Academics

Winners of 2013 College of Engineering Research Symposium announced

University Park, Pa. – Twenty-eight undergraduate and graduate students received honors for their research papers and posters at the 10th annual College of Engineering Research Symposium (CERS).

The CERS is a student-run event that provides a venue for undergraduate and graduate students to showcase the research being conducted at Penn State.

Two students each received a $500 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Award:

  • Emil Laftchiev, doctorial student in electrical engineering, received the best paper award for “Robust Map Design for Terrain-Based Vehicle Localization,” and
  • Mohammadreza Aminikashani, doctorial student in electrical engineering, received the best poster award for “A New General and Tractable Probability Density Function of Turbulence-Induced Fading for Free Space Optical Systems.”

Eight students each received a $250 award for best presentation:

  • Trevor Zuroff, doctorial student in chemical engineering, for “Bioconversion of Cellulose to Ethanol With A Symbiotic Clostridium Phytofermentans/Yeast Consortium,”
  • Dane Kelsey, master’s student in environmental engineering for “Organic Fungicides Improve Bindered Anthracite Briquette,”
  • Pouria Fattahi, doctorial student in chemical engineering for “Delivery of Chemotherapeutics using Monodisperse PLGA Microspheres Prepared via Electrified Liquid Spraying Technique,”
  • Ibrahim Alanqar, master’s student in architectural engineering, for “Simulated and Metered Electricity Usage of a Cancer Institute as an Example of Healthcare Buildings,”
  • Soheil Bahrampour, doctorial student in electrical engineering, for “Comparison of Cepstrum and SDF Feature Extraction Methods for Target Detection and Classification,”
  • Paul Stankiewicz, bachelor’s student in mechanical engineering, for “Determination of Minimum State Preview Time to Prevent Vehicle Rollover,”
  • Christine Toh, master’s student in industrial engineering and a doctorial student in mechanical engineering, for “Improving the Utility of Product Dissection for Early-Phase Idea,” and
  • Vivek Raja Raj Mohan, doctorial student in mechanical engineering, for “Modeling of In-Cylinder Combustion in Compression-Ignition Engines.”

Eight students each received a $250 award for best paper:

  • Seong Wook Hwang, doctorial student in industrial engineering, for “Optimal Location of Discretionary Alternative-Fuel Stations on a Tree-Network,”
  • Kentaro Miura, doctorial student in mechanical engineering, for “Passive Tailboom Vibration Control Using Fluidic Flexible Matrix Composite (F2mc) Tubes,”
  • Omid Ghasemi Fare, doctorial student in civil engineering, for “A Practical Heat Transfer Model for Geothermal Piles,”
  • Rattachut Tangsucheeva, doctorial student in industrial engineering, for “Why Firms Run Out of Cash? A Dynamics Perspective,”
  • Maryam Neshastehriz, a doctorial student in engineering science and mechanics, for “Cold Spray Coating on Aluminum Substrates with Nickel Encapsulated Lubricant Particles,”
  • Maryam Peer Lachegurabi, doctorial student in chemical engineering, for “Nanoporous Carbon Spheres as Active and Selective Catalyst Supports: Synthesis and Application,”
  • Hung-Hsuan Chen, doctorial student in computer science and engineering, for “ExpertSeers: A Keyphrase-Based Expert Recommender for Digital Libraries,” and
  • Andrew Windham, doctorial student in architectural engineering for “Framing the Building Control Problem for Multiagent Systems.”

Ten students received $100 awards for their poster presentations:

  • Erick Froede, master’s student in mechanical engineering, for “Design of the Next Generation Mobile Health Clinic for South Africa,”
  • Frank Kody, master’s student in aerospace engineering, for “Rotor Performance Enhancement Through Evolutionary Strategies and Non-Harmonic Deployment of Active Devices,”
  • Senorpe Asem-Hiablie, doctorial student in agricultural and biological engineering, for “Occurrence and Vertical Transport of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds in a Wastewater-Irrigated System,”
  • Peter Blasco, master’s student in aerospace engineering, for “Dynamic Control Feasibility of Maneuvering a Human Powered Aircraft,”
  • Herschel Pangborn, bachelor’s student in mechanical engineering, for “Development and Applications of a Robot Tracking System for NIST Test Methods,”
  • Victoria Whyte, master’s student in civil engineering, for “Tailoring Ecological Wastewater Treatment to Developing Communities,”
  • Christopher Cartwright, master’s student in civil engineering, for “Shrinkage Characteristics of Alkali-activated Slag Cements,”
  • Brittany Banik, doctorial student in bioengineering, for “Novel (Poly) Caprolactone (PCL) Scaffold Architecture for Tendon Tissue Engineering Applications,”
  • Megan Doerzbacher, bachelor’s student in mechanical engineering for “Advanced Needle Coatings for Improved Lumbar Drain Procedure,” and
  • Daniel Abercrombie, bachelor’s student in mechanical engineering for “Optimization of X-Ray Production Via Bremsstrahlung for Active Interrogation of Nuclear Materials.”

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