PhD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Exatamente 1 ano depois de meu qualifying exam eu virei oficialmente PhD!

PhD, University of California Davis, 2010!

A cerimônia de formatura será dia 10 de junho.

Segue a seção de agradecimentos da minha tese:

It is extremely difficult to express gratitude in a few paragraphs to all that provided me support along these six years in the PhD program. First and foremost I thank God: ``All the glory, all the victory, I give You, because without You, I would not be here''. I also thank God for leading my way through all the joyous and difficult moments during these years, and for all the wonderful people at UC Davis that positively changed my life for the better. God provided me with everything I needed: emotional support, an excellent advisor, a research topic, papers and a job after completing my degree.

I would like to express extreme gratitude to Prof. Felix Wu. He believed in me since the beginning, supported me through all these years, and invested a great amount of his time in me and on my research topic. Most importantly, he represents to me a role model of a talented researcher and a great human being. He taught me not only how to be a great researcher, but also how to be an excellent advisor and a teacher. I could never have thought of a better advisor. I also would like to thank Prof. Fred Chong and Zhendong Su for all the support, advice and critical feedback they provided me through these years at UC Davis, especially in the first couple of years of my research work.I thank Prof. Matt Bishop and, again, Prof. Fred Chong for taking the time to participate in my committee. I also thank Prof. Hao Chen and Jed Crandall for participating in my qualifying exam committee. Their feedback has definitely improved the quality of my work.

I also thank the CS department administrative and technical staff, especially Kim Reinking, Jessica Stoller and Babak Moghadam.

I thank, again, Jed Crandall for the invaluable help he gave through these years. Our research discussions, his feedback and, most importantly, the example he set as a creative, passionate and hard-working researcher positively impacted my research and my future career. I also thank all my friends and colleagues from the Security lab and the CS Department (including those who already graduated), especially Shaozhi Shawn Ye, Sean Peisert, Xiaoming Lu, Matt Spear, Juan Lang, Gary Wassermann and Earl Barr. They gave me feedback and advice on many situations and on paper drafts and practice talks and this really improved the quality of my research significantly.

I thank the Brazilian people and government for the excellent and free education I was provided with during my undergraduate studies and MS program at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).

Finally I would like to thank those that provided me with the emotional support and stability I needed during this journey. First I thank my husband Marcio. His constant love, friendship, stability, patience and support has made my life so much better! He was by my side through difficult moments, tough decisions and, of course, during good time as well. Without him, everything would be much more difficult and less fun. Eu te amo muito! I thank my family for supporting me through these years and helping me when I had my daughter during the PhD studies, especially my mom Gesa, my dad Enio, my sister Camilla, my mother-in-law Maria Luiza, my father-in-law Jose Agostinho and my grama and aunts. I thank my Brazilian friends whose company through e-mail and online chats made my life here so much easier: Joao, Marcelo, Valdo, Lorena, my girlfriends from UFMG (Junia, Pat, Gisele, Fabiana and Pati), Benicio, Melissa, Fabiana, Fernando, Claudine and Ana. I thank my Brazilian friends in California who made me feel at home here in the USA: Reuber, Juliana, Edson, Marilene, Liliana, Alesio, Nadia, Bia, Desiree, Guilherme, Patricia and Sueli. Also, I could never forget my beloved German shepherd Duke. For countless times he relieved my stress just by looking at me with his loving light brown eyes and hugging me with his giant paws and wagging tail. And I thank the most precious thing I have in this life: my daughter Brooke. Minha Ilarinha, you have no idea how much I love you!