University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

Congratulations to winners of the 2020 Graduate Research Symposium!

Congratulations to winners of the 2020 Graduate Research Symposium!

Organized by the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Graduate Student Advisory Committee, the annual symposium invites graduate students to present their work in the form of a poster or an oral presentation. Research areas include a range of topics, such as catalysis, energy, materials, biomolecular engineering, polymers and nanoparticles.

Invited judges are typically Illinois alumni from industry and academia who help identify the best poster and oral presentations. Thank you to this year’s judges:

Poster Presentation

  1. Dr. Lisa Hall, (Ph.D. ’09 Advisor: Dr. Schweizer), Ohio State University 
  2. Dr. Supreet Saini, (Ph.D. ’10 Advisor: Dr. Rao), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
  3. Dr. Christian Junaedi, (Ph.D. ’06 Advisor: Dr. Kenis), Precision Combustion
  4. Dr. Jing Du, (Ph.D. ’12 Advisor: Dr. Zhao), AbbVie

Oral Presentation

  1. Dr. Jaeyun Sung, (Ph.D. ’12 Advisor: Dr. Price), Mayo Clinic
  2. Ms. Kit Gordon, (MS & MBA, ’83), Tech Innovator and Watershed Protector
  3. Dr. Laird Forrest, (Ph.D. ’03 Advisor: Dr. Pack), University of Kansas
  4. Dr. Allice Hollister, (Ph.D. ’10 Advisor: Dr. Seebauer), Lam Research
  5. Dr. Efie Kokkoli, (Ph.D. ’98 Advisor: Dr. Zukoski), Johns Hopkins University

Eighteen students participated in the symposium this year. Winners included the following:

Poster presentations:

1st place: 
Vasiliki Kolliopoulos (Harley Group), “Modifying mineralized collagen scaffolds to modulate the inflammatory response in craniomaxillofacial defects and enhance bone regeneration.”

2nd place: 
Paola Baldaguez Medina (Su Group), “Electrochemically-mediated remediation of Perfluorinated Pollutants.”

3rd place: 
Jialing Caroline Li (Schroeder Group), “Single Molecule Charge Transport in Redox-active Molecules.”

Talha Al-Zoubi (Yang Group), “Non-Precious Group Metal Oxygen Reduction Electrocatalysts of Single-Atom Clusters from Atomically Dispersed Precursors.”

Oral presentations:

1st place: 
Mai Ngo (Harley Group), “Development of a Biomaterial Model of the Glioblastoma Perivascular Niche.”

Uzoma O. Nwabara (Kenis Group), “Towards Durable, Selective Cathodes for the Electroreduction of CO2 to Value-added Chemicals and Fuels.”

3rd place: 
Andrew N. Kuhn (Yang Group), “Copper-based Nanomaterials for the Selective Reduction of Oxygen towards the Purification of Carbon Dioxide from Flue Gas.”

Charles Young (Sing Group), “Coupled effects of concentration, chain architecture, and flow on polymer solution dynamics and rheology.”