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)
Mar 1Name: Aristeidis Seretis Physics-Based Propagation Models Enabled by Machine Learning
Supervisor(s): Prof. Konstantinos Sarris
Graduate Unit: Edward S. Rogers Sr. Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engin.
Mar 1Name: Catherine Ouellet The Social Electorate: Explaining Politics Through Lifestyle in Canada
Supervisor(s): Prof. Christopher Brian Cochrane
Graduate Unit: Department of Political Science
Mar 4Name: Angele C. Desbois-Ramsden Mental Health Literacy in Educational Practice: A Qualitative Study Exploring New Elementary Teachers’ Reasoning when Identifying Students with Mental Health Concerns and Choice-Making in Supporting Referrals
Supervisor(s): Prof. Todd Cunningham
Graduate Unit: Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development
Mar 4Name: Danielle Taylor Just Personal Support Workers’ Role in End-of-Life Care in Long-Term Care
Supervisor(s): Prof. Lisa Cranley
Graduate Unit: Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing
Mar 5Name: Chester Pham Design, Engineering, and Discovery of Transcription Factor-Based Biosensors for Applications in Value-Added Chemical Production
Supervisor(s): Prof. Alexei Savchenko, Prof. Radhakrishnan Mahadevan
Graduate Unit: Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry
Mar 5Name: Tharindu Salinda Bandara Adikari Methods for Improving Computation and Communication Efficiency in Distributed Computing Algorithms
Supervisor(s): Prof. Stark Draper
Graduate Unit: Edward S. Rogers Sr. Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engin.
Mar 5Name: Jessica Gallant Essays on the Economics of Health and Work
Supervisor(s): Prof. Gustavo Bobonis, Prof. Arthur Blouin
Graduate Unit: Department of Economics
Mar 5Name: Chantelle Quesnelle A Pathway for Student Voice in System Mental Health Planning: A case study exploring the use of YPAR to inform school mental health initiatives
Supervisor(s): Prof. Todd Cunningham
Graduate Unit: Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development
Mar 5Name: Tarek Moussa Kaoun An Investigation of Corporate Leaders’ Experiences in using Emotional Intelligence while Leading Teams in Onsite and Virtual Environments: A Qualitative Study
Supervisor(s): Prof. Carol Campbell
Graduate Unit: Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education
Mar 6Name: Rasha Elendari Reevaluating Late 4th Millennium BC Occupation at Godin Tepe: New Insights into the Architecture, Artifact Assemblages, and Intercultural Dynamics in Iran and Mesopotamia
Supervisor(s): Prof. Clemens Reichel
Graduate Unit: Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations
Mar 6Name: Margaret Jamieson Primary Mental Health and Substance Use Service Provision in British Columbia: Exploring Age, Period, and Cohort Trends in Family Physicians from 1996-2017
Supervisor(s): Prof. David Rudoler
Graduate Unit: Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
Mar 6Name: Diane Anderson Knowledge, Perceptions, and Practice of Self-Advocacy in Grade 9 Students with Learning Disabilities: A Case Study of the High School Transition Experience
Supervisor(s): Prof. Todd Cunningham
Graduate Unit: Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development
Mar 6Name: Janet Kurusanather PRIVATE SCHOOLS FOR PUBLIC GOOD: AN EXAMINATION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE TEACHERS IN ONTARIO’S ELITE INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS
Supervisor(s): Prof. Ruben Gaztambide-Fernandez
Graduate Unit: Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Mar 7Name: Raymond Fan Noise, Signal And Information in Models of Stochastic Gene Expression.
Supervisor(s): Prof. Andreas Hilfinger
Graduate Unit: Department of Physics
Mar 7Name: Tirthankar Ray The Subcellular, Cellular, and Tissue-tissue Interactions of a Myosin-deficient Epithelium
Supervisor(s): Prof. Tony Harris
Graduate Unit: Department of Cell and Systems Biology
Mar 7Name: Neil Theodore Ramjewan Dominance, Survivance, and Arrivance: Refiguring Childhoods in Literature
Supervisor(s): Prof. Ruben Gaztambide-Fernandez
Graduate Unit: Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Mar 8Name: Samara Mishelle Ona Chuquimarca Functional and Structural Studies of the t6A tRNA Modifying Complex KEOPS Bound to its Substrate tRNA
Supervisor(s): Prof. Frank Sicheri
Graduate Unit: Department of Molecular Genetics
Mar 8Name: Elyse Latreille Phenotypic screening in larval zebrafish identifie s a novel anti-inflammatory compound that acts via the Nrf2 pathway
Supervisor(s): Prof. Warren Lee
Graduate Unit: Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology
Mar 11Name: Zacharie Leger Towards Scalable Integrated Sources of Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion for Quantum Applications
Supervisor(s): Prof. Amr Helmy
Graduate Unit: Edward S. Rogers Sr. Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engin.
