2015 Undergraduate Research Symposium

At the University of Illinois Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, undergraduate students work alongside our world-class faculty on various research projects. On Friday, April 10, 2015, over a dozen students presented posters on their work as part of the eighth annual Undergraduate Research Symposium.

The annual event is organized by Omega Chi Epsilon, the national honor society for chemical engineering and is an opportunity for students to showcase their research. This year 11 different posters were presented and evaluated by judges.

Thanks to symposium judges Yusuf Esat, B.S. ChemE ’06, from Jenner & Block LLP; Drake Fitzsimmons, B.S. ChemE ’13, and Nick Manser, B.S. ChemE ’13, both from Sage Environmental; Elizabeth Keck, B.S. ChemE ’02, from Mead Johnson Nutrition; and Dustin Olson, B.S. ChemE, from LyondellBasell.

The winners of this year’s symposium were Kevin Erning (first place), Sarah Laken (second place) and Sarah Kuhl (third).

The undergraduate presenters and posters included the following.

Lillian Buescher and Wenyuan Chen: “Carbon Nanoparticle Based Photovoltaics.”
Xuxia Chen: “Nanosized Porous Perovskite LaNiO3 Cubes as a high efficiency and cost-effective catalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction.”
Kevin Erning: “Reinforcement of Collagen Scaffolds via Incorporation of Polycaprolactone Frame Enhances Mechanical Robustness.”
Hector Fuster: “High Throughput, Continuous Synthesis of Anisotropic Semiconductor Nanocrystals.”
Rogan Kipp and Han Xiao: “Ethanol to Diesel Project.”
Sarah Kuhl: “Single Polymer Studies Using Microfluidic Devices.”
Sarah Laken: “3D In Vitro Models of Brain Cancer.”
Keegan Lane: “Characterization of Milli Scale Static Mixing”
Jackie Letzer: “Behavior of Oxidized and Reduced Surfaces of Ni2P/SiO2 Catalysts.”
Ray Luo: “Efficient Electrochemical Flow System with Improved Anode for Converting CO2 to CO.”
Sanjeet Sen: “Flow-Mediated Stem Cell Labeling with Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticle Clusters.”