Outstanding Graduate Student Honorees - Spring 2023

MA in Philosophy, Ethics and Public Affairs Concentration

Webby served as a graduate assistant for the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy and is commended by his faculty for his infectious excitement, insightful questions, and exceeding kindness.

MS in Criminal Justice

Maxine Bradshaw maintained a fantastic GPA (4.0) while also working/interning during grad school. She is a natural and gentle leader who asks questions that help classmates refine their thinking and that set a high bar for discourse. She is excellent at synthesizing information, and providing it in its most distilled, relevant form.

PhD in Communication

Eryn demonstrated excellence in science communication, was head of the comm grad student association, published several articles, and presented at many conferences. She also worked with the Center for Climate Change Commmunication and their external funders/stakeholders.

MA in English

Using grounded theory and rhetorical analysis, Christine surfaces themes in how those with autism work to assert authority across a wide range of public spaces. She's a vocal advocate for improved attention to neurodiversity as a key issue of access and social justice. Christine also published pieces related to this work, including “You don’t look autistic: The reality of high-functioning autism,” in The Washington Post in 2020.

MA in Art History

While at Mason, Pia exhibited an extraordinary work ethic that resulted in impressive and insightful graduate-level research (and a very high GPA). Most recently, she has been accepted into the prestigious docent training program at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art.

MPS in Applied Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Wysteria's research examines the relationship between employee perceptions of their work-life balance and their turnover intentions, mediating for affective organizational commitment to better understand how emotions impact workplace attitudes and behaviors.

MA in Interdisciplinary Studies (Concentration in Education and Critical Pedagogies; Secondary concentration in Media and Democracy Studies)

In addition to exemplary work in the classroom and innovative capstone work at the intersections of human rights, critical media literacy, and education, Mischa has served on the editorial board of Project Censored, writing articles on issues and events that garnered little to no media attention in mainstream media outlets. She has also been a contributing writer and editor at The Markaz Review, writing about human rights-related topics.

MA in Economics

Jessica is a James Buchanan Fellow with an exemplary academic record throughout her master's studies. While a student she completed two internships with the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness and U.S. Agency for International Development.

MA in Economics (Wiley)

Laura, an MA Online student, has excelled academically, maintaining a 4.00 GPA, while working full-time as a consultant with the Berkeley Research Group. In that role, she applied economic theory and empirical analysis to issues presented by commercial litigation.

PhD in Criminology, Law and Society

Sam already has ten peer-reviewed journal publications, with five of them as first author—including a sole-authored ‘theory’ piece in one of the leading psych-law journals. Sam also has four book chapter publications (two first-authored). Further, for her dissertation research, Sam was awarded an NSF dissertation grant, a very prestigious honor and a testament to her study ideas and rigorous design.

MA in Global Affairs

Ninon served as the GLOA representative to GAPSA during her first year in the graduate program and then joined the Executive Committee. Ninon was also the student representative on the Global Affairs DEI committee and provided exceptional insight as we developed SMART goals around student success and curriculum. Ninon currently works for CHSS Academic Affairs.

MA in Psychology (with a concentration in Industrial-Organizational Psychology)

Ami Patel was the Director of Mason's chapter of the Volunteer Program Assessment (VPA), our in-house consulting firm that provides free consulting services to nonprofits while providing consulting experience to our industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology graduate students. Under Ami's stewardship, VPA has tackled several important initiatives, including mentoring students and faculty from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

PhD in Economics

During his time at George Mason University, Chandler taught several courses, published numerous academic papers, and presented his work extensively at conferences and workshops.

PhD in Sociology

Her study is based in an Ayahuasca treatment center in the Peruvian jungle, where she was in residence as a researcher for nearly two years. In her analysis, plant medicine opens onto broad questions about Western conceptions of both 'sickness' and 'healing.' She interrogates the individualist assumptions that produce the 'pathologies' and the treatments associated with psychopharmacology and other modalities now typical in Western mental health practice.

MA in Anthropology

Maria Sellers is the recipient of the 2023 Outstanding Anthropology Graduate Student Award.  After earning her diploma from Vanderbilt University, Maria joined the Mason anthropology program in 2022. She designed and implemented a ground-breaking MA thesis research project that examines patterns of microscopic indicators of biological stress in tooth enamel among individuals who lived and died during the late pre-Hispanic and postconquest eras in Lambayeque Valley of Peru. It is a first in all of Latin American bioarchaeology.

PhD in Industrial & Organizational Psychology

Elisa Torres' dissertation was the first in the Industrial-Organizational program to use computational modeling to study complex system phenomena. While a student at Mason, Elisa co-authored 15 journal articles, one book chapter, and 21 conference presentations. She received the Leonard P. Gollobin Award from the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC).