{"events":[{"id":8627,"global_id":"www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool?id=8627","global_id_lineage":["www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool?id=8627"],"author":"432","status":"publish","date":"2026-04-15 18:03:59","date_utc":"2026-04-15 23:03:59","modified":"2026-04-15 18:04:23","modified_utc":"2026-04-15 23:04:23","url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/event\/myltazaire-crayton-dissertation-defense-wednesday-april-16-2026-1200-pm-central-time\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/8627","title":"Myltazaire Crayton Dissertation Defense, Wednesday, April 16, 2026 @ 12:00 pm Central Time","description":"

COMMITTEE CHAIR<\/strong>: Dr. Fred Bonner<\/p>\n

TITLE<\/strong>: THE BRIDGE TO BECOMING AN EDUCATOR: AN ANALYSIS OF EDUCATOR PREPARATION PROGRAMS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON STAKEHOLDERS<\/p>\n

ABSTRACT: <\/strong>This qualitative study examines how national, state, and institutional policies impact teacher certification processes and influence the experiences of stakeholders in educator preparation programs (EPPs), including administrators, professors, and teacher candidates. Guided by Astin\u2019s Input-Environment-Output (I-E-O) model, this research examines how inputs such as policy mandates, institutional culture, and candidate demographics interact with educational environments to produce diverse outcomes in teacher preparation, certification, and retention. Data were collected through semi structured interviews, surveys, document analysis, and policy review across two university EPPs, one in Texas and one in Arkansas. Findings revealed that inconsistencies in policy interpretation, financial and academic barriers, and insufficient institutional support disproportionately affect teacher candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. While policies such as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and state-level certification frameworks are intended to ensure teacher quality, their implementation often creates inequities that impede candidate success and reduce workforce diversity. The study integrates critical race theory and culturally responsive teaching to illuminate systemic inequities and highlight the need for culturally informed reforms in educator preparation. Results underscore the importance of aligning policy mandates with inclusive institutional practices, emphasizing mentorship, financial accessibility, and equity-based pedagogical training. This study contributes to the growing body of research on teacher certification and equity in education by offering evidence-based recommendations for policymakers, university leaders, and accrediting bodies to strengthen EPP structures and support diverse pathways to teacher licensure. Keywords: Educator preparation programs, teacher certification, Astin\u2019s I-E-O model, critical race theory, culturally responsive teaching, educational policy, equity, teacher diversity.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>: Educator preparation programs, teacher certification, Astin\u2019s I-E-O model, critical race theory, culturally responsive teaching, educational policy, equity, teacher diversity<\/p>\n

Room Location: <\/strong>DELCO 228, ARCH-III Conference 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19:15:49","url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/event\/temitayo-ogunsusi-masters-thesis-defense-friday-april-17-2026-1100-am-central-time\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/8519","title":"Temitayo Ogunsusi Master\u2019s Thesis Defense, Friday, April 17, 2026 @ 11:00 am Central Time","description":"

COMMITTEE CHAIR<\/strong>: Dr. Xishuang Dong<\/p>\n

TITLE<\/strong>: LLMS-BASED TEXT-TO-SQL FOR GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION RETRIEVAL<\/p>\n

ABSTRACT: <\/strong>Text-to-SQL aims to translate natural language questions into SQL queries that can be executed on databases, enabling non-expert users to retrieve information without learning formal query languages. Early Text-to-SQL systems relied on rule-based methods and semantic parsers, while recent advances in deep learning have achieved strong performance by jointly encoding user questions and database schemas. However, these approaches typically require large annotated datasets and specific model architectures. With the emergence of large language models (LLMs), such as GPT-4, Llama, and Gemma, Text-to-SQL systems can leverage powerful natural language understanding capabilities to generate SQL queries using zero-shot or few-shot prompting. Despite these advancements, existing research has largely focused on conventional relational databases, with limited attention given to geospatial databases that involve specialized spatial data types and functions. This thesis addresses this gap by investigating LLM-based Text-to-SQL for geospatial information retrieval. We construct a new benchmark dataset with a PostGIS spatial database, containing natural language questions paired with SQL queries that incorporate spatial operations such as distance calculations, spatial joins, and geometric predicates. To expand the dataset and improve diversity, additional question-query pairs are generated through LLM-based data augmentation. Furthermore, building on this benchmark, we develop a Text-to-SQL pipeline that integrates multiple state-of-the-art LLMs to translate natural language queries into executable spatial SQL statements. The system incorporates database schema information within prompts to improve query generation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed pipeline can effectively retrieve geospatial information using natural language queries, achieving competitive performance regarding Execution Accuracy and Valid Efficiency Score.<\/p>\n

Keywords: <\/strong>Text-to-SQL, Large Language Models, Information Retrieval, Geospatial Database<\/p>\n

Room Location: <\/strong>Electrical Engineering Conference Room 315D<\/p>","excerpt":"","slug":"temitayo-ogunsusi-masters-thesis-defense-friday-april-17-2026-1100-am-central-time","image":{"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-scaled.jpg","id":7636,"extension":"jpg","width":2560,"height":1703,"filesize":379306,"sizes":{"medium":{"width":300,"height":200,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":15264,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"width":1024,"height":681,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":90630,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1024x681.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":7774,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"width":768,"height":511,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":58384,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-768x511.jpg"},"1536x1536":{"width":1536,"height":1022,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":167902,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1536x1022.jpg"},"2048x2048":{"width":2048,"height":1363,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":265363,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-2048x1363.jpg"},"search-live-thumbnail-32x32":{"width":32,"height":32,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":1759,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-32x32.jpg"},"blog-large":{"width":669,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":31377,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-669x272.jpg"},"blog-medium":{"width":320,"height":202,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16101,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-320x202.jpg"},"recent-posts":{"width":700,"height":441,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":49670,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-700x441.jpg"},"recent-works-thumbnail":{"width":66,"height":66,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":3128,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-66x66.jpg"},"fusion-200":{"width":200,"height":133,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8750,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-200x133.jpg"},"fusion-400":{"width":400,"height":266,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":22767,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-400x266.jpg"},"fusion-600":{"width":600,"height":399,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":40938,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-600x399.jpg"},"fusion-800":{"width":800,"height":532,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":62242,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-800x532.jpg"},"fusion-1200":{"width":1200,"height":798,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":114560,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1200x798.jpg"},"portfolio-full":{"width":940,"height":400,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":54471,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-940x400.jpg"},"portfolio-one":{"width":540,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":28214,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-540x272.jpg"},"portfolio-two":{"width":460,"height":295,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":27314,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-460x295.jpg"},"portfolio-three":{"width":300,"height":214,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16065,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x214.jpg"},"portfolio-five":{"width":177,"height":142,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8419,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-177x142.jpg"},"sow-carousel-default":{"width":272,"height":182,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":13237,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-272x182.jpg"}},"original_image":"doctorat-PV-1.jpg"},"all_day":false,"start_date":"2026-04-17 11:00:00","start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"17","hour":"11","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"end_date":"2026-04-17 12:00:00","end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"17","hour":"12","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_start_date":"2026-04-17 16:00:00","utc_start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"17","hour":"16","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_end_date":"2026-04-17 17:00:00","utc_end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"17","hour":"17","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"timezone":"America\/Chicago","timezone_abbr":"CDT","cost":"","cost_details":{"currency_symbol":"$","currency_code":"USD","currency_position":"prefix","values":[]},"website":"","show_map":true,"show_map_link":true,"hide_from_listings":false,"sticky":false,"featured":false,"categories":[{"name":"Main 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20:31:44","url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/event\/jason-holiday-dissertation-defense-thursday-april-17-2026-1200-pm-central-time\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/8637","title":"Jason Holiday Dissertation Defense, Thursday, April 17, 2026 @ 12:00 pm Central Time","description":"

COMMITTEE CHAIR<\/strong>: Dr. Fred Bonner<\/p>\n

TITLE<\/strong>: “AM I MY BROTHER\u2019S KEEPER?\u201d A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF THE BLACK MALE COMMUNITY, RESILIENCE, AND SENSE OF BELONGING IN THE HISPANIC-SERVING INSTITUTION (HSI) CONTEXT<\/p>\n

ABSTRACT: <\/strong>This qualitative study explores the experiences of Black male students at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), with a focus on sense of belonging, resilience, and community during the first-year experience. Grounded in Sense of Belonging Theory and Resilience Theory, this study seeks to understand how Black men navigate institutional environments where they are often underrepresented. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews with undergraduate students and recent alumni. Thematic analysis revealed six themes: (a) Navigating Cultural Difference: Racial Identity in an HSI Context, (b) Importance of Targeted Support Programs, (c) Faculty and Staff Relationships as Anchors of Belonging, (d) Social Disconnection and Self-Exclusion, (e) Athletics, Extracurriculars, and Brotherhood as Identity Builders, (f) Academic Setbacks as Catalysts for Growth. Participants described belonging as relational, developed through meaningful connections with peers, faculty, and culturally responsive spaces. Resilience emerged as both an individual and collective process, shaped by internal motivation, community support, and the ability to navigate challenges within predominantly non-Black spaces.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>: Black, Males, HSI<\/p>\n

Room Location: <\/strong>Delco 169 and Virtual<\/p>","excerpt":"","slug":"jason-holiday-dissertation-defense-thursday-april-17-2026-1200-pm-central-time","image":{"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-scaled.jpg","id":7636,"extension":"jpg","width":2560,"height":1703,"filesize":379306,"sizes":{"medium":{"width":300,"height":200,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":15264,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"width":1024,"height":681,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":90630,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1024x681.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":7774,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"width":768,"height":511,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":58384,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-768x511.jpg"},"1536x1536":{"width":1536,"height":1022,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":167902,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1536x1022.jpg"},"2048x2048":{"width":2048,"height":1363,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":265363,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-2048x1363.jpg"},"search-live-thumbnail-32x32":{"width":32,"height":32,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":1759,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-32x32.jpg"},"blog-large":{"width":669,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":31377,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-669x272.jpg"},"blog-medium":{"width":320,"height":202,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16101,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-320x202.jpg"},"recent-posts":{"width":700,"height":441,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":49670,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-700x441.jpg"},"recent-works-thumbnail":{"width":66,"height":66,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":3128,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-66x66.jpg"},"fusion-200":{"width":200,"height":133,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8750,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-200x133.jpg"},"fusion-400":{"width":400,"height":266,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":22767,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-400x266.jpg"},"fusion-600":{"width":600,"height":399,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":40938,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-600x399.jpg"},"fusion-800":{"width":800,"height":532,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":62242,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-800x532.jpg"},"fusion-1200":{"width":1200,"height":798,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":114560,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1200x798.jpg"},"portfolio-full":{"width":940,"height":400,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":54471,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-940x400.jpg"},"portfolio-one":{"width":540,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":28214,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-540x272.jpg"},"portfolio-two":{"width":460,"height":295,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":27314,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-460x295.jpg"},"portfolio-three":{"width":300,"height":214,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16065,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x214.jpg"},"portfolio-five":{"width":177,"height":142,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8419,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-177x142.jpg"},"sow-carousel-default":{"width":272,"height":182,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":13237,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-272x182.jpg"}},"original_image":"doctorat-PV-1.jpg"},"all_day":false,"start_date":"2026-04-17 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19:20:55","url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/event\/hussein-rajabu-masters-thesis-defense-friday-april-17-2026-230-pm-central-time\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/8521","title":"Hussein Rajabu Master\u2019s Thesis Defense, Friday, April 17, 2026 @ 2:30 pm Central Time","description":"

COMMITTEE CHAIR<\/strong>: Dr. Xishuang Dong<\/p>\n

TITLE<\/strong>: MULTI-TASK GROWING INTERPRETABLE NEURAL NETWORK FOR MULTI-TARGET SYMBOLIC REGRESSION<\/p>\n

ABSTRACT: <\/strong>Over the past decade, deep learning has achieved remarkable success across a wide range of domains, including computer vision and natural language processing. Despite their strong performance, these models often operate as black boxes, making it difficult to understand how decisions are made. This lack of transparency poses significant challenges for deploying deep learning techniques in high-stakes applications such as healthcare and business analytics, where interpretability is essential. To address this issue, explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) and interpretable AI techniques have been developed to provide insights into model behavior. However, most existing approaches primarily capture statistical associations between inputs and outputs rather than uncovering the underlying functional mechanisms driving predictions. Symbolic regression (SR) has recently gained attention as a promising approach within interpretable AI. Unlike traditional methods, SR aims to discover explicit mathematical expressions that describe the relationships between variables, offering both interpretability and competitive predictive performance. Although SR has advanced significantly in recent years, two major challenges remain. First, SR methods are primarily developed and validated on scientific datasets, such as those from physics and chemistry, where underlying relationships are relatively well understood. This limits their applicability to broader, data-driven machine learning tasks. Second, most SR approaches focus on single-target regression, while many real-world problems involve multiple correlated outputs that share common information. To address these limitations, this thesis proposes Multi-Task Regression GINN-LP (MTRGINN-LP), a novel neuro-symbolic framework for multi-target symbolic regression. Building upon GINN-LP, the model introduces Power-Term Approximator Blocks to effectively capture power-law relationships in data. It further integrates multi-task learning through a shared backbone combined with task-specific output layers, enabling the discovery of shared symbolic representations while maintaining task-level interpretability. Additionally, a symbolic loss function is introduced to align symbolic predictions with regression outputs during training. The proposed method is evaluated on diverse multi-target regression tasks, including energy efficiency analysis and sustainable agriculture. Experimental results demonstrate that the approach achieves competitive predictive performance while preserving strong interpretability, effectively bridging the gap between symbolic regression and practical multi-output learning scenarios.<\/p>\n

Keywords: <\/strong>Interpretable AI, Multi-task Learning, Multi-target Regression, Symbolic AI<\/p>\n

