Graduate Student Recognition Week
The week of April 21-25, 2008 has been set aside by the Division of Graduate Studies for special recognition of the over 2,000 master's and doctoral degree-seeking graduate students at Fresno State. Many of the students presented here will be at the 2nd annual Graduate Student Expo and Reception on Wednesday, April 23 from 4 -6 pm in the Residence Dining Facility. Please take advantage of this opportunity to meet the students and view their work. This event is free and open to everyone in the campus community and the general public.
Meet Some of Our Graduate Students
College of Agriculture Sciences and Technology
Nick Simonian (M.S., Industrial Technology)
Nick Simonian is using technology to design and develop an unmanned aerial vehicle for agricultural operations, including potential for sensing, imaging, and variable rate application and scouting operations. The system was designed, built, and tested with global positioning systems (GPS) for feasibility of using the aerial vehicle in agriculture for precision farming. Nick and fellow classmate Diganta Adhikari won first and second prize (respectively) for their poster presentation at the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) at Tulare, California, during the World Agricultural Exposition.
Diganta Adhikari (M.S., Industrial Technology)
Agriculture is a vital part of this valley and graduate student Diganta Adhikari is helping the valley economy by focusing on a feasibility of a Micro Drip SCADA System to Mitigate Crop Freeze Damage. This research proposes to use SCADA system to prevent freeze damage, using a combination of irrigation techniques and computer modeling. The proposed computer model will be capable of making intelligent decisions and use the most effective solution according to the changing weather and demand conditions. Additionally this system will be used to manage the irrigation year-round, using the SMART sensors as a feedback loop and providing water to the plants on demand.
Namratha Reddy (M.S., Plant Science)
Namratha Reddy's research is part of an overall program aimed at optimizing nutrient and water use efficiency in agriculture. Namratha is involved in the organic farming component a research program evaluating new technologies for enhancing nitrogen uptake by vegetables. At present there is no other organic farming research being conducted in the College of Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST). She has already presented posters at two state-wide and one national agronomy meeting and an oral presentation at the Central California Research Symposium.
College of Arts and Humanities
Hazel Hofman (M.A., Art and Design)
Hazel Hofman's scholarship in art history is of the high caliber associated with Ph.D. programs in the discipline. Her work on a fragment of a medieval Armenian manuscript showing an atypical secular scene in a tradition dominated by religious themes and imagery promises to bridge the fields of art history, anthropology, and medieval history. In her research, Hazel has not only mastered the primary and secondary source material, but she has initiated contacts with regional specialists and with technical consultants in the areas of imaging and reconstruction. She will present some preliminary results of her dissertation research as a paper entitled "Implications of the Secular Idiom of the Isolated Medieval Leaf of the Family Portrait of Medieval Christian King Gagik-Abas of Kars, Queen Goranduxt, and Princess Marem" at the 29 th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum at Plymouth State University, Plymouth, New Hampshire.
Leslie Batty (M.A., Art and Design)
Leslie Batty won a position on the Fresno Metropolitan Museum Artist Residency Program. This culminated in a public exhibition at the Met that received much acclaim. She was also nominated for the undergraduate Dean's Medal by the Department of Art and Design, which resulted in a scholarship to the Summer Arts Program in Florence, Italy.
Kherstin Khan (M.A., Communication)
Kherstin Khan has been recognized as an outstanding teaching associate in the Department of Communication, achieving additional teaching experience as an adjunct instructor at Fresno City College and Merced College. She has presented her research at the National Communication Association's annual conference and the Central California Research Symposium. She already has one publication to her credit, an instructor's resource manual for the McGraw-Hill textbook Communication in Groups . She serves the region and nation, having worked as a communication coordinator in the office of Congressman Jim Costa and currently as a consultant for the Center for Irrigation Technology, a San Joaquin Valley water advocacy organization.
Kristin FitzPatrick (M.F.A., Creative Writing)
Kristin FitzPatrick is already starting to publish her own work, having recently had a story accepted for publication in the very prestigious national magazine Colorado Review . She's been instrumental in such organizations as the San Joaquin Literary Association, and she's also contributed interviews to Fresno Famous and done fabulous work for the Young Writers' Conference.
