Our graduate events calendar is designed to support student success by offering a range of opportunities in key areas. Graduate students can participate in events that promote health and wellbeing, enhance career planning skills, advance research capabilities, and foster academic preparedness. Each event is thoughtfully tailored to help students thrive in both their academic and professional pursuits. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have about upcoming events at the Graduate College.
Meet-n-Greet for Master's and Ph.D. Students
Fall Semester Kickoff: Graduate Student Meet & Greet Join us for a relaxed and welcoming social event to kick off the new semester! This is a great opportunity for Masterβs and Ph.D. students to connect, share experiences, and build community across disciplines. Whether you're new to campus or returning, come enjoy light refreshments, meet fellow grad students, and start the semester off right! Date: August 27, 2025 Time: 4-6 p.m. Location: Academic Learning Center, Room 3550 (Kennesaw Campus)Chat with the Graduate College Staff
Kick off the semester with everything you need to thrive as a graduate student! Join us for an informative and interactive session where youβll: Meet the Graduate College staff and get to know your support team Learn the ins and outs of GRA/GTA roles and responsibilities Get tips on navigating the Graduate College website and managing official emails Understand key milestones in your academic progression Discover upcoming student success events and how to get involved Find out how to enter our Fall T-Shirt Design Contest and show off your creativity! Date:September 2, 2025 Time: 4-6 p.m. Location: Academic Learning Center, Room 3550 (See calendar for Chats with Graduate College Staff on the Marietta campus and a virtual session)Chat with the Graduate College Staff
Kick off the semester with everything you need to thrive as a graduate student! Join us for an informative and interactive session where youβll: Meet the Graduate College staff and get to know your support team Learn the ins and outs of GRA/GTA roles and responsibilities Get tips on navigating the Graduate College website and managing official emails Understand key milestones in your academic progression Discover upcoming student success events and how to get involved Find out how to enter our Fall T-Shirt Design Contest and show off your creativity! Date:September 3, 2025 Time: 4:30-6 p.m. Location: Norton Hall, 2nd Floor (See calendar for Chats with Graduate College Staff on the Kennesaw campus and a virtual session)
June 2025
Elevate Your Career with a Master of Science in Exercise Science! Our innovative program combines foundational and advanced coursework, hands-on lab experiences, and real-world applications through community and research projects. Ready to learn more?
Join our Virtual Info Session to discover the opportunities awaiting you with an MS in Exercise Science!
π Register Now: https://ow.ly/Cjhi50UKz6q
Take the next step toward your future—sign up today! π
Join the Graduate College for our summer Snack & Chat social for master's and doctoral students. Come connect with fellow grad students, enjoy some tasty snacks, and unwind in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. Whether you're looking to network, make new friends, or just grab a snack and chill — this is the place to be!
- Wednesday, June 25, 2025
- 4:30-6 p.m.
- Academic Learning Center, Room 3550
- Kennesaw Campus
July 2025
Think you know the Marietta campus? Think again.
Join the College of Computing and Software Engineering for the Marietta Campus History Treasure Hunt & Photo Safari—a fun, creative campus adventure where you’ll uncover hidden gems, quirky landmarks, and untold stories from Southern Poly’s past and KSU’s present.
π Date & Time: July 9th, 2025, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
π Start Location: Info + clue sheets available outside the Atrium building (Marietta Campus)
π§ How it works:
π₯ Open to ALL KSU students (any major, any year!)
π Bonus points for bold poses, retro costumes, and campus pride.
Click here for complete details!
π Questions?
Contact alla.kemelmakher@kennesaw.edu or visit the CCSE office (J327).
The School of Data Science and Analytics is pleased to announce the dissertation defense of Mr. Sanad Biswas on Monday, July 14th at 12:00 p.m. Please join us in person in Atrium J2225 or via Teams at this link.
Mr. Biswas’s dissertation is entitled “Feature Significance and Explainability in Neural Network.”
His committee is: Dr. Sherry Ni (chair), Dr. Linh Le, Dr. Jonathan Boardman, and Dr. Xinyan Zhang.
_________________________
Abstract:
As deep neural networks grow increasingly powerful, concerns about their opacity and interpretability escalate, hindering their trustworthiness in high-stakes scenarios. eXplainable AI (XAI) methods have emerged to enhance transparency and accountability in neural networks, emphasizing interpretability through global feature significance, which explains model behavior across entire datasets, and local feature attribution, which explains individual predictions. A critical yet overlooked aspect is the selection of appropriate baselines for attribution methods. This dissertation addresses these dimensions by proposing rigorous methodologies: (1) a permutation-based testing framework for global feature significance, uniquely permuting the target variable to robustly handle nonlinear relationships and multicollinearity without restrictive assumptions; (2) statistical hypothesis tests and confidence intervals for local feature attribution methods, including Integrated Gradients, DeepLIFT, SHAP, and LIME, providing robust validation of individual feature contributions; and (3) a generative contrastive baseline approach that constructs minimally perturbed counterfactuals, offering actionable, realistic explanations within the data manifold. Together, these methodologies significantly advance XAI, integrating statistical rigor with practical applicability to promote transparent, accountable, and ethically responsible neural network models.
