Graduate School

Marie Tosa, a Wildlife Sciences Ph.D. student, spent roughly two and a half years field researching the western spotted skunk in the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest.

Celeste is a first-generation Ph.D. candidate studying education with a focus on science education.

Diane Brandt is a Master's in Public Policy student researching West Coast residents' perceptions of wave energy and how that impacts policy in Oregon.

Garrett Rogers is a student in the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies program and teaches public speaking.

Jordan Jimmie is a recipient of the Diversity Advancement Fellowship award for 2020-2021.

Sara Letton, an Oregon State University Ecampus graduate student in the Graduate School's Professional Science Master's program in Environmental Sciences (PSM).

Kelsey Contreras is pursuing a master's degree in College Student Services Administration.

Student leader and College of Forestry student, Jasmine Kiara Brown, recognized with Integrated Learning for Social Change Award.

Fifth-year Ph.D. student Heather H. Kitada enjoys working in both statistics and the wider world of science communication, outreach and advocacy.

Leanne Giordono has dedicated her life and career to serving others. Whether volunteering in AmeriCorps or PeaceCorps, starting her own business, raising three children, getting a Master's in Public Affairs from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, or pursuing a Ph.D. in public policy at Oregon State University as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, Leanne brings her unique vision to everything she does.

Growing up in East Germany and watching the Berlin Wall fall as a child, Stephanie Lange has always seen opportunities beyond her immediate surroundings. While pursuing a tri-national Bachelor of Engineering, Stephanie attended the University of Strasbourg in France; the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Northwestern Switzerland; and the University of Applied Sciences in Karlsruhe, Germany, where she also received a Masters of Engineering in 2007.

Francisco Guerrero, a Ph.D. student in sustainable forest management, is passionate about spreading ideas, communicating his research, and bridging gaps between fields.

Jafra Thomas, Kinesiology student and recipient of the Diversity Advancement Pipeline Fellowship, brings his enthusiasm to OSU.

Though Jessica Andrade grew up in the deserts of Southern California, this master's student in Fisheries Science at OSU developed an abiding passion for the ocean. “When I was growing up, my parents would often take me to the beach. I'm a first-generation college student, and my parents fostered in me a love for learning and an appreciation for nature. I'm grateful for them—it was never 'if' I was going to college, but 'when.'” For Jessica, getting a graduate degree was a logical next step after completing her undergraduate degree in Marine Science at the University of San Diego.

Jesse Donaldson is not an undiscovered talent. Before coming to Oregon State University for its increasingly prestigious Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, he spent years writing a novel, The More They Disappear, which will be published in 2015. He received a scholarship from the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference and a nonfiction prize from the literary journal Crazyhorse for his essay exploring the similarities between baseball and religious fervor. He is currently working on a compilation of Kentucky myths organized by county.

Conversations around global climate change range from acerbic to chilling. Jeremy Hoffman is contributing scientific rigor to the conversation by researching the way Earth’s climate has changed in the distant past.

The Romans used concrete extensively thousands of years ago, and surprisingly, that seemingly solid concrete poured in ancient Rome is still reacting today. “It’s still changing, almost like it’s alive,” Matthew Adams explains. There is still a lot we don’t know about the way concrete reacts over the long term with the addition of different materials, and he aims to find out.

As a researcher for the Yakama Nation Fisheries, Ralph Lampman studies lampreys, a prehistoric, eel-like fish that looks scary, but is important to Native American culture and regional ecosystems.

Jennifer Thomas didn’t start out to be an oceanographer. The graduate student from Virginia Beach, Va., was a music major focusing on trumpet performance at the University of Iowa. But in the summer before her senior year, she discovered that she had a rare bone disorder that might require regular surgeries on her jaw. Those surgeries carried the risk of permanent damage to her embouchure — the way that facial muscles and lips shape around the mouthpiece of an instrument.

Adriana Mendoza recognizes there aren’t a lot of women in mathematics in academia, but as she pursues her Ph.D., she’s also working with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and other organizations to bring more diversity to the field. “Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to help my peers,” she says. “At OSU, I’m getting to do that.”

Most first-year graduate students start out taking advanced classes and narrowing down their research focus. Not Adonara Mucek. She spent the first term of her Ph.D. program at Oregon State working in Indonesia with her advisor, Shanaka (Shan) de Silva.

Blair Paulik could have attended graduate school with a full scholarship at Duke University, but she chose Oregon State after being deeply impressed by the history of the Environmental and Molecular Toxicology department.

"Who pooped in the water?" is a question usually reserved for public pools or stand-up comedy.

Lauren Brooks is devoting a great deal of her time and energy studying a problem that is much more serious and widespread than some may believe. Her research originally stemmed from a concern that there was not always an effective way to differentiate between sources of fecal contamination.