Transdisciplinary Studies Dissertation Award Fellows

It is our pleasure to announce the Transdisciplinary Studies Dissertation Award Fellows for the 2025 – 2026 academic year. The recipients and brief descriptions of their dissertation projects are listed below. This is an impressive set of projects and illustrates that high quality, high impact research is being conducted across all disciplines here at CGU.

The Transdisciplinary Studies Dissertation Award is generously funded by the “Richter Memorial Funds Master Code, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee.” The Transdisciplinary Studies Program thanks them for their generous support of our students and their research.

Dominique Acosta

School Of Educational Studies (SES)

“Leading with Pinayism: A Case Study Exploring the Leadership Identity Development of Filipino American Women in an Identity-Based Organization”

This transdisciplinary study examines how identity-based organizations foster leadership identity development among Filipino American women by integrating higher education, ethnic studies, and feminist epistemologies. Grounded in the Leadership Identity Development (LID) model, Pinayism, and counter-narratives, the research investigates how ethnicity, culture, and gender intersect in shaping leadership. Using a case study with phenomenological elements, it draws on interviews and document analysis. Findings illuminate the role of culturally affirming spaces in leadership development and aim to advance theory, inform institutional practice, and support equity-driven, community-based leadership programs for historically marginalized undergraduate students.

Lorise Diamond

School Of Arts & Humanities (SAH)

“(R)Evolutionary Queer Literacy: Reading, Traveling, and Making Worlds as Embodied Pedagogy”

This dissertation introduces (R)Evolutionary Queer Literacy (EQL), not a method but a relational, improvisational way of moving through the world. Amid ecological collapse and educational disembodiment, EQL reimagines literacy as embodied world-reading, world-traveling, and world-making. Informed by Freire, Lugones, Shor, and Mbembe, EQL is not curriculum, but comportment. Drawing from reading circles, interviews, and textual analysis in a high school context, this qualitative study traces how people learn across difference. Rather than a replicable model, EQL honors fugitive literacies alive in everyday spaces, inviting us to read with the world, co-compose life otherwise, and sense the commons rising in ruin.

Stephanie Griswold

School Of Arts & Humanities (SAH)

“Religions at the Margins of Mexican Society, 1900-1950”

This dissertation examines Judaism and Mormonism in Mexico from the Porfiriato through the post-revolutionary period. Identity is a large part of this dissertation; still, defining who is considered part of these broader religious traditions will not be based on the institutional standards of membership of a commonly accepted religious organization in either tradition. An examination of each group, including their subgroups, will reveal internal tensions as they grapple with civic conflicts they navigated as religious minorities. This shows how political and social changes in Mexico during this period impacted individual and collective identities and their place in the dominant society.

Moina Maaz

School Of Arts & Humanities (SAH)

“Reimagining Islamic Feminism: The Inspirational Legacy of Zaynab”

This study examines the overlooked role of women in shaping Shia Islamic thought, focusing on Zaynab bint Ali’s legacy. While male figures dominate existing scholarship, Zaynab’s resilience after Karbala and particularly her sermon in Yazid’s court challenge patriarchal interpretations of Islamic feminism. Through historical texts, hadith literature, and theological analysis, this dissertation explores how she influenced Shia identity, theology, and contemporary Muslim women’s empowerment. By bridging gaps in academic discourse, this research situates Zaynab within Islamic feminism, demonstrating how faith and activism coexist and critically reassessing gender roles in Islam, politics, and feminist thought.

Tiara Soares Murta

School Of Arts & Humanities (SAH)

“Notes Toward Jerusalem: Detachment, Desire, and the Remains of Relation”

This dissertation begins where relation breaks. Through a transdisciplinary method of attuned reading, I explore detachment, despair, and dissociation not as dysfunctions, but as ethical responses to rupture. Engaging James Baldwin, Karl Marx, and Audre Lorde, I develop a practice that listens beside silence without rushing to repair. Moving between memoir, aesthetic form, and philosophical critique, this project rethinks how we name suffering, how we hold distance, and how we remain near what wounds. It is not a redemptive narrative, but a poetics of survival—an invitation to feel what fracture leaves behind, and to build from that raw material.

This year we were also able to recognize and award an “Honorable Mention” distinction for work showing exceptional promise and impact. This awardee will receive additional funds to carry out their dissertation research.

Maria Assumpta Komugabe

Center For Information Systems & Technology (CISAT)

“Integrating AI and GIS for Climate-Driven Malaria Monitoring and Demand-Based Resource Distribution and Supply Optimization in Low Developing Countries”

Malaria is a major public health issue in Uganda, particularly affecting pregnant women. Stock imbalances of Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) and Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACTs) hinder malaria control, with 16% of facilities facing ACT stockouts and 18% reporting RDT stockouts by 2022, exceeding the national target of less than 10%. This study integrates AI and GIS for climate-driven malaria monitoring, optimizing demand-based resource distribution and supply chain logistics. Forecasting malaria hotspots aims to enhance resource allocation, reduce stockouts, waste, and treatment delays, improve mortality reduction and safety, and offer scalable solutions for Uganda and other malaria-endemic regions.