MSE Research & Industry Showcase

March 3, 2025
2:30-6:30 p.m.
Walker-Ames Room, Kane Hall

At the MSE Research & Industry Showcase, our students showcase their research through presentations and poster sessions. Professionals and members of academia are invited to learn, network, and meet prospective interns and job seekers.

Presentations and posters at the symposium cover clean energy generation and storage, biomaterials, semiconductors, composites and more. Attendees can find ideas of interest to their organizations while helping to improve the quality of our graduate education.

2025 Keynote Speaker:

John Felts, M.S. '15

CEO and Co-founder, Cruz Foam

John Felts is Co-founder and CEO of Cruz Foam. Cruz Foam is a circular materials company that produces eco-friendly plastic foam alternative solutions that power key industry leaders to be the catalyst for a cleaner environment. John holds a BS in chemical engineering from UC Santa Barbara and an MS in materials engineering from the University of Washington. John co-founded Cruz Foam in 2017 with the mission of saving our oceans and helping end the global epidemic of plastic pollution. He is an avid surfer and lives with his family in Santa Cruz, California.

Event schedule

Download the event program

2:30-3:00 p.m.

Check in

3:00-3:05 p.m.

Welcome and announcements

3:05-3:35 p.m.

Keynote address: John Felts
CEO and Co-founder, Cruz Foam

3:35-3:45 p.m.

Mentor Appreciation

3:45-4:00 p.m.

Break

4:00-5:00 p.m.

Research showcase

5:00-6:30 p.m.

Poster session, dinner and mingling

Student presentations

Oral presenters

Jacob Beitzel (Adviser: Miqin Zhang) Injectable Hydrogels for Cartilage Regeneration

Paulina Portales Picazo (Adviser: Navid Zobeiry) Machine Learning for Kinetics Characterization in Polymer Composites Processing

Lingnan Shen (Advisers: Di Xiao, Ting Cao) Harnessing Quantum Computing for Strongly Correlated Topological Material

Mingyuan Zhang (Adviser: Bruce Hinds) Continuous whole blood dialysis based on regenerated dialysate utilizing TiO2 nanowire photo-electrochemical oxidation and protective forward osmotic membrane

Poster presenters

William Berman (Adviser: Quansan Yang) Implosion carving: hydrogel-mediated nanoscale manufacturing: An introduction to a subtractive manufacturing process and the plans to study it further

Zoe Blumenkranz, Mark Fernandez (Advisers: Lucien Brush, Ayo Olanrewaju) Optimizing Surface Properties and Geometries for Capillary Microfluidic Devices Produced on LCD 3D Printers

Vanessa Bradshaw (Adviser: Dwayne Arola) The Impact of 3D Printing Parameters on the Qualification of Additively Manufactured High Strength Polymers

Martin Brischetto (Adviser: Jihui Yang) Rate Limiting Mechanisms in Li-ion Battery Cathodes

Ian Campbell (Adviser: Eleftheria Roumeli) Using biomatter analogues to understand cohesion in algal bioplastics

Meaghan Capper (Adviser: Dwayne Arola) Colgate-Palmolive Project: Evaluating the Organic Content Distribution in Enamel

Amirali Eskandariyun (Adviser: Navid Zobeiry) Integrated Process and Failure Analysis in Composites Using Multi-fidelity Simulations and Machine Learning

Jianxi Huang (Adviser: Miqin Zhang) Nanotechnology for cancer diagnosis and treatment

Daniel Lund (Adviser: Dwayne Arola) Understanding Spatter and its Spatial Variations in LPBF

Colin Marquis (Adviser: Dwayne Arola) Improving Interfacial Strength of Ultra-high Molecular Weight Polyethylene Yarn in Composite Feedstocks via Functionalization with Activated Peroxides

Alicia Piscitelli Propelling the Industry: Strategic Demonstration of a Bioequivalent Phenolic Resin for Aerospace

Akila Rajan, Natasha Young, Rodrigo Pulgar, Martin Ma, Marquiz Silvestre, Aidan Mattson, Nathan Eng (Adviser: Luna Huang) Boeing Expandable Positive Pressure Composite Repair

Pan Shi (Adviser: Mo Chen) Repetitive readout based on long-lived TLS in superconducting qubits

Alexey Soldatenko (Adviser: Peter Pauzauskie) Reduced photothermal heating in H3-doped micro-sized diamonds

Max Stafford (Adviser: Charles Marcus) Characterization Workflow for Unconventional Superconductivity 

Henry Stirrat (Adviser: Luna Huang) AI Powered Dataset Construction

Julia White (Adviser: Jihui Yang) Leveraging Machine Learning and Meta-Analysis to Design High-Performance 3D Current Collectors for Lithium Metal Batteries

Jiaheng Xue (Adviser: Quansan Yang) Multichannel single cell sensor

Harvey Yang, Kaden Burke, Maggie Ma, Surbhi Kakar, Farrell Atzuri, Ian Foy, Cal Davis (Advisers: Jun Liu, Luna Huang) Hydrogen-Powered Model Submarine

Wendy Zhao (Adviser: Miqin Zhang) Injectable and Tissue Adhesive Chitosan and Hyaluronic Acid-based Hydrogels for Stem Cell Delivery and Cartilage Regeneration