Happening @ Michigan https://events.umich.edu/list/rss RSS Feed for Happening @ Michigan Events at the University of Michigan. Dissertation Defense: Inquiring Further: Essays on Epistemic Normativity (May 31, 2022 9:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/94782 94782-21767868@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, May 31, 2022 9:30am
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: Department of Philosophy

COMMITTEE:
Weatherson, Brian (co-chair)
Moss, Sarah (co-chair)
Joyce, Jim
Lasonen-Aarnio, Maria
Buss, Sarah
Hershovitz, Scott (cognate, Law)


ABSTRACT:
My dissertation defends the importance of epistemic norms on what I call ‘inquiring further.’ Inquiring further is a familiar practice we all engage in when we redeliberate, gather more evidence, or double-check our beliefs. Nonetheless, many philosophers have argued that norms governing when we should gather evidence or reinquire are at most practical or moral norms. Against this, I argue that norms on inquiring further are central to our conception of responsible epistemic agency. I do this by appealing to both the roles of epistemic evaluations and our practices of holding agents epistemically accountable. My dissertation thereby expands and enriches our understanding of epistemic evaluations and normativity.

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Other Fri, 20 May 2022 08:17:42 -0400 2022-05-31T09:30:00-04:00 2022-05-31T11:30:00-04:00 Angell Hall Department of Philosophy Other
Statistical approaches for spatially-dependent functional data and their application in oceanography (June 2, 2022 8:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/95176 95176-21788731@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, June 2, 2022 8:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Statistics Dissertation Defenses

Abstract:
In many scientific fields, there is interest and need in analyzing data with complex dependence structures. This work is motivated by the Argo data, a dataset of measurements of the upper 2,000 meters of the world's oceans, which has revolutionized the scientific community's monitoring of oceanic temperature and salinity in the past 20 years. This data has a number of complex and challenging features for statistical analysis. It is inherently a 4-dimensional space-time dataset: one observes data in space (longitude and latitude), time, and pressure (or equivalently, depth) in the ocean. Data collection occurs at more than 100,000 locations per year and consists of hundreds of millions of measurements. Measured ocean variables display nonstationarity as their statistical properties significantly change over time and over space. The contribution of this thesis is the development of statistical methodology for this data with a focus on spatio-temporal functional data. That is, we treat the Argo data as functions of pressure that describe ocean characteristics in the upper 2,000 meters of the ocean, and we extend perspectives used in spatial statistics to functional data with the goal of addressing the complex features of the data.

In the first chapter, we introduce the Argo data and relevant literature in more detail. In the next chapter, we describe a local estimation approach for spatio-temporal functional data, using the Argo dataset as an instrumental framework for this approach. In the third chapter, we consider the theoretical statistical performance of such estimation methodology in a spatial functional-data setting. In the fourth chapter, we develop statistical methodology for clustering multivariate spatio-temporal functional data in a functional regression framework to predict dissolved oxygen concentration in the ocean. In the fifth chapter, we introduce a new Matérn model for multivariate time series and random fields that offers improved model flexibility over previously proposed models. Finally, we discuss open questions that have arisen from our work.

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Presentation Wed, 18 May 2022 08:47:03 -0400 2022-06-02T08:00:00-04:00 2022-06-02T10:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Statistics Dissertation Defenses Presentation Defense Flyer
Dissertation Defense: Symmetry and Reformulation: On Intellectual Progress in Science and Math (June 3, 2022 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/94783 94783-21767869@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, June 3, 2022 1:00pm
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: Department of Philosophy

COMMITTEE:
Ruetsche, Laura (co-chair)
Belot, Gordon (co-chair)
Baker, David
Elvang, Henriette (cognate, Physics)

ABSTRACT:
Scientists and mathematicians routinely make progress by reformulating their problem-solving plans. Whereas many philosophers focus on competing theories, methodologies, or foundations, I focus on what I call "compatible formulations." In these cases, different problem-solving plans peacefully coexist, mutually illuminating their subject matter. My dissertation defends an account of the nature and value of compatible formulations. I argue that reformulations often provide a kind of objective, non-practical, epistemic value, which I call "intellectual significance." Meeting the constitutive aims of science and mathematics requires reformulating.

Of course, not all reformulations are intellectually significant: some are trivial notational variants. To distinguish trivial from significant reformulations, I consider four different accounts of the value of reformulating, based on instrumental, intellectual, explanatory, and metaphysical value. According to what I call "conceptualism," reformulations are significant when they provide an epistemically distinct plan for solving problems. The intellectual value of reformulating does not require corresponding explanatory or metaphysical differences, and it goes beyond practical or instrumental value. To avoid more weighty commitments, I provide expressivist accounts of (i) what it means for one formulation to provide better understanding than another and (ii) what it means for one formulation to be more fundamental. Finally, I analyze what it means for a formulation to make a property manifest or perspicuous, e.g. by "wearing it on the sleeves."