Mar 11Name: Emilie Page-Perron Gods of the City, Gods of the People: The Pantheons of Adab in the Third Millennium B.C.
Supervisor(s): Prof. Paul-Alain Beaulieu
Graduate Unit: Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations
Mar 12Name: Sanjeev Narayanaswamy Comparison of Numerical Methods for Low-Thrust Spacecraft Trajectory Optimization
Supervisor(s): Prof. Christopher Damaren
Graduate Unit: Institute for Aerospace Studies
Mar 12Name: Tae Hyoun Park Interpretation of combined Higgs boson measurement measurements using 139 fb-1 of pp collision data at √s = 13TeV with the ATLAS detector
Supervisor(s): Prof. Richard Teuscher
Graduate Unit: Department of Physics
Mar 12Name: Michelle Grosser Experiencing Avatar/Player Subjectivity: The Role of the Soundtrack in Open-World Video Games
Supervisor(s): Prof. Daphne Tan
Graduate Unit: Faculty of Music
Mar 12Name: Naomi Nechama Niederhoffer Social isolation’s effect on learning and memory
Supervisor(s): Prof. Sheena Josselyn
Graduate Unit: Department of Physiology
Mar 13Name: Andrew Peter Folkerson Environmental Fate of Novel Highly Functionalized Hydrofluoroether (HFE) Alcohols
Supervisor(s): Prof. Scott Mabury
Graduate Unit: Department of Chemistry
Mar 15Name: Kento Takehito Abe Investigating the Antibody Response to SARS-CoV-2 After Infection or Vaccination
Supervisor(s): Prof. Anne-Claude Gingras
Graduate Unit: Department of Molecular Genetics
Mar 18Name: Doorsa Tarazi The Effect of Morphine on Glioblastoma Metabolism and Growth via Inhibition of Wild-Type IDH1
Supervisor(s): Prof. Jason T. Maynes
Graduate Unit: Department of Biochemistry
Mar 19Name: Wing Him Law Investigation of the Metal Selectivity and Protein -protein Interaction between Different Nickel Binding Proteins of the [NiFe]-Hydrogenase Maturation Pathway
Supervisor(s): Prof. Voula Kanelis
Graduate Unit: Department of Chemistry
Mar 19Name: Natalie Hoffmann Integrating Cell Wall Synthesis, Secretion, and Signalling with the Plant Endomembrane System
Supervisor(s): Prof. Heather McFarlane
Graduate Unit: Department of Cell and Systems Biology
Mar 19Name: Sydney Campbell A Different Set of Eyes : Breaking the Silence wit h Mature Minors about Medical Assistance in Dying Policy in Canada
Supervisor(s): Prof. Jeremy Petch, Prof. Jennifer Gibson
Graduate Unit: Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
Mar 19Name: Lisa Chinchamie Disposable Qualifications, Disposable Lives: Examining the Labour Market Experiences of Foreign-Educated Racialized Immigrant Women
Supervisor(s): Prof. Njoki Wane
Graduate Unit: Department of Social Justice Education
Mar 19Name: Clementine Anne Quintana Dissecting Cortical Dopamine D2 Receptor: From Mapping to Circuit-specific Functions
Supervisor(s): Prof. Martin Beaulieu
Graduate Unit: Department of Pharmacology
Mar 20Name: Tso Yu Chao Precision Diagnostics of Donor Lungs Ex Vivo
Supervisor(s): Prof. Shaf Keshavjee
Graduate Unit: Institute of Biomedical Engineering
Mar 21Name: Sarah Celeste Bickers Structural and Biochemical Characterization of the Effects of Post Translational Modifications in the Regulation of ATP Binding Cassette Proteins
Supervisor(s): Prof. Voula Kanelis
Graduate Unit: Department of Chemistry
Mar 21Name: Sahibjeet Singh High Energy Physics at Low(er) Energies: Precision Measurements in Top Quark Physics at s = 5.02TeV
Supervisor(s): Prof. Pekka Sinervo, Prof. Peter Krieger
Graduate Unit: Department of Physics
Mar 21Name: Kyla Alsbury-Nealy Increasing Understanding of Referrals from Healthcare Professionals to CBEP-HCPs for Older Adults with Balance and Mobility Limitations
Supervisor(s): Prof. Nancy Salbach
Graduate Unit: Rehabilitation Sciences Institute
Mar 21Name: Kankana Nisha Aji Imaging Astrocyte Function and Investigating Interactions between Microglial Density and Peripheral Markers in Early Psychosis using Positron Emission Tomography Novel Radioligands
Supervisor(s): Prof. J. Peter McPherson
Graduate Unit: Department of Pharmacology
Mar 22Name: Mohammad Mahdi Banatehrani Uncertainty Quantification: Adaptive Multi-Element Stochastic Moving Least Squares
Supervisor(s): Prof. Christopher Damaren
Graduate Unit: Institute for Aerospace Studies
Mar 22Name: Wanlin Chen Thesis on the Canadian Housing Market
Supervisor(s): Prof. Michelle Alexopoulos
Graduate Unit: Department of Economics
Mar 22Name: Shasha Liu Mediating Dunhuang with Images 1940s-1990s.
