Congratulations to our newest PhDs!

Thursday, June 8, 2023
PhD student holding her degree

Earning a doctoral degree is a testament to an individual's academic commitment and perseverance. It is a journey marked by countless hours attending seminars, conducting research, teaching courses, and dissertation writing. Each step taken by our PhD students reflects their dedication and intellectual rigour.

This year's cohort from the Faculty of Arts has proved that the essence of doctoral research is in its social impact; their work is an embodiment of the valuable knowledge they have acquired and their potential to effect meaningful societal change. The Faculty of Arts is proud to have supported these students and is eager to witness the positive impact they will make.

Please join us in congratulating the 2023 cohort of the Faculty of Arts on this monumental accomplishment. Their journey has been inspiring, and we look forward to their continued success in the years to come. 


Met our 2023 PhD graduates

Jesse Abbott

Department: History
Thesis“The Art of Getting Drunk:” Martial Masculinity, Alcohol, and the British Army in the Canadas in the War of 1812

Exploring the role of alcohol consumption in shaping masculine identities within the British army in the Canadas during the early 19th century.

Sarah Basco

Department: Psychology
ThesisThe Role of Executive Functions and Emotion Knowledge in Children’s Communication Repair

Investigating children's ability to detect and repair miscommunications in response to nonverbal cues.


Elizabeth Brey

Department: English
ThesisDigital Dialogism: Space, Time, and Queerness in Video Games

Arguing that the layers of "voices" in games influence player interpretation and identifying how its narrative and representational elements can inadvertently uphold white supremacy while silencing potential anti-racist perspectives.

Kevin Capobianco

Department: Psychology
ThesisDevelopment of an Efficient and Broadly Applicable Measure of Case Conceptualization Quality

Addressing the need for a reliable method to evaluate case conceptualization quality in psychotherapy to advance understanding of treatment outcomes.


Evan Cater

Department: History
ThesisStand Fast for Peace & Freedom: A Study of Foreign Policy of the British Labour Party in Opposition 1931 to 1940

Analyzing the British Labour Party's ideological split between idealism and pragmatism in countering fascism, and the shift from war resistance to collective security and rearmament. 

Sushma Dusowoth

Department: French Studies
ThesisReprésentation du sujet féminin dans les romans francophones de l’Île Maurice et l’archipel des Comores de 1990 à 2020 : entre soumission et désir d’agentivité

Addressing female submission and the desire for agency in the island societies of Mauritius and the Comoros Archipelago.


Rochelle Evans

Department: Psychology
ThesisThe Idea of a Follower: An Investigation of Implicit Followership Theories and Their Correlates

Investigating how individual traits and situational contexts affect people's perceptions of followers and identifying common follower prototypes based on factors such as work experience and socio-demographic background.

Monique Kampherm

Department: English
ThesisMasks and Caricatures: Prosopopoeia, Ethopoeia, and the Effect of Social Media on Canadian Political Leaders’ Debates

Analyzing the effect of social media on political leaders’ debates and revealing the rhetorical influence social media has on political parties, political leaders, and voters.


Jennifer Kandjii

Department: Global Governance
ThesisXenophobic citizenship, unsettling space, and constraining borders: Assembling refugee exclusion in South Africa’s everyday

Exploring how the state, citizens, civil society, refugees, and the media all intersect to shape refugee experiences in urban centers in South Africa.

Yixuan Li

Department: Economics
ThesisEssays on Portfolio Selection, Continuous-time Analysis, and Market Incompleteness

Introducing a novel definition of concentration in portfolio investment and establishing a risk threshold where diversification and concentration strategies align. 


Artur Lukaszczyk

Department: Philosophy
ThesisTowards a Cyber Jus ad Bellum: Bridging Legal Gaps within Cyberwar Governance

Critiquing the current lack of international laws and the insufficiency of extending traditional armed conflict laws to the cyber domain.

Tommy Mayberry

Department: English
ThesisQueen of the Academy: Academic Drag as Pedagogy and Praxis

Demonstrating the potential of academic drag to disrupt conventional academic norms and to create a more inclusive scholarly space.


Robert Morton

Department: English
ThesisAlone Together - Convergence Culture and the Slender Man Phenomenon

Demonstrating how the Slender Man phenomenon uses digital media to merge horror aesthetics with internet trolling and often leads to serious real-world consequences.

Katharine Patterson

Department: Accounting and Finance
ThesisCalibration Committees and Rating Distribution Guidance Effects on Leniency Bias in Subjective Performance Evaluations

Examining how peer calibration committees (PCCs) and rating distribution guidance (RDG) can impact leniency bias in performance evaluations.


Zachary Pearl

Department: English
ThesisFictocritical Cyberfeminism: A Paralogical Model for Post-Internet Communication

Arguing that "creative paranoia" inspired by fictocritical cyberfeminism provides a route towards a more paralogical media literacy that could redefine our future media environment.

Matthew Perks

Department: Sociology
ThesisDeveloping a Community: Qualitative Approaches to Understanding the Role of Community Engagement in Gameswork

Investigating the growing emphasis on engaging and managing online communities within the gaming industry.


Brian Schram

Department: Sociology
ThesisSurveilling Queerness and Queering Surveillance: The Techno-Social Making of Queer Identity in the US and Canada, 1939-Present

Exploring the relationship between Queer theory and surveillance technologies and linking to broader geopolitical and biopolitical phenomena such as national security, biosecurity, warfare, and statecraft.

Siobhan Sutherland

Department: Psychology
ThesisThe interpersonal context of desire: Exploring associations between sexual desire, relationship satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction in romantic relationships

Identifying the factors contributing to sexual desire in long-term heterosexual relationships and highlighting the importance of examining sexual desire from an interpersonal lens. 


McLennon Wilson

Department: Psychology
ThesisTemperament, attention, and the social world: New empirical approaches to the study of shyness and attention in middle childhood

Developing new means of assessing the relationship between temperament and attention in social contexts to better support the social development of shy children.

Xinyuan Yang

Department: Economics
ThesisAn Analysis of Optimal Agricultural Fertilizer Application Decisions in the Presence of Market and Weather Uncertainties and Nutrient Pollution

Addressing how uncertain corn market and weather factors affect optimal fertilizer application decisions of the farmer and social planner.