The School of Data Science and Analytics is pleased to announce the dissertation defense of Mr. Jitendra Sai Kota on Friday, July 18th at 10:00 a.m. Please join us in person in Atrium J1112 or via Teams (Link HERE).
Mr. Kota’s dissertation is entitled “Enhancing Off-Angle Iris Recognition Performance”.
His committee is: Dr. Mahmut Karakaya (chair), Dr. Ramazan Aygun, and Dr. Md. Abdullah Al Hafiz Khan.
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Abstract:
The usage of biometrics offers a reliable and high performing technology in the field of person identification and verification. Iris recognition, which uses the human iris as the biometric, is known for its low False Acceptance Rates and False Rejection Rates, making it one of the most secure and accurate forms of biometric authentication available today. However, most of the current iris recognition systems are based on frontal iris recognition, which limits the usability of the technology.
In frontal iris recognition, it is required that the axis of the human eye aligns with the axis of camera lens. To make iris recognition unconstrained and expand on its usability, there is a need for off-angle iris recognition. In off-angle iris recognition, there is no need for the axis match of human eye and camera lens, making off-angle iris recognition suitable for tasks like fast security checks and remote surveillance. However, off-angle iris recognition is not as simple as performing a perspective projection, because of several factors such as illumination, presence of cornea and limbus in the human eye. In this thesis, we propose three models that aim at improving the off-angle iris recognition at different levels. The first model identifies the most affected regions in the iris images and masks them. The second model creates a frontal projection of the off-angle iris image using a modified Pix2Pix GAN model. The third model proposes a novel segmentation algorithm for off-angle iris images.
The School of Data Science and Analytics is pleased to announce the dissertation defense of Ms. Nina Grundlingh on Friday, July 18th at 12:00 p.m. Please join us in person in Atrium J2225 or via Teams at this link.
Ms. Grundlingh’s dissertation is entitled “Quantifying Uncertainty in Image Generative Models.”
Her committee is: Dr. Herman Ray (chair), Dr. Xinyan Zhang, and Dr. Linh Le.
__________________
Abstract:
Recent advancements in deep learning, particularly the development of large language models, have generated substantial interest, yet there remains limited evidence that these technologies consistently fulfill their anticipated potential. While uncertainty quantification has been extensively studied in the context of classification and regression tasks, it is comparatively underdeveloped in generative models, and image captioning models in particular. At present, there is limited consensus regarding appropriate methodologies for quantifying uncertainty in these systems.
This research examines existing uncertainty quantification approaches and evaluates their suitability for image captioning models. The findings indicate that current methods are generally inadequate for the generative setting, owing to the conditional and recursive nature of language generation. To address this gap, we conduct experiments involving the generation of structured captions and developed a distributional framework to quantify uncertainty based on the predicted probabilities associated with generated tokens. We find the distributional method works for a limited number of tokens generated. Subsequently, the investigation extends to unstructured captions, wherein we introduce a method for constructing prediction sets around parts of speech, thereby providing a specified level of confidence that the true value resides within the set. These prediction sets can be utilized to score captions, facilitating the identification of captions that warrant further review. This approach not only enables the quantification of uncertainty in generated text captions but also supports the formation of word sets that are most relevant to the image.
August 2025
Join us for a relaxed and welcoming social event to kick off the new semester! This is a great opportunity for Master’s and Ph.D. students to connect, share experiences, and build community across disciplines.
Whether you’re new to campus or returning, come enjoy light refreshments, meet fellow grad students, and start the semester off right!
π Date: August 27, 2025
π Time: 4-6 p.m.
π Location: ALC 3550 (Kennesaw Campus)
September 2025
Kick off the semester with everything you need to thrive as a graduate student! Join us for an informative and interactive session where you’ll:
π
Date:September 2, 2025
π Time: 4-6 p.m.
π Location: Academic Learning Center, Room 3550
(See calendar for Chats with Graduate College Staff on the Marietta campus and a virtual session)
π Fall Semester Kickoff: Graduate Student Meet & Greet π
Join us for a relaxed and welcoming social event to kick off the new semester! This is a great opportunity for Master’s and Ph.D. students to connect, share experiences, and build community across disciplines. Whether you're new to campus or returning, come enjoy light refreshments, meet fellow grad students, and start the semester off right!
π
Date: September 4, 2025
π Time: 5-6 p.m.
π Location: Norton Hall, 2nd Floor (Marietta Campus)
Join us for a relaxed and welcoming opportunity to connect with Dean Juliet Langman of the Graduate College over donuts and conversation! This informal gathering is a great chance to:
Date: September 10, 2025
Time: 4:30-6 p.m.
Location: Academic Learning Center, Room 3550
Stop by, grab a treat, and connect with your graduate community—we’d love to see you there!
Please join us for a review of the required dissertation template. This workshop will focus on the guiding principles of the template and how to support students who will be submitting their dissertations in the future.
The intended audience for this workshop is any KSU students or faculty who are involved in doctoral committees, are pursuing a doctoral degree, or will be in the future.
Click HERE to register.
