July 9, 2018

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

To a casual observer, our River Campus might have a quiet, almost deserted appearance this summer. But that is deceptive. With the addition of a new federally funded REU (research experiences for undergraduates program) in photonics, we have an even larger group of undergraduates doing research on campus this summer.

Five of the McNair Scholars this summer are Hajim students working in the labs of Hajim faculty (in parenthesis): Ashely Tenesaca of computer science (Ehsan Hoque), Zhexi Chen of electrical and computer engineering (Roman Sobolewski), Luke Gerstner of data science (Ehsan Hoque), Robert Cecil of chemical engineering (Matthew Yates), and Demetrious Dowdell of optical engineering (Nick Vamivakas).

36 Hajim students were selected for the Xerox Engineering Research Fellows program and are doing research in the labs of Hajim faculty (in parenthesis):

  • Audio and music engineering: Gregory Hernandez (Mark Bocko) and Yiting Zhang (Zhiyao Duan).
  • Biomedical engineering: Joseph Criscione and Feiyang Deng (Catherine Kuo), Sylvester Benson-Sesay (Edward Brown), Ezzat Bahie (James McGrath), Victoria Breza (Diane Dalecki), and John Lisi and Yara Izhiman (Rick Waugh).
  • Chemical engineering: Junior Beauclaire Mbanya (Douglas Kelley of mechanical engineering), Joyceline Marealle (Mark Buckley of biomedical engineering), Chenxiao Guan (Chenliang Xu of computer science), and Koushul Ramjattun and Irem Kocak (Danielle Benoit of BME).
  • Computer Science: Noah Helterbrand (Yuhao Zhu).
  • Data Science: Peijun Xu (Jiebo Luo of computer science) and Gazi Mahir Naven (Ehsan Hoque of computer science).
  • Electrical and computer engineering: Tolga Aktas (Yuhao Zhu of computer science), Zachary Byron (Thomas Howard), Jordan Floyd and Kapambwe Chalwe (Cristiano Tapparello), Marah Abdin (Stephen Wu), Shingirai Dhoro (Gaurav Sharma), Lihao Yang (Roman Sobolewski), and Olivia Canavan and Adam Meltzer (Mark Bocko).
  • Mechanical engineering: Perla Aguilar and Jordy Mendez (Hussein Aluie), Amro Bayoumy (Jessica Shang), Carlos Bustamante Fernandez (Hesam Askari), Sultan Sabha (Jong-Hoon Nam), Katherine Korslund and Marcos dos Santos (Renato Perucchio), Frederico Hama (Douglas Kelley), and Desmond Wentling (Ranga Dias).
  • Institute of Optics: Li Zhang (Jannick Rolland).

Five chemical engineering students have received Eisenberg summer internships to do research with department faculty members (in parentheses): Tayfun Sahin (Andrew White), Brendan Eder (Mitch Anthamatten), Alex Delafontaine (Alex Shestopalov), Nik Angyal (Wyatt Tenhaeff), and Hilary Luety (Rachel Monfredo).

And we have 32 visiting students from other academic institutions and one Hajim student – Adam Luk of chemical engineering — participating in three Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs funded by the National Science Foundation. The following Hajim faculty and research associates are mentoring students in their labs for these REUs:

  • Advancing Human Health: From Nano to Network: Diane Dalecki, Regine Choe, Laurel Carney, Anne Luebke, and Mark Buckley of biomedical engineering; Tom Howard, Cristiano Tapparello, and Gaurav Sharma of electrical and computer engineering; Mitch Anthamatten of chemical engineering, and Jannick Rolland of optics.
  • Computational methods for understanding music, media and minds: Sreepathi Pai, Ehsan Hoque, and Chenliang Xu of computer science, and Zeljko Ignjatovic of electrical and computer engineering.
  • Nano-, bio-, and quantum photonics: Andrew Berger, Robert Boyd, Jaime Cardenas, Jannick Rolland, and James Zavislan of optics; Qiang Lin of electrical and computer engineering, and Jake Bromage of optics and the Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

In addition, the following faculty members are teaching courses for Rochester city high school students who are on campus this summer participating in the Kearns Center’s Upward Bound program: Mark Buckley and Regine Choe of biomedical engineering; Thomas Howard and Stephen Wu of electrical and computer engineering; Niaz Abdolrahim, Hussein Aluie, and Douglas Kelley of mechanical engineering, and Yuhao Zhu of computer science.

Last, but certainly not least, the Institute of Optics held its annual Photon Camp recently for 24 high school students, most from the Rochester area, who attended lectures, worked on lab projects, and visited LLE and Monroe Community College. Kudos to Dustin Newman, Nick Vamivakas, Clarke Eastman, and Per Adamson for planning and organizing the camp; to Tom Brown, Julie Bentley, Andrew Berger, Wayne Knox and Jaime Cardenas for presenting lectures; and to Institute students Quinn Kaufman, Evan James, Dean Moore, Trevor Oloughlin, Katie Dunn, and Demetrius Dowdell for serving as mentors for the visiting students.

A huge shout out to the Kearns Center and to all our faculty and graduate students who are making it possible for students to take a “deep dive” into hands-on research during the summer, when they can concentrate on a project full time and really get a feel for what research is like. Students, staff, and faculty are all invited to attend the daylong Kearns Research Symposium, starting at 8:30 a.m., Monday, July 30 in the Feldman Ballroom of Fredrick Douglass Commons when our McNair Scholars, Xerox Fellows, and REU students will showcase their summer research projects with oral and poster presentations.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
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