NSM Graduate Student Advisory Board - University of Houston
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NSM Graduate Student Advisory Board

The NSM Graduate Student Advisory Board serves as a liaison between the NSM graduate students and the Dean’s Office. It provides a safe platform where graduate student issues can be discussed freely and where two-way communication between the College and the graduate student community can occur efficiently. Members of the advisory board also help organize events and initiatives to enhance the graduate experience in the College.


Haseeb Ansari

Haseeb Ansari
Department of Mathematics

heansari@cougarnet.uh.edu

I am a fifth-year Ph.D. graduate student in the Department of Mathematics. My bachelor’s degree is from UT Austin, and my master’s degree is from UT Rio Grande Valley. I work with Dr. Jeff Morgan, and my research interests lie in studying systems of nonlinear partial differential equations. I study parabolic PDEs, diffusive systems, and models in epidemiology and ecology. I have been proving and simulating results for a reaction-diffusion SIR model with a constant growth term and a periodic intermittent treatment term. I study the existence, uniqueness, boundedness, and long-time behavior of solutions.

Michael Daniel

Michael Daniel
Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences

mdaniel3@cougarnet.uh.edu

I’m a first-year Ph.D. student working under the tutelage of Dr. Mike Murphy. I graduated from the University of Arizona in 2020 with a B.S. in geology and received my M.S. in geology from University of Houston in 2022, working with Dr. Mike Murphy. My research interests are centered on active tectonics, integrating thermochronology and structural mapping; so far, I have worked in the Chiricahua’s of southeastern Arizona, the Red Rocks Fault in SW Montana, and the Western Nepal Fault System, in the central Himalaya. My master’s and doctoral research projects focus on active strike-slip tectonics in western Nepal. My role, doing field mapping and structural analysis, is part of an interdisciplinary effort involving research groups from universities in America and Nepal, with an overarching goal of assessing seismic hazards in villages located in areas which could, potentially, be affected by ground shaking

Roshni Jaffery

Roshni Jaffery
Department of Biology & Biochemistry

rtjaffer@cougarnet.uh.edu

Roshni is a fourth-year graduate student in the Cell and Molecular Biology Ph.D. program at the University of Houston. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology at Baylor University. Her research focus is the role immunology plays in Parkinson’s Disease, particularly exploring whether (1) the LRRK2 G2019S mutation promotes neuron damage induced by T cells and whether (2) the LRRK2 G2019S mutation has an effect on T cell differentiation and function. Her hobbies include binging TV shows “The Office” and “Friends” for the millionth time, baking, gardening, painting, crocheting, sculpting, journaling, and traveling.

Rutik Manikandhan

Rutik Manikandhan
Department of Physics

rmpoozhi@cougarnet.uh.edu

I am a third-year graduate student working in particle physics under the guidance of Dr. Rene Bellwied. I graduated from the Indian Institute of Science and Research in Mohali, India in 2020 with a Bachelors and Masters in physics. Currently I’m collaborating with Brookhaven National Lab’s STAR experiment in finding the critical point of the QCD phase diagram. During my free time I like to play badminton and travel to new places and trying out new food.

Dustin Nguyen

Dustin Nguyen
Department of Computer Science

dnguy222@cougarnet.uh.edu

I am a second-year Ph.D. student working in the Quantitative Imaging Lab under the guidance of Dr. Shishir Shah. I received my B.Sc. degree in Applied Mathematics in 2021 from Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam. My research interests involve Computer Vision and Deep Learning. I am developing deep learning models for surveillance applications such as Person Re-Identification (Re-ID), where I apply 3D human models and generative models to tackle the Re-ID task under long-term real-world scenarios: clothing changes, viewpoint changes and occlusions. I am also interested in applying Computer Vision into a wide range of domains, such as Signal Processing, Medical Assistant, etc.

Anuththara Yoshini

Anuththara Yoshini
Department of Chemistry

yoshinianuththara@gmail.com

I am a third-year graduate student in the Department of Chemistry. I received my B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Chemistry from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Currently, I am working in Dr. Scott Gilbertson’s research group, and I am specialized in both small drug molecule synthesis and total synthesis including novel allosteric KRAS inhibitors to treat pancreatic, colon and lung cancer. I am close to completing synthesis of an iridoid type natural product and its derivative compound which shows promising inhibitory activity against relapse and refractory Ewing Sarcoma.