Past Projects

Interpenetrating Polymer Network (IPN) Hydrogel Nanocomposites

Faculty: Prashanth Asuri
Student: Emma Barrett-Catton, Bioengineering
Objective: Explore the relative roles of polymer–nanoparticle and polymer-polymer interactions on the mechanical properties of the interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) hydrogel nanocomposites.

Thread-based Electrochemical Mechanisms

Faculty: Unyoung (Ashley) Kim, Maryam Mobed-Miremadi
Student: Dwight Johnson
Objective: Explore the feasibility of thread-based electrochemical mechanisms for free radical detection using 3-D printed microneedles for wound healing applications.

Complex Engineering Systems

Faculty: Christopher Kitts
Student: Steven Reimer
Objective: Explore techniques through both simulation and experimentation to detect and diagnose problems with complex engineering systems such as satellites, using the modeling and AI techniques.

Stealth Exosomes

Faculty: Bill Lu
Student: Jiayi Zhang, Bioengineering
Objective: Developing stealth exosomes for the next generation of nano-medicine.

Light-matter Interaction in Nanophotonic Systems

Faculty: Kurt Schab
Student: Austin Rothschild, ELEN '21
Objective: Establish rigorous physical single- and multi-objective bounds on various aspects of light-matter interaction in nanophotonic systems in order to inform and direct future work in inverse design (automated synthesis) of such devices.

Lightweight Hardware Security Primitives

Faculty: Sara Tehranipoor
Student: Jack Edmonds, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Objective: Survey recent developments in attacks on lightweight hardware security primitives, including PUFs and TRNGs

The Forward Fin

Faculty: Godfrey Mungal

Student: Tioga Benner, Mechanical Engineering

Objective: Explore the aerodynamic/hydrodynamic performance of forward pointing fins on fish given that the vast majority of fins point to the rear of the body of a fish.

Reverse Protein Engineering

Faculty: Jonathan Zhang

Student: Carley Fowler, Bioengineering

Objective: To determine if iGFP functions as a monomer, meaning that it could form with other molecules to form a polymer. If this is the case, it has significant implications for a wide range of biological analyses.

Replacement therapy for Gaucher disease using engineered exosomes

Faculty: Bill Lu

Student: Brendan Lawler. Bioengineering

Objective: To invent a new nano-medicine that has the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, therefore providing an effective therapy for the treatment of most difficult-to-treat type of Gaucher disease, namely the neurological Gaucher disease.

Vision-Based Vehicle Navigation in rugged GPS-Denied Environments

Faculty: Christopher Kitts

Student: Kristi Nguyen, Electrical Engineering

Objective: Extend/adapt classical and machine learning techniques for image-based navigation in outdoor environments with poor GPS quality (under canopies, in tall agricultural fields, etc.).

Reconfigurable Substrate Integrated Waveguides using Liquid Metal Microvasculature

Faculty: Kurt Schab

Student: Brad Shirley, Electrical Engineering

Objective: Explore the use of routing fluids through embedded microchannels in order to implement reconfigurable antennae and feed networks for communication systems.