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Undergraduate Commencement Exercises Program, May 16, 2026

Bryant University Commencements

No abstract provided.

181st Commencement Mass Program, University Of Notre Dame

Commencement Programs

Vigil Mass for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord.

Principal Celebrant and Homilist: Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., President [of the University]

Musical Expression: How Do We As Composers And Performers Use The Tools Of Music In Such A Way To Realize Our Creative Endeavors And Communicate Them To Others?, Max Vance

Honors Projects

Why do we create things? This project delves into the deep, intentional processes of composition and cello performance. This paper discusses how the process is vital to the final outcome, outlines the necessary steps for composition and performance, and provides examples of work that has emerged from these processes.

Improving Health Literacy And Self-Management In Adults With Heart Failure: A Nurse-Led Virtual Intervention In Outpatient Support Groups, Vivian Efosa Osunde

Doctoral Projects

Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and hospital readmissions, with limited health literacy contributing to poor self‑management and adherence challenges. The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice project was to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary outcomes of a nurse‑led, virtual education-intervention designed to improve health literacy, self‑care behaviors, and medication adherence among adults with chronic heart failure who participate in an outpatient support group. A quality improvement design was used. Convenience sampling yielded nine adult participants with a documented diagnosis of chronic heart failure who attended at least one virtual support group session. The intervention consisted of …

Whiny Women: How Medical Gaslighting Becomes Medical Trauma, Neena Marcus

Honors Projects

Background: The idea of “medical gaslighting” has been present since 1969, but it has increased in popularity in the recent century. Women in particular are at increased risk of being dismissed by their healthcare providers, as throughout history they have been deemed “hysterical” or untrustworthy when recounting their symptoms.

Methods: Articles were compiled from CINAHL Complete, Google Scholar, and the University of Washington library. A total of 33 articles were chosen and reviewed.

Results: Medical gaslighting results in lasting medical trauma, a decreased quality of life and detachment from standard healthcare. Six themes were recurrent in the papers utilized: sexism, …

Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy (Hie): Outcomes Of Therapeutic Hypothermia, Gospodin Stefanov

Advocate GME

No abstract provided.

Musical Methods For Nonverbal Emotional Expression, Carrie Uddenberg

Music: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Reassembling Riparian Ecosystems: Stream Restoration Effects On Vegetation, Arthropods, And Aquatic-Terrestrial Connectivity, Katelyn P. Driscoll

Biology ETDs

Riparian areas exist at the aquatic-terrestrial interface and provide disproportionate ecosystem services, yet multiple stressors have degraded these zones globally. Stream restoration seeks to reverse degradation, but rigorous evaluation of treatment effectiveness remains limited. I conducted a before-after-control-impact (BACI) study in the southern Rocky Mountains to evaluate two stream restoration treatments—beaver dam analogs (BDAs) and plug-and-ponds (P&Ps)—across three dimensions of riparian ecosystem response. Using Bayesian analysis, I quantified treatment effects on functional diversity and composition of riparian plant communities. Using generalized linear mixed models, I evaluated restoration effects on riparian arthropod abundance, richness and guild composition across lateral gradients and …

Shelter From The Storm: Public Library Value And Community Adaptive Capacities, Margo Gustina

Economics ETDs

This dissertation contributes to theoretical framing within the discipline of library science, while building out empirical methods for quantitatively valuing broadly loved public libraries. Chapter 1 lays the foundation for understanding how analysis public libraries must always be set within regional contexts. Chapter 2 demonstrates that positive voter valuation of public libraries is driven by proximity to a library building by using data from public funding referendum events. Chapter 3 estimates a reduction of 0.75 percentage point (p=0.002) in graduation rates where public libraries were closed (but school instruction was in-person) from COVID closures. Chapter 4 builds on the previous …

Perception, Payment, And Pollution- Examining The Effects Of Air Quality On Health And Healthcare, Colin Sleeper

Economics ETDs

Abstract

This dissertation examines how air quality and public attention to environmental shock affect perceived health status and healthcare utilization. The first chapter uses publicly available survey data from BRFSS and a triple difference framework to analyze the effects of the 2018 wildfire season in Oregon on self-reported mental and physical health. Findings indicate that those in Oregon in 2018, during the period of heightened attention to wildfire smoke, experienced approximately 1.4 additional poor mental health days, on average. The second chapter includes Merative MarketScan commercial insurance claims data to test whether these changes translate into a behavioral response. Results …

Agricultural Water Management, Farmer Decision-Making And Climate Adaptation In Dryland Agriculture: A Case Of The Middle Rio Grande Basin, Oluwatosin A. Olofinsao