Room Location: <\/strong>Electrical Engineering Conference Room 315D<\/p>","excerpt":"","slug":"hussein-rajabu-masters-thesis-defense-friday-april-17-2026-230-pm-central-time","image":{"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-scaled.jpg","id":7636,"extension":"jpg","width":2560,"height":1703,"filesize":379306,"sizes":{"medium":{"width":300,"height":200,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":15264,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"width":1024,"height":681,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":90630,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1024x681.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":7774,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"width":768,"height":511,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":58384,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-768x511.jpg"},"1536x1536":{"width":1536,"height":1022,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":167902,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1536x1022.jpg"},"2048x2048":{"width":2048,"height":1363,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":265363,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-2048x1363.jpg"},"search-live-thumbnail-32x32":{"width":32,"height":32,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":1759,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-32x32.jpg"},"blog-large":{"width":669,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":31377,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-669x272.jpg"},"blog-medium":{"width":320,"height":202,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16101,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-320x202.jpg"},"recent-posts":{"width":700,"height":441,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":49670,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-700x441.jpg"},"recent-works-thumbnail":{"width":66,"height":66,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":3128,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-66x66.jpg"},"fusion-200":{"width":200,"height":133,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8750,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-200x133.jpg"},"fusion-400":{"width":400,"height":266,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":22767,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-400x266.jpg"},"fusion-600":{"width":600,"height":399,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":40938,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-600x399.jpg"},"fusion-800":{"width":800,"height":532,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":62242,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-800x532.jpg"},"fusion-1200":{"width":1200,"height":798,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":114560,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1200x798.jpg"},"portfolio-full":{"width":940,"height":400,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":54471,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-940x400.jpg"},"portfolio-one":{"width":540,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":28214,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-540x272.jpg"},"portfolio-two":{"width":460,"height":295,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":27314,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-460x295.jpg"},"portfolio-three":{"width":300,"height":214,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16065,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x214.jpg"},"portfolio-five":{"width":177,"height":142,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8419,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-177x142.jpg"},"sow-carousel-default":{"width":272,"height":182,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":13237,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-272x182.jpg"}},"original_image":"doctorat-PV-1.jpg"},"all_day":false,"start_date":"2026-04-17 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Aziz Master\u2019s Thesis Defense, Tuesday, April 21, 2026 @ 10:00 am Central Time","description":"

COMMITTEE CHAIR<\/strong>: Dr. Suxia Cui
\nCO-COMMITTEE CHAIR<\/strong>: Dr. Lujun Zhai<\/p>\n

TITLE<\/strong>: EFFECTIVE DATA AUGMENTATION STRATEGIES FOR SMALL OBJECT DETECTION<\/p>\n

ABSTRACT: <\/strong>Data augmentation remains the most effective method of improving object detection, particularly in scenes where small objects dominate and the annotated datasets are small. While geometric augmentation techniques such as flipping, cropping, and photometric augmentations such as brightness, color jittering adjustments, and content-level augmentations such as mixup and copy-paste augmentation have proved useful, current research suggests the viability of learned augmentation policies, instance-level generative augmentations, and diffusion-based augmentations. Here, we present a structured comparison of the augmentation methods on the YOLO11m detector, focusing particularly on the detection of small objects on the SODA-D dataset. We benchmark the standard YOLO11m model with models learned with (i) conventional transforms, (ii) learned augmentation policies, (iii) diffusion-based semantic editing, and (iv) instance-level redrawing of images by employing pre-trained generative models. Through different experimental configurations, we see that dataset augmentation by instance-level augmentations always outperforms the rest, achieving the highest boosts in mean Average Precision (mAP) for object categories of small size. Our research also indicates that augmentations at the object-instance level guarantee preservation of scene context and introduce visual diversity, which overcomes overfitting and improves robustness. These findings provide empirical evidence for instance-aware generative augmentations being a robust and generalizable method of detecting small objects, and leave the possibility of data-efficient training pipelines for future vision tasks.<\/p>\n

Keywords: <\/strong>Small Object Detection, Data Augmentation, Generative Models, YOLO11m<\/p>\n

Room Location: <\/strong>Electrical Engineering Conference Room 315D<\/p>","excerpt":"","slug":"tarek-aziz-masters-thesis-defense-tuesday-april-21-2026-1000-am-central-time","image":{"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-scaled.jpg","id":7636,"extension":"jpg","width":2560,"height":1703,"filesize":379306,"sizes":{"medium":{"width":300,"height":200,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":15264,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"width":1024,"height":681,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":90630,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1024x681.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":7774,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"width":768,"height":511,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":58384,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-768x511.jpg"},"1536x1536":{"width":1536,"height":1022,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":167902,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1536x1022.jpg"},"2048x2048":{"width":2048,"height":1363,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":265363,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-2048x1363.jpg"},"search-live-thumbnail-32x32":{"width":32,"height":32,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":1759,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-32x32.jpg"},"blog-large":{"width":669,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":31377,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-669x272.jpg"},"blog-medium":{"width":320,"height":202,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16101,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-320x202.jpg"},"recent-posts":{"width":700,"height":441,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":49670,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-700x441.jpg"},"recent-works-thumbnail":{"width":66,"height":66,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":3128,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-66x66.jpg"},"fusion-200":{"width":200,"height":133,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8750,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-200x133.jpg"},"fusion-400":{"width":400,"height":266,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":22767,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-400x266.jpg"},"fusion-600":{"width":600,"height":399,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":40938,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-600x399.jpg"},"fusion-800":{"width":800,"height":532,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":62242,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-800x532.jpg"},"fusion-1200":{"width":1200,"height":798,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":114560,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1200x798.jpg"},"portfolio-full":{"width":940,"height":400,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":54471,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-940x400.jpg"},"portfolio-one":{"width":540,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":28214,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-540x272.jpg"},"portfolio-two":{"width":460,"height":295,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":27314,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-460x295.jpg"},"portfolio-three":{"width":300,"height":214,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16065,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x214.jpg"},"portfolio-five":{"width":177,"height":142,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8419,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-177x142.jpg"},"sow-carousel-default":{"width":272,"height":182,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":13237,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-272x182.jpg"}},"original_image":"doctorat-PV-1.jpg"},"all_day":false,"start_date":"2026-04-21 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Session","description":"

