Doctoral Examinations & Schedule

The Final Oral Examination (FOE) is the capstone experience of your doctoral studies. General information about the FOE is outlined in the SGS Calendar. The Final Oral Examination schedule (see calendar below) lists current thesis defenses, and is updated periodically.

Additionally, you may find helpful the Guidelines for the Doctoral Final Oral Examination (FOE), a document that outlines the responsibilities of the graduate unit, SGS, the Examination Committee, and the Chair of the Committee in the planning and conduct of a Final Oral Examination. Faculty and Staff can access additional resources on the SGS Final Examinations webpage.

Academic fees for continuously registered Ph.D. candidates in the final year of the program are pro-rated over the 12–month academic year, based on the date of the final approved thesis submission to SGS. Incidental fees are charged on a sessional (term) basis. More information on the pro-rated fees and schedules can be found in Graduate Fees and on the Student Accounts website under Current Fall–Winter Fee & Refund Schedules.


In-Person Examinations at the School of Graduate Studies

Requests to book the rooms at 63 St. George Street are covered by the following guidelines.

  • Exam rooms are available for blocks of up to three (3) hours between 9:30 AM and 4:30 PM ET, Monday to Friday.
  • Exam rooms have maximum capacities as indicated on the Book a Meeting Room website.
  • All participants should bring their laptop or tablet with them; the computer, camera, and microphone in the room can be used to provide a full room view for remote participants. The computer is currently configured for anyone to sign into their Zoom or Microsoft Teams account. Teleconference is also available for a maximum of two participants.
  • All signature files and forms will be administered electronically.
  • Please avoid the use of perfume, cologne, hairspray and other scented products when you visit the School of Graduate Studies. Refer to the University’s Guidelines on the Use of Perfumes and Scented Products.

