Ph.D. Student Xin Dong Receives Summer Research Fellowship to Advance Malaria Research

A medium close-up color photograph taken on a sunny day shows an East Asian woman with dark hair in a beige trench coat smiling under cherry blossom branches in Washington, DC. Behind her is the Tidal Basin with the Washington Monument and more cherry trees on the opposite shore under a partly cloudy sky. The lighting is sunny and the photo is taken at eye level.

Funding will enable focused progress on geospatial health research.

Doctoral student Xin Dong, whose advisor is Professor Kathleen Stewart, has been awarded the University of Maryland Graduate School's Summer Research Fellowship 2026, supporting a critical phase of her dissertation research in geospatial health.

The fellowship provides funding to doctoral students in the period shortly before or after advancement to candidacy, allowing them to devote a summer to focused research. The goal is to help students reach key milestones, accelerate progress toward their degree and enhance the overall graduate experience. The award carries a $5,000 stipend, jointly supported by the Graduate School and the student’s academic program, and enables recipients to concentrate fully on work that advances their research.

Dong, who successfully defended her dissertation proposal in February 2026, studies geospatial health with a focus on the spatiotemporal modeling of infectious diseases, particularly malaria. Her work explores how environmental conditions and human mobility shape transmission dynamics, an area with important implications for public health planning and intervention.

During the fellowship period, she will advance her second dissertation study, which develops a human-movement–informed modeling framework to predict transmission of Plasmodium vivax malaria. The project represents a key step toward completing her dissertation and is expected to bring her closer to finishing her degree by spring 2027.

“This fellowship will allow me to fully focus on research, accelerating my progress and enhancing the quality and depth of my dissertation,” Dong said. “It will also provide the opportunity to translate my findings into a journal publication and prepare conference presentations.”

Published on Tue, 04/14/2026 - 13:00