Engineering a strong presence at UNL Research Fair

Think of the brainpower concentrated in several aisles of engineering student projects at UNL's Research Fair, with poster sessions filling the City Campus Union's ballrooms on two days.

On the graduate day, master's student Scott Siebler displayed a free-standing infant surgical table with robotic controls; nearby, doctoral student Xiaoli Zhang presented a portable, tool-positioning robot for telesurgery. Both were advised by mechanical engineering assistant professor Carl Nelson, and benefited from collaboration with physicians at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

On the undergraduate day, biological systems engineering senior Heidi Gengenbach explained her work on non-viral cell gene delivery, adjacent to agricultural engineering senior Ryan Hulme, who discussed developing an automatic, portable electrochemical ion analyzer.

Mechanical engineering professor Brian Robertson was among the faculty who took time to show support for engineering undergraduates. He visited with senior mechanical engineering student Cameron Schmid on "The Properties of Boron Carbide Diode" (top). And during the graduate session, UNL Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Barbara Couture, heard from EE professor Yongfeng Lu's doctoral student, Wei Xiong, about carbon nanotube bridge structures (above).