Graduate School Doctoral and Master's Fellow Awards - ARCHIVE 2023

Ayse Hilal Avci was born and raised in Turkiye. She has been living in Istanbul for more than 10 years. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education, Preschool Teaching Program at Bogazici University in 2018, and her Master’s degree in Multidisciplinary Studies, International Learning Styles at State University of New York Buffalo State in 2022. She has been working as a kindergarten teacher in Istanbul for 5 years.

Avci’s research interests lie in social emotional development and learning of both students and teachers. During her graduate studies at SUNY Buffalo College, she conducted research on teachers’ wellbeing in the pandemic era. She has participated in various conferences and seminars, both as a participant and a speaker. Her teaching career with a diverse set of students, including children with different needs has offered her experience with social emotional development in educational settings.

Avci also volunteered at AÇEV, a Turkish NGO which develops and implements educational programs for disadvantaged children, especially from lower-income and/or immigrant families. She worked with families with no Turkish or English literacy. Her responsibilities included program development, fieldwork in the disadvantaged areas of Istanbul, data collection/input, and program revision.

Avci is joining UGA as a Ph.D. student and a research assistant in the Department of Educational Psychology. She was awarded an assistantship and graduate fellowship by UGA. She will be working in the Gifted and Creative Education program under the supervision of Dr. Sakhavat Mammadov. She is excited about the upcoming journey!

Makenna Burslie was born and raised in a small town in Minnesota that’s not far from the Canadian border. Burslie was a first generation undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota – Duluth where she graduated in 2022 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology with an emphasis on genetics, cell, and development. While she attended UMD, Burslie was an NCAA Division II student-athlete that played on the UMD Bulldogs Varsity softball team and was also a research fellow in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) and the Biology Undergraduate Research in Science and Technology (BURST) program. Burslie is now excited to further her education and attend school at the University of Georgia where she will pursue her PhD in the Integrated Life Sciences Program at the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Burslie’s undergraduate research at UMD was under the mentorship of Dr. Briana Gross and was focused on two native plant species to Northeastern Minnesota found along the North Shore: bilberries and lingonberries. She researched the relationship between pollen loads received in a population to the fruit set produced in each species’ populations. Burslie worked alongside a graduate student researching the same plant species and traveled all around Minnesota’s North Shores and Northern State Forests doing fieldwork and surveying bilberry and lingonberry populations for this research project.

While Burslie’s undergraduate research was focused on plant biology, she is very interested in working with different model organisms such as vertebrates. Burslie is a very curious individual that is particularly fascinated with genetic and cancer studies driven by some personal experiences with cancer in her family. She hopes to one day use her knowledge to go work in industry either as a geneticist or a lead in a clinical research laboratory.

Anna Grace Bushong was born and raised in Jacksonville, FL. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Biology and Environmental Sciences at Centre College in 2021. Despite the pandemic altering opportunities, she was able to begin developing as a researcher early through the STEER program at the Center for Excellence in Environmental Toxicology of the University of Pennsylvania and explore the implications of environmental quality on human health. However, she realized her passion for research lay in examining questions related to environmental health not through a human-focused lens, but an ecological one. Anna’s alma mater supported this shift and her pursuit to research the effect of multiple environmental stressors on freshwater snails through the John C. Young Scholars program. This work solidified her commitment to investigating the effects of environmental pollutants on aquatic wildlife and clarity necessary to pursue graduate education to build her toolkit for a career in research.

Anna recently obtained her M.S. at Purdue University from the Department of Forestry & Natural Resources through the Interdisciplinary Ecological Sciences and Engineering program. Her thesis focused on investigating the potential sublethal, metabolic effects of perfluoroalkyl substances on amphibians during metamorphosis. She will continue specializing in amphibian ecotoxicology during her Ph.D. through the Odum School of Ecology under Dr. Stacey Lance at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. Anna’s dissertation will investigate the influence of water chemistry on the development of native amphibians across contaminated and uncontaminated wetlands through altering food resources, specifically considering the composition of microbial communities.