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Other Mon, 23 May 2022 16:49:52 -0400 2022-06-03T13:00:00-04:00 2022-06-03T15:00:00-04:00 Angell Hall Department of Philosophy Other
Network Inference with Applications in Neuroimaging (June 20, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/95695 95695-21790561@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, June 20, 2022 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Statistics

Abstract:
With network data becoming ubiquitous in many applications, many models and algorithms for network analysis have been proposed. Besides the commonly studied single binary network, in which each node in the network represents a single object and the edge between two nodes represents the relationship between the two, multiple weighted networks are also frequently observed in neuroimaging. In such applications, a network can be observed for each individual, with all networks sharing the same set of nodes. In this thesis, we develop inference methods for both types of network with application to neuroimaging dataset.

For a single binary network, there exists many inference models. Yet methods for providing uncertainty estimates in addition to point estimates of network parameters are much less common. Bootstrap and other resampling procedures have been an effective general tool for estimating uncertainty from i.i.d. samples, resampling network data is substantially more complicated. In Chapter 1, we compare three different network resampling procedures from the point of view of uncertainty estimation, and propose a general procedure to construct confidence intervals for network parameters through network resampling. We find that no one procedure is universally best for all tasks, and demonstrate the pros and cons of different resampling strategies through simulation studies.

In Chapter 2, based on the motivating example of Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, we proposed an algorithm for fitting multiple response regression problems where predictors are weighted network and edge weights are used as features. While most multiple response regression methods take advantage of correlated responses by incorporating covariance structure in the error vector, the method we proposed also considers the additional information provided in network-valued predictors by adding the constraint that a common community structure is shared across different prediction coefficients. We apply the method to the ABCD dataset, and provide inference on the relationship between rest-state brain fMRI networks and multiple cognitive task performance of 9-10 year old adolescence.

While learning the community structure shared across regression coefficients corresponding to different cognitive tasks allows better interpretation of the partition of brain areas, a discrete community assignment might impose a constraint that is too strong to remain the predictive power of brain connectomes. In Chapter 3, we relax the constraint to shared low rank structure across regression coefficients, and compared the performance of common structures learnt through three different methods, namely the low rank structure and the mixed membership structure in the coefficient of common cognitive ability, and the shared low rank embeddings in all task-specific regression coefficients.

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Presentation Mon, 20 Jun 2022 10:09:38 -0400 2022-06-20T10:00:00-04:00 2022-06-20T11:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Statistics Presentation
Formation of the First Galaxies (June 20, 2022 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/95390 95390-21789882@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, June 20, 2022 11:00am
Location: West Hall
Organized By: Department of Astronomy

Dissertation Defense

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Presentation Thu, 02 Jun 2022 14:15:02 -0400 2022-06-20T11:00:00-04:00 2022-06-20T13:00:00-04:00 West Hall Department of Astronomy Presentation West Hall
Linguistics Dissertation Defense (June 24, 2022 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/95579 95579-21790351@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, June 24, 2022 11:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Linguistics

Linguistics PhD candidate Jian Zhu will defend his dissertation on Friday, June 24, at 11 am.
Title: A computational account of selected patterns of linguistic variation and change
Zoom link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/93720993749, password: dimsum
Co-Chairs: Pam Beddor and David Jurgens

PhD defenses in the Linguistics Department are open to the public. Anyone is welcome to attend if interested.

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Other Thu, 23 Jun 2022 10:00:18 -0400 2022-06-24T11:00:00-04:00 2022-06-24T13:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Linguistics Other
Linguistics Dissertation Defense (June 29, 2022 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/95694 95694-21790560@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, June 29, 2022 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Linguistics

Linguistics PhD candidate Moira Saltzman will defend her dissertation on Wednesday, June 29, at 9 am. Title: "A History of Jejueo." Committee co-chairs are Marlyse Baptista and Sally Thomason.

PhD defenses in the Linguistics Department are open to the public. Anyone is welcome to attend if interested.

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Other Thu, 23 Jun 2022 10:01:02 -0400 2022-06-29T09:00:00-04:00 2022-06-29T11:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Linguistics Other
EEB Dissertation Defense: The Soil Microbiome and its Response to Permafrost Thaw in Arctic Tundra (June 29, 2022 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/95513 95513-21790025@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, June 29, 2022 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

zoom details to follow

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 09 Jun 2022 07:48:55 -0400 2022-06-29T14:00:00-04:00 2022-06-29T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Lecture / Discussion hikers on a boardwalk over a grassy field with distant mountains
Dissertation Defense: (Title TBD) (July 19, 2022 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/95090 95090-21788458@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, July 19, 2022 1:00pm
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: Department of Philosophy

COMMITTEE:
Railton, Peter (co-chair, Philosophy)
Kross, Ethan (co-chair, Psychology)
Sripada, Chandra
Jorgensen, Renée
Gelman, Susan (cognate, Psychology)


ABSTRACT:
TBD

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Other Wed, 11 May 2022 11:41:35 -0400 2022-07-19T13:00:00-04:00 2022-07-19T15:00:00-04:00 Angell Hall Department of Philosophy Other
EEB Dissertation Defense: Diversification in the Unionidae: Investigating the role of parasitism (July 21, 2022 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/95512 95512-21790024@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, July 21, 2022 11:00am
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