Ria Kudu Inge Cahyani (M.A., Linguistics)
Ria Kudu Inge Cahyani's focus is on "Indonesian and English Linguistics Hybridization in Media Discourse: Some Findings from Indonesian Adolescents' Magazines Across Time." Her study describes the use of English in one of the most popular Indonesian magazines for adolescents. Three different exemplars from three different years are analyzed to illustrate the increasing number of English words, phrases, and sentences. The results show that the use of English has been shifting from phonologically integrated English loanwords to the use of English words, phrases, and sentences. This study also examines the different types of linguistic hybridization that appear in the data. The findings show that hybridization in the data indicates that the use of English in Indonesia is based on its local cultural context. The implication of the hybridization regarding the non-discreteness of linguistic boundary of English and Indonesian is also discussed.
Faith Sidlow (M.A., Mass Communication & Journalism)
Faith Sidlow, a graduate student in Mass Communication, has worked as assignment editor, producer, consumer reporter, and weather forecaster. For the past two years, Faith and former co-anchor Bud Elliott received the Associated Press Mark Twain award for Best Anchor Team Division II in California, Nevada, and Hawaii. Ms. Sidlow has also won numerous awards for reporting, including the Edward R. Murrow, RTNDA, Emmy, Best of the West, and several Associated Press awards.
Zoua Vang (M.A., Mass Communication & Journalism)
Zoua Vang helped to establish and currently runs First 5 Fresno County's Communications Department. As Communications Director, she handles internal and external communications for the Commission and works on the Commission's policy and advocacy agenda. Zoua spent four years co-hosting and reporting for Hmong television shows in Fresno and St. Paul, Minnesota. Zoua's work as a reporter has taken her to a refugee camp in Thailand to document the Hmong in Wat Thamkrabok and to Ground Zero in New York City. Zoua has been honored for her reporting and documentary film work with two Associated Press Awards and a Best of the West Award.
Sarah Basiletti (M.A., Music)
Sarah Basiletti, continues to bring music to the valley. This young lady was the Mallet Percussion Instructor for the Bulldog Marching Band from 2005 to 2007. Last year she arranged and conducted a percussion medley of holiday tunes for the annual Bulldog Marching Band Christmas performance at President Welty's house. Sarah has also arranged percussion parts for Fight Varsity! (the Bulldog fight song) and many of the field shows. Additionally, she has played with the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, Fresno Community Chorus, Fresno Choral Artists, and Kings Symphony Orchestra. Currently Sarah is teaching part-time at Fresno State (Music 1A) and Reedley College and plans to continue as Pit Instructor for the Bulldog Marching Band. Recently, she started an after-school percussion ensemble at Wawona Middle School in Fresno. Her plans for the immediate future are to remain heavily involved in Fresno's musical community and possibly pursue a doctoral degree in music theory.
Silvia Mejía (M.A., Spanish)
Silvia Mejía is a graduate student in the Spanish program and her thesis is socially conscious. Ms. Mejía takes the Peruvian writer César Vallejo's main books of poetry to present a humble and noble vision regarding possible solutions to our world: the great and deep solitude that characterizes human existence, when juxtaposed with Karl Marx's ideas as presented in the Communist Manifesto, dissipates before the unity that is forged when a strong community is established and maintained. Silvia's thesis stems from a strong social conscience that struggles with today's social inequity and tries to directly become involved in a solution to the disparity in the distribution of wealth.
Craig School of Business
Ann Townsend (M.B.A.)
Ms. Townsend is this year's Craig School of Business nominee for the Outstanding Thesis Award in connection with her research titled "Fear and Loathing in Steinbeck Country: Factors Affecting Technology Change and Skills Acquisition in a Central California School District." Her thesis committee has praised her hard work and dedication to her studies. Thus, they have paid her the highest compliments stating, "The thesis revealed several factors that can be used in organizational strategies that make it a very useful piece of research. In all, the combination of theory and practice makes this thesis stand out and without doubt material for one or more refereed journal articles."
