Graduate School recognizes outstanding doctoral dissertations

Torrieann Dooley-Kennedy, a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction, and Mubin Tarannum, a Nanoscale Science Ph.D. student, are the Dean’s Distinguished Dissertation Award winners for 2020.

Presented annually by Graduate School Dean Thomas Reynolds, the Dean’s Distinguished Dissertation Award recognizes outstanding research and scholarship by a doctoral student at UNC Charlotte.

Dooley-Kennedy’s dissertation, “ExperiencED Success: Does Mentoring Beginning Teachers Impact the Mentor?” explores how mentoring affects the mentor in terms of quality of teaching and fulfillment as an educator.

Tarannum’s research, “Development of Nanoparticle-based Approaches for Treatment and Imaging of Pancreatic Cancer,” examines ways to reliably diagnose and treat one of the most-deadly forms of pancreatic cancer.

The Dean’s Distinguished Dissertation Award includes a cash prize and plaque. Both recipients will represent UNC Charlotte in the Council of Graduate School’s (CGS)/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Competition in Washington, D.C., later this year. The CGS winner will receive an honorarium of $2,000 and a certificate of citation.