Nishtha Chauhan was born and brought up in India. She went on to earn her BS in Life Sciences from University of Delhi, India where she studied three major subjects including Botany, Zoology and Chemistry. For her future she wanted to get knowledge of more technical aspects so went on to earn her MS in Biotechnology from Amity University, India. During her master’s she did her major project on “Analytical Characterisation of Virus-like Particles” at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Alongside her master’s she was also working on “Unique enzymatic consortium for enhancement of bio-ethanol production” at Amity University.

Proactively, Nishtha was involved in co-curricular activities and was the class representative for her BS and MS. She was also a part of the student’s union in her BS which helped her to learn team work and become the person she is today.

She got accepted to UGA and was also awarded the Graduate School Doctoral Fellowship. She will be working with Dr Yiping Zhao whose lab focusses on nanofabrication, plasmonic, metamaterials, chemical and biological sensors, photocatalysts, nanomotors and biological applications. She is very excited to be at UGA and looks forward to having an academically good time here.

Ghazal Darougheh Daftar Owen Ghazal is a graduate student in Mathematics at University of Georgia under the direction of Prof. David T. Gay. She is very topology oriented and is strongly interested in problems concerning topology and geometry of manifolds and knots in 3 and 4 dimensions.

Prior to UGA, Ghazal was a fellow (a non-degree scholar) at Harvard University under the guidance of Prof. Clifford Taubes. With Prof. Taubes, Ghazal conducted her first study on mathematical gauge theory, building her way up to the Seiberg-Witten equations on 3-dimensional manifolds. She then continued to explore the relation between Floer homology, i.e., topological invariants of 3- manifolds with spinc structures, and the geometry of Riemann surfaces. Her other independent research projects involve hyperbolic structures and geometric knots. She plans to further investigate the interaction between low-dimensional topology, differential geometry, and analysis in her graduate research.

Ghazal completed her undergraduate studies at University College London (UCL), earning an MSci (a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree). In her Master thesis, she explored the structure of the solutions to the partial differential equations that modeled the physical theory to understand the geometry and topology of manifolds. The faculty awarded her project as the best Master Thesis of the graduating class.

Ghazal’s initial interest in mathematics developed during high school where she participated avidly in math competitions. Among other awards, she earned a silver medal in the national Iranian Mathematics Olympiad qualifying her for the prestigious Math Olympiad Summer Program.

Lauren Gingerella is pursuing a PhD through the Warnell School Forestry and Natural Resources, where her research will examine the conversion of golf courses to wildlife-friendly natural habitats. Lauren is a Certified Wildlife Biologist with strong interests in land protection, management, and restoration, which were developed when working as Assistant Conservation Director and Wildlife Biologist for North American Land Trust. Most recently before starting a PhD, she worked as a Biological Planner for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Inventory and Monitoring Branch, providing science support to refuges in the southeast region. She has worked a variety of field-based positions, including shorebird research, protection, and management in Cape Cod, MA and Cape May, NJ, invasive plant management in Death Valley National Park, and salt marsh bird surveys in Rhode Island. Additionally, Lauren spent nearly four years living and working on Little St. Simons Island, GA, (LSSI) as Ecological Coordinator and Naturalist. She collected data for her M.S. thesis on LSSI as well, where she studied the effectiveness of predator exclosures on Wilson’s Plover nest success and productivity. She received a M.S. in Forest Resources from the University of Georgia, and a B.S. in Wildlife and Conservation Biology from the University of Rhode Island. Lauren currently serves as conservation chair of the Georgia Ornithological Society. She hopes to apply the research and collaboration skills gained through her doctoral pursuits in a leadership position with a conservation nonprofit organization.

Gabriela Greilinger was born and raised in Vienna, Austria, and is half-Austrian and half-Hungarian. Throughout the past years, she has studied, worked, and lived amongst others in Hungary, The Netherlands, Belgium and the United States.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Hungarian Studies and a Master’s in European Studies from the University of Vienna, Austria. She also holds a Master of Science in Political Science from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

In the past, she completed several internships at NGOs and IGOs, such as the United Nations and the European Parliament. In 2020, she co-founded a youth platform for young writers interested in international affairs.

Most recently, she has worked as a Community Engagement Manager at the Austrian Daily Newspaper Der Standard. In the past year, she has also published several articles in the New Eastern Europe Magazine, The Diplomat and Social Europe, amongst others.