Kremen School of Education and Human Development
Oscar Fonseca (M.S., Counseling - Counseling and Student Services)
Oscar Fonseca is finishing a Master of Science Degree in Counseling and Student Services with an option in Higher Education. Mr. Fonseca's work, "Latino Parent Involvement and Exposure to Higher Education: Increasing the Number of Latinos in Colleges and Universities in the United States," has become a training workshop to be presented to parents, children, counselors, and universities designed to properly inform Latino families of the five aspects of college admission. Upon completion of the project, the Fresno County Office of Education - Migrant Program Region IV and the Educational Leadership Foundation asked to sponsor a series whereby the training workshop could be delivered in rural communities to Spanish-speaking immigrant families.
Michelle L. Adams (M.A., Education - Administration and Supervision)
Michelle L. Adams, a graduate student in Education (Administration and Supervision option), is helping Hanford fifth-graders improve their achievement scores on a California State Department of Education physical fitness test. The purpose of Michelle's research is to determine the effectiveness of an intervention designed to improve student scores. Her study contributes to the body of research on childhood fitness, recommending continued professional development of teachers and the employment of more physical education teachers.
Cary Stolpestad (M.A., Education - Curriculum and Instruction)
A former associate planner for the San Luis Obispo County Department of Planning Coastal Land Use/Advance Planning Division, Cary Stolpestad is currently an outstanding fourth-grade teacher at Manchester GATE Elementary School in the Fresno Unified School District and student in the MA in Education (Curriculum and Instruction option) program. She is the recipient of a Provost's Graduate Scholarship and was named Teacher of the Year by the Rotary Club of Fresno County in 2006. She has published several acclaimed integrated curriculum units, including "California Here We Come: Re-living the California Gold Rush," "If you Give Teachers an Aquarium...They're Going to Want a River," and "San Joaquin River." Cary is also the featured educator and contributor for four books published by Scholastic and Heinemann. Ms. Stolpestad is currently working on a master's project that looks at the relationship between higher-order thinking skills and SES.
Dee Dee Raven (Buchannan) (M.A., Education - Reading/Language Arts)
Dee Dee Raven Buchannan, a graduate student in Education (Reading/Language Arts option), has investigated a range of issues concerning the implementation of critical literacy in elementary classrooms. Her findings indicate that 1) there is a range of approaches to address perspective and disrupt the commonplace simplistic understandings of the text, 2) in an attempt to teach the skills of critical literacy, the spirit and goals of critical literacy can be missed, and 3) more work needs to be done to define what constitutes the action part of critical literacy.
Nora Guillen (M.A., Education - Reading/Language Arts)
Nora Guillen, a graduate student in Education (Reading/Language Arts option), worked on extending the Reading and Language Arts curriculum at Madison Elementary in Madera, California. She added and enhanced the use of Reader's Theatre through the integration of an Interactive Read Aloud to help motivate English Language Learners in the fourth grade to read and comprehend through the adaptation of text into a student created Reader's Theatre script. The results of her project revealed that Reader's Theatre, when used in this interactive form, does motivate English Language Learners to read through its engaging nature and the use of a high interest read aloud while building reading comprehension.
John D. Forbes (Ed.D., Educational Leadership)
John D. Forbes serves as the Dean of Curriculum and Instruction for the Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART). He has just completed his dissertation addressing the recruitment and the retention of newly employed teachers in an urban school setting. He recently had an article published (Forbes & Saunders, 2008) and another article is currently under review by a refereed journal (Young & Forbes, under review). This last work has been accepted for presentation at the National Council of Educational Administrators during their annual conference in July 2008.
Jennifer Hughes (M.S., Rehabilitation Counseling)
Jennifer Hughes is taking the Rehabilitation Counseling program to a new level, introducing innovative methods of recruitment like the use of MySpace, and outreach at Historical Black Community Colleges and Tribal Colleges. Ms. Hughes is also and active student who presented research entitled "The Resource Guides for People with Depression" and "Bias on Assessments." The resource guides for people with depression that Ms. Hughes put together in a booklet are now being used in a community agency that works with people with substance abuse issues and dual diagnoses. She also developed a Power Point presentation regarding assistive technology for the Center for Independent Living in Fresno.
