The 2026 Engineering and Computer Science Research Day featured 109 student poster presentations, vibrant research discussions and a keynote lecture by Dr. Mark Salvador, Program Manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office.
Here are the student award recipients:
- AI, Cyber-Physical Systems, Cybersecurity, Communications and Security
First Place: Arick Grootveld. Quantum Universal Hypothesis Testing: On Large Deviations and Tomography. Tomography. Advisor: Dr. Venkata Gandikota
Second Place: Weibin Cai. Seeing Hate Differently: Modeling Culture-Based Hate Perception for Hate Speech Detection. Advisor: Dr. Reza Zafarani
Third Place: Ziyi Feng. ISAC-Enabled Deep RL-Based UAV 3D Trajectory Design for Urban Relaying with User Tracking. Advisor: Dr. M. Cenk Gursoy
Honorable Mention: Anthony Watt. Interpretable Machine Learning Classification of Cardiac Organoids Modeling a Congenital Heart Defect. Advisor: Dr. Zhen Ma
- Sensors, Robotics and Smart Systems
First Place: Nazanin Safaei Hashkavaei. Finite-Time Stable Rigid-Body Pose and Velocity Estimation Using a Depth Camera: Dr. Amit K. Sanyal
Second Place: Yanbing Tang. Soft hollow grippers with highly tunable adhesion for compliant manipulation. Advisor: Dr. Wanliang Shan
Third Place: Ziyi Feng. ISAC-Enabled Deep RL-Based UAV 3D Trajectory Design for Urban Relaying with User Tracking. Advisor: Dr. M. Cenk Gursoy
Honorable Mention: Nandan Sriranga. Local Sharing for Efficient Uplink Communication: Collaboration in Distributed Sensor Networks. Advisor: Dr. Pramod Varshney
- Advanced Materials, Health and Well-being
First Place: Sheila Kyeremeh Eravacycline, A Blue Light-Controlled Platform for Modulating Persistence in Biofilms of Genetically Engineered E coli. Advisor: Dr. Dacheng Ren
Second Place: Yuying Zhang. Fictitious magnetic charge model for magneto-mechanical structures. Advisor: Dr. Teng Zhang
Third Place: Amit Pandey. Peeling-Induced Rolling and Programmable Adhesion in Blistered Films. Advisor: Dr. Anupam Pandey
Honorable Mention: William Eghan. Bisphosphonate and IL-4 Co-Delivery as a Macrophage Targeting System for Osteoarthritis Therapy. Advisor: Dr. Era Jain
- Energy and Environment
First Place: Venkata Sai Teja Kotikalapudi. 3-D Printed Polymer Oscillating Heat Pipe. Advisor: Dr. Shalabh Maroo
Second Place: Mark Namatsaliuk. High speed flow velocimetry using Self Aligned Focusing Schlieren Technique . Advisor: Dr. Fernando Zigunov
Third Place: Junjie Li. Measurement and Verification of ccPTHP at the Oaks. Advisor: Dr. Bing Dong
Honorable Mention: David Moses. Molecular Control of Selectivity in Liquid-Phase Chemical Processes through Polymer-Mediated Solvation. Advisor: Dr. Theodore Walker