Please join us next Tuesday, April 21st, at 6:30 pm, for our virtual informational series. Dr. Hebert Thomas, Assistant Director, from the Careers & Professional Development Department, will inform us of the career services available for students at PVAMU. To join the Zoom, please click on “Join Zoom Meeting” on the flyer day of the event.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Register using the link below or the attached flyer to receive the recording of the informational session<\/div>\n
https:\/\/pvamu.co1.qualtrics.com\/jfe\/form\/SV_6oiK3UagU8tZOke<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Kind regards,<\/div>\n
Northwest Houston Center<\/div>\n
9449 Grant Rd.<\/div>\n
Houston, TX\u00a0 77070<\/div>\n
(713) 790-7146<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
To reserve a space at the NWHC<\/b>\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/span>click here<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0<\/b><\/div>\n
For rental rates at the NWHC<\/b><\/span>\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/span>click here<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>","excerpt":"","slug":"career-services-informational-session","image":{"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/Career-Services-Informational-Session-1-pdf.jpg","id":8653,"extension":"pdf"},"all_day":false,"start_date":"2026-04-21 18:30:00","start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"21","hour":"18","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"end_date":"2026-04-21 19:30:00","end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"21","hour":"19","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"utc_start_date":"2026-04-21 23:30:00","utc_start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"21","hour":"23","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"utc_end_date":"2026-04-22 00:30:00","utc_end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"00","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"timezone":"America\/Chicago","timezone_abbr":"CDT","cost":"","cost_details":{"currency_symbol":"$","currency_code":"USD","currency_position":"prefix","values":[]},"website":"","show_map":true,"show_map_link":true,"hide_from_listings":false,"sticky":false,"featured":false,"categories":[{"name":"Main Events","slug":"main-events","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1296,"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","description":"","parent":0,"count":174,"filter":"raw","id":1296,"urls":{"self":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/categories\/1296","collection":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/categories"}}],"tags":[],"venue":[],"organizer":[],"is_virtual":false,"virtual_url":null,"virtual_video_source":""},{"id":8560,"global_id":"www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool?id=8560","global_id_lineage":["www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool?id=8560"],"author":"432","status":"publish","date":"2026-04-08 23:08:52","date_utc":"2026-04-09 04:08:52","modified":"2026-04-08 23:08:59","modified_utc":"2026-04-09 04:08:59","url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/event\/maowen-tang-masters-thesis-defense-wednesday-april-22-2026-1100-am-central-time\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/8560","title":"Maowen Tang Master\u2019s Thesis Defense, Wednesday, April 22, 2026 @ 11:00 am Central Time","description":"

COMMITTEE CHAIR<\/strong>: Dr. Yonghui Wang<\/p>\n

TITLE<\/strong>: STRUCTURED REPRESENTATION LEARNING FOR GENERALIZABLE DEEPFAKE VIDEO DETECTION<\/p>\n

ABSTRACT<\/strong> Deepfake video detection has become an important problem in multimedia forensics as modern generative models produce increasingly realistic facial manipulations. Although many existing detectors achieve strong performance on the datasets on which they are trained, their performance often degrades substantially on unseen manipulation methods and evaluation conditions. A major reason for this limitation is the premature collapse of spatial structure: many vision transformer based detectors aggregate patch tokens into a single global representation, thereby suppressing the localized and temporally uneven forensic cues that characterize manipulated video. This thesis presents the Spatio-Temporal Slot Aggregation Network (ST-SAN), a video-level deepfake detection framework designed to preserve structured forensic evidence before final classification. ST-SAN extracts patch tokens from three intermediate layers of a frozen DINOv2 backbone and aligns them through a lightweight bottleneck projection. A K-slot soft aggregation module then forms multiple learned slot summaries for each frame, allowing the model to retain several localized views of manipulation evidence instead of collapsing all patch information into one vector. These slot features are further integrated through adaptive frame weighting and slot weighting so that frames and slot summaries with stronger forensic content contribute more to the final decision. Training is stabilized by structural regularization terms that encourage locality, orthogonality, diversity across slot summaries, and weak coverage. Experiments show that ST-SAN achieves 0.960 AUC on FaceForensics++ under in-domain evaluation. Under cross-domain evaluation, it achieves 0.917 AUC on Celeb-DF v2, 0.872 AUC on DeepFakeDetection, and 0.890 AUC on the DeepFake Detection Challenge Preview dataset, indicating competitive cross-domain performance on the reported benchmarks. Ablation results show that parallel soft slot aggregation is an important architectural component, while adaptive weighting and structural regularization help stabilize the full model. These findings indicate that preserving multiple localized forensic summaries prior to video-level classification is a promising strategy for improving robustness under cross-domain evaluation in deepfake video detection.<\/p>\n

