Awards
Department of Biomedical Engineering
2020 BME Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award — Michael Dzuricky Title: "Application of Repetitive Protiein Polypeptides with an Upper Critical Solution Temperature at Various Length Scales" Advisor: Ashutosh Chilkoti
Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
2020 MEMS Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award — Luis Navarro Title: "Synthesis and Grafting-To of Biomimetic Bottlebrush Polymers" Advisor: Stefan Zauscher
2020 MEMS Teaching and Mentoring Award — Betul Teymur
Department of Physics
2020 Daphne Chang Memorial Award for Best Undergraduate Thesis — Isabel Ruffin Title: "Predicting Intrinsically Disordered Protein Conformations Using Polyampholyte Theory" Advisor: Michael Rubinstein PhD Dissertations
Department of Biomedical Engineering
"Development of Genetically Encoded Zwitterionic Polypeptides for Drug Delivery" — Samagya Banskota
Advisor: Ashutosh Chilkoti
"Application of Repetitive Protein Polypeptides with an Upper Critical Solution Temperature at Various Length Scales" — Michael Dzuricky
Advisor: Ashutosh Chilkoti
"Achieving Dynamic Control over Cell Culture Hydrogels using Engineered Proteins" — Joshua Hammer
Advisor: Jennifer West
Department of Chemistry
"Understanding the Structure and Formation of Protein Crystals Using Computer Simulation and Theory" — Irem Altan
Advisor: Patrick Charbonneau
"Molecular-Level Engineering of Stress-Responsive Materials" — Yangju Lin
Advisor: Stephen Craig
"From Molecular to Macroscopic Mechanochemical Responses" — Yudi Zhang
Advisor: Stephen Craig
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
"Highly Efficient Wavefront Transformation with Acoustic Metasurfaces" — Junfei Li
Advisor: Steve Cummer
Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
"Plasmon-Assisted Photothermal Catalysis" — Jena Barnes
Advisor: Nico Hotz
"Transition Metal Chalcogenide (Cadmium Sulfide) Nanoparticles: (Bio)synthesisl Characterization and Photoelectrochemical Performance" — Yaying Feng
Advisor: Stefan Zauscher
"Bursting of Volatile Sessile Drops Induced by Ambient Moisture" — Hongtao Guo
Advisor: Chuan-Hua Chen
"Autonomous Symmetry Analysis and Structure of Prototyping for Materials Discovery" — David Hicks
Advisor: Stefano Curtarolo
"Synthesis and Grafting-To of Biomimetic Bottlebrush Polymers" — Luis Navarro
Advisor: Stefan Zauscher
"Design of Biomaterials toward Endogenous Skeletal Tissue Repair" — Yuze Zeng
Advisor: Shyni Varghese
"First-Principals Studies of Electronic, Optical and Defect Properties of Photovoltaic Materials" — Tong Zhu
Advisor: Volker Blum
Department of Physics
"An Experimental Study of the Jamming Phase Diagram for Two-dimensional Granular Materials" — Yiqiu Zhao
Advisor: Joshua Socolar
"Characterization and Mechanism of Rigidity in Columns of Star-Shaped Granular Particles" — Yuchen Zhao
Advisor: Joshua Socolar
"Manipulation of Nonlinear Optical Processes in Plasmonic Nanogap Cavities" — Qixin Shen
Advisor: Maiken Mikkelsen
Master's Theses and Projects
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
“Direct Mercury Analysis of Mercury Content in Imported Skin-lightening Products Obtained from Retailers in North Carolina and Michigan” — Zehao Jin
Advisor: Heileen (Helen) Hsu-Kim
“Determination of Thiolated Silica Resin Total Mercury Binding Capacity, Affinity and Longevity” — Jieqi Liu
Advisor: Heileen (Helen) Hsu-Kim
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
"Solution-Processed Thin Film Deposition and Characterization of Multinary Chalcogenides: Towards Highly Efficient Solar Devices — Betul Teymur
Advisor: David Mitzi
University Program in Materials Science & Engineering
"Production and Characterization of Biomimetic Vibrissae for Tactile Sensory Systems" — Connor Turley
Advisor: Cate Brinson
"Synthesis and Characterization of Injectible Bottlebrush Hydrogels" — Taylor Yeazel
Advisor: Shyni Varghese
"The Effect of Cathode Thickness Variation on the Performance of RIP-MAPLE Deposited PFO based PLED Devices" — Buang Zhang
Advisor: Adrienne Stiff-Roberts
"Building an Atomic-Level Model of Electrochemical Processes Using Cu(100) Surface as an Example" — Fan Zhang
Advisors: Benjamin Wiley & Volker Blum
"Computational Investigation of Defect-Resisteant I2-II-IV-X4 Semiconductor Materials" — Tianlin Wang
Advisor: Volker Blum
"Lightweight, Dexterous, Gas Permeable On-Skin Nanomesh for Radiative Human Body Heating" — Bowen Sun
Advisor: Po-Chun Hsu
"Development of Spectrally Selective, High-Temperature Pt/AIxOy Thin Film Solar Absorbers for Biofuel Reformation Systems" — Abigail (Abby) Mrvos
Advisor: Nico Hotz
"Low-temperature Induced Phase Transformation in Layered Halide-Based Hybrid Perovskites: A New Approach to Modulate Rashba-Dresselhaus Splitting" — Yi Xie
Advisor: David Mitzi