Join us for a relaxed and welcoming opportunity to connect with Dean Juliet Langman of the Graduate College over snacks and conversation! This informal gathering is a great chance to:
Date: September 18, 2025
Time: 4:30-6 p.m.
Location: Norton Hall, 2nd Floor
Stop by, grab a treat, and connect with your graduate community—we’d love to see you there!
October 2025
Kick off the semester with everything you need to thrive as a graduate student! Join us for an informative and interactive session where you’ll:
π
Date: October 1, 2025
π Time: 4:30-6 p.m.
π Location: Norton Hall, 2nd Floor
Need guidance on your graduate journey? Schedule a personalized one-on-one session with the Graduate College Staff to discuss important topics such as:
Send an email to gradcollege@kennesaw.edu to schedule your virtual session. To make the most of your session, please submit your questions in advance via email. This will help ensure a focused and productive conversation tailored to your needs.
Kick off the semester with everything you need to thrive as a graduate student! Join us for an informative and interactive session where you’ll:
π
Date: October 2, 2025
π Time: 4-6 p.m.
π Location: Academic Learning Center, Room 3550
Please join us for a workshop reviewing how to prepare your dissertation for final submission after your successful defense. This workshop will focus on the requirements of the dissertation template and how to ensure that your submitted manuscript is accepted in time for your graduation.
The intended audience for this workshop is any doctoral candidate. It is recommended that anyone planning to graduate this semester attends this workshop.
Meeting ID: 274 359 865 608 0
Passcode: xd3CY92B
November 2025
Kick off the semester with everything you need to thrive as a graduate student! Join us for an informative and interactive session where you’ll:
π
Date: November 4, 2025
π Time: 4-6 p.m.
π Location: Academic Learning Center, Room 3550
Kick off the semester with everything you need to thrive as a graduate student! Join us for an informative and interactive session where you’ll:
π
Date: November 5, 2025
π Time: 4:30-6 p.m.
π Location: Norton Hall, 2nd Floor
Need guidance on your graduate journey? Schedule a personalized one-on-one session with the Graduate College Staff to discuss important topics such as:
Send an email to gradcollege@kennesaw.edu to schedule your virtual session. To make the most of your session, please submit your questions in advance via email. This will help ensure a focused and productive conversation tailored to your needs.
The Center for Young Adult Addiction and Recovery will host a naloxone training session for graduate students that will teach how to administer naloxone, a medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
Training is free for KSU graduate students. Each person who attends and completes the training will be given a free Naloxone kit.
Sign-up is required. Click HERE to register.
At the end of this training, the participants will be able to:
*** If, after you register, you find that you cannot attend this event, please email gradcollege@kennesaw.edu as soon as possible, as there is a waiting list. ***
December 2025
Final Exam SnackTime ππ
Master's and Ph.D. students: Take a well-deserved break from studying and recharge with some tasty snacks!
When: December 2, 3, & 4
Time: 5:00–6:00 PM
Where: Academic Learning Center, Room 3550
Come grab a bite, relax, and fuel up for finals — you’ve got this!
(Also on Marietta campus in Norton Hall, 2nd Floor)
Final Exam SnackTime ππ
Master's and Ph.D. students: Take a well-deserved break from studying and recharge with some tasty snacks!
When: December 2, 3, & 4
Time: 5:00–6:00 PM
Where: Norton Hall, 2nd Floor (Marietta campus)
Come grab a bite, relax, and fuel up for finals — you’ve got this!
(Also on Kennesaw campus in the Academic Learning Center, Room 3550)
Final Exam SnackTime ππ
Master's and Ph.D. students: Take a well-deserved break from studying and recharge with some tasty snacks!
When: December 2, 3, & 4
Time: 5:00–6:00 PM
Where: Academic Learning Center, Room 3550
Come grab a bite, relax, and fuel up for finals — you’ve got this!
(Also on Marietta campus in Norton Hall, 2nd Floor)
Final Exam SnackTime ππ
Master's and Ph.D. students: Take a well-deserved break from studying and recharge with some tasty snacks!
When: December 2, 3, & 4
Time: 5:00–6:00 PM
Where: Norton Hall, 2nd Floor (Marietta campus)
Come grab a bite, relax, and fuel up for finals — you’ve got this!
(Also on Kennesaw campus in the Academic Learning Center, Room 3550)
Final Exam SnackTime ππ
Master's and Ph.D. students: Take a well-deserved break from studying and recharge with some tasty snacks!
When: December 2, 3, & 4
Time: 5:00–6:00 PM
Where: Academic Learning Center, Room 3550
Come grab a bite, relax, and fuel up for finals — you’ve got this!
(Also on Marietta campus in Norton Hall, 2nd Floor)
Final Exam SnackTime ππ
Master's and Ph.D. students: Take a well-deserved break from studying and recharge with some tasty snacks!
When: December 2, 3, & 4
Time: 5:00–6:00 PM
Where: Norton Hall, 2nd Floor (Marietta campus)
Come grab a bite, relax, and fuel up for finals — you’ve got this!
(Also on Kennesaw campus in the Academic Learning Center, Room 3550)
January 2026
February 2026
March 2026
April 2026
May 2026