In August, Gabriela will join UGA’s School of Public and International Affairs as a PhD student in Political Science. She is interested in populism, specifically the populist radical right, as well as democracy, political behaviour, and political psychology. In the future, she hopes to work in research and focus on threats and challenges to liberal democracy.

Kaili Gregory was born and raised in Washington, DC. Inspired by her mother who worked at the Environmental Protection Agency, Kaili has been interested in wildlife and the environment from a young age. She went on to earn her BS in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences with minors in Climate Change and Development Sociology from Cornell University. She completed research on oysters in the Hudson River Estuary during her final two years. Gregory was also a Division 1 athlete as a member of the Cornell Women’s Soccer Team during her four years. Gregory recently completed her MS at the University of Florida in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. Her thesis focused on developing a predictive population model to predict the future extinction risk of the northwestern and southwestern pond turtle. Her work was integrated into the Species Status Assessment for the species, which serves as decision support science for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s listing decision under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Kaili’s interests center around the application of quantitative methods to conservation decision-making. Her ultimate career goal is to work at the interface of science and policy. At the University of Georgia, Gregory will be part of the Integrative Conservation PhD program and the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. She is excited to learn more about interdisciplinary methods and new ways of thinking about conservation. Gregory will work with her advisor, Dr. Kelly Robinson, to develop decision support tools for multiple species and systems as part of her research at UGA.

Rachel Hill is a first-year student in the straight-to Ph.D. program at the Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics at UGA Tifton. After growing up on a cotton farm in northwest Tennessee, Rachel knew that she wanted to pursue a career in agriculture. She discovered her passion for plant breeding and genetics before beginning her undergraduate career at Mississippi State University. During her time there, she double majored in Agronomy with a concentration in Integrated Crop Management and Biochemistry with a concentration in Plant Pathology. She was involved in research that cumulated in an undergraduate thesis and determined the efficacy of using imaging analysis software to measure the root length of both fibrous and taproot crops. As Rachel plans for a career in cotton breeding, UGA and Dr. Peng Chee’s lab were the perfect fit. Not only were both highly recommended by industry professionals, Dr. Chee and UGA also offer the knowledge, experience, and research goals she was looking for in a graduate program. Because of her education in plant pathology, she is looking forward to working with cotton diseases from a plant breeding aspect in her graduate studies. Rachel is very thankful to have been awarded one of the Graduate School Doctoral Fellowship awards and is excited to become a Georgia Bulldog!

Tarikul Islam was born in Bangladesh. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Textile Engineering at Jashore University of Science and Technology, Jashore-7408, Bangladesh. He has completed his B.Sc. in Textile Engineering from Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, Tangail-1902, Bangladesh, and his M.Sc. in Textile Engineering from the Bangladesh University of Textiles, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

After graduation, he worked as a Management Trainee Officer at Vertex Group (Nov 2015-April 2016). In 2016, he joined a faculty position (Lecturer) at Port City International University, Chittagong, Bangladesh (April 2016-March 2018). After that, he joined as a Lecturer at BGMEA University of Fashion and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh March 2018 (March 2018-November 2018).

He is a highly motivated, achievement-oriented textiles and materials researcher with over 06 years of experience in academia, industry, and research organization. He has fiber, polymer, composites, protective clothing, natural dyes, and sustainability expertise. He managed multiple Government research projects, including funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) Bangladesh, University Grant Commission (UGC) Bangladesh, industry collaboration, budget management, data analysis, and reporting.

His research interest is fiber and polymers, composites, nanocomposite materials, green chemistry, synthesis of natural dyes, functional fabrics, conductive textiles, flame retardant textiles, and wearable textiles.

This Fall, He will join as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Interiors at the University of Georgia, Athens. He was also awarded a graduate fellowship from the University of Georgia, Athens.

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Jaesung Lee was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. Jaesung Lee earned a Bachelor of Social Welfare from Chung-Ang University, Seoul, South Korea, and earned a Master of Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, United States. While at BSW, he served two years in the Republic of Korea Navy. After completing his Master’s degree, he worked for about 5 years as a social worker and researcher to experience the social work field. Through his experiences in academia and the field, he wanted to go to a doctoral degree and study more deeply about the subject of his interest, older adults.