In addition to in-person, there will be a Zoom link. Please reach out to eeb.gradcoord@umich.edu at least two hours in advance for the link.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 07 Jul 2022 08:42:17 -0400 2022-07-21T11:00:00-04:00 2022-07-21T13:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Lecture / Discussion EEB superimposed over leaves, a rodent, an amphibian and a bird
Interpretable and Scalable Graphical Models for Complex Spatio-temporal Processes (July 22, 2022 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/95890 95890-21791380@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, July 22, 2022 11:00am
Location: West Hall
Organized By: Department of Statistics Dissertation Defenses

Abstract: This thesis focuses on data that has complex spatio-temporal structure and on probabilistic graphical models that learn the structure in an interpretable and scalable manner. We target two research areas of interest: Gaussian graphical models for tensor-variate data and summarization of complex time-varying texts using topic models. This work advances the state-of-the-art in several directions. First, it introduces a new class of tensor-variate Gaussian graphical models via the Sylvester tensor equation. Second, it develops an optimization technique based on a fast-converging proximal alternating linearized minimization method, which scales tensor-variate Gaussian graphical model estimations to modern big-data settings. Third, it connects Kronecker-structured (inverse) covariance models with spatio-temporal partial differential equations (PDEs) and introduces a new framework for ensemble Kalman filtering that is capable of tracking chaotic physical systems. Fourth, it proposes a modular and interpretable framework for unsupervised and weakly-supervised probabilistic topic modeling of time-varying data that combines generative statistical models with computational geometric methods. Throughout, practical applications of the methodology are considered using real datasets. This includes brain-connectivity analysis using EEG data, space weather forecasting using solar imaging data, longitudinal analysis of public opinions using Twitter data, and mining of mental health related issues using TalkLife data. We show in each case that the graphical modeling framework introduced here leads to improved interpretability, accuracy, and scalability.

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Presentation Fri, 01 Jul 2022 11:54:34 -0400 2022-07-22T11:00:00-04:00 2022-07-22T13:00:00-04:00 West Hall Department of Statistics Dissertation Defenses Presentation West Hall
Contributions to Quantile and Superquantile Regression (July 25, 2022 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/96201 96201-21792033@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, July 25, 2022 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Statistics Dissertation Defenses

Abstract: Understanding the heterogeneous covariate-response relationship is central to modern data analysis. Beyond the usual descriptors such as the mean and variance, quantile and superquantile (also known as the expected shortfall or conditional value-at-risk) regression can capture the differential covariate effects on the upper or lower tails of the response distribution. This dissertation studies some fundamental aspects of the statistical inference of quantile and super quantile regression.

In the first part of the dissertation, we propose a novel approach to superquantile regression with a critical modification of an optimization formulation in the recent literature. Most existing approaches for superquantile regression rely explicitly on the modeling of the conditional quantile function. In this dissertation, we offer new insights into an optimization formulation for the superquantile, based on which we provide and validate a direct approach to superquantile regression estimation without relying on additional quantile regression modeling. Operationally, the approach can be well approximated by fitting a linear quantile regression to an array of pre-estimated conditional superquantile processes. This approach achieves implicit weighting of the data, which is found to be automatically adaptive to data heterogeneity in a variety of scenarios. With certain initial estimators based on binning of the covariate space, we show the proposed superquantile regression estimator is consistent and asymptotically normal. Via theoretical and numerical comparisons, we show that the proposed approach has competitive, and often superior, performance relative to other common approaches in the literature.

In the second part of the dissertation, we study pseudo-Bayesian inference for possibly sparse quantile regression models. We find that by coupling the asymmetric Laplace working likelihood with appropriate shrinkage priors, we can deliver pseudo-Bayesian inference that adapts automatically to the possible sparsity in quantile regression analysis. After a suitable adjustment on the posterior variance, the proposed method provides asymptotically valid inference under heterogeneity. Furthermore, the proposed approach leads to oracle asymptotic efficiency for the active (nonzero) quantile regression coefficients and super-efficiency for the non-active ones. We also discuss the theoretical extension when the covariate dimension increases with the sample size at a controlled rate. By avoiding the need to pursue dichotomous variable selection as well as nuisance parameter estimation, the Bayesian computational framework demonstrates desirable inferential stability.

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Presentation Thu, 21 Jul 2022 10:06:45 -0400 2022-07-25T09:00:00-04:00 2022-07-25T11:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Statistics Dissertation Defenses Presentation
Linguistics Dissertation Defense (August 2, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/96241 96241-21792162@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, August 2, 2022 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Linguistics

Linguistics graduate candidate Yourdanis Sedarous will defend her dissertation on Tuesday, August 2, at 10 am. Title: "An experimental study on the syntax of English and Egyptian Arabic: A unified account of bilingual grammatical knowledge." Co-chairs are Marlyse Baptista and Acrisio Pires.