Keywords: <\/strong>Deepfake detection, video forensics, representation learning, vision transformer, slot aggregation, adaptive weighting.<\/p>\n

Room Location: <\/strong>S. R. Collins Building, Room 111L<\/p>","excerpt":"","slug":"maowen-tang-masters-thesis-defense-wednesday-april-22-2026-1100-am-central-time","image":{"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-scaled.jpg","id":7636,"extension":"jpg","width":2560,"height":1703,"filesize":379306,"sizes":{"medium":{"width":300,"height":200,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":15264,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"width":1024,"height":681,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":90630,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1024x681.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":7774,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"width":768,"height":511,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":58384,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-768x511.jpg"},"1536x1536":{"width":1536,"height":1022,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":167902,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1536x1022.jpg"},"2048x2048":{"width":2048,"height":1363,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":265363,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-2048x1363.jpg"},"search-live-thumbnail-32x32":{"width":32,"height":32,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":1759,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-32x32.jpg"},"blog-large":{"width":669,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":31377,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-669x272.jpg"},"blog-medium":{"width":320,"height":202,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16101,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-320x202.jpg"},"recent-posts":{"width":700,"height":441,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":49670,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-700x441.jpg"},"recent-works-thumbnail":{"width":66,"height":66,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":3128,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-66x66.jpg"},"fusion-200":{"width":200,"height":133,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8750,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-200x133.jpg"},"fusion-400":{"width":400,"height":266,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":22767,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-400x266.jpg"},"fusion-600":{"width":600,"height":399,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":40938,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-600x399.jpg"},"fusion-800":{"width":800,"height":532,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":62242,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-800x532.jpg"},"fusion-1200":{"width":1200,"height":798,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":114560,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1200x798.jpg"},"portfolio-full":{"width":940,"height":400,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":54471,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-940x400.jpg"},"portfolio-one":{"width":540,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":28214,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-540x272.jpg"},"portfolio-two":{"width":460,"height":295,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":27314,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-460x295.jpg"},"portfolio-three":{"width":300,"height":214,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16065,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x214.jpg"},"portfolio-five":{"width":177,"height":142,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8419,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-177x142.jpg"},"sow-carousel-default":{"width":272,"height":182,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":13237,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-272x182.jpg"}},"original_image":"doctorat-PV-1.jpg"},"all_day":false,"start_date":"2026-04-22 11:00:00","start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"11","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"end_date":"2026-04-22 12:00:00","end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"12","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_start_date":"2026-04-22 16:00:00","utc_start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"16","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_end_date":"2026-04-22 17:00:00","utc_end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"17","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"timezone":"America\/Chicago","timezone_abbr":"CDT","cost":"","cost_details":{"currency_symbol":"$","currency_code":"USD","currency_position":"prefix","values":[]},"website":"","show_map":true,"show_map_link":true,"hide_from_listings":false,"sticky":false,"featured":false,"categories":[{"name":"Main 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20:55:59","url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/event\/lasonya-dunham-dissertation-defense-wednesday-april-22-2026-100-pm-central-time\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/8646","title":"Lasonya Dunham Dissertation Defense, Wednesday, April 22, 2026 @ 1:00 pm Central Time","description":"

COMMITTEE CHAIR<\/strong>: Dr. Patricia Miller<\/p>\n

TITLE<\/strong>: WHITE PRINCIPALS AS ANTI-RACIST ALLIES IN AFRICAN AMERICAN SCHOOLS<\/p>\n

ABSTRACT: <\/strong>Racism and education in American schools are more complex and misunderstood now more than ever. Even as Black and Brown populations expand, their educational conditions are rapidly deteriorating due to societal racial injustices. A large majority of African American schools in the United States are overwhelmingly led by White administrators. Many of them enter school systems without ever having had experience with or knowledge of diverse cultures. These leaders find themselves facing communication and collaboration barriers with students and staff at their schools. However, there are White school leaders who have sought to understand the implications of systemic racism and cultural disconnect, thus using it as a catalyst to create positive change within schools. The critical discourse that results from this level of sociopolitical awareness can yield highly successful outcomes, as reflected in students’ academic performance and leadership practices. White school leaders at African American schools can provide leadership insight and framework for change as they strive to address social inequities in their schools while consistently embedding anti-racist practices. The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of White principals by deconstructing their identities as manifested in their leadership behaviors at African American schools. The research focused on six White principals leading successful predominantly Black schools. The sample includes associate and assistant principals in elementary, middle, or high schools located in southeast Texas. Creating fertile environments for White principals to have critical conversations about race and school leadership can open doors to eliminating conscious and unconscious racist behaviors, resulting in increased achievement. This qualitative research, conducted through a critical phenomenological study, obtained personal stories and lived experiences of White leaders in thriving African American schools. Emerging themes were multifarious experiences with People of Color, construction of racial identity, cultural competency, and anti-racist White consciousness. This study can provide a blueprint for creating dynamic educational leadership development training and programs that examine and address racism in school systems, thereby promoting higher achievement among economically marginalized student populations.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>: Anti-racist, social inequity, cultural competence, racial identity<\/p>\n

