature limits and timescales, requiring coordinated management to ensure efficiency, durability, and safe operation. This dissertation develops modeling, planning, …

An Expectancy-Based Theory Of The Firm: How Media Tone And Ceo–Media Political Ideological Alignment Shape Corporate Investment, Ondina Sevilla

All Dissertations

This study examines how ideologically differentiated media tone in business and economic news relates to firm investment decisions and how CEO–media ideological alignment conditions this relationship. I advance an expectancy-based extension of the Behavioral Theory of the Firm in which media tone serves as an external informational signal that is interpreted through managerial cognition rather than directly influencing firm behavior. CEO political ideology shapes how media signals are interpreted and incorporated into managerial expectancies regarding future conditions.

To test these arguments, I construct firm-quarter measures of positive and negative media tone from business and economic news articles, disaggregated by outlet …

Toward A Conceptual And Methodological Understanding Of Supervisor Gaslighting In The Workplace, Gabriela Peschiera

All Dissertations

The term ‘gaslight’ has infiltrated popular media, with articles, TV shows, and podcasts dedicated to identifying gaslighting behaviors and mitigating its effects. Despite the term’s popularity, much of the existing literature solely focuses on gaslighting in intimate partner relationships, medical settings, and political campaigns. As a result, little is known about how it operates in the workplace context and whether it is distinct from other well-established workplace mistreatment constructs. In this dissertation, I explored the mechanisms of supervisor gaslighting by developing a scale and testing its distinctiveness from other workplace mistreatment and positive workplace behaviors. While two scales were recently …

Strategic Ties That Bind: How Founder Identity Shapes Enduring Imprints Across The Firm And Community, Michelle Gras

All Dissertations

This dissertation examines how founder identity creates long-lasting imprints on organizations and the communities in which they operate by researching a historical case study in the U.S. textile industry.  This research responded to calls in the imprinting literature for greater attention to secondhand imprinting mechanisms, multiple sensitive periods, and durability of founder influence over time (Marquis & Tilcsik, 2013; Marquis & Qiao, 2025) and draws upon the theoretical lenses of founder identity theory (Fauchart & Gruber, 2011) and organizational imprinting theory (Stinchcombe, 1965; Marquis & Tilcsik, 2013).  The findings suggest that founder identity persistence is not solely a consequence of …

Towards Scalable And Trustworthy Machine Learning For Future Ai Systems, Gen Li

All Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Human-Centered Design Of Extended Reality For Learning Adoption, Effectiveness, And Collaborative Training Performance, Bhargav Upadhyay

All Dissertations

Extended reality (XR) technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can be used for technical training to help students learn and practice complex tasks in a safe digital environment. Despite known benefits evidence is required to explore the effectiveness of these technologies to support student learning outcomes. Furthermore, technical training programs need evidence about when these tools improve learning, what are the barriers to adoption of these technologies, and how training should be designed by leveraging these technologies. This dissertation examined how XR technologies can support higher education and workforce training, specifically focusing on barriers and facilitators to …

Nanostructured Insulated Electrodes For Directed Nanoparticle Assembly: Development And Characterization, Thomas F. Burgess

All Dissertations

Nanoparticles exhibit unique properties dependent on their size, shape, and arrangement that are critical for sensing applications, such as the localized surface plasmon resonance of silver nanoparticles. Therefore, control over their assembly facilitates control over these properties. For this purpose, nanostructured insulated electrodes were developed and characterized for directed assembly of nanoparticle clusters. Electrode characterization required a new method for relative electric field quantification from electric force microscopy (EFM) measurements, implemented via an extended Hudlet model to estimate the field between the sample and the EFM probe apex. Restricting analysis to the apex – sample interaction improves spatial resolution and …

The Exploration Of One-Dimensional And Two-Dimensional Frustrated Magnetic Transition Metal Phosphates And Arsenates Via Hydrothermal Synthesis, Emily D. Williams

All Dissertations

Geometric magnetic frustration is a term that refers to magnetic spins that are “confused” or frustrated due to geometric arrangements of magnetic ions that prohibit the spins from magnetically ordering. This phenomenon has been subject to much research due to the ability to study exotic magnetic states and expand upon knowledge that would allow for materials to be implemented into quantum computing, memory storage and advanced sensor processing. One of the most exotic magnetic states, quantum spin liquids (QSL), has never been achieved but shows much promise. In the QSL state, magnetic spins do not order down to 0 K …

From Gatekeeping To Opportunity: Authentic Assessment In Natural Resources Education, Aradaryn Marsh

All Dissertations

Assessment practices play a central role in shaping how students engage with learning, demonstrate understanding, and participate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Despite increasing calls for more inclusive and professionally relevant educational practices, undergraduate STEM assessment remains heavily dominated by traditional examinations emphasizing memorization, speed, and standardized performance. These concerns may be particularly important within Natural Resources (NR) education, a field that requires students to integrate scientific knowledge with communication, collaboration, and applied problem-solving. This dissertation explores authentic assessment within undergraduate NR education through a multi-phase investigation examining assessment prevalence, student experiences, racially marginalized (RM) student perspectives, …

Beyond Going Green: A Multilevel Examination Of Sustainability Climate Formation, Meredith Pool