Jennifer Stoddard (M.S., Rehabilitation Counseling)
Jennifer Stoddard is helping shape the future of the Rehabilitation Counseling program by co-chairing a first ever of its kind Rehabilitation Counseling Institute (RCI), featuring keynote addresses from nationally recognized professionals in rehabilitation, multicultural counseling, homeland security, and emergency preparedness. Besides her involvement in making the Rehabilitation Counseling program nationally recognized, Ms. Stoddard was the lead presenter, in a group of three other students, in the presentation titled "Increasing Student Ownership and Professional Identity in a Rehabilitation Program" at the National Council of Rehabilitation Counseling Annual Conference in San Antonio, TX.
Jennifer Schott (M.A., Special Education)
Jennifer Schott is currently working at the Fresno Central Watershed Education Program as Project Director. Her love for education has led to a master's project entitled "Working with Students with Conduct Disorders in the Classroom." In this project, she created field trips for 4th, 5th, and 6 th -grade students in Central Unified School District, incorporating hands-on multi-sensory activities. Ms. Schott was nominated as Teacher of the Year in Central Unified. Her leadership both at her school site and in the community demonstrates her interest in serving students at all levels. Jennifer's project topic on conduct disorders will provide teachers and parents with information regarding learner characteristics, strategies for teaching and engaging these students in the classroom, and recommended resources.
College of Engineering
James Ferguson (M.S., Engineering)
James Ferguson is studying the important role of renewable energy systems. James designed and built a "Power Inverter" that is typically used to interface solar panels to the electric power grid. Such a project requires knowledge in the wide area of electrical engineering including analog/digital electronics, electric power, instrumentation, and signal conditioning. In addition to engineering design, the implementation aspect of the project is very challenging due to working with high voltage and high current devices. James never hesitated to take the challenge and he was able to overcome several technical problems with confidence and persistence. It was clear from the beginning that he was interested in learning rather than just graduating. His mature outlook led him to completing a real world project and demonstrating his competence as an engineer.
College of Health and Human Services
Erin Jang (M.A., Communicative Disorders)
Erin Jang is studying the effectiveness of parent training on preschool-aged children's stuttering. She is using a treatment called "The Lidcombe Program" to reduce stuttering in preschool-aged children. It has been established that the Licombe Program does reduce stuttering; however, because of its many components, it is unknown what exactly is making the program effective. Erin's multiple baseline, single-subject design study investigated the effects of direct parent training versus no parent training on three preschool-aged children who stutter.
Mike and Matt Villanueva (M.A.,Kinesiology)
Two of kind, these brothers are in their last semester as graduate students and currently are collaborating on an investigation to develop normative data for the standing long and vertical jump and the Q-angle. Their own graduate research is ground-breaking as it attempts to determine if there is an ergogenic effect following the ingestion of creatine alone and/or creatine plus caffeine on a measure of upper and lower body muscular strength performance. They will be pursuing their doctoral degrees at the University of Southern California starting in fall 2008.
Henry "Rocky" David Cisneros, III (M.P.T., Master of Physical Therapy)
Henry "Rocky" David Cisneros, III, who will complete his Master's in Physical Therapy, has won department honors for his project, "Efficacy of Multidimensional Exercise to Improve Balance, Mobility, and Fall Risk of a Person with Early to Moderate Onset of Parkinson's Disease: A Case Report." He will continue his work in the joint Doctor of Physical Therapy with the University of California, San Francisco fall 2008. Mr. Cisneros's career goals are to specialize in neurological rehabilitation and orthopedics.
Amrik Sidhu (D.P.T., Doctor of Physical Therapy)
Amrik Sidhu received his Master's in Physical Therapy (MPT) in May 2007 and promptly became part of the first cohort of Doctor of Physical Therapy students at California State University, Fresno. Amrik is a practicing physical therapist who is committed to publishing his research. His paper, "Dabbing the Skin Surface Dry during Ice Massage Augments Rate of Temperature Drop," was published in the International Journal of Exercise Science in January of 2008. Amrik presented his research in April 2007 at the Central California Research Symposium and also presented at the California Chapter Physical Therapy Association's Annual Conference in September 2007. Amrik will be graduating as part of the first Doctor of Physical Therapy class of 2008 this spring.
