President's Postdoctoral Fellows

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More about Abdallatif

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More about Isayas

Isayas Berhe Adhanom is a computer scientist whose research aims to improve Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) systems by understanding the technical and perceptual challenges that make these systems less usable for a significant portion of their users. VR and AR have the potential to be the next transformational computing platforms, however their widespread adoption is currently hindered by various usability issues. Isayas’s research aims to address these usability issues by developing methods that would make these systems safe and comfortable for everyone. His research broadly draws knowledge from the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Graphics, AI, and Cognitive Neuroscience. Before joining the University of Minnesota, Isayas earned his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nevada-Reno.

Personal webpage: https://www.isayasadhanom.me

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More about Ayah

Ayah Almousa is a mathematician whose research lies at the interface of the fields of combinatorics and commutative algebra. She enjoys using tools from topological, tropical, and algebraic combinatorics to study questions in homological and commutative algebra (and vice versa). Before coming to Minnesota, Ayah earned a BS in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MS and PhD in Mathematics from Cornell University.

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More about Leslie

Leslie Barlow (she/her) received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Stout and MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Barlow’s work has gone on to receive a number of awards including the 2021 Jerome Hill Fellowship, 2019 McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, the 20/20 Springboard Fellowship, and four MN State Arts Board grants between 2016 and 2021. Her work can be viewed in art collections around Minnesota including at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota Historical Society, Weisman Art Museum, Minnesota Museum of American Art, and US Bank Stadium. In addition to her studio research and teaching, Barlow also supports emerging artists at Public Functionary as Director of PF Studios, is a part of the Creatives After Curfew mural collective, and is a 7-year volunteer for the organization MidWest Mixed. Leslie Barlow is represented by Bockley Gallery.

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More about Beatriz

Beatriz (Bea) Baselga Cervera received her Degree in Veterinary Medicine from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, in Spain (2012). She completed her Ph.D. in Microbiology at the same university under the mentorship of Dr. Eduardo Costas (2017). She is a recipient of the Spanish National Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (FPI program) fellowship, which funded her graduate studies. Prior to joining the PPFP, Bea worked as Alfonso Martin Escudero's Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Minnesota, working in experimental evolution with microbes and broadly interested in the phenotypic evolution of multicellularity. She is also a fellow of the Philosophy of Science Department at UMN. She will continue her postdoctoral position under the supervision of Dr. Michael Travisano. Her research focuses on the integration of experimental evolution and bioprospection, in the intersection of basic and applied water microbiology addressing ecological and evolutionary questions. She is an advocate for bringing science closer to society through several outreach projects, and volunteering initiatives (e. g., contributing to bridging science to non-English speakers or teaching science to high schoolers). As a scientist, she is fully committed to serving and supporting the postdoc community.

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More about Adrian

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More about Maria

Maria Gutierrez De Jesus received her Ph.D. in Native American Studies from the University of California at Davis. Her research interests include indigenous-based pedagogies, community-based education, community media, and indigenous cultural and language revitalization. Her research incorporates discussions of culture, language, community-based and land-based education, indigenous epistemologies, and indigenous identities. Through her previous postdoctoral studies at ENES UNAM Morelia (Mexico)-University of California and at UNC-Chapel Hill, she has extended her fieldwork research for her current book manuscript on P’urhépecha indigenous cultural and language revitalization and has taught about indigenous women in contemporary times. She is P’urhépecha and works in collaboration with P’urhépecha-based indigenous radios in Michoacán, Mexico.

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More about Hima

Hima Hassenruck-Gudipati is a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota. Her work centers on how landscapes respond to a changing world. Her recent work focused on sediment transport across floodplains and shallow lakes. Hima holds a Ph.D. in Geosciences from the University of Texas, Austin, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Geology from Caltech.

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More about Roberto

Roberto C. Orozco received his PhD in the Higher Education Program at Rutgers University–New Brunswick along with a graduate certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. His research explores questions around race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality with relation to college student activism and student development, and queer resistance and queer worldmaking in and outside of higher education contexts. He grounds his work at the intersection of Jotería Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Chicana Latina Feminism to examine the identity and socio-political consciousness of queer Latinx/a/o student activists in higher education. He is particularly interested in how queer Latinx/a/o college students engage in forms of resistance that allow for self-development and consciousness raising while building queer kinships and material possibilities rooted in community.