All Dissertations

Going green at the organizational level does not automatically produce a shared sustainability climate among employees. How individual perceptions of organizational sustainability support form, and under what signal conditions they converge, has been theorized but rarely tested experimentally. The present study examined these questions using a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial vignette experiment (N = 332) with full-time employed adults, manipulating organizational sustainability signal strength (strong vs. weak), team-level sustainability signal strength (strong vs. weak), and team functional context (operations vs. analytics). Two large main effects emerged. Organizational signal strength produced a large effect on Perceived Organizational Sustainability …

A Socio-Cognitive Process Theory Of Error Response: Evidence From Shot Selection In Basketball, Jordan Britt

All Dissertations

Errors in organizational research have traditionally been conceptualized as static, preventable outcomes as opposed to dynamic events embedded within changing social environments. This dissertation reframes this by conceptualizing post-error response as an ongoing identity-regulation process. Drawing from self-presentation theory and identity control theory (ICT), it was hypothesized that an error’s deviation from expectation and its social context (self, teammate, or opponent error) influence post-error caution. These results were hypothesized to be greater when audience salience and situational importance were higher. Using play-by-play shot selection data from the 2023-2025 NCAA Division I basketball seasons as a natural testing environment, this study …

Regional Forecasting Of Southern Pine Beetle Outbreaks In The Southeastern Usa Using Spbom1 With Artificial Intelligence-Based Modeling, Ebere L. Anozie

All Dissertations

Southern pine beetle (SPB; Dendroctonus frontalis) outbreaks are among the most damaging biological disturbances affecting pine forests of the southeastern United States, capable of causing extensive tree mortality, economic losses, and reduced ecosystem resilience. This dissertation evaluated and advanced predictive approaches for SPB outbreak forecasting by integrating systematic review, geospatial modeling, comparative model evaluation, and artificial intelligence-based prediction. First, a systematic review of SPB predictive tools from 1978 to 2024 showed that modeling has evolved from statistical, climatic, and mechanistic approaches to remote sensing, GIS, machine learning, hybrid modeling, and decision-support systems, although many tools remain limited by scale …

Considerations And Challenges For Oak-Pine Woodland Restoration In The Southern Appalachians, Armin Weise

All Dissertations

Appalachian forests in the southeastern United States are composed of fire-adapted communities. These have historically been burned by native Americans and by lightning-ignited fires, causing widespread ignitions across the landscape for millennia that have shaped the forest and the species within it. Many of the more xeric oak-pine forest systems in the region were more akin to woodlands with open midstories, understocked canopies, and a diverse understory layer of herbaceous species and shrubs. With the decline of Native Americans due to disease and forced removal, fire across the landscape declined, a trend compounded by fire-suppression policies put forth by the …

Can Kinematics Specify Tool Use Affordances?, Tyler Duffrin

All Dissertations

Object properties such as length, shape, and heaviness, as well as affordance-based properties such as strike-with-ability and poke-with-ability, can be perceived via dynamic touch as functions of inertia tensor invariants. The primary question addressed here was whether people can perceive these same power and precision properties for purely virtual objects, which lack dynamic physical forces. The Kinematic Specification of Dynamics (KSD) principle asserts that missing dynamics are lawfully specified by kinematic (visual) motion patterns, such that kinematic information alone may support successful interactions with virtual objects. In three experiments, we investigated (1) whether virtual reality (VR) users could calibrate to …

Lizards In The Trees: Structural, Functional, And Behavioral Specializations To A High-Risk Environment, Victor D. Munteanu

All Dissertations

Animals must contend with unexpected changes in their habitat and environment to thrive. Arboreal habitats can consist of a wide variety of environmental features, and failure to adequately contend with these features can result in high risk of injury or death upon falling. Despite these strong selective pressures, many vertebrate lineages have successfully invaded arboreal habitats. Using lizard taxa as a model system, I investigated how morphology and behavior have evolved within this specific habitat transition. I pursued these investigations through complementary analyses including: 1) evaluating the effect of stance height and tail prehensility on perturbation recovery, 2) assessing behavior …

Towards Improved Stress Resilience, Optimal Growth And Enhanced Biosafety In Transgenic Plants, Xiaotong Chen

All Dissertations

This dissertation investigates biotechnology strategies to improve plant stress resilience, growth, and biosafety in transgenic perennial grasses using creeping bentgrass as a model system. Functional analyses of non-coding RNAs such as miR164 and miR169 showed that regulatory non-coding RNAs influence plant architecture and abiotic stress responses through broad developmental and transcriptional networks, supporting them as valuable engineering targets for complex trait improvement. The dissertation also developed a dual recombinase platform for transgene containment and removal, linking trait engineering with biosafety control. Additionally, the recombinases themselves were examined for their potential impact on heterologous host and were found to reshape plant …

Equity In Healthcare: Exploring The Viability Of Reparations As A Means To Address Racial Health Inequities, Invest In The Community, And Bestow Reconciliation For African Americans, Alesia A. Smith

All Dissertations

Racial health inequities remain among the most persistent forms of health disparity in the United States, despite decades of policy efforts to eliminate them. African Americans, in particular, continue to experience disproportionately poor health outcomes rooted in generations of institutional racism and in inequities in the social determinants of health, income, wealth, education, housing, and access to care, disparities that the COVID-19 pandemic further exposed and intensified. These enduring, structurally produced harms strengthen the case for reparative investment as a potential intervention.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine whether reparations, framed as a community-based investment in health, …