Schoenborn Graduate Research Symposium & Exhibition Awardees

The Schoenborn Graduate Research Symposium & Exhibition, sponsored by Linde, is a showcase for the talent and accomplishments of our graduate students, featuring formal talks and poster presentations. This was the first year that the symposium included exhibitors. Industrial partners from A.B.B. Inc., BASF, BridgeBio, Eastman Chemical Company, KBI BioPharma, Novozymes, Syngenta and Susteon Inc. attended and spoke with students about professional opportunities.

The symposium consisted of oral presentations by senior-level Ph.D. candidates on their research and a poster session where mid-level graduate students presented their work. A keynote lecture “Hard Disk Drives are Way Cooler Than You Think” was given during lunch by Dr. David Dudek (Ph.D. ‘ 98), who is the Analytical Laboratory Director at Western Digital in San Jose, CA. Faculty and industrial representatives served as judges for the oral presentations, and we are particularly grateful to Dr. Javier Grajeda (Eastman), Dr. Weslkey Bruce (BASF), and Dr. Preeta Datta (Ph.D. ’15, Evonik) for their help in judging. Posters and halloween costumes were judged by the graduate students.

Oral Presentations Winners
1st Place: Rachel Bang (advised by Orlin Velev) “Multiphasic Liquid Flow as a Universal Tool for Scalable Nanofabrication of Novel Polymer Morphologies”
2nd Place: Bradley Davis (advised by Milad Abolhasani and Jan Genzer) “Intensified Fine Chemical Synthesis in Flow using Network-Supported Pd Catalyst”
3rd Place: Yosra Kotb (advised by Orlin Velev) “Novel High-Performance Sustainable Biopolymer Films Hierarchically Reinforced with Dendricolloids”

Poster Presentations Winners
1st Place: Mesbah Ahmad (advised by Orlin Velev) “Novel Biodegradable and Stretchable Films for Soft Electronics Made of Plasticized Biopolymer Composites”
2nd Place(tie): Mahe Jabeen (advised by Adriana San Miguel and Bala Rao) “Key Differences in Human Trophoblast Stem Cell Differentiation in 2D and 3D Culture”
2nd Place(tie): Mahe Rukh (advised by Fanxing Li) “Novel Phase Transition Sorbents for Isothermal Sorption Enhanced Hydrogen Production”

This year, the symposium happened on Halloween and the graduate students participated in a costume contest.

Costume Contest Winners
1st Place: Nazanin Shakoury as a Gypsy fortune teller
2nd Place (tie): Pallav Kirti Jani as the online game Wordle  (not pictured)
2nd Place (tie): Zach Hetzler as Jim Hopper from Stranger Things

The Linde Exceptional Teaching Assistant Award was presented to Rami Awad, for teaching CHE 435, Process Systems Analysis and Control, for Albert Keung and Adriana San Miguel during the spring 2022 semester. He received his check from CBE Department Head and Distinguished Professor, Sindee Simon, at the annual Schoenborn Graduate Research Symposium and Exhibition. Rami, advised by Milad Abolhasani said:

“I am truly honored to have received the Linde Exceptional Teaching Assistant Award!! Thank you to all the students who have voted for me for the controls class I TA’ed for. I am proud of what all of you are accomplishing and I had fun being your TA. Also, thank you to all the great TA’s I had who inspired me: Emily Facchine, Dishit P. Parekh, Michael Petrecca, Sudeep Sarma, Adam Bachmann, Sahand Saberi Bosari, Rajesh Paul, Sarah Morgan, Siyao Wang, Srivatsan Ramesh, and Mariam Sohail. Also, thank you to the amazing professors that I TA’ed for that semester, Albert Keung and Adriana San Miguel. It really means a lot being an undergrad at NC State looking up to all the TA’s and then how things change full circle.”