Announcing the 2023 ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award Winners

The ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards (DDA) recognize exceptional work produced by doctoral students for the high caliber of their scholarship and the significance and interest of their findings.

Each year, Rackham invites faculty to nominate outstanding dissertations produced in their programs. The nomination dossiers are read and discussed by a review panel of faculty members who identify the finalists. Then, members of the Michigan Society of Fellows read the finalists’ dissertations, review their merits, and select the winners.

Rackham is continually grateful to ProQuest for their generous and longstanding support of the DDA program.

Below is the list of 2023 winners, as well as the honorable mentions.

Winners (Pictured above, clockwise from top left.)

• Maria Ahmed, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
• Markus Borsch, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Salem Elzway, History
• Luis Flores, Sociology
• Alex Kapiamba, Mathematics
• Kayla Kroning, Chemistry
• Graham Liddell, Comparative Literature
• Kevin Napier, Physics
• Evan Radeen, English Language and Literature
• Lulu Shang, Biostatistics

Honorable Mentions

• Laura Carroll, Engineering Education Research
• Sarah Dobie, Urban and Regional Planning
• Samuel Kerk, Cancer Biology
• Jacqueline Larouche, Biomedical Engineering
• Sheng Long, Anthropology
• Caleb Mayer, Mathematics
• Sumeet Patwardhan, Philosophy
• Juan Rodriguez Barrera, American Culture
• Kristina Weaver, Molecular and Integrative Physiology
• Xubo Yue, Industrial and Operations Engineering

Read the event program for details on the awardees’ research.