Brittany Growdon (M.P.H., Master of Public Health)
Brittany Growdon is redefining the workplace by researching the difference between the amount of leisure time, physical activity, onsite cafeterias, and occupation and determining whether or not these factors lead to obesity. Brittany's goal throughout this research was to help her data collection site in recognizing a need for a wellness program in the workplace.
Valente Orozco (M.S.W., Master of Social Work)
Valente Orozco has done fieldwork with the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) where he was in the Family Reunification unit - Quality Assurance. Another particular interest he has is in the field of education working at Akers School. Mr. Orozco provided prevention and early intervention services (personal, academic, family, counseling) to students and their families to prevent them from defaulting into the Child Welfare Service System. He has also explored the effects of the foster care experience on the ethnic identity development in six young adults formerly in foster care. His research is of great interest statewide as well as nationally as this nation is trying to find ways to reduce the number of foster children in the foster care system.
College of Science and Mathematics
Fumiko Yamamoto (M.S., Biology)
Fundamental to our university's goal of becoming a community-engaged institution, Fumiko Yamamoto's work identifies new plant protection methods for the control of parasitic nematodes as an alternative to methyl bromide. By looking for alternatives to methyl bromide, a pesticide that is hazardous to humans and the environment, Fumiko's work is relevant to the welfare of humans and the environment. Her project is on analyzing transgenic tobacco plants containing an antisense construct of the cell death protection gene ced9 from Caenorhabditis elegans . The idea here is that by blocking the function of the cell death protection genes (those similar to ced-9 ) of plant parasitic nematodes, we might be able to protect plants against plant parasitic nematodes. Her work will be presented at several meetings (national and international) and ultimately published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Sarath Peddu (M.Bt., Master of Biotechnology)
Sarath Peddu investigated pre-meal and post-meal brain expression patterns of two genes involved in feeding behavior in animals, growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR) and neuropeptide Y (NPY). NPY is the most potent appetite stimulant in all vertebrates and the GHSR is the receptor for ghrelin, which has been hypothesized to play a role in driving hunger in mammals. The GHSR gene codes for two separate transcripts (GHS-R1a and GHS-R1b) and both transcripts are expressed on NPY-containing neurons in the brain of mammals. Using a fish model, the tilapia, Sarath's research findings clearly demonstrate that, unlike in mammals, plasma ghrelin levels do not fluctuate pre-meal, but rise post-meal in animals that were fed, suggesting a role for ghrelin in regulating post-meal metabolism. Furthermore, Sarath's data provide evidence that GRLN does not play a role in day-to-day feeding, but may have a more prominent role in post-meal metabolism and prevention of catabolism, an idea that is challenging the current paradigm in ghrelin physiology.
Dianne Lim (M.S., Chemistry)
Chemistry graduate student Dianne Lim has developed an analytical technique to measure air pollutants in the human body. Dianne's work will enable researchers to accurately quantify exposure levels of individuals to specific air pollutants, which in turn will facilitate the exploration of the potential link between air pollution and health. Dianne's technique is currently being used in a study funded by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to investigate the relationship between air pollution, viral infection, and asthma. Her work has been presented at three regional and national meetings, and a manuscript based on her results is currently in preparation.
John Harris (M.S., Computer Science)
John Harris, a graduate student working on his master's project, explores "robotic swarms," a new concept of robots working as a team. Robotic swarms have been a hot topic in recent years. In robotic swarms, a team of network-enabled bots are dispatched to some areas to fulfill certain tasks, such as military actions and chemical substance tracking. Mr. Harris's focus is on the challenges and how to maximize the swarm efficiencies.
Rosenelsy Marrero-Cuebas (M.S., Geology)
Rosenelsy Marrero-Cuebas is a graduate student studying hydrogeology in the geology program. Ms. Marrero-Cuebas's work addresses the critical water quality issues in the Central Valley. For her thesis research, she has worked collaboratively with scientists of the United States Geological Survey in Sacramento and has successfully completed her thesis entitled, "Investigation of Nitrate Loading in Groundwater from Eastern San Joaquin Valley, California Using Delta N-15 and Delta O-18 Isotopic Ratios." She has presented her findings at the professional meetings of American Geophysical Union (poster) and the Geological Society of America (oral). One of the most significant contributions of her work is the estimation of the amount of nitrogen flux to the ground water as a result of agricultural activities. In addition, she is also involved in assembling water quality data for the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board to address the serious problem of salt accumulation.
