Physics Department Ph.D. Defense Schedule
Ph.D. defenses are held in Robeson 304, unless otherwise indicated.

[ F2009 | S2010 | Su2010 | F2010 | S2011 | Su2011 | F2011 | S2012 | Su2012 | F2012 | S2013 ]

Fall 2009
August 25 (Tuesday)
8:00 AM - noon
Sayak Mukherjee

Application of Field Theory to Reaction Diffusion Models and Driven Diffusive Systems

Advised by: Prof. Beate Schmittmann

October 12 (Monday)
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Michael Kavic

Foundational Investigations & Astronomical Implications of Quantum Gravity

Advised by: Prof. Djordje Minic

December 2 (Wednesday)
9:00 AM - noon
Kai Chen

Self-organization on Nanoparticle Surfaces for Plasmonic and Nonlinear Optical Applications

Advised by: Prof. Hans Robinson

December 4 (Friday)
9:30 AM - noon
Jonathan Cook

Totally Asymmetic Simple Exclusion Processes with Finite Resources

Advised by: Prof. Royce K.P. Zia

Spring 2010
February 5 (Friday)
9:00 AM - noon

Jason Ridley

Improvement of the Optical and Mechanical Properties of Silica Nanoparticle Ionic Self-Assembled Mutilayer Anti-Reflection Coatings on Glass and Polycarbonate Substrates

Advised by: Prof. James R. Heflin

March 26 (Friday)
9:00 AM - noon
Sven Dorosz

Fluctuation Relations for Stochastic Systems far from Equilibrium

Advised by: Prof. Michel Pleimling

April 2 (Friday)
12:15 P.M. - 4:00 P.M.
Steve Hardy

Measuring the 7Be Neutrino Flux From the Sun: Calibration of the Borexino Solar Neutrino Detector

Advised by: Prof. Bruce Vogelaar

April 30 (Friday)
2:00 P.M. - 4:00 P.M.
Juliette Mammei

Parity Violating Elastic Electron Nucleon Scattering: Measurement of the Strange Quark Content of the Nucleon and Towards a Measurement of the Weak Charge of the Proton

Advised by: Prof. Mark Pitt

May 5 (Wednesday)
4:30 P.M. - 7:30 P.M.
Steven Derek Rountree

Science and Technology of a Low-Energy Solar Neutrino Spectrometer (LENS) And Development of MiniLENS an Underground Prototype

Advised by: Prof. Raju Raghavan

Summer 2010
July 2 (Friday)
2:00 P.M. - 5:00 P.M.
Andrew Fenley

Simple Physical Approaches to Complex Biological Systems

Advised by: Profs. R. Kulkarni and A. Onufriev

July 9 (Friday)
10:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.
Kriton Papavasiliou

Construction of an optical quarter wave stack consisting of one layer of titania nanoparticles and one layer of silica nanoparticles using the ISAM (Ionic Self-Assembled Monolayers) technique

Advised by: Prof. A. L. Ritter

August 11 (Wednesday)
Xiaohua Xu

Modeling of Nucleation-Based Stochastic Processes in Cellular Systems

Advised by: Prof. R. Kulkarni

August 11 (Wednesday)
1:00 P.M. - 5:00 P.M.
Russell Mammei

Thin Films for the Transport of Polarized Ultra Cold Neutrons for Fundamental Symmetry Study

Advised by: Prof. R. B. Vogelaar

Fall 2010
September 3, 2010 (Friday)
10:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
Matthew Frazier

Probe of Coherent and Quantum States in Narrow-Gap Based Semiconductors in the Presence of Strong Spin-Orbit Coupling

Advised by: Prof. Giti Khodaparast

December 7, 2010 (Tuesday)
9:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
Yee Kao

Constraints on New Physics from Neutrino and Other Particle Experiments

Advised by: Prof. Tatsu Takeuchi

Spring 2011
April 1, 2011 (Friday)
9:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
227 Williams Hall
Robert Lillianfeld

Experimental Observation of Geometric Phases in Narrow-Gap Semiconductor Heterostructures

Advised by: Prof. Jean Heremans

Summer 2011
July 21, 2011 (Thursday)
9:30 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
Tao Jia

Stochastic Modeling of Gene Expression and Post-transcriptional Regulation

Advised by: Prof. R. Kulkarni

August 1, 2011 (Monday)
9:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
Yen-Liang Chou

Relaxation phenomena during non-equilibrium growth

Advised by: Prof. Michel Pleimling

August 4, 2011 (Thursday)
11:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M.
Manpreet Kaur

Dual spin-cast thermally interdiffused polymeric photovoltaic devices

Advised by: Prof. R. Heflin

August 8, 2011 (Monday)
10:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.
Phil Nelson

An Arcminute-Resolution Imaging Study of the H-alpha & (SII) Emission of the ISM from the Local Perseus Arm Using the Virginia Tech Spectral-Line Survey

Advised by: Prof. John Simonetti

August 10, 2011 (Wednesday)
9:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
George Daquila

Monte Carlo Analysis of Nonequilibrium Steady States and Relaxation Kinetics in Driven Lattice Gases

Advised by: Prof. Uwe Täuber

Fall 2011
August 26, 2011 (Friday)
11:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M.
Matthew Shimer

Nonequilibrium Relaxation and Aging Scaling Properties of the Coulomb Glass and Bose Glass

Advised by: Prof. Uwe Täuber

November 3, 2011 (Thursday)
11:30 A.M. - 2:00 P.M.
Sean Cutchin

Search for Astrophysical Radio Transients at Meter Wavelengths

Advised by: Prof. John Simonetti

November 7, 2011 (Monday)
2:00 P.M. - 4:00 P.M.
Qian He

Spatio-temporal patterns, correlations, and disorder in evolutionary game theory

Advised by: Prof. Uwe Täuber

December 7, 2011 (Wednesday)
3:00 P.M. - 5:00 P.M.
212 Randolph Hall
Stefan Stoianov

Properties modification of nano-patterned surfaces functionalized with photo activated ligands

Advised by: Prof. Hans Robinson

Spring 2012
April 25, 2012 (Wednesday)
9:00 a.m.- noon
100 Williams Hall
Chalongrat Daengngam

Second-Order Nonlinear Optical Responses in Tapered Optical Fibers with Self-Assembled Organic Multilayers

Advised by: Prof. J. R. Heflin

Summer 2012
July 11, 2012 (Wednesday) 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Mithun Bhowmick

Time Resolved Spectroscopy In InAS and InSb Based Narrow-Gap Semiconductors

Advised by: Prof. Giti Khodaparast

July 30, 2012 (Monday)
10:00 a.m. - noon
Yong-Jae Kim

Electrical injection and detection of spin polarization in InSb/ferromagnet nanostructures

Advised by: Prof. Jean J. Heremans

Fall 2012
November 8, 2012 (Thursday)
2:30 p.m.- 5:00 p.m.
Chih-Yu Jao

Sensing Applications of Silver and Gold Nanoparticles

Advised by: Prof. Hans Robinson

Spring 2013
February 21, 2013 (Thursday)
8:30 a.m.- 10:30 a.m.
Zachary Lewis

A Study of Modifications to Quantum Mechanics

Advised by: Prof. Tatsu Takeuchi

March 4, 2013 (Monday)
9:00 a.m.- 11:00 a.m.
Hyunhang Park

Spin Systems Far from Equilibrium: Aging and Dynamic Phase Transition

Advised by: Prof. Michel Pleimling

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Spring 2014
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Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University 
Department of Physics MC 0435, 910 Drillfield Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061 
Phone: (540) 231-6544; Fax: (540) 231-7511