Congratulations to the 2025 Recipients
Graduate School Dissertation Completion Award
Dissertation completion assistantships are awarded to outstanding doctoral students in their final year of study on a competitive basis. These assistantships allow the student to devote time to the completion of their dissertation by relieving them of departmental teaching or research duties.
Rabeeh Azarmehr
Human Development and Family Science (HDFS)
College of Family and Consumer Sciences
Rabeeh Azarmehr is a Ph.D. candidate in Human Development and Family Science at the University of Georgia, specializing in neuroscience and substance use research under the advisement of Dr. Assaf Oshri and Dr. Charles Geier. Her research examines how childhood adversity, including family and neighborhood stressors, influences adolescent substance use vulnerability through neural and psychosocial mechanisms.
Specifically, she investigates how regions in the brain related to reward sensitivity and emotional reactivity contribute to positive substance use expectancies. Her dissertation utilizes longitudinal neuroimaging data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study.
Azarmehr earned her B.A. in English Language and Literature and her M.S.Ed. in Psychology before joining The University of Georgia in 2021. She chose UGA for its strong interdisciplinary training, access to advanced neuroimaging resources, and the opportunity to work under the mentorship of Dr. Assaf Oshri and Dr. Charles Geier at the Georgia Center for Developmental Science (former YDI). She has also completed a graduate certificate in Quantitative Methodology, enhancing her expertise in advanced statistical modeling.
She has multiple peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations. Upon earning her Ph.D. in May 2026, Azarmehr plans to pursue a postdoctoral position. Her long-term goal is to advance understanding of neural and environmental mechanisms underlying substance use and psychopathology to inform prevention strategies that benefit families and communities.
Karrah Bowman
Educational Psychology
Mary Frances Early College of Education
Karrah Bowman is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Georgia. Under the advisement of Dr. Ashley J. Harrison, Bowman has polished her research pursuit to focus on bettering the educational environment for students on the autism spectrum.
A Florida native and graduate of Florida State University, Bowman chose to pursue her graduate studies in school psychology at the University of Georgia, as she was drawn by the program’s combined clinical and school emphasis and the shared research interests she holds with her advisor, Dr. Ashley J. Harrison—particularly in the broad exploration of autism disparities.
She has been honored with several awards and grants throughout her graduate school years, including the college’s Amazing Student Series Award (2023), the program’s Hynd Award for Excellence in Collegiality and Scholarship (2024), and the Graduate School’s Summer Dissertation Research Grant (2025), and she is currently a member in the Center for Teacher and Learning Future Faculty Fellows program.
Bowman is motivated and inspired through interdisciplinary collaboration and aims to utilize her versatile skills in clinical practice, research, and teaching as a tenured-track professor. In this role, Bowman will continue to conduct implementation science research to understand inclusive education barriers and partner with key stakeholders to identify practical solutions.
Kristen Eggler
Psychology
Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Kristen Eggler is a Ph.D. candidate in the Industrial Organizational Psychology Program at UGA, studying under Dr. Jeffrey Olenick. Her research examines how organizational practices, employee allyship, and reactions to diversity initiatives and messaging interact to support or inhibit inclusive work environments.
Her research uses multiple methodological approaches including qualitative analysis, experimental designs, computational modeling, and natural language processing. Current projects focus on assessing applicant reactions to DEI messaging in recruitment materials, defining and operationalizing allyship, and designing effective diversity training programs.
Prior to attending UGA, Eggler received her M.S. in Psychology from Old Dominion University and her B.A. in Psychological Science from Gustavus Adolphus College. While at UGA, Eggler has published in the journals Group and Organizational Management and Industrial Organizational Psychology, currently has several first-author manuscripts under review, and presented her work across 23 conferences, symposia, panels, and posters.
Eggler has received funding for research and conference travel across several small grants and awards including the UGA Graduate School Summer Research Grant, the Dan Mack Graduate Research Grant, the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology Small Grant, and Student Travel Award. Eggler has received awards recognizing her work for its scholarly impact and commitment to diversity including the Dan Mack Fellowship Award, the UGA Psychology Graduate Student Diversity Research Award, and the Minnesota Psychological Association Undergraduate Award.
Upon graduation, Eggler plans to continue her work as a tenure-track professor at a rigorous academic institution.