His research interest is based on older adults; life after retirement, and gerontechnology. Jaesung Lee is most interested in improving the quality of life of older adults through quantitative research. He has participated in various researches regarding social engagement of older adults and retirement. He focuses mainly on verifying stylized facts by using various statistical models and verifying theories. He is looking forward to learning and exchanging opinions with social work experts while executing his Ph.D. at the University of Georgia. In addition, he expects to collaborate with students of various majors as well.

Ananya Malik, MEd (she/her) is an incoming doctoral student in the McBee Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. Prior to attending UGA, Ananya attended the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of North Texas.

Ananya’s research interests include the intersection of higher education policy and college access, as well as the historical moments and trends that influence policy choices.

Ananya has presented at NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education) about university marijuana policies and restorative justice, and at the UNT Diversity and Equity Conference about APIDA (Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi American) students, their specific needs, and the role of data disaggregation in student affairs.

This summer, Ananya is a TACUSPA (Texas Association of College and University Student Personnel Administrators) Fellow, working with the Student Affairs on Campus journal. In the fall, Ananya will be the McBee Scholar for 2023-24 and a Research Assistant in the McBee Institute with Dr. Tim Cain.

Jenny McCann Jenny earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of Georgia. She spent the next decade traveling the country and teaching science in high schools in both rural Mississippi and urban Tacoma, Washington. Though the culture differences and education policies were quite different, students in both school districts shared similar challenges when moving from high school science to college science. This observation led to a passion for improving collegiate science education to make science accessible for a more diverse group of students.

After earning her MS in Biology at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, Jenny moved from the high school classroom to a college classroom as an adjunct professor, bringing with her the skillful and compassionate teaching that she had developed throughout her professional career in secondary education.

While earning her master’s degree, Jenny also realized an interest in pursuing research. She joined the lab of Dr. Travis Hagey where she completed a project and publication investigating parallel evolution in gecko toe pad morphology.

Now, as a mom of three, Jenny is excited to return to the University of Georgia as a PhD student in the Integrative Life Sciences PhD program. She plans to take part in a hybrid program through the Department of Genetics where she will be a research assistant in two labs—one focused in genetics research and the other in biology education research. The University of Georgia is unique in their offering of this hybrid PhD option, and Jenny is thrilled that she can make meaningful contributions and gain expertise in the field of genetics while also continuing her passion for science education by researching actionable ways to improve collegiate teaching.

Jordan Parker Jordan L. Parker was born and raised in Marietta, Georgia, but has lived around the southeastern United States. For the past 6 years, she has lived in Lexington, KY, where she graduated magna cum laude with her BS in Equine Science and Management from the University of Kentucky. While there, she was involved in the University’s IHSA Hunt Seat Team, held groom positions for several show barns, and worked at various veterinary practices.

Parker entered UK’s Veterinary Science Master’s Program in 2021 under Dr. Emma Adam and Dr. Allen Page at the Gluck Equine Research Center. Her microbiology-focused thesis worked on exploring the multi-faceted relationship between the gastrointestinal microbiota communities, the host, and antibiotics. While working with Dr. Adam and Dr. Page, Parker participated in multiple projects. She conducted the 2021 and 2022 Rotavirus B epidemiology survey, participated in pilot Leptospirosis work, and assisted with equine inflammation models. Parker has had the privilege to work with multiple undergraduate students and visiting veterinary students during her two years at Gluck.

Parker was accepted into a dual DVM-PhD program at the University of Georgia. The UGA Graduate School awarded Parker a graduate fellowship to pursue her PhD, and the CVM awarded her a matching assistantship to help fund her research. Parker will work under Dr. John Peroni, whose lab focuses on regenerative medicine research. She is extremely excited to continue her academic career at the UGA CVM. She hopes to one day work in academia, educating the next generation of veterinary scientists.

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My name is Matty Ray, and I am an incoming student for the Fall 2023 semester at the University of Georgia. I will be studying Interpersonal and Health Communication as a PhD student. I am originally from DFW, Texas, and my background is in communication—I earned my bachelor’s in Speech Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2019, and my master’s in Communication from UT Arlington in 2020. While obtaining my master’s degree, I worked extensively as a graduate research assistant with Dr. Grace Brannon, and published papers on health communication and public health as a co-author in journals such as Health Communication, American Journal of Health Promotion, Digital Health, and Journal of Patient Experience.