Takako Kurimoto (M.S., Physics)
Takako Kurimoto's research has taken her across the sea to the 4 th International Summer School and Workshop in Nuclear Physics, Methods and Accelerators in Biology and Medicine to Prague, Czech Republic, where she presented a talk on "Response of Arabidopsis thaliana to Ionizing Radiation" based on research done in conjunction with Prof. Amir Huda of the CSU, Fresno Physics department and Prof. John Constable of the CSU, Fresno Biology Department. Her talk was published and was recognized as one of the best student talks at the summer school. Ms. Kurimoto will continue her studies in a doctorate program in theoretical physics and medical physics.
Daniel M. Tennant (M.S., Physics)
Daniel Tennant from the Department of Physics presented at the international conference Symmetry 2007 in Kiev, Ukraine. At the conference, Daniel presented the talk "Q.E.D. vs. Born-Infeld," which is based on research work Daniel did with Prof. Gerardo Muñoz of the CSU Fresno, Physics Department. Dan also plans to go on for a Ph.D in theoretical physics and medical physics.
William Whitaker (M.S., Physics)
William "Bill" Whitaker has been employed by CERN (the European Center for Nuclear Research) in Geneva almost continually since 2004. CERN is the premier European particle physics laboratory that utilizes the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) particle accelerator in high energy collisions. Bill's work is part of the effort to bring one of the detectors (the CMS detector) online for taking data when the LHC particle accelerator turns on. The CMS detector will search for evidence of the elusive but all important Higgs particle, as well as looking for evidence for super symmetry, extra dimensions, micro-black holes, and other exotic predictions from various theories. Bill has lived and worked in Geneva full-time for 1.5 yrs and has been working remotely, on a full-time basis from June 2006 to October 2007.
Sergio Aguilar-Rudametkin (M.S., Physics)
Sergio Aguilar-Rudametkin has been active both in teaching and research. In the academic year 2006-2007, he won the physics department's best TA award for his outstanding performance as a teaching assistant and tutor. Sergio's area of research is theoretical physics. He has published two research articles in refereed journals "6D Thick Branes from Interacting Scalar Fields" and "Electric S-Brane Solutions with a Parallel Charge Density Form on a Ricci-Flat Factor Space." These papers were written in collaboration with international scientists from Russia and Kyrgyzstan.
Dulce Romero is doing work on high temperature superconductors with Dr. Pei-Chun Ho. Dulce recently presented at the APS at New Orleans. This meeting is the biggest in the field.
Mary Ann Krating (M.S., Psychology)
Mary Ann's thesis focuses on gender and age differences in "relational bullying," a form of bullying involving purposeful harm to the relationship between the bully and the victim (as opposed to purposeful physical harm). Her thesis is ambitious, sophisticated, and on the cutting edge of knowledge of bullying of children. Her topic fits nicely with her career goal of being a school psychologist.
Jason Marshall (M.A., Psychology -Applied Behavior Analysis)
Jason's thesis focuses on effective behavioral techniques for reducing and eventually eliminating the unhealthy habit of smoking. Carefully using principles from applied behavior analysis, Jason worked closely with several individuals. His topic is an outstanding example of the effective use of applied behavioral analysis.
Steve Marcial (M.A., Psychology-General/Experimental)
Steve's thesis focuses on several diverse aspects of social psychology, including the need for cognitive closure, causal attribution, and motivation to help. Tying together distinct literatures, collecting interesting data, and analyzing them using sophisticated statistics, Steve's work is an outstanding example of what can be accomplished with deeper, more extensive training in psychology.
College of Social Sciences
Vernon Creviston (M.A., History)
Vernon Creviston, a returning student, currently works as one of our History Writing Lab editors and serves as discussion leader for the Learning Communities version of HIST 11. Mr. Creviston is one of our most conscientious and hard-working students, and his research demonstrates a well-developed historical sensibility. Vernon will soon have his work published, a rare accomplishment for student in this early stage of their careers. He is also one of the funded students, selected for admission to the program based on his outstanding academic credentials.