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Other Mon, 25 Jul 2022 09:43:27 -0400 2022-08-02T10:00:00-04:00 2022-08-02T12:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Linguistics Other
Dissertation Defense: (Title TBD) (August 2, 2022 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/95252 95252-21789068@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, August 2, 2022 2:00pm
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: Department of Philosophy

COMMITTEE:
Mendlow, Gabe (co-chair)
Weatherson, Brian (co-chair)
Buss, Sarah
Hershovitz, Scott (cognate, Law)
Yaffe, Gideon (special member, Yale)


ABSTRACT:
TBD

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Other Mon, 23 May 2022 14:13:07 -0400 2022-08-02T14:00:00-04:00 2022-08-02T16:00:00-04:00 Angell Hall Department of Philosophy Other
On Some Approximate Inference Approaches in Population Genetics (August 8, 2022 8:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/96641 96641-21792968@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, August 8, 2022 8:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Statistics Dissertation Defenses

The study of evolution has been a central focus of biology for several centuries. One of the fields concerned with the evolutionary process is population genetics. Population genetics studies the genetic composition of populations. To extract useful information from the genetic data, one of the central problems the coalescent has become the primary tool for modeling genealogies. The coalescent was proposed by Kingman in a series of path-breaking papers. Many other authors subsequently built on Kingman’s ideas, leading to a rich understanding of many mathematical and theoretical aspects of evolution.

The coalescent can be interpreted as a probabilistic model for generating random gene trees. Subsequently, it was extended to model recombinations, and also to incorporate mutation processes along the tree. Although these models can in principle be used to compute the likelihood of a given genetic data set, it is not feasible to do so in practice in many cases of interest. This is especially true when the loci have a different evolutionary history due to recombination—then, in order to evaluate the likelihood function, one must integrate out an astronomical number of possible ancestry scenarios that could have generated the data. In order to lift the computational burden that arose in practice, various approximate models have been proposed.

Two of the most important approximations are the Li Stephens haplotype copying model, and the sequentially Markov coalescent. This thesis seeks to understand the fundamental aspects of these approximate inference approaches. Chapter 2 introduces concepts and previous work to provide the context necessary for the rest of the thesis. Chapter 3 consists of joint work focused on the Bayesian posterior consistency of the sequentially Markov coalescent and the ergodicity1 of the sequentially Markov coalescent process. By slightly modifying pairwise sequentially Markov coalescent in a way that does not adversely affect inference, we prove frequentist guarantees about its posterior distribution. We also analyze the ergodicity property of the underlying sequentially Markov coalescent process using the theory of piecewise deterministic Markov process. Chapter 4 first presents a new interpretation of the Li Stephens model in terms of changepoint detection. We derive a new, efficient algorithm for determining the complete solution surface of both the haploid and diploid variants of the Li Stephens algorithm. Chapter 5 is devoted to estimators which combined information from the sample frequency spectrum and pairwise sequentially Markov coalescent. We summarize the results of this dissertation and discuss the drawbacks and some potential directions of our work in Chapter 6.

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Presentation Mon, 08 Aug 2022 10:46:58 -0400 2022-08-08T08:00:00-04:00 2022-08-08T10:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Statistics Dissertation Defenses Presentation
Write-Together (September 9, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795000@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 9, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-09-09T10:00:00-04:00 2022-09-09T13:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Write-Together (September 16, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795001@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 16, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-09-16T10:00:00-04:00 2022-09-16T13:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Write-Together (September 23, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795002@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 23, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-09-23T10:00:00-04:00 2022-09-23T13:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Write-Together (September 30, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795003@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 30, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-09-30T10:00:00-04:00 2022-09-30T13:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Write-Together (October 7, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795004@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 7, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-10-07T10:00:00-04:00 2022-10-07T13:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
EEB dissertation defense: Host-parasite and parasite-parasite interactions drive disease dynamics at multiple levels of biological organization (October 11, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/96243 96243-21792164@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 11, 2022 10:00am
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

This event is in-person and will be livestreamed on Zoom, see link on this page.

Please reach out to eeb.gradcoord@umich.edu at least two hours in advance for the link.

Image credit: Marcin Dziuba

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 30 Sep 2022 10:35:36 -0400 2022-10-11T10:00:00-04:00 2022-10-11T11:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Lecture / Discussion A magnified image of a single Daphnia, which is tiny shrimp-like bug with a single large eye and a transparent body. Parasites are visible inside its body. Image credit: Marcin Dziuba
Write-Together (October 14, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795005@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 14, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-10-14T10:00:00-04:00 2022-10-14T13:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Write-Together (October 28, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795007@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 28, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-10-28T10:00:00-04:00 2022-10-28T13:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Write-Together (November 4, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795008@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 4, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-11-04T10:00:00-04:00 2022-11-04T13:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Write-Together (November 11, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795009@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 11, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-11-11T10:00:00-05:00 2022-11-11T13:00:00-05:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Write-Together (November 18, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795010@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 18, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-11-18T10:00:00-05:00 2022-11-18T13:00:00-05:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Ph.D. Defense: Valerie Washington (December 1, 2022 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101519 101519-21801472@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, December 1, 2022 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering

CHAIRS: Seth Guikema and Joi-Lynn Mondisa

TITLE OF DISSERTATION: Examining the Influence of Natural Hazards on Human Behavior