Economics ETDs

Agriculture in dryland regions faces mounting pressure from climate change, water scarcity, and shifting land-use demands. The Middle Rio Grande Basin (MRGB) of central New Mexico exemplifies these challenges, where irrigated agriculture relies on increasingly variable surface water supplies. This dissertation examines agricultural water use, farmer decision-making, and adaptation strategies across farm types and climate conditions in the MRGB. The first study presents a spatial descriptive analysis of farm size, crop patterns, groundwater access, evapotranspiration (ET), and effective ET, revealing a landscape numerically dominated by smallholder farms that account for a substantial share of irrigation water use. The second study …

Marine Geophysical Studies Of Coupled Tectonic And Sedimentary Processes At Active Plate Boundaries, Sarah R. Rysanek

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Deep-sea and convergent margin sedimentary systems preserve critical records of tectonic and climatic processes that shape Earth’s surface. This dissertation investigates source-to-sink sediment routing and forearc deformation to better constrain the interplay between sedimentary and tectonic processes, through investigations of a deep-sea fan system, and the forearc geomorphology offshore Nicaragua. In the Gulf of Alaska, we integrate ultra-long-offset and regional multi-channel seismic reflection data, multi-resolution bathymetry, and plate reconstructions to remap the Baranof Fan system. Results show that the fan is larger than previously recognized and constructed by two primary depocenters linked to distinct glacial sediment pathways, with accommodation space …

Self-Supervised Spoofing Detection, David S. Choi

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are vulnerable to spoofing attacks that can mislead receivers with counterfeit signals. Traditional detection techniques, such as antenna-based, encryption based, and signal processing approaches, often face limitations in adaptability, computational cost, or reliance on predefined thresholds. Supervised machine learning models, while powerful, require large labeled datasets and struggle to generalize to unseen spoofing scenarios. In this work, we propose a self-supervised spoofing detection framework based on Adaptive Sparse Gaussian Processes (ASGP). The method predicts incoming GNSS features using past observations and identifies spoofing as anomalous deviations in the prediction residuals. Unlike supervised approaches, ASGP adapts …

Millimeter-Wave Antenna Gain Enhancement Through Stacked Planar Substrates, Zachary Bergstedt

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

This work presents a new wideband millimeter-wave (mmWave) and sub-terahertz antenna design with flexible directivity through the integration of stepped horn antennas and transverse substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) slots for radar and communication applications. The work gives a theoretical and analytical basis for this filter-inspired approach to improving bandwidth and directivity, and presents design and results for a standalone stepped horn, a Ka-band antenna with a solid stepped horn and SIW feed, and W-band antennas with empty SIW feeds and stepped horns manufactured out of multiple planar layers. The realized antennas show bandwidth up to 40% and gain up to …

Applications And Comparisons Of Machine Learning Methods In Ultra-Fast Laser Control, Aasma Aslam

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

This dissertation demonstrates the applications and comparative analyses of machine learning methods in ultrafast laser control. By learning the relationship between the system’s input parameters and output pulse characteristics, the performance of a laser can be significantly improved. In this work, the results are presented in two stages by utilizing data from the femtosecond laser system. The first stage concerns two neural networks, named NN1 (fitrnet) and NN2 (feedforwardnet). The second stage, which extended with five different models, namely the linear regression (fitlm), the support vector machine (SVM), the Gaussian process regression (GPR), the boosted tree (fitrensemble), and LASSO (fitrlinear), …

Quantum Control Protocols For Robust Quantum Computing, Leeseok Kim

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The fundamental goal of quantum computing is to precisely control quantum systems to perform meaningful tasks, including implementing high-fidelity quantum gates for reliable quantum computation and accurately simulating complex quantum many- body dynamics. In this dissertation, we develop improved quantum control protocols for three distinct objectives, quantum error suppression, quantum optimal control, and analog quantum algorithms, achieving performance beyond standard approaches. First, we introduce new dynamical decoupling protocols, including both determin- istic and randomized constructions, that can substantially outperform conventional deterministic sequences. We then extend the randomized approach to dynamically corrected gates. Second, we propose a randomized quantum optimal control …

