Drexel Materials Science and Engineering students racked up an impressive number of awards at the Fall 2012 meeting of the Materials Research Society (MRS), which was held November 25 - 30 in Boston, MA.
2012 MRS Graduate Student Award winners Riju Singhal (far left) and Kristy Jost (far right) with Professor Yury Gogotsi (center left) and MRS President Bruce Clemens (center right).Ph.D. students Kristy Jost (advisor: Yury Gogotsi) and Riju Singhal (advisor: Yury Gogotsi) were among 24 students from 16 institutions, including Harvard, MIT and Stanford, invited to present research as finalists for the Graduate Students Awards. Only Cornell University had more finalists for these awards than Drexel. MRS Graduate Student Awards honor and encourage graduate students whose academic achievements and current materials research display a high level of excellence and distinction. Jost and Singhal each received silver awards, which include a certificate and $200 prize. Jost's presentation, "All-textile EDLCs for Applications in Wearable Electronics," described her work on fabrics capable of energy storage. Singhal discussed carbon nanotube endoscopes for single cell studies in his presentation "Carbon Nanotube Based Multifunctional Probes for Intercellular Analysis and Microfluid Separation."
Professor Yury Gogotsi with MRS Best Poster Award winners Yang Gao and Riju SinghalAccording to MRS President Bruce Clements, this is the first time two students of the same advisor won competitive and very prestigious Graduate Student Awards. Moreover, each of them won additional awards at this MRS meeting. Kristy Jost received the Arthur Nowick Graduate Student Award for showing particular promise as a future teacher and mentor. Jost received a presentation plaque and $500 prize with this award. Riju Singhal and Electrical and Computer Engineering Ph.D. student Yang Gao (advisor: Adam Fontecchio) were selected for a Best Poster Award, which also includes a $500 prize. Their entry "Carbon Based Multifunctional Nano-probes for Cellular Injection, Potential Measurement, and Electrophysiology" was one of a handful of over 800+ poster entries to receive this award. The winning team also includes Professors Zuly Orynbaeva and Gary Friedman.
Ph.D. student Babak Anasori's image "The Happy 2-D World," 2nd place winner in the MRS Science as Art ContestAdditional awards were given to Ph.D. student Babak Anasori (advisor: Michel Barsoum), who's piece "The Happy 2-D World," won a second place award in the Science as Art Competition, and to the Drexel MRS student chapter (president: Jake McDonough) which took 3rd place in the MRS T-shirt design contest. "It's wonderful to see our students receiving this much-deserved recognition," says Yury Gogotsi, Distinguished University Professor and Trustee Chair. "We are delighted to see this acknowledgement of Drexel's outstanding materials science and engineering programs from MRS. This clearly places Drexel among the leading institutions in the world in the materials field."