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Presentation Mon, 21 Nov 2022 10:23:22 -0500 2022-12-01T09:00:00-05:00 2022-12-01T10:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering Presentation Valerie Washington
Write-Together (December 2, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795012@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, December 2, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-12-02T10:00:00-05:00 2022-12-02T13:00:00-05:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Write-Together (December 9, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97717 97717-21795013@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, December 9, 2022 10:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Fri, 21 Oct 2022 09:12:33 -0400 2022-12-09T10:00:00-05:00 2022-12-09T13:00:00-05:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Write-Together Flyer
Ph.D. Defense: Alejandro Vigo Camargo (December 14, 2022 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101779 101779-21802342@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, December 14, 2022 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering

Speaker Bio
Alejandro’s main area of interest is in supply chain logistics. His current research is focused on optimizing the outbound distribution logistics of the food supply chain, by using operations research tools such as mathematical programs and heuristic approximation models. His main goal within this field is to develop models that can be applied in the industry to reduce costs associated with distribution logistics. Other key areas of interest include inventory management and transportation.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 01 Dec 2022 12:08:46 -0500 2022-12-14T09:00:00-05:00 2022-12-14T10:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering Lecture / Discussion Alejandro Vigo Camargo
Resting-State Functional Organization of the Brain in Blindness and Sight Recovery (December 16, 2022 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/101885 101885-21802611@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, December 16, 2022 2:00pm
Location: North Campus Research Complex Building 10
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

Abstract:
Reorganization of the human brain after blindness is well-documented, however, subsequent sight restoration can lead to adaptation that is not as well understood. Successful sight restoration therapy must integrate functionally with the visual system for perception to occur. Thus, our study is strongly motivated by the need to understand brain plasticity after regaining vision. In this thesis, I evaluated use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) for vision studies from two angles: 1) from a methodology perspective, I explored the importance of proper data preprocessing on the resulting rsFC outcome, 2) from a neuroscientific perspective, I examined utility of rsFC as a potential metric of blindness and sight restoration.

It has been shown that choice of analysis pipelines can impact the research findings. Therefore, replication studies that aim to reproduce the previously published results are critically necessary. In the first venue of my research, I verified reproducibility of a well-cited published study on ocular blindness using rsFC. By using the original dataset, I utilized another widely used software package to investigate how applying different implementations of the original pipeline or a more rigorous preprocessing stream can alter the outcomes. These alternative workflows changed the distribution of the whole-brain rsFC and functional network densities, reducing the overlap with the original results. Remarkably, the largest rsFC effects appeared to primarily belong to certain connection pairs, irrespective of the pipeline used, likely demonstrating immunity of the larger effects and likely the true results against suboptimal processing. This may highlight the significance of results verification across different computational streams in search of the true findings.

Functional outcome of using Argus II, as the only retinal prosthesis with FDA approval that has been clinically used, can provide an exceptional opportunity to explore brain’s potential for plasticity upon reintroduction of (artificial) vision. Considerable variability in visual performance has been reported across Argus II recipients that remains unexplained. A previous experiment used fMRI to measure tactile-evoked cross-modal responses in visual cortex and reported no significant group-level results between blind and Argus II groups, possibly due to variability in activation baseline across individuals. The rsFC can potentially overcome this issue by providing a more stable metric. Numerous studies have used rsFC to assess cortical reorganization after blindness, nevertheless, it has rarely been utilized to study sight recovery. 

In this study, four resting-state runs from 10 sighted, 10 blind, with severe retinitis pigmentosa, and 7 Argus II subjects were included. The whole-brain ROI-ROI rsFC and some graph theory functional network measures were calculated and compared at the group level. Some quantities decreased after blindness but were not reversed by vision restitution, including visual-visual rsFC, visual-frontal rsFC and some network measures. On the other hand, significant reduction was observed in visual-somatosensory, visual-auditory, visual-motor and visual-association rsFC after blindness that were all returned to the level of sighted individuals in Argus II recipients. These rsFC measures can potentially serve as biomarkers for blindness and sight restoration, in the absence of or as a complement to the behavioral indices.  The proposed metrics can enhance our understanding of variable outcomes among the receivers of sight restorative technologies and enable tracking rehabilitative progress. Future investigation with larger number of test subjects for this rare condition can further unveil the profound ability of our brain to reorganize, following vision restoration.

Committee Chair(s): James Weiland, PhD

Zoom link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/99207257590
Meeting ID: 992 0725 7590
Passcode: 643920

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Presentation Tue, 06 Dec 2022 10:37:24 -0500 2022-12-16T14:00:00-05:00 2022-12-16T15:00:00-05:00 North Campus Research Complex Building 10 Biomedical Engineering Presentation The Biomedical Engineering Logo on a blurred photo of the LBME building at night.
Deterministic and Chance-Constrained Real-Time Motion Planning Using Reachability Analysis (January 9, 2023 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/102768 102768-21805116@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, January 9, 2023 1:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Michigan Robotics