Carlos Breña Gastañadui
Musical Arts - Performance
Hugh Hodgson School of Music & Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Carlos Breña Gastañadui is a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate in Violin Performance with a minor in Music Education at the University of Georgia. Working with Dr. Rebecca Atkins and Dr. Jing Xu, he discovered opportunities to pursue music education and interdisciplinary research.
Gastañadui’s dissertation, “Left-Hand Mechanics in Violin Pedagogy: Historical Perspectives and Injury Prevention,” explores how different left-hand techniques affect comfort, coordination, and long-term physical health in violin playing. His research combines insights from historical pedagogy and biomechanics to better understand finger motion and reduce the risk of injury. Working with the Department of Kinesiology, he is using motion capture technology to study hand mechanics during violin performance and aims to provide practical tools for teachers and students.
Originally from Peru, he holds a Bachelor of Music from the Conservatorio Nacional de Música del Perú and a Master of Music from the University of North Dakota. He chose UGA to study under Regents and Franklin Professor Dr. Levon Ambartsumian and perform with the ARCO Chamber Orchestra.
Gastañadui has performed as a soloist with orchestras in Peru and abroad and served as concertmaster of the UGA Symphony Orchestra. He has taught at both university and pre-college levels and is passionate about developing techniques that support physical well-being over time through individualized instruction. He was selected to play with the Youth Ibero-American Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel in 2009 and received a full scholarship to the Fontainebleau Schools of Music and Fine Arts in France in 2011.
After graduation in May 2026, Gastañadui plans to pursue a career combining professional orchestral performance with university teaching and research-informed pedagogy.
Stephanie Hanus-Knapp
Sociology
Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Stephanie Hanus-Knapp is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology, where she is advised by Dr. Leslie Gordon Simons. Her research interests are in the areas of family, life-course, and aging. Specifically, her work is concerned with experiences of romantic relationships, as well as well-being, across the life course.
Her dissertation, “Testing a Comprehensive Model of Adult Romantic Relationships at Mid-Late Life,” examines the influence of romantic relationships, holistically, on various outcomes of health and well-being, including depressive symptoms, self-reported health, and measures of epigenetic aging. Hanus-Knapp’s other research has been published in the Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Journal of Family Issues, Social Science and Medicine, and Media, Culture, and Society.
When not working on research, Hanus-Knapp uses her research to inform her teaching, having taught over 400 students across five courses at the University of Georgia. Her teaching efforts have been recognized by the University of Georgia’s Graduate School and Center for Teaching and Learning by receiving the 2025 Excellence in Teaching Award.
Kristen Morrow
Anthropology and Center for Integrative Conservation Research
Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Kristen Morrow is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology and Center for Integrative Conservation Research at the University of Georgia. While working under Dr. Roberta Salmi, Morrow examined the importance of unprotected peat swamp forests for local livelihoods and primate conservation in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Her project uses participant observation, semi-structured interviews, participatory mapping, and passive acoustic monitoring to examine how national-level forest management, local-scale land use practices, and climate change impact local livelihoods and the primate populations that inhabit the region. In partnership with Universitas Gadjah Mada and Borneo Nature Foundation, Morrow’s research aims to help guide equitable conservation planning that will support local communities while protecting the orangutans, gibbons, red langurs, proboscis monkeys, long tailed macaques, pig tailed macaques, lorises, and tarsiers that inhabit the region.
Morrow completed her B.A. in Anthropology at the University of Georgia in 2014 and then completed her M.A. in Anthropology at San Diego State University before beginning her doctoral training in the Integrative Conservation (ICON) program at UGA. She chose to return to UGA because the interdisciplinary training provided by the ICON program allowed her to bring together her research interests in wildlife conservation, human-primate relationships, and anthropology.
She is a PEO Scholar Award recipient and received the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad award to support her research. Morrow is grateful to various entities that have supported her research, including the UGA Department of Anthropology, the UGA Center for Integrative Conservation Research, the UGA Graduate School, the UGA Office of Global Engagement, the American-Indonesian Exchange Foundation, the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, and IDEA Wild.
Matthew Nyaaba
Educational Theory and Practice
Mary Frances Early College of Education
Matthew Nyaaba is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department Educational Theory and Practice at the University of Georgia. While working under Dr. Xiaoming Zhai, Nyaaba’s research addressed a critical challenge in STEM education: the lack of assessment grounded in students’ cultural and contextual realities, which has discouraged many K-12 students, particularly those from historically marginalized communities, from pursuing STEM- related programs.