Doctoral Examination Schedule

Exam DateStudent NameExam Information
(Thesis, Supervisor(s), Graduate Unit)
Feb 3Name: Lindsay Valve RESEARCH AS PUBLIC PEDAGOGY: EXPLORING THE SOCIAL IMPACTS OF DOING RESEARCH
Supervisor(s): Prof. Kathleen Marie Gallagher
Graduate Unit: Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Feb 3Name: Marise Carlse Revisioning Belonging for Early Career Teachers in Secondary Schools
Supervisor(s): Prof. Francine Menashy
Graduate Unit: Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education
Feb 3Name: Sameen Ahmed Dissecting the Functions of lncRNA Genes Transcribed From tRNA Gene Loci
Supervisor(s): Prof. Philipp Maass
Graduate Unit: Department of Molecular Genetics
Feb 3Name: Mehakpreet Kaur Thind Immune Dysregulation in a Murine Model of Severe Malnutrition
Supervisor(s): Prof. Robert Bandsma
Graduate Unit: Department of Nutritional Sciences
Feb 4Name: Allison Elizabeth Tolgyesi Characterization of the Mechanical Impact of Focal and Systemic Cancer Treatments on Healthy and Metastatically Involved Vertebral Bone
Supervisor(s): Prof. Cari Whyne
Graduate Unit: Institute of Biomedical Engineering
Feb 5Name: Weiqing Fang Adhesion Properties and Machine Learning Modeling of Multilayer Thermoplastic Composites
Supervisor(s): Prof. Hani Naguib
Graduate Unit: Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
Feb 5Name: Martynas Jonas Sirvinskas The Preparation of Novel Organoboranes and Mastering the Four Elements of Peptide Chemistry: Discovery, Synthesis, Physiochemical Analysis and Structural Control
Supervisor(s): Prof. Andrei Yudin
Graduate Unit: Department of Chemistry
Feb 6Name: Ethan Kyle Lee Evaluating Allostery Involving Flexible and Intrin Intrinsically Disordered Regions Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations
Supervisor(s): Prof. Sarah Rauscher
Graduate Unit: Department of Chemistry
Feb 6Name: Katherine Hilary Walton Investigating the Potential Effects of Social Identity on the Phonetic Competence of French Immersion and Core French Learners
Supervisor(s): Prof. Jeffrey Steele
Graduate Unit: Department of French
Feb 6Name: Kathryn Jane McTavish Pseudomonas syringae modulation of virulence and host immunity through modulation and diversification of type III secreted effectors
Supervisor(s): Prof. David Guttman
Graduate Unit: Department of Cell and Systems Biology
Feb 7Name: Anastasia M Turnbull The Diasporic Chinese and Tibetan Communities of Calcutta and the Himalayas: Exploring Mixed-race Identity Through Arts-informed Intergenerational Life History
Supervisor(s): Prof. Reva Joshee
Graduate Unit: Department of Social Justice Education
Feb 7Name: Elyse Katherine Watkins Skills in Focus: A Case Study of Ontario’s K-12 Learning Priorities During the COVID-19 Pandemic Through an Equity Lens
Supervisor(s): Prof. Carol Campbell
Graduate Unit: Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education
Feb 7Name: Roham Dorakhan CO Electroreduction to Hydrocarbons: Mechanistic Investigations and Catalyst Design
Supervisor(s): Prof. Edward Sargent
Graduate Unit: Edward S. Rogers Sr. Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engin.
Feb 10Name: Virginia Kanyogonya Examining how meaningful employment is understood by Employment Ontario Second Career participants
Supervisor(s): Prof. Kiran Mirchandani
Graduate Unit: Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education
Feb 10Name: Michael Nathan Koslowski Beyond the Binary: Deconstructing a Monolingual vs. Multilingual Opposition in English Language Teaching
Supervisor(s): Prof. Enrica Piccardo
Graduate Unit: Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Feb 10Name: Kyle Waller Bower The Electrostatic Problem for Piecewise Constant Conductivities in Two Dimensions: Numerical Methods and Optimal Regularity
Supervisor(s): Prof. Adam Stinchcombe, Prof. Spyridon Alexakis
Graduate Unit: Department of Mathematics
Feb 11Name: Mengqi Wang A Smart Gate Driver IC with Ageing Detection and Dynamic Gate Drive for Silicon Carbide Power MOSFETs
Supervisor(s): Prof. Wai Tung Ng
Graduate Unit: Edward S. Rogers Sr. Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engin.
Feb 11Name: Deanna Del Vecchio Mapping Participatory Photography in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Supervisor(s): Prof. Eve Tuck
Graduate Unit: Department of Social Justice Education
Feb 12Name: Natalia Bittencourt Otto Between Survival and Sacrifice: Narratives of Criminalized Girls in Brazils War on Drugs
Supervisor(s): Prof. Candace Kruttschnitt
Graduate Unit: Department of Sociology
Feb 13Name: Gabriel Cavalli How Scientific Knowledge Production is Changing Organizationally, Technologically, and Globally
Supervisor(s): Prof. Anita McGahan
Graduate Unit: Graduate Department of Management
Feb 13Name: Gabriel Cavalli How Scientific Knowledge Production is Changing Organizationally, Technologically, and Globally
