It’s the last week of the 2022 REU program, but this year the poster presentation was early and took place last Friday. As usual, NEWT and Nano REUs presented their research at the Smalley-Curl Institute Summer Research Colloquium. Sadly, Prof. Bob Curl passed away earlier this year and we missed his support and questions for the students during the poster session, which he always attended. The full program and abstracts are available in the SCI website.
View of the 2022 SCI Summer Research Colloquium poster session.
All the REUs did an excellent job presenting their poster, and the team composed by Carlos Gomez and Jorge Medellin won two awards, NEWT undergraduate poster and people’s choice, for their work on electrothermal membrane distillation. They were mentored by Naomi Fuentes and Dr. Ibrahim Abdallah at the NEWT Testbed in Rice.
Jorge Medellin (Rice) and Carlos Gomez (Rice) won best undergraduate poster and people’s choice awards.
ASU REUs
ASU was very well represented by three REUs this summer. Andrea Maya, who was also a NEWT REU last year, worked with Gabriel Cerron and Dr. Sergi Garcia-Segura on nitrate recovery for fertilizer use.
Andrea Maya (ASU)
David Smith worked on biofilm inhibition with UV optical fibers and was mentored by Zhe Zhao and Dr. Paul Westerhoff.
David Smith (ASU)
Asilinn Varela worked with Mohammed Bashammakh, and Drs. Mohamed Ali & François Perreault on solar-assisted contact membrane distillation.
Aislinn Varela (ASU)
Rice REUs
We had 6 NEWT REUs at Rice thanks to additional funding for 3 students provided by the Provost Office: Hannah Copland, John Lentz, and Jorge Medellin.
Chris Avalos worked on a superhydrophilic coating to mitigate condensation with Rawand Rasheed and Dr. Dan Preston.
Chris Avalos (Rice)
Hannah Copland was in Dr. Qilin Li’s lab and worked with Xiaochuan Huang on minimizing silica in brine to improve lithium extraction.
Hannah Copland (Rice)
Katya Escalante worked on improving deoxygenase activity to improve bioremediation in Dr. Lauren Stadler’s lab with Tessa Crosby.
Katya Escalante’s poster (Rice)
John Lentz fabricated and tested inertial filters to remove particles and he has mentored by Rawand Rasheed and Dr. Dan Preston.
John Lentz (Rice)
UTEP REUs
UTEP was back to NEWT REU this year and represented very successfully by 2 undergraduate students. Melanie Cossio worked alongside Tayia Oddonetto and Dr. Shane Walker on the treatment of reverse osmosis concentrate using electrodialysis metathesis.
Melanie Cossio (UTEP)
Juan Francisco Lopez worked on the removal of PFOA from water using nano materials and was mentored by Sheng Yin and Dr. Dino Villagran.
Juan Lopez (UTEP)
It’s been a great summer and a great feeling to have the NEWT REU program back at all three campuses!