Before his doctoral studies, Nyaaba taught science and ICT in Grades 4–9 in both international and public schools in Ghana. He later transitioned to higher education as a teacher educator, where he taught science, inclusive and differentiated instructional courses. At UGA, he was a Teaching Assistant and Field Supervisor, mentoring teacher candidates in coursework and clinical practice. He has led cross-cultural GenAI webinars, facilitated GenAI workshops, and presented at national and international conferences.
While conducting his research, Nyaaba developed a Generative AI framework for culturally responsive science assessment (CRSciA) to support prompt engineering and the development of GenAI tools. Building on this framework, Nyaaba has developed a prototype GenAI-based tool to assist teachers in generating CRSciA. He is currently exploring how STEM teachers can use his theoretically informed GenAI tool to co-design CRSciAs that promote student learning.
His dissertation proposal earned second place in the 2025 AACTE Dissertation Funding Competition. He was the winner of the 2024 Saeeda Peermahomed Award for Outstanding International Student, UGA, and was named an Amazing Student by the Mary Frances College of Education, UGA.
Yucheng Shi
Computer Science
School of Computing
Yucheng Shi is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the University of Georgia, where he is advised by Dr. Ninghao Liu. His research focuses on large language models (LLMs), multi-modal learning, and trustworthy AI. He specializes in developing responsible AI systems, with extensive experience in foundation model post-training, synthetic data generation, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
Shi chose the University of Georgia for its strong research program and the opportunity to work with leading faculty in his field. Throughout his doctoral studies, he has published multiple papers in top-tier conferences, including ICML, ICLR, NeurIPS, and AMIA. He is the recipient of several awards, including the AMIA 2024 Distinguished Paper Award, the NeurIPS 2023 Scholar Award, and the University of Georgia’s Outstanding Graduate Student Award.
He has gained valuable research experience as an intern at Tencent AI Lab and a student researcher at Harvard Medical School. In the coming semester, Shi will be joining Netflix as a Research Scientist Intern. He is eager to continue his work in advancing the frontiers of responsible and trustworthy AI in his future career.
Jiyue Zhao
College of Environment and Design
Jiyue Zhao is a Ph.D. candidate in the College of Environment and Design at the University of Georgia. While working under Dr. Rosanna Rivero, Zhao specialized in investigating the co-evolution of urban morphology and landscape ecology to enhance coastal resilience and climate adaptation.
Her academic foundation in urban planning and landscape architecture, combined with four years of experience as a professional urban planner on over 20 projects, provided critical insight into how planning decisions impact communities. This practical work ignited her interest in leveraging spatial data and modeling to inform more effective conservation strategies.
Zhao chose the University of Georgia for its renowned program integrating geographic information science with community-focused research. A primary factor in her decision was the opportunity to work under the mentorship of her advisor, Dr. Rosanna Rivero, a leading expert in geospatial technologies for environmental and land use planning. Her dedication at UGA has been recognized with honors including the 2021 Digital Landscape Architecture Conference poster prize, the Sisson Community Leadership Development Award, and the University’s Student Employee of the Year Award. This recognition validates her commitment and supports the final stages of her dissertation.
Upon graduation, Zhao plans to secure a tenure-track faculty position to continue her research and mentor the next generation of planners. Her ultimate ambition is to bridge the gap between science and practice by developing policy-relevant recommendations that support climate adaptation strategies for vulnerable coastal communities.
Wenqing Zhao
Advertising & Public Relations
Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication
Wenqing Zhao is a Ph.D. candidate in Mass Communication at Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication, advised by Dr. Yan Jin. Her research focuses on strategic communication, public relations, crisis communication, strategic conflict management, and psychophysiological methods. Specifically, her work has examined strategies to manage organizational crisis, political crisis, and informational conflicts.
Before joining The University of Georgia, she received her M.A. in Communication at Washington State University and B.A. in Journalism at Shanghai University, China. Zhao has published 11 peer-reviewed journal articles and contributed to 17 presentations at peer-reviewed conferences during her time at UGA. Her work has been published in Human Communication Research, Public Relations Review, Communication Monographs, Journal of Applied Communication Research, etc.
At UGA, Zhao is the lab manager for the Brain, Body, and Media (BBAM) Lab and the research coordinator for CIA (Crisis Insights and Analytics) Lab affiliated with Crisis Communication Think Tank (CCTT). She was selected as a Future Faculty Fellow in 2024.
After graduation, she aims to continue pursuing her research journey in crisis communication and strategic conflict management through an assistant professor position at a higher education institution.