Location Online:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zoom Link<\/strong>: https:\/\/pvpanther.zoom.us\/j\/96240267337?pwd=lUaMvTvAwIqf82cEnQaGBFaD9Qb3zw.1<\/p>\n

Meeting ID<\/strong>: 962 4026 7337<\/p>\n

Passcode<\/strong>: 179947<\/p>","excerpt":"","slug":"lasonya-dunham-dissertation-defense-wednesday-april-22-2026-100-pm-central-time","image":{"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-scaled.jpg","id":7636,"extension":"jpg","width":2560,"height":1703,"filesize":379306,"sizes":{"medium":{"width":300,"height":200,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":15264,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"width":1024,"height":681,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":90630,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1024x681.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":7774,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"width":768,"height":511,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":58384,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-768x511.jpg"},"1536x1536":{"width":1536,"height":1022,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":167902,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1536x1022.jpg"},"2048x2048":{"width":2048,"height":1363,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":265363,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-2048x1363.jpg"},"search-live-thumbnail-32x32":{"width":32,"height":32,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":1759,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-32x32.jpg"},"blog-large":{"width":669,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":31377,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-669x272.jpg"},"blog-medium":{"width":320,"height":202,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16101,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-320x202.jpg"},"recent-posts":{"width":700,"height":441,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":49670,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-700x441.jpg"},"recent-works-thumbnail":{"width":66,"height":66,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":3128,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-66x66.jpg"},"fusion-200":{"width":200,"height":133,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8750,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-200x133.jpg"},"fusion-400":{"width":400,"height":266,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":22767,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-400x266.jpg"},"fusion-600":{"width":600,"height":399,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":40938,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-600x399.jpg"},"fusion-800":{"width":800,"height":532,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":62242,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-800x532.jpg"},"fusion-1200":{"width":1200,"height":798,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":114560,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-1200x798.jpg"},"portfolio-full":{"width":940,"height":400,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":54471,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-940x400.jpg"},"portfolio-one":{"width":540,"height":272,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":28214,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-540x272.jpg"},"portfolio-two":{"width":460,"height":295,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":27314,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-460x295.jpg"},"portfolio-three":{"width":300,"height":214,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":16065,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-300x214.jpg"},"portfolio-five":{"width":177,"height":142,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":8419,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-177x142.jpg"},"sow-carousel-default":{"width":272,"height":182,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":13237,"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/doctorat-PV-1-272x182.jpg"}},"original_image":"doctorat-PV-1.jpg"},"all_day":false,"start_date":"2026-04-22 13:00:00","start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"13","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"end_date":"2026-04-22 13:00:00","end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"13","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_start_date":"2026-04-22 18:00:00","utc_start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"18","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_end_date":"2026-04-22 18:00:00","utc_end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"22","hour":"18","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"timezone":"America\/Chicago","timezone_abbr":"CDT","cost":"","cost_details":{"currency_symbol":"$","currency_code":"USD","currency_position":"prefix","values":[]},"website":"","show_map":true,"show_map_link":true,"hide_from_listings":false,"sticky":false,"featured":false,"categories":[{"name":"Main 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22:08:57","url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/event\/akanimo-etokebe-dissertation-proposal-defense-thursday-april-23-2026-1000-am-central-time\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/8656","title":"Akanimo Etokebe Dissertation Proposal Defense, Thursday, April 23, 2026 @ 10:00 am Central Time","description":"