Chair: Ram Vasudevan
Zoom passcode: DEFENSE

Abstract:
Due to their limited sensing horizon, robots construct trajectories in a receding-horizon fashion, where a trajectory defined over a finite time horizon is computed while the robot tracks a previously planned trajectory. This trajectory is constructed by applying an optimization or sampling based method wherein collision checking is performed against obstacles at discrete time instances. Unfortunately this presents an undesirable tradeoff between real-time performance and safety. Reachability-based Trajectory Design (RTD) circumvents this tradeoff by leveraging offline pre-computation of parameterized over-approximations of the robot behavior using Forward Reachable Sets (FRS) thereby achieving safety and real-time operation. To accomplish this objective, RTD represents the full order dynamics of the robot using a reduced-order model, which enables it to apply polynomial-based reachability analysis offline to the reduced-order model while conservatively bounding the difference between the two models. The result is a parameterized over-approximation of the full order robot behavior which can then be used for real-time trajectory design without sacrificing safety. However, RTD suffers from a pair of shortcomings: first, representing the full order dynamics using a reduced order model can introduce undue conservatism that makes it challenging to construct safe, dynamic motion; and second, RTD deals with probabilistic models of the surrounding environment by requiring that any possible behavior (even one with exceedingly small probability) is safe thereby introducing more conservatism. This thesis focuses on illustrating RTD on a walking robot model and addressing the two issues of RTD.

The first contribution of the thesis generalizes the RTD framework to bipedal robots for flat ground walking using the idea of templates and anchors, where `templates' are simplified descriptions of the behavior of the full-order models as `anchors'. Reachability analysis is performed on the template model under the assumption that the difference between the template and anchor can be bounded. Offline-computed polynomial reachable sets are then incorporated into a Model Predictive Control framework to select controllers that result in safe walking on the biped in an online fashion. The second contribution of the thesis improves the RTD framework for autonomous vehicles by designing a novel robust, partial feedback linearization controller and performing zonotope-based reachability analysis on the closed-loop system. Because only the full-order model is involved in the computation of the reachable set, the outer approximation of the FRS using zonotopes is much tighter than existing polynomial-based, traditional RTD approaches. The third contribution of this thesis extends the RTD framework to deal with uncertainty. Consider the challenge of performing motion planning where one is given a Probability Density Function (PDF) description of an obstacle's state. The problem of bounding the risk of collision while performing motion planning can be cast as a chance-constrained program. To address this challenge, the thesis develops a numerical scheme that conservatively approximates the integral of a PDF over FRS and its gradient with respect to a control parameterization. Using this information, one can formulate a chance-constrained RTD approach to real-time risk-averse motion planning.

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Presentation Wed, 04 Jan 2023 09:15:01 -0500 2023-01-09T13:00:00-05:00 2023-01-09T15:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Michigan Robotics Presentation Two vehicles maneuver around an obstacle
Closing the loop: How sensation impacts prosthetic function and control (January 17, 2023 12:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/103060 103060-21805827@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, January 17, 2023 12:30pm
Location: Ford Robotics Building
Organized By: Michigan Robotics

Chair: Deanna Gates

Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/i/98139244180

Abstract:
The loss of an arm can lead to a loss in both dexterity and sensation. Sensation is critical in closing the motor control loop, making fine adjustments, and identifying object properties, however effective sensory feedback is absent from most modern prosthetic devices. Additionally, despite the importance of sensation the literature is sparse on how to quantify and communicate how different prosthetic arms provide their users with sensory feedback. In this dissertation, I sought to develop tools for quantifying and communicating sensation, and applying these tools to characterize sensory feedback enabled via the stimulation of regenerative peripheral nerve interfaces (RPNIs). I started by building a protocol for directly comparing the availability of sensory feedback between individuals using anatomical and prosthetic limbs through their interactions with a simulated object. I then conducted a systematic literature review of methods of electrical stimulation for the purpose of referring sensory feedback to the phantom limb, analyzing trends in methodologies and outcome measures.

I applied the findings of this review in characterizing RPNI-enabled sensation in four individuals with upper limb amputation.

To assess the utility of RPNI-enabled sensation in an actual task, I developed a virtual reality environment for testing bi-directional prosthetic function. Through these investigations, I empirically confirmed previous anecdotal evidence that sensory feedback, particularly force feedback, is more available to individuals using a body-powered prostheses compared to those using myoelectric prostheses. I determined that the current state of the field uses heterogeneous methodologies that make it difficult to compare results between studies, and recommended guidelines for future research.

Finally, I determined that not only do RPNIs provide sensory feedback that is referred to the phantom hand and consistent over time, but that RPNI-enabled sensory feedback has the potential to improve prosthetic function and positively alter an individual's perception of their phantom limb. These findings support previous literature on the importance of sensation for the improvement of prosthetic function and satisfaction in individuals, and encourage future research into the utility of RPNI-enabled sensation. This work also provides future researchers with several tools that ideally make studying sensation in prosthesis users more approachable, in order to accelerate progress toward a prosthesis that can provide users with naturalistic sensation.

Light snacks and refreshments will be provided.

The Defense for Prince Kuevor will begin soon afterwards at 3:00pm.

