Doris M. and Norman T. Halpin Prize for Interdisciplinary Senior Capstone Projects
Thanks to the generosity of Doris M. and Norman T. Halpin, Brown Engineering Executive Committee provides research awards for exceptional undergraduates. Projects are awarded based on how they incorporate the power of interdisciplinary thought in engineering science and design.
Carmichael Ong is an intricate mix of biologist, biochemist, and bioengineer. He has the network to prove it. Carmichael has worked on two large interdisciplinary research projects at Brown in his undergraduate career. He believes that the intimate atmosphere within Brown Engineering and the approachable faculty are major benefits to his future. He plans to continue as a researcher in his future career either in industry or academia. Regardless of which direction he chooses, he will understand how to network with top rate researchers in an interdisciplinary setting because of his experience at Brown. We are proud to award him with a 2009 Halpin award.
Excerpts from the Halpin award nomination:
Carmichael's project is interdisciplinary as it spans the fields of chemistry, biology, and engineering. The purpose of this project is to create a novel, lower cost method to detect low concentrations of specific strands of RNA molecules. Based on his results, Carmichael has already filed an invention disclosure for possible patent application. The results of this study will be utilized in several diagnostic projects undergoing in Professor Anubhav Tripathi’s laboratory. These projects are in collaboration with Miriam, Memorial and Rhode Island Hospitals.
Discovering new ways to reduce the cost of disease detection is becoming an increasingly important field of research. Low-cost methods not only help to increase efficiency in countries such as the United States but also could provide a new option for disease detection in third-world areas as well.
In addition to this project, Carmichael has had other experience in interdisciplinary research. In the summer of 2008, he worked in the Hoffman-Kim lab studying how topographical cues can affect the directionality of growth of dorsal root ganglia (DRG) cells derived from rats. This project involved an intricate mix of biology, biochemistry, and engineering in order to prepare the PDMS substrates, understand the chemicals and the cell responses to them, and analysis of the data.
Eli Fine understands the importance of being aware of your intentions when you speak. He gained this appreciation through a linguistics class he took as part of Brown's open curriculum elective options. He has not only gained a greater appreciation for the scientific world, but also anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and linguistics. His collaborative spirit fits well with the interdisciplinary group of mathematicians, engineers and biologists he researches with in his multiple research projects at Brown.
Excerpts from the Halpin award nomination:
Eli’s collaborative summer project was an interdisciplinary project between Professor Fairbrother’s lab (genomics and biochemistry) and Professor Thompson’s group in Applied Math who specialize in an information theory approach to detecting weak signals in complex biological data.
Perhaps the best way to appreciate Eli’s unique qualifications is through a consideration of how his project developed from a vague plan to study regulatory elements in fruit flies to a fully functional computational screen that identifies these elements in flies and then mapped them to human genome where they are tested for coincidence with human disease alleles. The shaping of this project arose largely through Eli’s steady, conscientious work and quiet persistence.
Professor Reenan has agreed to test some of Eli’s predicted elements by targeted homologous recombination in the fruit fly. Eli is also working in collaboration with a biochemistry concentrator to scour the literature for examples of these elements and evidence of alternate protein of fly and human genes. It is a testament to Eli’s leadership that such collaborative opportunities arise. I expect this work to result in a publication and it is not surprising to me that Eli has already published a research paper during his undergraduate career.
Ben Howard understands what it would take to be a Mythbuster on the Discovery Channel. He understands engineering and science principles and appreciates photography and video production. As a cinematographer for BTV (Brown’s Television Station) he produces his own tv show. Beyond just being inspired to record the world around him in unique ways, Ben is a design-oriented engineer. He found his way to Professor Breuer’s lab after having him for Thermodynamics class. His summer work extended into a larger research project to create a prototype that can create liquid droplets out of oil – a humidifier of sorts for oil. In Breuer’s lab, they have learned to use photography to study the aerodynamics of bat flight. They can record two flash photographs and record the velocity based on the distance the droplets have traveled around the bat’s wings. Most of the science is stumped on how bats accomplish their flight patterns. The Mythbusters wouldn’t even be able to figure it out, but Ben and other Brown engineers will eventually.
Excerpts from the Halpin award nomination:
Ben’s project initially started as a simple engineering project, but, thanks to his own initiative and creativity, that project has evolved into a really exciting research (and art) project. Ben Howard is the ideal Brown Engineer. He has a broad set of skills and interests, has an independent streak that leads him to new discoveries and an infectious enthusiasm for science, engineering, art and research. His project is one that he has defined (from a seedling planted by me), and that he is driving forward with a very impressive enthusiasm.
Generating mists using high viscosity oils has many applications, including lubrication and, in our lab, as particles for advanced flow visualization and optical diagnostics. However, ultrasonic misting of very viscous oils has proved difficult and our project is aimed at developing the necessary hardware, to generate such mists.
In addition to the engineering of a viscous misting apparatus, a secondary goal has emerged, and has become the focus of Ben’s Senior Honors Thesis – that goal is to understand the governing flow physics. Surprisingly, despite the fact that this was first studied by Rayleigh more than 100 years ago, the underlying physics is still a topic of controversy, and has not been widely studied in the physics or fluid mechanics community. Ben’s goal is to explore these controlling physics and to document the generation of mists as a function of fluid properties (viscosity and surface tension), as well as a function of driving frequency and amplitude.
Lastly, a third objective has emerged – that of “art” – Ben has an interest in photography, and is documenting some of the beautiful fluid patterns that he generates using his experimental system. Ben would like to assemble a portfolio of beautiful photos of fluid motion.
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Juri Minxha works at the interface between engineering and neuroscience. He came to Brown uncertain of what he hoped to accomplish during his four years here. He found that the introductory engineering courses gave him a chance to test drive all of the related engineering fields. He also used the open curriculum to his advantage and took neuroscience courses. This background led him to Professor Palmore’s lab where he works at the interface of electrical engineering and neuroscience. He understands the importance of this research and hopes to continue his scholarship in a graduate program.
Excerpts from the Halpin award nomination:
He joined our group during Spring 2008 and made critical contributions to a project that required extensive image analysis of living cells. Together with a biomedical engineering graduate student, Juri worked out a method to “clean” images of living DRG cells during their growth and extension of neurites and then subsequently convert the image data into a “spectrum” that provided information about neurite length and direction of growth. The methods he developed have proved to be powerful in our analysis of hundreds of images in each live-cell experiment performed. This results from his work are now in manuscript form, with Juri listed as second author. His contributions were critical to the success of this phase of our electro-stimulation of nerve cells project.Subsequent to this initial research project, Juri joined the Brain Gate project to contribute to the development of a model in a Simulink environment that will integrate all the different parts of the decoding process needed for the BrainGate system (see attached summary of all of Juri’s research projects). In addition to his capstone project, he continues to work in my laboratory where he is extending the use of his imaging analysis system and applying it to single-cell studies.
If his hypothesis is correct, I anticipate the results from these experiments will lead to a second manuscript on which Juri will be a co-author. Juri has proven to be very capable in the lab. He works as an equal member of a 2-person team on our nerve regeneration project. It has been clear that Juri has contributed as much as my graduate student both intellectually and technically to this project based on our conversations both in my office and during group meetings.
In summary, Juri is an intelligent student with broad interests in science and engineering. He has the capacity to think deeply and the ability to work across disciplines. His passion is neuro-engineering and his research experience and capstone project reflect this passion.