Chemical engineer wins SEAS Graduate Poster Competition

Ogechi Ogoke receives first place in the 2019 SEAS Graduate Student Poster Competition.

By Sarah D'Iorio

Published April 23, 2019

Ogechi Ogoke, a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and founder of seed stage biotech company Livandala, won first place for his research poster in the annual SEAS Graduate Student Poster Competition.

Ogoke’s research explores the development of a patient-specific cell therapy that can be used as an alternative to a liver transplant. The poster was titled “An in Vitro 3D Model of Liver Development Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells.” His advisor is assistant professor Natesh Parashurama.

"The development of functional liver tissue from pluripotent stem cells addresses a need for improved drug toxicity and drug development assays. Functional stem cell derived liver tissue can also be used directly as cell therapy in liver regenerative medicine for patients with acute or chronic liver failure,” Ogoke says. “Our goal in the lab is to develop miniaturized self-renewable liver organoids that can address these two capacities.”

Ogoke’s research is also the basis for his start-up company, Livandala, for which he earned the top award in this year’s Henry A. Panasci Jr. Technology Entrepreneurship Competition (Panasci TEC). He will receive $25,000 in startup capital and in-kind services valued at $27,000 for his endeavor.

The second place award went to Behnoosh Sattari Baboukani, Department of Materials Design and Innovation, for her poster, “Shear Response of 2D Confined N-Hexadecane Molecules.” Her advisor is Assistant Professor Prathima C. Nalam.

Sina Basereh, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, earned third place for his poster, “Retrofit of Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls Using Weakening and Self-Centering: Numerical Modeling.” His advisor is Assistant Professor Pinar Okumus.

Graduate students from across the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences presented their research posters to faculty, staff, fellow students, and members of the community during the annual Graduate Student Poster Competition, which was held on April 2. Sixteen students from across the school participated in the event. Judges included 15 faculty members representing all eight of the school’s departments.

The awards were presented at a reception in Davis Hall following the competition.

2019 SEAS Graduate Student Poster Competition

Nima Shahkaramipour - Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Sixteen students participated in the annual Graduate Student Poster Competition on April 2, 2019.

Nima Shahkaramipour, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering - "Antifouling Membranes by Surface Modification Using Hydrophilic Zwitterions"

First place winner Ogechi Ogoke discusses his poster, "An in Vitro 3D Model of Liver Development Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells," with SEAS Director for STEM Diversity Programs Letitia Thomas.

Md S Q Zulkar Nine, Department of Computer Science and Engineering - "A Two-Phase Dynamic Throughput Optimization Model for Big Data Transfers"

Chang Min Park, Department of Computer Science and Engineering - "Gesto: Mapping UI Events to Gestures and Voice"

Nanditha Anandakrishnan, Department of Biomedical Engineering, presents her poster on "Rapid Stereolithography Printing of Human Scale Vascularized Tissues."

Third Place: Sina Basereh, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering - "Retrofit of Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls Using Weakening and Self-Centering: Numerical Modeling"

Gaurav Nagesh Shetty, Department of Electrical Engineering - "Novel MRI Reconstruction Algorithm by Exploiting Data-Manifold Geometries"

Arjun Sing, Department of Electrical Engineering - Design of Plasmonic Nano-Antenna Arrays for Ultra-directional Terahertz Communications and Beamforming

Lingyue Yan, Department of Biomedical Engineering - "Delivery of anti-microRNA-21 by Cationic Lipoplexes in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Treatment"

John Fontecha, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering - "Pro-environmental Social Influence via Randomized Incentive Programs"

Philip Odonkor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering - "Optimal Control of Distributed Energy Resources in Building Clusters Using Reinforcement Learning"

Zachary Steever, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, presents his poster on "Dynamic Courier Routing for a Food Delivery Service."

Seyedeh Elaheh Ghiasian, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering - "Determination of Component Fabrication Feasibility for Additive Manufacturing"

Prashant Shekhar, Computational and Data Enabled Sciences, discusses his research on 'Hierarchical Regularization Networks for Learning on Noisy Datasets."

Second Place: Behnoosh Sattari Baboukani, Department of Materials Design and Innovation - "Shear Response of 2D Confined N-Hexadecane Molecules"

Soojung Baek, Department of Materials Design and Innovation, discusses her poster on"Exotic Decision Making for Guided and Autonomous Experiment in Material Science" with UB civil engineering alumnus Stephen Still.