University Letter

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ND EPSCoR announces doctoral dissertation assistantship awards

The North Dakota Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (ND EPSCoR) has announced the 2015 – 2016 Doctoral Dissertation Assistantship (DDA) awards at the University of North Dakota.

ND EPSCoR’s DDA awards are designed to increase the completion rate of Ph.D. students enrolled in the science, engineering, and mathematics disciplines at North Dakota’s research-intensive universities. Because of the close connection of outstanding graduate students and the competitiveness of North Dakota researchers for receiving merit-based grants and contracts in support of science and technology research from federal funding agencies, the DDA awards are expected to have very high impact.

DDA support is available for up to 24 months to enable doctoral students to dedicate their time to dissertation research. Applications are made by the students with supplemental information provided by their advisors, along with endorsement from their Graduate Program Director and Department Chair.

Six competitive awards were made at UND. The review committee was very impressed by the overall quality of the proposals and noted that funding limitations precluded some otherwise deserving proposals from being awarded.

The 2015 – 2016 DDA students, their departments, faculty mentors, and the topic of their approved research proposals are as follows:

Nicholas Cilz, Basic Sciences, Dr. Saobo Lei, “In Search of Endogenous Actions of Neurotensin.”

Riley McGlynn, Biology, Dr. Brian Darby, “Genomic regulation of abiotic stress responses in the soil nematode Oscheius tipulae”

Ivana Brzonova, Chemical Engineering, Dr. Yun Ji, “Lignin biodegradation and bioconversion into value-added chemicals.”

Jana Rousova, Chemistry, Dr. Alena Kubatova, “Impact of Particulate Matter Interaction on PAH Oxidation Product Formation.”

Run Li, Chemistry, Dr. Mark Hoffmann, “Development of Computational Theories based on Hartree–Fock–Bogolubov for Molecules.”

Siby Jose Plathottam, Electrical Engineering, Dr. Hossein Salehfar, “Design of an Optimal Controller for Induction Machine Based Electric Drives Using Neural Networks.”

For additional information concerning ND EPSCoR or the DDA program, please contact Dr. Mark. R. Hoffmann, Associate Vice President for Research Capacity Building and Associate Project Director, ND EPSCoR, Twamley Hall, Room 101, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58201-7093, 777.2492 or online at www.ndepscor.nodak.edu .