My research interests focus mainly on health communication, and specifically patient- provider communication. I want to explore the ways medical professionals communicate with LGBTQ+ patients, as well as examining any potential bias in patient- provider interactions. Additionally, I am interested in how LGBTQ+ health needs are framed in media—as well as how LGBTQ+ individuals communicate interpersonally about health with family, peers, and coworkers, and the social support they may receive. I am so excited to be moving to Athens, to explore my research interests further, and to begin teaching courses in the Department of Communication Studies! I greatly appreciate and am honored to be a recipient of a Graduate School Doctoral Fellow Award.

Sahar Saadat was born and raised in Shiraz, Iran. She has been highly interested in cinema and Television from a young age, especially since she looked at them as a source of inspiration and motivation to overcome the obstacles found in an oppressive country like Iran. She did her BA in Theater Directing at the Islamic Azad University of Shiraz, finding her passion for research and analysis in the field of Arts. She chose the play Wit (1995) by Margaret Edson for her bachelor’s dissertation. The dissertation discusses the stigma that society imposes on feminine traits, considering them weaknesses.

Sahar continued her studies at the University of East Anglia, England to get her MA in Film Studies. She explored different aspects of mass media and did her dissertation on Female Representation in AI Science Fiction under the supervision of Dr. Christine Cornea. In this project, she analyzed the female AI characters’ portrayal in the genre of science fiction. After the completion of her MA, Sahar returned to Iran and participated in multiple production projects to expand her knowledge and experience in the field of media.

Sahar got accepted to UGA and was awarded the Graduate School Doctoral Fellowship. She will be doing her PhD in Mass Communication, focusing on the politics of gender and sexuality in the media. She is thrilled to continue her studies and to get closer to her career goals at UGA. She hopes to one day become a scholar in mass communication and to help her students, the media industry, and associated technologies grow and prosper.

Christopher Sandoval Christopher Edgardo Padilla Sandoval, a native of San Salvador, El Salvador, is an aspiring mathematician and an incoming PhD student at the University of Georgia, starting in fall 2023. Born in October 1998, Christopher has spent the majority of his life in his hometown. Both of his parents are also of Salvadoran descent.

Christopher embarked on his academic journey in 2017 by pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics at the University of El Salvador, where he graduated with honors in May 2022. During his time as a student, Christopher actively participated in the Mathematics Student Seminar, a forum where
members presented and discussed various topics and theorems, allowing them to deepen their understanding of mathematical concepts. He also pursued other enriching opportunities, such as attending programs like the Sampling Advanced Mathematics for Minority Students program at The Ohio State University in 2018, gaining exposure to diverse areas of mathematics. In 2019, he explored Mathematical Logic and Gödel’s incompleteness theorems during the EMALCA Costa Rica program. Christopher also attended the course “Fundaments of Algebraic Geometry” organized by professors
from the Autonomous University of Zacatecas, which provided his first introduction to algebraic geometry. In the realm of mathematical competitions, Christopher achieved a Silver Medal in the Iberoamerican Interuniversity Mathematics Competition in 2021 and a Bronze Medal in 2020. He also
got a bronze medal in Iberoamerican University Mathematics Olympiad in 2021. Within the realm of mathematics, Christopher’s primary focus broadly lies in Number Theory, particularly in the domains of algebraic number theory and p-adic analysis.

Brittany Shivers’ research focuses on the psychological processing of disinformation and conspiracy theories, as well as the societal implications of information disorder exacerbated by social media. She is also interested in researching the growing threat of disinformation spread through artificial intelligence technologies.

Shivers completed her Bachelor of Science in Mass Communications concentrated in journalism from the University of West Georgia in 2021. During her time there, she served as the Editor-in-Chief of UWG’s newspaper, The West Georgian, and connected with the campus and local community to report on important local issues. In 2019, Shivers completed an internship serving as a local reporter for The Newnan Times-Herald, and shortly after did some freelance work for the Times-Georgian. As recognition for her journalistic and academic work, she received The Gordon R. Watson Award for Excellence in Mass Communication, which is one of the highest honors awarded to one outstanding student in mass communication each year. She also received the Excellence Award in Convergence Journalism in 2021.

