August 2, 2021
Tracey Moyston worked as a platform discovery intern at Cogen Immune Medicine during the summer of 2019, helping a team carry out experiments to optimize a single cell capture and sequencing process.
Dear members of the Hajim School community,
Tracey Moyston ’22–our outstanding student this month–comes from a family of lawyers. So she was “kind of the odd one out” in wanting to pursue a STEM career, says Tracey, who is from St. Lucia in the Caribbean. “My mom’s dream was to have my brother and I take over the (family law) office.”
Instead, she chose a different path and is having an “amazing” experience as an undergraduate in our Department of Biomedical Engineering. She’s doing cutting-edge research in the lab of Danielle Benoit, professor of biomedical engineering and director of the Materials Science Program. Tracey is also developing entrepreneurial skills, and gaining self-confidence through internships and extracurricular activities. She had never danced in her life, for example, until her D’Lion peer advisor suggested she join a student dance team. And now she confidently performs with the team in front of large crowds.
Tracey, a Tau Beta Pi honor student, says she is leaning towards working in industry but has also had some “encouraging conversations” with lab mate Jared Mereness about staying in academia. Wherever she ends up, “I want to be a source of encouragement for younger students, someone they can look up to and say, ‘I want to do what Tracey is doing.’” Read more.
RESEARCH NEWS
Another example of the remarkable ways materials respond under extreme pressure is reported by the lab of Ranga Dias, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and his collaborators at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. This is the collaboration that has recently set new benchmarks in the quest for room temperature superconducting materials. This time the focus is on the remarkable transitions that occur when a “squishy” compound of manganese and sulfide (MnS2) is compressed in a diamond anvil.
As the pressure increases, MnS2, a soft insulator, transitions into a metallic state and then into an insulator again, the researchers describe in a paper flagged as an editor’s choice in Physical Review Letters.
“Metals usually remain metals; it is highly unlikely that they can then be changed back to an insulator,” says Ranga, who is also affiliated with the Materials Science Program and the Institute for Matter at Extreme Energy Density. “The fact that this material goes from an insulator to a metal and back to an insulator is very rare.”
Moreover, the transitions are accompanied by unprecedented decreases in resistance and volume across an extremely narrow range of pressure change—all occurring at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The relatively low temperature enhances the chances that the metal transition process might eventually be harnessed for technology. Read more.
CONGRATULATIONS TO . . .
Gaurav Sharma, professor of electrical and computer engineering, who has received the 2021 Raymond C. Bowman Award from the Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T). The award recognizes an individual who has been instrumental in fostering, encouraging, and helping individuals of any age pursue a career in a technical/scientific area of imaging science. Gaurav is being recognized for “educating, mentoring, and increasing knowledge of color imaging and science through university classes, conference short courses, and academic journals.” The Society is a professional international organization dedicated to keeping members and others apprised of the latest scientific and technological developments in the field of imaging. Well done, Gaurav!
Check out this newsletter for a roundup of other news and awards from the past year in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. It is great to see all the activity that occurred in ECE during such a challenging time, including an outstanding series of events promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.
BME GETS HIGH RANKING
As we noted earlier this year, our Department of Biomedical Engineering has much to be proud of after its first 20 years, including remarkably talented students, faculty, and staff; internationally recognized research; outstanding programs in senior design and medical device design, among others; gender parity in enrollments and faculty; highly successful, engaged alumni, and a welcoming, supportive spirit of collegiality.
So it was great to see that the department was recently ranked among 2022’s best bachelor’s programs in biomedical engineering by The Edvocate, which was created in 2014 to argue for shifts in education policy and organization in order to enhance the quality of education and the opportunities for learning afforded to America’s students.
Have a great week!
Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
