HSS Celebrates the Class of 2019

Today's 125th annual commencement ceremony marks the end of another school year. The Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences congratulates our PhD recipients in the class of 2019 as they embark on new and exciting opportunities. Please join us in wishing them well in their next steps.

Nicholas Adams-Cohen received his PhD after completing his thesis, New Perspectives in Political Communication, with Michael Alvarez as his advisor. As a graduate student in HSS, he studied American political behavior, public opinion, and elections, and he was awarded a Haynes Lindley Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for the 2018-2019 academic year. He looks forward to starting his new position as a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford University Immigration Policy Lab in the fall.

Hamed Hamze Bajgiran completed his dissertation, Essays on Decision Theory, with Federico Echenique and Kota Saito as his advisors, and is now considering jobs in private industry. He was a 2016-2017 HSS Chair's Council Graduate Fellow, the 2017-2019 Repetto-Figueroa Fellow, and the 2017 recipient of the John O. Ledyard Prize for best third-year paper.

Chujun Lin earned her PhD after defending her thesis, Understanding How People Make Trait Attributions from Faces, with Michael Alvarez as her advisor. She will join the Adolphs lab this summer as a postdoctoral scholar in psychology to continue her research on face perception and stereotypes. Specifically, she'd like to uncover how increased depth of processing might modify trait attributions from faces and how trait attributions are represented in the brain.

During his time at Caltech, Hao Zhao was awarded a 2018-2019 HSS Chair's Council Fellowship and a Resnick Fellowship (2016-2018) to continue his research analyzing underground water management rules across various basins in California. He graduated after completing his dissertation, Economics of Groundwater Resource Management, with Jean-Laurent Rosenthal as his advisor. He will join the Economic Science Institute at Chapman University as a postdoctoral fellow in the fall.

Read about these students and our departing postdoctoral fellows in the 2018-2019 Next Steps publication (hard copies available in the Baxter lobby).