Student Profiles

Liliane de Aguiar-Rocha
Learning Process Psychology
Queens College

Liliane de Aguiar-Rocha is graduate student enrolled in the Learning Processes and Behavioral Analysis (LPBA) doctor of philosophy psychology subprogram at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is part of the Organizational Behavior Management laboratory at Queens College, where she studies behavioral safety in organizations. She is particularly interested on antecedent control of performance. Her current research projects involve: authorship order and its effects on tenure and promotion, parameters of conditioned reinforcer and their effect on the establishment of conditioned reinforcers and antecedent control of safety behavior and inter-prompt intervals. She is very interested in minority students’ affairs and is part of the student advisory committee for the Office of Educational Opportunities and Diversity Programs (OEODP).  As a student representative to the Executive Committee in the LPBA program, she is part of the search committee for a new faculty member. She is originally from Brazil and immigrated to the USA in 1999. She is an adjunct lecturer at Queens College, and she has taught introductory psychology, psychology of human motivation, psychology of business and industry, and advanced experimental psychology: behavior modification.

Anthony Elijius
Materials Science and Engineering
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Anthony Elijius is a 4th year PhD candidate. His research objective is on the mechanism(s) of the phytotoxicity of Alumina nano particles and is being determined using six plant species; corn, lettuce, cucumber, carrot and oat. These plant species are exposed to varying concentrations of Alumina nano particles suspensions, supernatants and filtrates and the effects compared to that of the Blank (control). Anthony received his B.Eng, Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria. 1992                 M.Tech, Rivers state University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. 1997.

Gaffar Gailani
Mechanical Engineering
City College of New York

Gaffar Gailani is a PhD candidate in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the City University of New York (CUNY). His thesis defense is on 9/1/09. His current research, thesis, centers on poroelasticity and bone fluid flow. In the future, he would like to focus his research on degradable materials, porous mediums and articular cartilage. Gaffar taught Mechanics of Materials and Structural Systems II at Polytechnic University in NY from 2003 - 2006. Also he worked as a design engineer in the Department of Design and Construction in NY for four years. Gaffar is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the International Society of Biomechanics (ISB).

Wycliffe A Graham
Materials Science
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Wycliffe Alvin Graham is an AGEP Doctoral Scholar majoring in Material Science and Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology.  He completed his undergraduate studies in Natural Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, in 1983 where he obtained a B.Sc. (Hons) degree. Mr. Graham then went on to complete a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) degree in Physics at the same university in 1989.  In 1992, he completed a Construction Technology and Management Course offered by The Chartered Institute of Building, Englemere, U.K.  Mr. Graham’s work experience includes 12 years of teaching at the University of Technology, Jamaica and 11 years as an Engineering Manager at the Jamaica Bureau of Standards.

Alumni Profiles

Liz Avery Gomez
Elizabeth Avery Gomez earned her Ph.D. in Information Systems at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and is an Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) fellow. She teaches undergraduate technical writing, database fundamentals and telecommunication fundamentals. Her research interests include: how information communication technology (ICT) can improve communication in crisis management, in communities of need, and for active learning. Her primary focus is on the improving e-readiness of individuals before engaging in collaborative settings. For more information visit Liz’s website - www.ereadiness.org or click on her name to see her AGEP profile.

Rita Thornton
Anyone who has seen the award-winning film The Ditchdigger’s Daughter will know the story of Rita Thornton. When Thornton was a child, her father, who worked as a ditchdigger, wanted all six of his daughters to become doctors. Her mother, who had similar hopes for her daughters, labored as a cleaning woman who moonlighted in factories and sweatshops. This was in the 1950s, before the women’s movement, affirmative action and equal opportunity….To learn more, click on her name to see her AGEP profile.