COMMITTEE CHAIR<\/strong>: Dr. Suxia Cui<\/p>\n

TITLE<\/strong>: CNN-BASED IMAGE ENHANCEMENT USING SPARSITY-AWARE OPTIMIZATION<\/p>\n

ABSTRACT:<\/strong> The deployment of convolutional neural network (CNN)-based image enhancement in edge computing environments is constrained by limited hardware resources and strict power budgets. Although CNN architectures provide superior visual restoration performance compared to traditional filtering techniques, convolution operations exhibit high multiply\u2013accumulate (MAC) density and memory access intensity, resulting in elevated dynamic power consumption on resource-constrained FPGA platforms. In CMOS-based programmable logic, dynamic power is dominated by switching activity and can be modeled as Pdyn = aCV2f, where a represents the signal transition probability. Dense convolution architectures maintain continuous activation of DSP blocks and routing fabric, leading to high switching activity and reduced energy efficiency. This report presents a sparsity-aware systolic array architecture for CNN-based image enhancement implemented on the Zybo Z7-20 FPGA platform (Zynq-7020 SoC). A baseline dense systolic implementation is first developed and characterized in terms of resource utilization, throughput, and power consumption. The proposed optimization introduces zero-skipping mechanisms, selective MAC gating, and bypass datapaths to exploit weight and activation sparsity. By reducing unnecessary operand propagation and disabling idle DSP48E1 slices, the architecture lowers effective switching activity within the convolution engine and interconnect network. The system is implemented in Verilog-2005 and synthesized using Vivado 2023.1. Experimental results demonstrate a measured 39% reduction in total power consumption compared to the dense baseline, while maintaining functional correctness and enhancement quality. Image quality evaluation using noisy butterfly datasets shows an improvement in Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) from 16.2 dB to 19.6 dB. Resource utilization remains within the 220 DSP slice and limited Block RAM constraints of the Zybo Z7-20 device. These results demonstrate that CNN-based image enhancement on resource-constrained FPGAs can achieve high-quality visual restoration while significantly reducing dynamic power through sparsity-aware systolic processing. The proposed approach advances energy-efficient edge AI acceleration by integrating sparsity exploitation, hardware-level switching activity reduction, and structured systolic dataflow optimization within an embedded vision framework.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>: Convolution Neural Network, Hardware Resources, Systolic Array, Power Consumption, Sparsity Exploitation<\/p>\n

Room Location<\/strong>: Electrical Engineering Conference Room 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Events","slug":"main-events","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1296,"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","description":"","parent":0,"count":174,"filter":"raw","id":1296,"urls":{"self":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/categories\/1296","collection":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/categories"}}],"tags":[],"venue":[],"organizer":[],"is_virtual":false,"virtual_url":null,"virtual_video_source":""},{"id":8572,"global_id":"www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool?id=8572","global_id_lineage":["www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool?id=8572"],"author":"432","status":"publish","date":"2026-04-10 12:37:40","date_utc":"2026-04-10 17:37:40","modified":"2026-04-10 12:38:26","modified_utc":"2026-04-10 17:38:26","url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/event\/natures-intelligence-a-photography-exhibit\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/8572","title":"NATURE\u2019S INTELLIGENCE A PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT @ Northwest Houston Center Library","description":"

\n

Good afternoon\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Please join us on Thursday, April 23, 2026, from 6:00 pm-8:00 pm for another great art exhibit here at the Northwest. The Northwest Houston Center Library would like to invite you to the Nature’s Intelligence, A Photography Exhibit opening night reception. Click the link on the flyer or click the link below to RSVP.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

https:\/\/pvamu.co1.qualtrics.com\/jfe\/form\/SV_eg62rDvMcHKZDTg<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Kind regards,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Northwest Houston Center<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

9449 Grant Rd.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Houston, TX\u00a0 77070<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

(713) 790-7146<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

To reserve a space at the NWHC<\/b>\u00a0<\/i><\/b>click here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

For rental rates at the NWHC<\/b>\u00a0<\/i><\/b>click here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>","excerpt":"","slug":"natures-intelligence-a-photography-exhibit","image":{"url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/Nature-exhibit-1-1-pdf.jpg","id":8574,"extension":"pdf"},"all_day":false,"start_date":"2026-04-23 18:00:00","start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"23","hour":"18","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"end_date":"2026-04-23 20:00:00","end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"23","hour":"20","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_start_date":"2026-04-23 23:00:00","utc_start_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"23","hour":"23","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_end_date":"2026-04-24 01:00:00","utc_end_date_details":{"year":"2026","month":"04","day":"24","hour":"01","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"timezone":"America\/Chicago","timezone_abbr":"CDT","cost":"","cost_details":{"currency_symbol":"$","currency_code":"USD","currency_position":"prefix","values":[]},"website":"","show_map":true,"show_map_link":true,"hide_from_listings":false,"sticky":false,"featured":false,"categories":[{"name":"Main Events","slug":"main-events","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1296,"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","description":"","parent":0,"count":174,"filter":"raw","id":1296,"urls":{"self":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/categories\/1296","collection":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/categories"}}],"tags":[],"venue":[],"organizer":[],"is_virtual":false,"virtual_url":null,"virtual_video_source":""}],"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/?page=1&per_page=10&start_date=2026-04-16 00:00:00&end_date=2028-04-17 23:59:59&status=publish","next_rest_url":"https:\/\/www.pvamu.edu\/graduateschool\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/?per_page=10&start_date=2026-04-16+00%3A00%3A00&end_date=2028-04-17+23%3A59%3A59&status=publish&page=2","total":15,"total_pages":2}