Supervisor(s): Prof. Yue Meng, Prof. Yi Gu
Graduate Unit: Department of East Asian Studies
Mar 22Name: Beverley Roy Perspectives and Expressions of Anishinabek Education Sovereignty from Rural, Northern Ontario (Mnidoo Mnising)
Supervisor(s): Prof. Linda Muzzin
Graduate Unit: Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education
Mar 25Name: Riley John Hickman Automating the Scientific Method: Toward Accelerated Materials Design with Self-driving Laboratories
Supervisor(s): Prof. Alan Aspuru-Guzik
Graduate Unit: Department of Chemistry
Mar 25Name: Karl Fritze Remote-Control Slumming: Distanced Selfhood and Class in Modernist Fiction
Supervisor(s): Prof. Garry Leonard
Graduate Unit: Department of English
Mar 25Name: Bonnie Lynn Jasper Student Spirituality: A Role for Administrators in Community College?
Supervisor(s): Prof. Stephanie Waterman
Graduate Unit: Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education
Mar 25Name: Sarah Simon Uptake and Modification of Tree Pollen by Ozone Exposure
Supervisor(s): Prof. Jennifer Murphy
Graduate Unit: Dept. of Physical & Environmental Sci (UTSC)
Mar 26Name: Sabeen Kazmi “Drawing” Out the Threads of Property, Colonial Law and Inequality Through the Prism of Non-Permanence and In/Security in Storytelling
Supervisor(s): Prof. Beatrice Jauregui
Graduate Unit: Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies
Mar 26Name: Taylor Wayne Killian Clinically Motivated Sequential Decision Making Under Uncertainty in Offline Settings
Supervisor(s): Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi
Graduate Unit: Department of Computer Science
Mar 26Name: Michael O’Shea Honouring the Jay Treaty: Cross-Border Tuition Policies at Vancouver Island University
Supervisor(s): Prof. Stephanie Waterman
Graduate Unit: Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education
Mar 26Name: Rotem Raz Asymmetries, Trinities, Kinship, and Sweetgrass Braiding: Anishinaabe, Lunaapeew, and Hebrew Revitalization and Allyship
Supervisor(s): Prof. Antoinette Gagne
Graduate Unit: Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Mar 27Name: Alexey Khrabrov Disaggregated Just-in-Time Compilation for the Java Virtual Machine
Supervisor(s): Prof. Eyal De Lara
Graduate Unit: Department of Computer Science
Mar 27Name: George Kefalas Characterization of the Ubiquitin Ligase Nedd4-1(NE)
Supervisor(s): Prof. Daniela Rotin
Graduate Unit: Department of Biochemistry
Mar 28Name: Xiaoyun Liu Deep Learning-based Detection and Tracking of Capsule Robots using Ultrasound Feedback in Gastrointestinal Tract
Supervisor(s): Prof. Eric David Diller
Graduate Unit: Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
Mar 28Name: Hyehwang Kim Frustrated Lewis Pair Reactivity of Phosphino- Phosphenium Cations
Supervisor(s): Prof. Douglas Stephan
Graduate Unit: Department of Chemistry
Mar 28Name: Tyler Roberts A Multifaceted Investigation into the Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms Mediating the Representation of Human Faces
Supervisor(s): Prof. Jonathan Cant, Prof. Adrian Nestor
Graduate Unit: Department of Psychology
Mar 28Name: Haochen Zhang Ultrafast Spin Dynamics of Quantum Materials.
Supervisor(s): Prof. Luyi Yang
Graduate Unit: Department of Physics
Mar 28Name: David Murray-Stoker Evolutionary Ecology of Plant-Microbe Interactions in Urban Environments
Supervisor(s): Prof. Marc Johnson
Graduate Unit: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Mar 28Name: Naruki Yoshikawa Towards Automated Robotic Chemical Experiments
Supervisor(s): Prof. Alan Aspuru-Guzik
Graduate Unit: Department of Computer Science
Mar 28Name: Mona Teng Investigating the circular noncoding regulators of neuroendocrine tumour transdifferentiation
Supervisor(s): Prof. Housheng He, Prof. Brian Raught
Graduate Unit: Department of Medical Biophysics
Mar 28Name: Justin Meade Characterizing the Activation of NLRP1B by Lipopol ysaccharide and Metabolic Stress
Supervisor(s): Prof. Jeremy Mogridge
Graduate Unit: Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology