2014 Undergraduate Research Symposium

The seventh annual Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Illinois Undergraduate Research Symposium took place April 4, 2014. Organized by Omega Chi Epsilon (OXE) and the department, the symposium provides a platform for students to showcase their undergraduate research and to demonstrate their creativity in solving problems with the mentoring from their research advisors. This year six posters were presented by undergraduate students.

Judges for the competition were: Dr. Ed Heerdt, B.S. ’65, Retired, Shell Oil Co.; Mr. Tim Bachman, B.S. ’70, Chemical Engineering, MS ’74 Civil Engineering, Retired, C-U Sanitary District; Mr. Ryan Soldat, B.S. ’13, Sage Environmental; Mr. Drake Fitzsmmons, B.S. ’13, Sage Environmental.

The winners of this year’s symposium were Heeral Patel, first place; Lily Chen, second place; and Wei Jan, third place.

The undergraduate presenters and posters were:

• Lily Chen, “Modeling branched polymers using single stranded DNA.”
• Heeral Patel, “A microfluidic platform to control oxygen concentration.”
• Jan Koziol, “Optimizing microfluidic systems for the synthesis of molecular imaging probes.”
• Wei Jan, “Microseed matrix screening for protein crystallization on X-ray transparent microfluidic chips.”
• Josh Moller, “Fluctuation theorems for flowing polymer solutions: A bead-rod approach.”
• Morgan Bakies, “International experiential learning in engineering.”