43 Nebraska Engineering students receive UCARE stipends for undergraduate research

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln has awarded stipends to 202 Husker undergraduates — including 43 College of Engineering students — to participate in research with a faculty mentor this fall.

Nebraska’s Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experience (UCARE) Program supports undergraduates to work with faculty mentors in research or creative activities. Students receive stipends of $2,400 to engage in intensive research or creative activity for 20 hours per week. The students’ projects span academic disciplines including engineering, chemistry, modern languages and literatures, psychology, art and art history, architecture, special education, and fisheries and wildlife.

Students with academic-year UCARE awards will present posters on their research and creative activities at Student Research Days, to be held during the spring semester. 

The College of Engineering students receiving UCARE stipends are (by major and including year): 

BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

• Jordan Bollinger, senior, “Identifying Predicting Factors for Speech Perception Outcomes in Individuals with Cochlear Implants.”
• Carley Conover, senior, “Synchronization of Multiple Cell and Disease Types for Quantification of Extracellular Nitric Oxide.”
• Olivia Farmen, sophomore, “Linear Models with Functional Transcranial Doppler.”
• Sarah Loftus, senior, “The Effects of Aging on Lipid Metabolism on Hepatic Co-culture.”
• Isabella North, senior, “Microfluidics: Finding the Atheroprotective Range of Shear Stress for Endothelial Cells.”
• Jillian Smith, junior, “Synergistic Effects of Matrix Stiffness and Shear Stress on Modulating Endothelial Cell Phenotype.”
• Emily Stratman, senior, “Impact of Weekly Reflection Prompts on First-Year Engineering Students’ Metacognitive Strategies across an Entire Semester.”

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

• Andrea Goertzen, senior, “Assessing the Metabolic Features of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma and Potential Drug Targets through Genome-Scale Metabolic Modeling.”
• Aidan Larsen, senior, “Investigating Ion Exchange with Poly(3,4-Ethylenedithiothiophene) when Synthesized in Oxidative Chemical Vapor Deposition Reactor.”
• Joiner Pfister, junior, “Robust Bioplastic Production in Paraburkholderia sacchari Enabled by Synthetic Biology Tool Characterization.”
• Brianna Ryan, senior, “Correlating the Effective Pore Size of Deposited COFs with the Linker Size and Processing Condition.”

CIVIL ENGINEERING

• Ye Jung Cho, senior, “Crash Exposure of Pedestrian with Location-Based Service Data.”

COMPUTER ENGINEERING

• Kalim Dumas, senior, “Mixed-Initiative Solvers For Managing UNL’s Math Day Event.”
• Nathan Roberts, senior, “Understanding the Algorithmic and Dataset Biases in Deep Learning.”

COMPUTER SCIENCE

• Lauren Kasparek, junior, “Exploring Intelligent Methods to Vectorize Sequences toward Trees in Biological Contents.”
• Simreen Kaur, senior, “Assessment and Improvement of Next-Generation Transcriptome Assembly.”
• Caleb Koranda, senior, “Mixed-Initiative Solvers For Managing UNL’s Math Day Event.”
• Clara Perez, senior, “What it Means to be a Proficient Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Pilot.”
• Chase Resio, senior, “Mixed-Initiative Solvers For Managing UNL’s Math Day Event.”
• Divsirat Singh, junior, “Social Media Data Mining of Health (Mis)Information.”

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

• Nathaniel Liess, junior, “Assessing UML Layout.”

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

• Seth Caines, senior, “Textiles as a Source of Microplastic Fibers to Nebraska Streams.”

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

• Bakir Al-Ameri, junior, “Modern No-Emission Cooling Systems for Nebraska.”
• William Brandl, junior, “Ultrasonic Mapping of Material Gradients for Metal Additive Manufacturing.”
• Calan Brant, sophomore, “3D Printing of Liquid Metal-Embedded Elastomer with Programmable Droplet Morphology.”
• Micah Busboom, senior, “Reduced-Order Modeling of Bolted Joint Loosening: Torque-Stiffness and Torque Loss Modeling.”
• John Cerny, senior, “Dust Mitigation Strategies and Rover Construction Modalities.”
• Carson Emeigh, senior, “Development of a Modular Bone-on-a-Chip Platform Using 3D Printing: Microfluidic Motherboard and Modules.”
• Noah Garcia, senior, “Designing a Single-Leg Soft Exoskeleton for Hemiparesis Patient Gait Assistance.”
• Samuel Harvey, senior, “Comparing Mechanical Strain in Endothelial Cells under Ultrasound Treatment and Normal Laminar Flow through Computational Modeling.”
• Malachi Hood, senior, “Investigation of Gas-Surface Interactions at the Micro/Nanoscales.”
• Charles McCoy, junior, “Breaking Strength Degradation of Different Polymers Commonly Used for Textiles Caused by Intense UV Light Exposure in the Presence of a Vacuum.”
• Kasey Moomau, senior, “Resetting Mechanical Sintering of Liquid-Metal-Embedded Elastomer Using Electromigration.”
• Rose Pineda, senior, “Fabrication and Mechanical Testing of Hydrogel Beads for a Heterogenous Brain Model.”
• Isaac Regier, senior, “Generative Design in Aerospace-Designed Objects and Prototyping.”
• Mo Sbai, junior, “Multitask Robotic Prosthetic Leg for Lower Limb Amputees.”
• Emma Soukup, senior, “Reciprocity-Breaking Suspension Devices for Isolation in Harsh Environments.”
• Aleea Stanford, sophomore, “Enhanced Vibration Suppression in Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Vehicles.”
• Louis Sully, senior, “Using DLP Bioprinting to Create Photo-Crosslinkable Hydrogel Patterns for Cell Patterning.”
• Amber Tannehill, senior, “Designing a Hybrid Locomotion Robot for Lunar Exploration.”
• Jackson Taylor, junior, “Flame Weeding Research in the Combustion Lab and in Crop Fields.”

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

• Gabriel Clark, senior, “Investigation of Possible Impacts of Drone-Facilitated Hyperspectral Imaging.”
• Connor Weyers, junior, “Machine Learning-Based Platform to Predict and Evaluate Unknown Protein Families from Microbial Community.”