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More about Jesús

Jesús is an evolutionary and quantitative ecologist whose work focuses on developing a deeper understanding of species coexistence and patterns of diversity across spatial and temporal scales and the underlying processes that drive, maintain, and alter these patterns. He has a passion for science and for diversity, inclusion, and equity in education and research. He earned his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution at the Federal University of Goiás (Brazil) and holds an M.S. in Wildlife Management from the National University of Córdoba (Argentina). Born and raised in the hyperdiverse tropical lowlands of Bolivia, he remembers that a deep fascination for its nature and people’s well-being was part of his life. This fascination led him to pursue a biology major at the Universidad Gabriel René Moreno in Bolivia. Jesús previously worked as Research Scientist in the EEB department at the University of Minnesota and as a Grand Challenges in Biology Postdoctoral Fellow in the same department. 

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More about Jeannie

Jean (Jeannie) Wilkening is an ecohydrologist who examines the complex interactions and feedbacks that determine how plants use water. As many parts of the world face a hotter and drier future under climate change, her work examines both how these dynamics play a role in ecosystem function and water resources, as well as how we might be able use this understanding to improve management practices. At the University of Minnesota, she will work with the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area Urban Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program to better understand plant-water interactions in the urban environment and how those interactions might be leveraged to create a more equitable and resilient future for local communities through the services urban trees can provide. Prior to coming to Minnesota, she earned a BS in Chemical Engineering at the University of Arizona, an MPhil in Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge as a Churchill Scholar, and an MS and PhD in Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow.

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More about Deborah

Deborah (Deb) Yoon identifies best as an interpersonal, family, and health scholar. As a researcher, she is interested in bridging the gap between theory and practice because she believes that the role of research is to make it applicable for individuals who are not only in academia but those who can utilize research findings in practice. Mainly, her research focuses on identity formation and negotiation as it intersects with uncertainty management practices that arise within nontraditional and/or challenging family systems. She works to explicate identity uncertainty as an experience that is applicable to different circumstances while working to contextualize it within other theories of identity, and further explores the communication processes that shape or reflect these specific experiences. Her work seeks to better understand how nontraditional life experiences can be disruptive and raise questions to an individual’s concept of self, the effects if has on an individual’s communication behavior to mitigate the identity uncertainty, and how communication patterns within these nontraditional systems help shape an individual’s identity as well as how an individual’s identity shapes those relationships. Further, she seeks to examine the associations between identity, identity uncertainty, and information management strategies between nontraditional family members and the individual.

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More about Yanaira

Yanaira (Yanay) Alonso-Caraballo is originally from Guayanilla, Puerto Rico. She received her bachelor’s degree in Biology-Biomedical Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico at Ponce (2013). She completed her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor under the mentorship of Dr. Carrie Ferrario (2019). Prior to joining the PPFP, Yanay worked as a postdoctoral scholar at McLean Hospital-Harvard Medical School in the labs of Dr. Elena Chartoff and Dr. Vadim Bolshakov. She is also a recipient of the National Institute of Health’s D-SPAN (F99/K00) fellowship, which funded both her graduate and postdoctoral studies. She will continue her postdoctoral studies at the University of Minnesota under the mentorship of Dr. Mark Thomas. Her research is focused on the role of the reproductive cycle and ovarian hormones on the behavioral and neural mechanisms of motivation and reward-seeking in females.

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More about Emmanuel

Emmanuel Bonney received his Ph.D. in Physical Therapy at the University of Cape Town, South Africa in 2019. After graduation, he was awarded a grant from the Fogarty International Center to conduct early mental health research in Uganda, where he further explored his interest in a career in developmental psychopathology. His research focuses on understanding cross-cultural differences in neurobehavioral health and developing new technological screening and interventions to improve the lives of children with atypical trajectories such as autism and developmental coordination disorder.

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More about Merlene-Patrice

Merlene-Patrice Bourdeau Quispe is a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the leadership and management area at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Her research interests include examining truth and integrity in budgets, especially at the state, county and municipal levels; examining the performance of local governments in execution of their budgets; and furthering the research in performance budgeting by examining if adherence to best practices as recommended by budgetary institutions does, in fact, lead to desired outcomes expressed by  citizens.

Quispe's work experience includes serving in multiple fiscal positions at the municipal level. She also has worked internationally as a microfinance expert for USAID and the United Nations in multiple countries, including the United States, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Peru, Burkina Faso, Morocco and Kenya. 

Quispe earned her PhD in Public Affairs from Florida International University. She holds a master’s degree from New York University, and a bachelor’s degree from York College.