Fault Tolerant Quantum Computing With Lower Overhead, Benjamin E. Anker

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Quantum computation promises asymptotic speedups over classical algorithms, but realizing these advantages requires overcoming the noisiness of quantum hardware. Although fault-tolerant error correction can allow for reliable quantum computation even using unreliable components, the resource overheads required can substantially erode the asymptotic performance gains. This dissertation focuses on constructing and optimizing fault-tolerant procedures with lower overhead than previous methods were capable of. We present new frameworks for fault-tolerant syndrome extraction using flag gadgets with exponentially reduced ancilla requirements, explicit measurement schedules that achieve asymptotically fewer measurements than stabilizer generators, and a general method for making arbitrary Clifford circuits fault tolerant. …

Alternative Positioning, Navigation, And Timing In Global Navigation Satellite System Denied Environments, Joshua R. Atencio

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) provide the majority of critical positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services for civilian, commercial, and military applications. However, GNSS is vulnerable to service denial from spoofing and jamming from adversaries and environmental obstruction. These vulnerabilities highlight the need for resilient Alternative PNT (APNT) methods. This dissertation investigates APNT frameworks operating in GNSS denied environments. We develop coalition formation and matching theoretic models that allow users APNT services from anchor nodes under resource constraints and in adversarial or emergency conditions. The proposed frameworks optimize positioning accuracy, network utility, and system stability while accounting for geometric dilution …

Constraining Magmatic Processes In The Central American Arc Using Melt Inclusion Vapor Bubble Analysis And Triple Oxygen Isotope Modeling And Exploration Of Volatile Contributions To The Production Of Continual Radio Frequency (Crf) Lightning Events, John M. Hamilton

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Magmatic volatiles are key to determining the processes happening in the subsurface that we cannot directly sample. Advances in measuring volatile and isotope contents from erupted volcanic samples have given us the ability to understand magmatic processes, mixing components that produce the bulk magma composition and potentially precursors to eruptive hazards, such as lightning.

Through analysis of melt inclusions that sample the melt at depth and triple oxygen isotope quantification of olivine crystals from multiple volcanic edifices, the three following studies display how I have utilized these analytical techniques to help unravel processes happening in the subsurface that lead volcanic …

Nanoscale Structure And Spontaneous Self-Assembly Of Hydrothermal Organic Products, Glorianne P. Dorce

Chemistry and Chemical Biology ETDs

Carbon nanomaterials derived from citric acid and urea exhibit behaviors that challenge conventional structure–property models based on static bulk descriptions. This study examines how precursor pairing and reaction duration, post‑synthetic thermal history, and time‑dependent aging govern nanoscale organization and optical response. Through controlled synthesis and processing, distinct nanostructures with tunable structural and spectroscopic profiles are generated.

A multiscale framework integrating nano‑FTIR, atomic force microscopy, and thermal analysis reveals chemical heterogeneity and continuous structural reorganization across length scales. By correlating local chemical environments with optical behavior, we show that fluorescence efficiency and photostability depend on specific nanoscale architectures rather than average …

The Formation Of Indian Health Services Within Imperial And Settler-Colonial Contexts, Jillian E. Grisel

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation examines the Indian Health Services as a Cold War biosecurity apparatus, showing how infectious disease was weaponized to dismantle treaty obligations, reorganize tribal lands into “service areas,” and reclassify Indigenous nations as surveilled populations. Against this carceral health economy, Indigenous nations refused. From the 1969 Alcatraz occupation to the 1976 Puyallup takeover of Cushman Indian Hospital, Native activists reclaimed health facilities as sovereign spaces, insisting that care is not a discretionary service but a treaty right grounded in land and kinship. Methodologically, I combine historical-legal analysis of congressional debates, Public Health Service reports, and IHS data with counter-archives …

Impact Of Third Trimester Alcohol Exposure (Ttae) On Oligodendrocyte Development And Behavior In Mice, Estrella Villicana

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) during late gestation can cause cognitive, behavioral, and motor impairments associated with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs). The third trimester corresponds to a critical period of brain growth and maturation. This study examined the effects of Third Trimester-equivalent Alcohol Exposure (TTAE) on oligodendrocyte development and adult behavior. Neonatal mice were exposed to ethanol or air vapor from postnatal day (P) 4–8. Immunohistochemical analyses were performed at P8 and P30 to assess myelination, apoptosis, and oligodendrocyte lineage progression. TTAE significantly reduced myelin basic protein (MBP) expression at P8, which was recovered by P30, indicating delayed developmental myelination. …

Design And Optimization Of Epitope Based Malaria Vaccine Targeting Pre-Erythrocytic Stage, Yogesh Nepal

