Congratulations to our 2021 Summer Dissertation Fellows! In an effort to support students working to complete their dissertation, the Graduate School offers a select number of Summer Dissertation Fellowships intended to enable students to work on their projects without seeking summer employment. The fellowship includes a stipend of $3000 (paid in one lump sum at the beginning of June). It is a competitive process, and we are so pleased with the success of these students. Please congratulate them!
In addition to receiving the monetary award, dissertation fellows will enroll in at least one dissertation hour for the summer, participate in the Graduate School’s Dissertation Writing Lab and regular biweekly summer writing groups, and commit to dedicating June and July to writing their dissertations without distractions from additional jobs or assistantships.
Elijah Jeong is a Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education Studies and Leadership at Baylor University. He has served in various educational and ministry settings, including working as a high school teacher, a college administrator, and a pastor of an Asian American church. He will use the dissertation fellowship to continue research and writing for his dissertation, “The Wrong Majority and the Wrong Minority: The Racialized Experiences of Asian American Administrators in Christian Higher Education.”
Chwi-Woon Kim is a Ph.D candidate in Religion at Baylor University, focusing on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. In light of Korean modern poetry which emerged during Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea (1910–1945), Chwi’s dissertation explores the ways in which national and colonial losses shape the poetic and subversive language of individual yearning for home in the book of Psalms.
Erik Lundeen is a Ph.D. candidate in the Religion at Baylor University and studies the Reformation, early modern Christian Hebraism, and the history of biblical interpretation. His dissertation is entitled, “‘The Spirituality of the Letter’: Johannes Oecolampadius (1482-1531) and the Exegetical Tradition on Isaiah.” It examines varying definitions of Scripture’s ‘literal sense’ as seen in early modern interpretations of Isaiah and the ways in which these diverse definitions continued preexisting disagreements on the literal sense of prophecy. Previously he earned an M.Div. and M.A. Church History from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and a B.A. from the University of Southern California.
Nathan Alexander Mueller, a native of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Philosophy. He received a BA in Philosophy from Creighton University in 2011 (magna cum laude) and an MA in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola University in 2015 (magna cum laude). While his research interests include bioethics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of education, Nathan’s primary areas of research focus on issues in epistemology and metaphysics, and social epistemology. Nathan has presented papers both in the US and internationally and has published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education.
Felicia Osburn is a Ph.D. candidate in Biology working in Dr. Thad Scott’s lab. Her dissertation work focuses on how differing nutrient ratios (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) affects the growth and toxin production of harmful algal blooms. She recently published her first dissertation chapters work in Harmful Algae, and has been invited to submit her second chapters work in Limnology and Oceanography Letters special issue regarding increasing salinity in freshwater systems.”
Himasha Perera is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry under the supervision of Dr. Michael Trakselis. Her research focuses on understanding DNA Replication and Repair mechanisms using model organisms. She hopes to contribute to the fundamental understanding of essential biological process and inform DNA replication, repair, and disease communities. She earned her B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Skylar Ray holds a master’s in History from Baylor University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Baylor’s Department of History, specializing in the religious and cultural history of the 20th century United States. Her dissertation, “Healing Minds, Saving Souls: Evangelicals and Mental Health in the Age of the Therapeutic,” will examine the evangelical relationship to modern psychology and its therapeutic function in treating issues of mental health.
Keighley Reisenauer is a Ph.D. candidate in the Biology department, working with Dr. Joseph Taube. She is graduating this summer, focusing her dissertation on small molecule targeting of aggressive breast cancer. She has recently published the first chapter of her work in Scientific Reports titled “Epithelial-mesenchymal transition sensitizes breast cancer cells to cell death via the fungus-derived sesterterpenoid ophiobolin A.” In the fall, she will remain at Baylor as a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow.
David Roach is a Ph.D. candidate in the History department at Baylor University. His research focuses on nineteenth-century American Catholics, specifically anglophone print culture in the Border and Lower South from roughly 1820 to 1880. His research examines Catholic writers and publishers within or nearby Baltimore, Charleston, Louisville, and Saint Louis. His dissertation asks how these Catholics defined freedom and progress; how they understood the relationship between their faith and American liberty; and how these beliefs were connected to Southern identity in general and slavery in particular.
Benjamin Rusch is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Baylor University. His research interests are primarily in Aristotelian-Thomist approaches to ethics and political philosophy. Prior to attending Baylor, Benjamin studied at the University of Notre Dame, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and theology and at Boston College, where he earned a master’s degree in philosophy. He also has experience teaching theology at the high school level. Currently he is writing his dissertation on the implications of Aristotelian ethics for contemporary political philosophy.
Joshua Caleb Smith is a Ph.D. Candidate in Early Modern Christianity at Baylor University working under Dr. David Whitford. Joshua graduated with a Master of Theological Studies in 2012 and a Master of Theology in 2013, both from Calvin Theological Seminary. His research focuses on various aspects of the supernatural in early modern Europe. His dissertation explores the use of supernatural explanations in sixteenth-century accounts of the Kingdom of Münster. His publications include a chapter in the forthcoming The Science of the Supernatural in Early Modern Europe (from Routledge), a chapter in a forthcoming collection tentatively titled New Approaches to the Radical Reformation (from Brill), as well as numerous encyclopedia articles.
Jon Snyder is a Ph.D. Candidate in Church Music at Baylor University. His dissertation focuses on the goals of the amateur church choir, including leading in worship, building community, and faith formation. With this work, Snyder hopes to help choirs identify their underlying motivations and grow in productive ways. A Conyers scholar at Baylor, he received previous degrees from Susquehanna University, Concordia University Wisconsin, and Western Illinois University. Snyder currently serves as the Minister of Music at Lake Shore Baptist Church, Waco, TX. Outside of music, he enjoys spending time with his wife, Kelsey, and their two cats, Jarvis & Felicity.
Lakisha Woodfork is an EdD candidate in Organizational Leadership at Baylor University. She is completing her dissertation, “When the minority becomes the majority: A mixed methods case study of White leadership and student literacy performance in High-Minority schools,” under the direction of Dr. Laila Sanguras. Her research examines the relationship between the perception that White school principals have of the high-Minority student populations that they serve and the achieved literary performance of minority students.