Supervisor(s): Prof. Anita McGahan
Graduate Unit: Graduate Department of Management
Feb 13Name: Justin Hubbard Predicting Freshwater Invasion Risks Under Current and Future Conditions
Supervisor(s): Prof. Nicholas Mandrak, Prof. Andrew Drake
Graduate Unit: Dept. of Physical & Environmental Sci (UTSC)
Feb 13Name: Andrew Lavigne Topics in the Semantics of Colour Language
Supervisor(s): Prof. Michael Caie
Graduate Unit: Department of Philosophy
Feb 13Name: Jason Edward Pagaduan “Weve been here”: Aging in a mall walkers club
Supervisor(s): Prof. Shyon Baumann, Prof. Josee Johnston
Graduate Unit: Department of Sociology
Feb 13Name: Melissa Geng Targeting Mitochondrial Guanine Quadruplexes to Shift Heteroplasmy Therapeutically and Understanding the Downstream Mechanism of of Berberine-Induced Heteroplasmy Shift
Supervisor(s): Prof. Neal John Sondheimer
Graduate Unit: Department of Molecular Genetics
Feb 14Name: Jialiang Zhu SINGING CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY: ANINTERPRETIVE GUIDE FOR STANDARD CHINESE ART SONG
Supervisor(s): Prof. Jeff Packman
Graduate Unit: Faculty of Music
Feb 14Name: Jialiang Zhu SINGING CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY: ANINTERPRETIVE GUIDE FOR STANDARD CHINESE ART SONG
Supervisor(s): Prof. Jeff Packman
Graduate Unit: Faculty of Music
Feb 14Name: Ioannis Xarchakos Streaming Video Queries
Supervisor(s): Prof. Nick Koudas
Graduate Unit: Department of Computer Science
Feb 14Name: Anastasia Lachine Estrangement and the Thinking Subject in Psychological Prose Novels by Leo Tolstoy,Marcel Proust, and Andrei Bitov
Supervisor(s): Prof. Ann Komaromi
Graduate Unit: Centre for Comparative Literature
Feb 14Name: Jean-Christophe Bedard Rubin STATE, SOVEREIGNTY, AND NOT QUITE REVOLUTION The Formation of French-Canadian Constitutional Culture, 1840-1998
Supervisor(s): Prof. David Schneiderman
Graduate Unit: Faculty of Law
Feb 18Name: Cristina Allegranza From Policy to Practice: Educators’ Sensemaking and Implementation of Assessment and Evaluation
Supervisor(s): Prof. Nina Bascia
Graduate Unit: Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education
Feb 19Name: Michael Francis Colacci Evaluation of Biases That Challenge the Implimenta tion and Use of Machine Learning Clinical Decision Support Tools
Supervisor(s): Prof. Muhammad Mamdani
Graduate Unit: Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
Feb 20Name: Pakeezah Saadat Understanding Clinical Outcomes in Osteoarthritis Research: Patient Preferences, Minimal Important Changes, and Assay Sensitivity of Patient-Reported Measures.
Supervisor(s): Prof. Peter Juni, Prof. Bruno Cezar Roza da Costa
Graduate Unit: Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
Feb 20Name: Eduardo Antonio Ramirez Rodriguez Decoding the Signals that Shape Plant Cell Walls
Supervisor(s): Prof. Heather McFarlane
Graduate Unit: Department of Cell and Systems Biology
Feb 21Name: Janay Eccles Senior Leaders’ Perspectives on Racialized Student Voice in Canadian Independent Schools
Supervisor(s): Prof. Joseph Flessa
Graduate Unit: Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education
Feb 24Name: Hyun-Chul Kim The Infinite Loop of Cure: The Carceral Politics of the Resettlement Villages for Healed Lepers in South Korea
Supervisor(s): Prof. Matthew Farish
Graduate Unit: Department of Geography and Planning
Feb 24Name: Chang-Ho Lee Indirect Utility Elicitation in Rare Diseases with Myelofibrosis as a Case Study
Supervisor(s): Prof. David Naimark, Prof. Nicholas Mitsakakis
Graduate Unit: Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
Feb 26Name: Danyse Andrea Golick The Performance of Readerliness: Visual Cultures of Reading (and Not-Reading) in the Digital Age
Supervisor(s): Prof. Naomi Morgenstern
Graduate Unit: Department of English
Feb 26Name: Sirma Damla User Characterization of Eph/Ephrin Mediated Cell Interactions During Zebrafish Gastrulation
Supervisor(s): Prof. Ashley Bruce
Graduate Unit: Department of Cell and Systems Biology
Feb 27Name: Rebecca Tam Centrosome-organized plasma membrane infoldings linked to growth of a cortical actin domain
Supervisor(s): Prof. Tony Harris
Graduate Unit: Department of Cell and Systems Biology
Feb 27Name: Ariana Yekyung Youm More Is Not Necessarily Better: Understanding the Multi-faceted Changes in Aging and Episodic Memory through a Cholinergic Lens
Supervisor(s): Prof. Melanie Cohn, Prof. Katherine Duncan
Graduate Unit: Department of Psychology
Feb 28Name: Sara Sabour Rouh Aghdam Object Learning and Robust 3D Reconstruction
Supervisor(s): Prof. David James Fleet, Prof. Geoffrey E Hinton
Graduate Unit: Department of Computer Science
Feb 28Name: Liam Isaac Haas-Neill Molecular Dynamics of Protein Perturbations: Structure, Dynamics, and Function
Supervisor(s): Prof. Sarah Rauscher
Graduate Unit: Department of Physics