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Malaria remains a major global health challenge. Currently available vaccines provide only modest and transient protection. In this work, we developed virus like particles (VLPs) based vaccine to target vulnerable epitopes of circumsporozoite protein, a key surface protein of pre-erythrocytic sporozoite stage, across different structural contexts. The immunogenicity of these highly immunogenic vaccines were further enhanced using immune stimulating agents, adjuvants, and the most promising VLP and adjuvant combinations were evaluated in preclinical challenge models to assess efficacy. In parallel, we performed research in an antigen agonistic manner using VLP library immunization that displays different fragments of a target protein …

Exploring Color-Blind Racial Attitudes And Critical Race Theory - Informed Beliefs Among School Social Workers, Faith E. King

Social Work Doctoral Dissertations

Black Americans face unequal rates of psychological distress and misdiagnosis primarily due to systemic racism embedded in institutions. Despite these alarming realities, current mental health frameworks often cling to biased perceptions of wellness facilitated by White, Eurocentric norms that pathologize communal resilience and cultural expressions of healing. In clinical spaces, these realities are too often erased by the biased meanings and individualistic norms that render Black grief pathological and Black resistance dysfunctional. Dominant therapeutic modalities labeled “evidence-based” remain rooted in racially neutral, individualist assumptions that exclude the lived experiences of Black clients, as they were developed for them. The National …

Spring Undergraduate Commencement: May 16, 2026, University Of North Dakota

UND Commencement Programs

UND Spring Undergraduate Commencement program from May 16, 2026.

Spring Graduate School Commencement: May 16, 2026, University Of North Dakota

UND Commencement Programs

UND Spring Graduate School Commencement program from May 16, 2026.

Moving As Mycelium: Dance/Movement Therapy With Nature And Its Potential For Sustainability Transformations: A Literature Review, Abby Polk

Expressive Therapies Theses

Environmental degradation and destruction impact the long-term health and wellbeing of humans and ecosystems alike. Humans require new ways of relating to nature that support sustainable futures for all. This thesis argues that dance/movement therapy (DMT) with nature has the potential to facilitate sustainability transformations and that the embodiment of relationality can support the development of reciprocal human-nature relationships. This literature review is grounded in theories of relationality and reciprocity as conceptualized in various Indigenous knowledge systems and the fields of both sustainability and DMT. Existing research suggests that culturally-responsive, embodied, arts-based practices may increase human-nature connectedness and strengthen reciprocity …

Success By Design? A Combined Outcome And Process Program Evaluation Of California’S Early And Middle College High Schools, Brooke N. Martin-Gill

Education Dissertations

Early and Middle College High Schools (EMCHS) expand college access for

underrepresented students by integrating high school and college coursework within

community college settings. Despite strong reported outcomes, some EMCHS face

substantial student attrition. Limited research examines how EMCHS organizational

structures influence student persistence. This mixed methods outcome and process

evaluation seeks to address this research gap. Quantitative analysis (paired samples-t-

tests) examined statewide enrollment data (2017-2025) to determine whether significant

differences exist between Year 1 and Year 4 cohort enrollment. Qualitative analysis was

conducted through a deductive discourse analysis of Western Association of Schools and

Colleges (WASC) Self-Study reports …

Assessing Uranyl-Specific Dnazymes And Dna-Aptamers For Uranium Binding In Environmentally Relevant Waters, Ashley R. Apodaca-Sparks

Civil Engineering ETDs

The legacy of uranium mining affects many communities in the western United States, resulting in elevated levels of uranium in surface water. The ability to quickly and accurately detect uranium on site in affected communities can lead to real-time water quality analysis that informs risk assessment and remediation efforts. The objective of this work is to advance the application of biosensing technologies for the measurement of uranium in waters affected by mining legacy. The third chapter of this thesis compares ANDalyze by AlpHa Instruments, a commercially available uranium biosensor, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (an EPA-verified method for uranium …

Post-Fire Flood Modeling In Ruidoso, New Mexico: Improving Burn Scar Runoff Predictions, Pramesh Bhaila

Civil Engineering ETDs

Recent large wildfires in New Mexico have demonstrated severe hydrological driven by vegetation loss and the development of hydrophobic soil surfaces. This thesis evaluates the performance of three infiltration models—Curve Number (CN), Linear Constant (LC), and Green–Ampt (GA)— for the watershed impacted by the 2024 South Fork and Salt Fires near Ruidoso, New Mexico. All three models performed comparably during post‑fire simulations, with strong performance in 2024 and notable degradation in 2025, particularly for the CN. Post-fire analyses indicate substantial reductions in infiltration capacity, with CN increasing by 18–24%, LC initial deficit decreasing by 65–77%, effective hydraulic conductivity reduced by …