University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

2016 Graduate Research Symposium

Graduate student Arkaprava Dan won first place in the poster competition.
Graduate student Arkaprava Dan won first place in the poster competition.

Congratulations to this year’s winners of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Graduate Research Symposium!

The 15th annual symposium, organized by the ChBE Graduate Student Advisory Council, was held on Friday, October 28, 2016, as part of Homecoming Weekend.

The symposium allows graduate students to present their work in the form of either a poster or an oral presentation. Research areas include a range of topics, such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, computational science, and energy applications.

2016 judges: Dr. Cory Berkland (PHD '03, Pack), Dr. Khushnuma Koita (PHD '12, Rao), Dr. John Gohndrone (PHD '88, Masel), and Dr. Matthew Liberatore (PHD '03, McHugh).
2016 judges: Dr. Cory Berkland (PHD ’03, Pack), Dr. Khushnuma Koita (PHD ’12, Rao), Dr. John Gohndrone (PHD ’88, Masel), and Dr. Matthew Liberatore (PHD ’03, McHugh).

Invited judges are typically Illinois alumni from industry and academia who help identify the best poster and oral presentations. The symposium also provides students with one-on-one opportunities to network with the judges.

This year’s presentations were judged by Dr. Cory Berkland (PHD ’03, Pack), Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas; Dr. John Gohndrone (PHD ’88, Masel), process engineering specialist with Dow Corning Corporation; Dr. Khushnuma Koita (PHD ’12, Rao), development specialist at Praxair; and Dr. Matthew Liberatore (PHD ’03, McHugh), Associate Professor at the University of Toledo.

 

Poster Presentations

Judge John Gohndrone and Department Head Paul Kenis with Tim Chung (third place, poster) and Ge Qu (second place, poster). Not pictured: first place winner Arkaprava Dan.
Judge John Gohndrone and Department Head Paul Kenis with Tim Chung (third place, poster) and Ge Qu (second place, poster). Not pictured: first place winner Arkaprava Dan.
 

First Place: Arkaprava Dan (Leckband), “Breathe In, Breath Out: Lung Endothelial Monolayers Respond to Cyclic Stretch.”

Second Place: Ge Qu (Diao), “Understanding Interfacial Alignment of Solution Coated Conjugated Polymers.”

Third Place: Hyunjoong (Tim) Chung (Diao), “Molecular Cooperativity in Single-Crystal-to-Single-Crystal Polymorphic Transitions of an Organic Semiconductor.”

Oral Presentations

Department Head Paul Kenis and judge John Gohndrone with Daniel Bregante (first place, poster) and Emily Chen (third place, poster) Not pictured: Second-place poster winner Kai-Wen Hsiao.
Department Head Paul Kenis and judge John Gohndrone with Daniel Bregante (first place, poster) and Emily Chen (third place, poster) Not pictured: Second-place poster winner Kai-Wen Hsiao.

First Place: Daniel Bregante (Flaherty), “Understanding Olefin Epoxidation with H202 in Transition-Metal Substituted Zeolites.”

Second Place: Kai-Wen Hsiao (Schroeder), “Microfluidic-based Direct Measurement of Normal Stress in Semi-Dilute Polymer Solutions.”

Third Place: Emily Chen (Harley), “Biomaterial Models of Cancer: Invasion and Cancer Stem Cells.”

Other graduate students participating in the symposium included the following:

Eitan Barlaz, Jiho Choi, SiWei (Andy) Chang, Tim Chung, Qilong Huang, Tyler Lytle, Linling Miao, Pranjali Priyadarshini, Mohammad (Sam) Hamedi Rad, Zahra Shamsi, Jye Yng Teo, Yuecheng (Peter) Zhou.