For the past two years, Shivers studied at the University of Georgia in pursuit of a Master of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication conducting research with the Crisis Insights and Analytics Lab team under the direction of Dr. Yan Jin and the Digital Media and Cognition Lab team under the direction of Dr. Bart Wojdynski. In 2022, she worked at The Red & Black as the Senior Editor of Special Publications. Shivers will continue to pursue her research interests at UGA and will start her PhD in the journalism program at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication in August 2023.

Mr. Amit Talukder holds a Bachelor of Science in Textile Engineering from the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh, and a master’s in business administration from Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. He recently completed his master’s in fashion design and merchandising at Mississippi State University. He has more than four years of industrial experience and has been working on a commercial fishing project since 2021. Now, he will pursue a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Fiber and Polymer Science in the fall of 2024.

As a graduate research assistant and grad lead, he works with Human science and athlete engineering professors on a protective fishing shirt project for commercial fishermen. Also, he is collaborating with the kinesiology, industrial engineering, and athlete engineering team on a project to incorporate wearable technology-based smart socks with stretch sensors with the virtual immersive test to determine the safety status of the postural control system. His thesis on wearable flexible solar cells recently received a grant from the AATCC Foundation. Besides, He joined as a student leader in MSU Athletic Engineering team to lead the day-to-day activities in the labs and help to ensure undergrad students are engaged with AE research work. He, along with his professor, was awarded a teaching grant, Ottilie Schillig Special Teaching Projects Program Award 2022, supported by MSU.

Christopher Washburn Chris Washburn was born in New Hampshire and raised in a bicultural household. His father was born in the midwest, while his mother was born and raised in Japan. Chris’ path to graduate school was not always clear. Chris went to Saint Mary’s College of California in the Bay Area, and immediately upon graduating went to work for a cloud computing services provider in Silicon Valley. After a few years of working in the tech sector, as well as exploring several other interests such as film production and sports management, he returned to New Hampshire where he enrolled in linguistics classes at Dartmouth College. With this added academic experience, he went on to Queen Mary University of London where he received a master’s degree.

Chris is primarily interested in language variation and change, but also has interest in phonetics and phonology. Because of his family background, he has a long term interest in researching both English linguistics and Japanese linguistics. While at Queen Mary, Chris assisted with research on the shifting vowel space in Received Pronunciation (posh) accent in British English speakers. His independent research includes phonetic analyses of strategic accent shifting by pop and rock singers across various regions in the UK, and a master’s thesis on exploring generational differences in the usage strategies of sound symbolic words among Tokyo Japanese speakers. Chris’ goals at the University of Georgia are to further his theoretical understanding of various linguistics subfields, especially sociolinguistics, and to continue developing research skills in order to pursue a career in academia.

Jack Wood is a doctoral student in Communication Studies studying the rhetoric of cities. Originally from Madison, Wisconsin, Wood grew up in a working-class family that valued labor as the principal human ethic. Wood served eight years in the US Marine Corps infantry, learning organizational skills that would assist his later career in organizing labor unions. Wood has taught at Texas Tech University, where he also earned a Master’s degree in Communication Studies working under Dr. Catherine L. Langford. Additionally, he served as the editorial assistant for Rhetoric & Public Affairs. In 2023, the International Semiotics Institute invited Wood to travel to Prague and lecture on spatial enthymemes and psychoanalytic concepts of space.

Stemming from a long working-class tradition, Wood believes labor is generative of our material experience, and this informs his studies into rhetoric and spatial production. Thus, his studies into urban rhetoric seek to understand how the organization of labor within cities helps to shape the everyday rhetorics experienced by its residents. By adopting psychoanalytic views of the subject, Wood argues for the non-distinction between a subject and the space they inhabit based on the externality of the unconscious that mutually constitutes both subject and space.

Wood will teach various courses in the Communication Studies department at the University of Georgia. Attending UGA complements his interests in materialist rhetoric, psychoanalysis, and urbanism. Moreover, his interests lead toward an interdisciplinary route in conceptual fields in rhetoric, sociology, and philosophy and more practical orientations in human geography, urban planning, and urban design.