Comparative Studies Celebrates Summer 2026 PhD Graduates

The PhD in Comparative Studies program is proud to celebrate four students who successfully completed their dissertations and earned their doctoral degrees at Florida Atlantic University’s Summer 2026 Commencement on August 11.

Jose Luis Jimenez-Figarotti- SOCIAL COMPLEX SYSTEMS IN VIRTUAL THIRDSPACES OF GLOBAL EDUCATION: SITES OF STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES AND RADICAL PEDAGOGICAL POSSIBILITIES, (Director Patricia Widener, committee members Philip Lewin and Kelly Tzoumis).

Dr. Jimenez-Figarotti's dissertation employs a longitudinal critical digital ethnography to investigate how structural violence, digital divides, and epistemic hierarchies are negotiated in cross-cultural virtual environments. Through his socioanthropological research, he explores how macro-level global asymmetries shape microinteractions, and how marginalized participants navigate and subvert these structures to reclaim agency and achieve epistemic restitution.

Hassan Pishahang- MATERIAL AFFECTING DESIGN (MAD): HOW LIVING BIOMATERIALS RESHAPE COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN THROUGH BIOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION, (Director Reza Azarderakhsh, committee members Joseph Velasquez and Melissa Sclafani).

Dr. Pishahang's dissertation investigates how biological growth, material behavior, and environmental transformation can actively influence computational design and fabrication. His work challenges approaches in which materials are treated as passive substances and instead examines how living and responsive materials can participate in design decision-making. We are also delighted to share that Dr. Pishahang has recently joined Harvard as an HGHI–Salata Burke Climate and Health Fellow. Congrats, Dr. Pishahang!

Arianna Salomon- FROM WORDS TO FORM: DISABILITY IN CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN AND ITALIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE, (Director Ilaria Serra, committee members Emanuele Pettener and Taylor Hagood).

Dr. Salomon’s research has focused on contemporary Italian literature and the Italian diaspora, with particular emphasis on Italian American prose. She has published articles in Italica, Italian

Americana, Il Pietrisco, Campi immaginabili, and Quaderni Veneti, and currently has an article in press in Diasporic Italy. Her article, “Emigrazione da Piombino Dese: l’heimat poetico di Luciano Pallaro” (2025), which was presented at FAU’s annual Italy in Transit conference, received an honorable mention from the government of Regione Veneto, in Italy. Her current research and dissertation, “From Words to Form: Disability in Contemporary Italian and Italian American Literature,” applies Disability Literary Theory to explore innovative representations of physical and cognitive disability. In recognition of this work, she was awarded the Summer Research Fellowship for Summer 2026 by the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters.

Celso Urroz - TOWARD DESIGN-TO-FABRICATION CONTINUUM FOR OPEN-SOURCE COMPUTATIONAL ROBOTIC ECOLOGIES IN THE POST-ANTHROPOGENIC ERA, (Director Dustin White, committee members Stacey Balkan, Provides Ng and Miktha Farid Alkadri).

Dr. Urroz’s dissertation investigates how computational methods, robotic systems, material behavior, and environmental feedback can be organized as a continuous and transferable framework rather than a linear production pipeline. Through cumulative research through design experiments, it proposes open robotic fabrication ecologies that connect ecological knowledge, computational exploration, machinic constraints, and public dissemination. Current projects include Robotic Scan-to-Sequence: adaptive printing on irregular substrates; Crafting Tree Forks: robotic joinery with irregular timber; and Toward 3D Simplexity: low-tech CNC bent-rib fabrication.

Congratulations to Drs. Jimenez-Figarotti, Pishahang, Salomon, and Urroz on this outstanding accomplishment, and to the faculty, mentors, colleagues, friends, and family who supported them throughout their doctoral journeys.