Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

2016 Undergraduate Research Symposium

UG-2016-symposium-judges
UG-2016-symposium-judges

At the University of Illinois Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, undergraduate students actively work alongside our world-class faculty on a variety of research projects. On Friday, April 8, 2016, 14 students presented posters on their work as part of the ninth 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.

UG-symposium-winners-group
UG-symposium-winners-group

Thanks to this year’s symposium judges: Shawn Cullen, Lyondell Basell; Paul Jahn, BS ’81, Middough; Sarah Kuhl, BS ’15, Clorox; Aimee Nugent, BS ’15, Pepsico; and Rouema Vukovich, BS ’89, Dow AgroSciences.

Congratulations to this year’s winners:

  • First place: Shayta Roy, with “Multi-compartment Biomaterial Scaffolds to Promote Mesenchymal Stem Cell Differentiation and Proliferation at Tendon Bone Junction.”
  • Second place: Rebecca Boehning, “Vapor Diffusion for Fabricating Large Single Crystals for Flexible Electronics.”
  • Third place: SiiHong William Lau and Yasheen Jadidi with “Selective Upgrading of Biomass Fuels by Continuous-Flow Homogeneous Catalysis.”

Undergraduate presenters and posters included the following.

  • Rebecca Boehning (Diao Group), Vapor Diffusion for Fabricating Large Single Crystals for Flexible Electronics.
  • Kevin Erning (Harley Group), Reinforcement of Collagen Scaffolds via Incorporation of Polycaprolactone Frame Enhances Mechanical Robustness.
  • Christian Coonrod (Flaherty Group), Factors that Control Selectivity during Hydrodeoxygenation on NixPy Clusters.
  • Jake Gold (Kenis Group), Electrochemical Reduction of CO2 Using Carbon Nanotubes.
    Linyang Ju (Zhao Group), Developing High-throughput DNA Characterization Methods for Advanced Biomanufacturing.
  • Byeongjin Kang (Seebauer Group), Use of Hydrogen in Defect Engineering of TiO2.
  • SiiHong William Lau and Yasheen Jadidi (Guironnet Group), Selective Upgrading of Biomass Fuels by Continuous-Flow Homogeneous Catalysis.
  • Dongkwan Lee (Bailey Group), Microfluidic Incubation Optimization for Precise Control of Reaction Time.
  • Xun Lu (Kenis Group), Combining CO2 Capture with Electrochemical Reduction using Deep Eutectic Solvents.
  • Pimpisa Pechvijitra (Murphy Group), The Binding Affinity and Protein Secondary Structure of Mutated α-syn on Different Sizes of Au NPs.
  • Shayta Roy (Harley Group), Multi-compartment Biomaterial Scaffolds to Promote Mesenchymal Stem Cell Differentiation and Proliferation at Tendon Bone Junction.
  • Mark Triezenberg (Flaherty Group), Copper Catalyst Design for Controlling Dehydrogenation and Esterification Selectivity.
  • Alan Vucetic (Harley Group), Designing a Fiber Reinforced Biomaterial Platform to Increase Mechanical Properties and Bioactivity for Multi-Tissue Regeneration.
  • Yuying Wu (Zhao Group), Genome-wide Screening for Improved Fatty Alcohol Production in Yeast using a Biosensor.