UB undergraduates address real-world issues through SUNY-funded program

By Peter Murphy

The program, funded by the State University of New York (SUNY), the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the nation, aims to broaden access to research and creative activities for undergraduate students. Participants in the program will conduct faculty-led research and creative activities while interacting with fellow undergraduate and graduate students.

Seven faculty members across departments in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are running programs and will welcome students into their labs over the next several months. Each program focuses on research related to the specific faculty member’s research area, but many of the programs will give students a chance to work with researchers across disciplines.

“The interdisciplinary nature of the project means that students from different engineering backgrounds will work together, exposing them to diverse perspectives and encouraging creative problem-solving,” says Ketki Lichade, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and a project mentor.

Each faculty member participating in the program receives over $10,000 per student hire. The funding can support the student’s stipend and other expenses, such as travel and registration for conferences and other project-related or professional development expenses. In addition to gaining knowledge and skills associated with the research in project, students also develop skills needed to write reports, prepare research presentations and publish their findings.

Kaihang Shi, assistant professor, plans to enroll two students into this program, which integrates advanced AI tools with chemical engineering methods. Students will use AI and large language models to explore how materials like metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are synthesized. MOFs are nanoporous materials used in CO2 capture, drug delivery and energy storage, but synthesizing novel MOFs has been a major challenge.  

“Students will benchmark and improve an AI tool, collaborate with a graduate mentor, analyze scientific literature, and possibly contribute to experimental guidance for MOF synthesis,” Shi says. 

Assistant professor Aurora del Carmen Munguía-López is also hiring two students to work on her project.

“We will explore how different technologies and actions or policies in the U.S. can help improve plastic recycling rates, reduce environmental impacts and increase economic benefits from recovering various types of plastic waste,” Munguía-López says.

Her students will work on process systems engineering research in order to address critical sustainability challenges. Students will get the full research experience, including data gathering, analysis and report writing. This project will also teach students different skills, such as technology pathway analysis coupled with data-driven uncertainty quantification methods (Monte Carlo simulation), mathematical modeling, and techno-economic and life cycle assessment.  

“Evaluating the economic and environmental benefits of novel policies and plastic recycling technologies at scale is essential to accelerate their deployment and reduce the impacts of plastic waste on the environment, human health and social justice,” Munguía-López says.

Lichade hopes to enroll two students in her project. Together, with graduate students in her lab, they will work to develop a new, fast way to make thin films for devices or materials using two advanced technologies. The first allows researchers to quickly layer materials and the second uses digital masks to project specific patterns onto surfaces.

“Imagine looking at a lotus leaf, which naturally repels water, or a shark’s skin that helps reduce drag in water,” Lichade says. “Nature has created these incredible, high-performance features over millions of years. This project aims to copy these clever natural designs and create new devices or materials that can also have these amazing abilities.”

Ryan St. Pierre, assistant professor in the departments of mechanical and aerospace engineering and computer science and engineering, has worked with microrobots throughout his academic career. He will hire two students for his project, Slime Mold-Inspired Millirobots: Embodied Communication and Collective Problem Solving.

“In my lab, we’re thinking about this idea of robot matter—how you make things out of robots. We took inspiration from slime mold,” St. Pierre says. “Slime mold has been studied extensively, and for a simple mold organism, it can do pretty complex problem-solving.”

In prior experiments, slime mold has been able to efficiently map the Tokyo metro system. It can communicate and solve problems without a brain. St. Pierre and the students on this project will work to bring that same secure physical messaging to robots.

“Slime mold has chemical and physical cues that it takes from its environment. We want to be able to do that with robots so that we have new ways of forming how robots solve complex problems, by being able to interact with one another as cells.”

Assistant professor Hyeongyun Cha will enroll one student to investigate green hydrogen production prototypes.

“Green hydrogen, produced by splitting water with renewable sources of electricity like wind and solar, is a clean alternative to fossil fuels and a leading option for energy storage,” Cha says. “In this project, we propose to investigate the hydrogen gas evolution on micro/nanostructured surfaces during water electrolysis.”

The incoming student will work with a multidisciplinary team of engineers to develop green hydrogen production prototypes and gain hands-on experience developing engineered materials and experimental apparatuses.

Jonathan Boualavong, assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, will run a project as well. Students in Boualavong’s study will conduct laboratory experiments to develop our knowledge of side reactions in electrochemical carbon capture, an emerging climate change mitigation technology. 

Jessica Swenson, assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Education Students on Swenson’s team will work on her National Science Foundation-funded project to investigate how engineering students form their engineering identity through their experiences and personal identities.

Visit the University at Buffalo’s Experiential Learning Network site for more details on any of these projects.