NJIT's Student-Researchers Shine at Dana Knox Research Showcase
Some of NJIT’s brightest up-and-coming researchers grabbed center stage on campus at the Dana Knox Student Research Showcase, a springtime tradition that continues to highlight student ingenuity and diverse research accomplishments across the university’s six colleges.
For participants of the 18th annual research competition, it was a special opportunity to connect with the campus community by discussing their recent discoveries and innovations, most of which have been years in the making.
“The Dana Knox Student Research Showcase provides us with an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the incredible work of NJIT students and their faculty mentors,” said NJIT President Teik C. Lim. “Their achievements are extraordinary and, today, we celebrate them and their work. It is efforts such as these that make NJIT one of the most innovative and entrepreneurial institutions.”
Throughout the afternoon, students gave poster presentations at the university’s Campus Center, answering questions about their research from interested onlookers and nearly 20 faculty-judges who were scoring for the event’s award ceremony at day’s end.
Undergrad biomedical engineering and applied mathematics student Jeena Kataria ’23 presents her research on a novel device, called the PoreMaster, to aid in tissue regeneration for treatment of diseases.
Forensic science undergraduate student Mira Sapozhnikov ’24 discusses research into a potential biomarker for cognitive decline in both Alzheimer’s and substance abuse patients.
The 2023 Dana Knox Student Research Showcase Winners Are…
NJIT Interim Provost Atam P. Dhawan read the judges’ verdicts and congratulate this year’s medal winners at the closing ceremony.
The ceremony introduced a prize endowment from NJIT’s former Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department Chair, Raj S. Sodhi, named in honor of his parents and awarded to the top three undergraduate and graduate teams. The Mr. and Mrs. R. S. Sodhi Prize provides a $1,000 for the winning graduate and undergraduate teams, $500 for the second-place graduate and undergraduate teams, and $250 for each of the undergraduate and graduate third place teams.
Fittingly, just ahead of Earth Day, two biology students captured this year’s first-place honors for their respective research efforts.
Finishing first place among graduate students was biology Ph.D. candidate Audrey Biondi Kellogg '23, who has spent nearly six years at NJIT’s Flammang Lab designing an ocean robot inspired by the Giant Sunfish, or Mola mola.
Kellogg’s robotics project successfully replicated the fish’s unique fin structure and swimming mechanics, which allow them to swiftly propel their nearly two-ton bodies as deep as 600 meters into the ocean. She says her bio-inspired design, funded by a U.S. Department of Defense SMART Scholarship, could potentially be used to monitor large-scale environmental changes in the ocean.
“It can be used to enhance maneuverability and lift in current ocean robots and can also be paired with sensors for tracking oceanic warming … I'm really excited to have this work applied in the field,” said Kellogg, a Nutley, NJ native. “Having been at NJIT since I was an undergrad, it’s been so rewarding to have made all the connections I have made and to have worked in such a supportive lab environment under a great mentor, Dr. Brooke Flammang. Being able to share my research, seeing the excitement people have for ocean robotics, and to be recognized like this after almost 10 years here is incredible.”
Meanwhile, biology student Jeeshan Ahmed ’23 took first place among undergraduate students for his for his in-depth study of ant mandibles at the lab of NJIT Assistant Professor of Biology Phillip Barden. His data-driven insights into how these all-important mouthparts vary species-to-species could help paleontologists accurately reconstruct the behavior of fossil specimens — typically, no easy task given there are roughly 14,000 ant species alive on Earth today.
“So many people here today were presenting amazing research, so to be recognized was a real surprise and an honor,” said Ahmed, who hails from Middletown, NJ. “Working under professor Barden for almost four years, I was given a chance to headline my own lab project from start to finish successfully … that’s an experience I’ll draw from throughout my career.”
Ahmed’s study involved detailed analysis of mandible morphology across nearly 100 different ant species, linking the different mandibular traits such as size and shape with certain species’ functional roles (diet), foraging habits and colony size. “One of the most gratifying aspects of this experience was being told that my data could go on to help other researchers study fossils in the future. It’s one thing putting in tons of effort in the lab with your own goals in mind, but knowing this work could be important to science long after I leave makes me feel my time here was that much more valuable.”
The full list of winners from the 2023 Dana Knox Research Showcase includes:
Undergraduate:
1st: Jeeshan Ahmed, Biology
“Effects of Mandible Morphology on the Ecology of Ants”
Adviser: Phillip Barden
2nd: Jeena Katarina, Biomedical Engineering (Biomaterials), Applied Mathematics
“PoreMaster: Novel Device for the Creation of Aligned Channels within Anisotropic Scaffolds to Improve Tissue Integration”
Adviser: Alev Erdi
3rd: Shaikh Hassan, Biomedical Engineering
“The Impact of Extracellular Matrix Proteins on Spinal Cord Injury and Repair”
Adviser: Jonathan Grasman
Graduate:
1st: Audrey Biondi Kellogg, Doctoral in Biological Science
“Biologically Inspired Fin for Underwater Robotics: A Study of Mola Mola Swimming Mechanics”
Adviser: Brooke Flammang
2nd: Smita More-Potdor, Doctoral in Biological Science
"Oscillatory Neural Network Spontaneously Recovers the Robustness in Activity”
Adviser: Jorge Golowasch
3rd Longchao Da, Doctoral in Civil and Environmental Engineering
“Crowd Gail: A spatiotemporal aware method for Agent Navigation”
Adviser: Hua Wei
For more information about the 2023 Dana Knox Showcase, visit: https://www.njit.edu/provost/events/studentresearchshowcase/.
