Three SEAS students receive SUNY Great awards

Recipients of the SUNY GREAT awards receive $7,500 in funding from the SUNY Office of Research and Economic Development to use for research expenses, related travel, professional development and stipend augmentation. The awards build on SUNY’s commitment to advance research projects and excellence throughout New York State, and to expand research opportunities for students.  

“We are very proud of our three engineering students, Jobaer Ahmed Saju, Laura Sherwood, and Hosam Yousef, for earning this prestigious recognition of their work,” said Caitlin Hoekstra, SEAS Director of Career Development & Experiential Learning. “This award signals the outstanding work they are already doing as doctoral students and further supports their continued professional development and advancement of ambitious research goals.”

Saju, PhD candidate in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, is working to advance new methods to measure pollution at local scales. He is using high-resolution satellite observations from NASA's TEMPO mission to estimate emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO‚Çì), major air pollutants linked to asthma and other respiratory diseases. By developing new methods that preserve fine spatial resolution, Saju’s research will enable more accurate identification of the pollution sources in neighborhoods.

Saju will then link the estimated NO‚Çì emissions with asthma-related hospitalization and emergency department data across New York State to better understand how air quality affects health outcomes. The methods developed in this study will support improved air quality assessment and can be applied to other regions and future satellite missions, advancing both environmental monitoring and public health research.

Sherwood, PhD candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is using a developmentally inspired approach to generate functional salivary gland organoids, mini organs, from human induced pluripotent stem cells. Salivary gland hypofunction significantly affects the life quality of patients with hyposalivation, a decrease in saliva production by the salivary glands. According to Sherwood, current treatment options for these conditions are limited and often result in undesirable side effects.

These mini organs can be utilized for development of cell therapies and as a platform to screen drugs to restore salivary gland function in patients receiving radiation for head and neck cancer or suffering from autoimmune diseases such Sjogren's syndrome. Sherwood’s study highlights the development of innovative cell and gene therapies for tissue engineering, both in vitro and in vivo, aiming to achieve improved quality of life for patients.

Yousef, PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is exploring the development of architected materials with unique dynamic properties that are tailored to interact intelligently with an adjacent fluid surface in order to achieve favorable flow control characteristics.

By incorporating these materials with aerospace structures such as aircraft wings, Yousef aims to mitigate the chaotic nature of aerodynamic flows. The outcome is a stabilized flow regime that can reduce friction and drag losses, leading to significantly reduced fuel consumption and more efficient flight.