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Presentation Wed, 11 Jan 2023 13:06:10 -0500 2023-01-17T12:30:00-05:00 2023-01-17T14:30:00-05:00 Ford Robotics Building Michigan Robotics Presentation Illustration of Michael showing a speech bubble, inside of which a prosthetic hand cracks open an egg, followed by a hand with blue markings on the left and red markings on the right, followed by a prosthetic hand user sorting blocks while wearing VR.
Write-Togethers (January 23, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802934@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, January 23, 2023 9:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-01-23T09:00:00-05:00 2023-01-23T12:00:00-05:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Write-Togethers (January 30, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802935@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, January 30, 2023 9:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-01-30T09:00:00-05:00 2023-01-30T12:00:00-05:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Write-Togethers (February 6, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802936@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 6, 2023 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-02-06T09:00:00-05:00 2023-02-06T12:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Write-Togethers (February 13, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802937@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 13, 2023 9:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-02-13T09:00:00-05:00 2023-02-13T12:00:00-05:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Ph.D. Defense: Luke DeRoos (February 13, 2023 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/104297 104297-21808800@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 13, 2023 10:00am
Location: Industrial and Operations Engineering Building
Organized By: U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering

Luke DeRoos is a PhD student under the guidance of Dr. Mariel Lavieri. His research focuses on improving healthcare quality and access. Methods include stochastic modeling, optimization, and statistical analysis. Specific applications include chronic disease treatment planning and organ transplantation policy. Luke is a Seth Bonder and Rackham Merit Fellow.

He is passionate about social justice issues and is a member of an INFORMS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:05:15 -0500 2023-02-13T10:00:00-05:00 2023-02-13T11:00:00-05:00 Industrial and Operations Engineering Building U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering Lecture / Discussion Luke DeRoos
Write-Togethers (February 20, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802938@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 20, 2023 9:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-02-20T09:00:00-05:00 2023-02-20T12:00:00-05:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Ph.D. Defense: Kati Moug (February 21, 2023 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/104298 104298-21808801@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 1:00pm
Location: Industrial and Operations Engineering Building
Organized By: U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering

Kati Moug is a PhD student interested in applying optimization methods and data analytics to systems engineering problems with social impact. Her research focus is on stochastic optimization, ensuring reliable and resilient solutions under conditions of uncertainty. The application areas that she examines include transportation, health care, and criminal justice. Her goal is to consider how community needs can be met with innovative systems that emphasize efficiency, robustness, and equity.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:09:31 -0500 2023-02-21T13:00:00-05:00 2023-02-21T14:00:00-05:00 Industrial and Operations Engineering Building U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering Lecture / Discussion Kati Moug
Write-Togethers (March 6, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802940@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 6, 2023 9:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-03-06T09:00:00-05:00 2023-03-06T12:00:00-05:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Write-Togethers (March 13, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802941@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 13, 2023 9:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-03-13T09:00:00-04:00 2023-03-13T12:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Ph.D. Defense: Rohan Ghuge (March 20, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/106371 106371-21814142@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 20, 2023 9:00am
Location: Industrial and Operations Engineering Building
Organized By: U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering

Rohan is a PhD student advised by Dr. Viswanath Nagarajan. His research lies broadly in the design and and analysis of algorithms for NP-hard problems. He is interested in studying algorithms under different kinds of computational models, and wants to apply these solution paradigms to real world problems arising in the fields of network design, routing, scheduling and assortment optimization (to name a few!).

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 17 Mar 2023 13:22:34 -0400 2023-03-20T09:00:00-04:00 2023-03-20T10:00:00-04:00 Industrial and Operations Engineering Building U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering Lecture / Discussion Rohan Ghuge
Write-Togethers (March 20, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802942@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 20, 2023 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-03-20T09:00:00-04:00 2023-03-20T12:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Dissertation Chapter Workshop---"The Queer Anxiety of John Addington Symonds" (March 22, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/105937 105937-21813288@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, March 22, 2023 4:00pm
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: Nineteenth Century Forum

Join the Nineteenth Century Forum to provide feedback on member Ana Popovic's work-in-progress! Email Dana Moss (danamoss@umich.edu), Elizabeth Reese (eareese@umich.edu) or Emma Soberano (soberano@umich.edu) for pre-circulated chapter.
Chapter Abstract:
In this essay, I read John Addington Symonds' Memoirs and personal correspondences as textual repositories of queer anxiety. I focus on Symonds' recollections about living in fear of being discovered and publicly humiliated, and I argue that queer anxiety is a structure of feeling constitutive of the homosexual closet. Examining his correspondence with Havelock Ellis and Richard von Krafft-Ebing, I reveal that Symonds theorized his affective life and developed a notion of the cultural origins of queer anxiety. With this, he sought to challenge the psychiatric definitions of homosexual neurosis as a congenital condition and dispute the scientific theories of homosexuality as illness. His autotheoretical contributions, however, were dismissed by sexologists as subjective inferences inadmissible to scientific epistemologies: as the object of the medical gaze, the anxious homosexual could speak, but he could never have the last word.

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Workshop / Seminar Wed, 08 Mar 2023 10:11:55 -0500 2023-03-22T16:00:00-04:00 2023-03-22T17:30:00-04:00 Angell Hall Nineteenth Century Forum Workshop / Seminar
Ph.D. Defense: Seokhyun Chung (March 24, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/106273 106273-21814009@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, March 24, 2023 4:00pm
Location: Industrial and Operations Engineering Building
Organized By: U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering

Seokhyun is a PhD student advised by Dr. Raed Al Kontar. His research interests lie in the predictive models based on Bayesian machine learning, especially for kernel methods and Bayesian deep learning. Specific applications include smart manufacturing, personalized patient monitoring, and dynamic pricing in the energy supply system.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 15 Mar 2023 19:10:30 -0400 2023-03-24T16:00:00-04:00 2023-03-24T17:00:00-04:00 Industrial and Operations Engineering Building U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering Lecture / Discussion Seokhyun Chung
Write-Togethers (March 27, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802943@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 27, 2023 9:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-03-27T09:00:00-04:00 2023-03-27T12:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Write-Togethers (April 3, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802944@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, April 3, 2023 9:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-04-03T09:00:00-04:00 2023-04-03T12:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Write-Togethers (April 10, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802945@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, April 10, 2023 9:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-04-10T09:00:00-04:00 2023-04-10T12:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
Write-Togethers (April 17, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/101922 101922-21802946@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, April 17, 2023 9:00am
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Sweetland Center for Writing

Write-Together sessions provide structure, accountability, and support for graduate writers working on writing at any stage, from papers to theses to journal articles to dissertations and more. For each of these sessions, participants can meet in-person or access a Zoom link and a shared Google document that will serve as a communal virtual space. Students will be invited to post pre-writing goals and post-writing reflections in the document. Writers can also schedule a 10-minute Zoom meeting with Sweetland faculty during each session to discuss writing questions. We will also provide weekly writing strategies to habituate students to best writing practices.

Supported by the Rackham Graduate School and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

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Meeting Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:06:01 -0500 2023-04-17T09:00:00-04:00 2023-04-17T12:00:00-04:00 North Quad Sweetland Center for Writing Meeting Event flyer with dates and times
EEB Thesis Defense - Libby O'Brien, EEB Master's Student (April 21, 2023 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/107669 107669-21816345@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, April 21, 2023 10:00am
Location: Biological Sciences Building
Organized By: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

EEB Thesis Defense - Libby O'Brien, EEB Master's Student
"Long-term leaf and root litter input manipulations influence Q. rubra seedling growth in a mesocosm experiment"

Libby defends their thesis.

Email eeb.gradcoord@umich.edu for access to this seminar virtually.

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Workshop / Seminar Tue, 18 Apr 2023 14:28:26 -0400 2023-04-21T10:00:00-04:00 2023-04-21T11:00:00-04:00 Biological Sciences Building Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Workshop / Seminar event details image
Ph.D. Defense: Teerachart Soratana (April 25, 2023 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/107487 107487-21816097@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 11:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering

Teerachart is a Ph.D. student. His research interest lies in Human-Robot Interaction and Human-Machine Teaming. He is interested in investigating factors that can make a robot’s goal more predictable to humans in the context of an object-handling task. He received his bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering at Purdue University with minors in Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering (2016) and a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering at Purdue University (2019).

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 11 Apr 2023 13:06:09 -0400 2023-04-25T11:00:00-04:00 2023-04-25T12:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering Lecture / Discussion Teerachart Soratana
EEB Student Dissertation Defense: Héctor Figueroa, Ph.D. Student, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (April 25, 2023 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/106862 106862-21814943@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 1:00pm
Location: Biological Sciences Building
Organized By: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

EEB Student Dissertation Defense: Héctor Figueroa, Ph.D. Student, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
"Tracing the evolutionary origins of alpine plant lineages"

Héctor presents his dissertation defense.

Email eeb.gradcoord@umich.edu for access to this seminar virtually.

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 17 Apr 2023 14:20:31 -0400 2023-04-25T13:00:00-04:00 2023-04-25T14:00:00-04:00 Biological Sciences Building Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Workshop / Seminar Biological Sciences Building
Ph.D. Defense: Haoming Shen (May 8, 2023 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/107754 107754-21816447@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, May 8, 2023 3:00pm
Location: Industrial and Operations Engineering Building
Organized By: U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering

Haoming Shen is a PhD student advised by Dr. Ruiwei Jiang. He is interested in decision making under uncertainty. He is currently working on stochastic optimization, integer programming and their applications in power system and transportation system.

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Lecture / Discussion Sat, 22 Apr 2023 15:36:00 -0400 2023-05-08T15:00:00-04:00 2023-05-08T16:00:00-04:00 Industrial and Operations Engineering Building U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering Lecture / Discussion Haoming Shen
EEB Student Dissertation Defense: (May 12, 2023 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/106579 106579-21814491@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, May 12, 2023 1:00pm
Location: Biological Sciences Building
Organized By: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Teresa presents their dissertation defense.

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Workshop / Seminar Thu, 06 Apr 2023 10:36:09 -0400 2023-05-12T13:00:00-04:00 2023-05-12T14:00:00-04:00 Biological Sciences Building Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Workshop / Seminar Biological Sciences Building