NJIT Student-Research Back in the Spotlight at 2021 Dana Knox Showcase
After a year layoff, one of NJIT’s standout annual research events returned to the campus community this month — more than 30 of the university’s top student-researchers took to their webcams to present their work for a virtual audience at the 2021 Dana Knox Research Showcase, "A Glimpse Into the Future.”
While the format was dramatically different from the 15 springtime showcases before it, students were just as eager to share research projects they’ve been working on tirelessly, in some cases before the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly curtailed last year’s event. The all-day showcase on Apr. 21 included a jam-packed schedule of 30-minute slideshow presentations, as always reflecting the broad diversity of campus research.
Early on, business data science doctoral student Nesreen El-Rayes gave a timely presentation ahead of Earth Day on her work analyzing the global plastic crisis based on data collected on 127 countries, more than 4,000 American corporations, and tweets (from #plasticpollution, #singleuseplastic). She aimed to shed light and raise public awareness about the complex issue at global, industry and consumer levels.
“What I hope others would have taken from the presentation is simply a greater knowledge about the situation and the overwhelming detrimental impact imposed by plastic on biodiversity, marine life and climate change,” said El-Rayes. “My faculty-adviser, professor Jim Shi, and I soon hope to publish this work and connect with organizations interested in public outreach efforts on this issue.”
Later, a team of human-computer interaction and business majors — Reesha Gandhi ’22, Junior in Nina LaMastra ’22, Jira Uttarapong ’21 — showcased their recently published work exploring new trends in how gaming enthusiasts engage in mental health discussions on platforms such as Twitch.tv while watching their favorite streamers. At the same time in another virtual room, Jehan Shalabi ’22, an electrical engineering major, talked about her research optimizing drone technology to enhance wireless network coverage for our mobile devices.
“Last summer, due to COVID I had to conduct my research remotely, so this year it was great to be able to showcase the research I’ve been doing this past year through the Ronald E. McNair Program,” said Shalabi, who is now expanding her work in the MIT Summer Research Program. “I think it’s important because if other students see research that interests them, it could encourage them to pursue their own work outside of the classroom as well.”
Medalists Announced
As is tradition, all presenters were also reviewed throughout their talks by teams of NJIT’s faculty judges, and by Friday, the judges’ decisions were rendered and medal winners were announced at the showcase’s award ceremony.
Taking the gold medal among graduate students was industrial engineering Ph.D. candidate Xuecheng Yin '21, who presented his latest research addressing the pandemic. Yin unveiled his new model that uses infection and migration data to forecast the COVID-19 transmission in the most impacted counties in New York and New Jersey.
"I feel very happy to win ... I'd like to thank both the university for providing me with the chance to present my work to others, as well as my adviser, Esra Buyuktahtakin-Toy, for helping me refine my presentation," said Yin, who grew up in Wuhan, China, and was recently offered a postdoc position at Yale University after he graduates from NJIT this summer.
“I had already begun working on a model for studying Ebola but once this pandemic began, I knew I wanted to develop a new model to study the transmission of the COVID-19 and the corresponding strategies to control it because this can really help people's lives,” said Yin, whose work is supported by an NSF grant. “This model can be used for study of the transmission of the COVID-19 to improve decision-making on how to allocate ventilators among different regions.”
Among undergraduate researchers, biology and mathematical sciences major Nitya Shah ’21 took the first-place medal for her study of social parasitism among ants — specifically, the way in which queens of the genus Polyergus invade the nests of other colonies and kidnap ant workers, using them for tasks such as brood care, obtaining food and defense. Shah analyzed parasite-host datasets from more than 50 species to learn if the evolution of a parasite's morphology (i.e. size, shape, and structure) is driven by whether they specialize in kidnapping one type of host, or many.
"I'm surprised and very excited to be ending my senior year with such an accomplishment," said Shah, an Avenel, N.J. native. “I just felt very content with the work I've been able to do at NJIT, and grateful for the opportunities including this study at the Barden Lab."
"My work suggests that social parasite morphology isn't directly influenced by their number of hosts, but my results also opened up opportunities for many other different kinds of analysis! I think this is important because social parasitism can allow us to better understand trends in morphology across all different types of parasites … not just in ants."
Along with the showcase’s gold medalists, here are the rest of the 2021 Dana Knox Showcase winners:
Undergraduate:
1st: Nitya Shah, Senior, Biology & Mathematical Sciences
“Quantifying the Morphological Similarity between Social Parasites and their Hosts”
Adviser: Phillip Barden
2nd: Sreya Sanyal, Junior, Biomedical Engineering and History
“Self-Assembling Peptides to Mitigate Familial Hypercholesterolemia”
Adviser: Vivek Kumar
3rd: Nisha Mistry, Senior, Digital Design
“Molecular Augmented Reality for Design and Engineering (MADE): Effectiveness of AR Models on Discovery, Learning, and Education”
Advisers: Edgardo Farinas and Hyejin Hannah Kum-Biocca
Graduate:
1st: Xuecheng Yin, Doctoral in Industrial Engineering
“A Data-Driven Stochastic Programming Epidemic Modeling Framework to Controlling the COVID-19”
Adviser: Esra Buyuktahtakin-Toy
2nd: Yasser Almoteri, Doctoral in Mathematical Sciences
"Bacterial motion and spread in porous media”
Adviser: Enkeleida Lushi
3rd (tie): Ludvik Alkhoury, PhD in Electrical Engineering
"Heart-rate tuned comb filters for processing photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals in pulse oximetry repositories”
Adviser: Moshe Kam
3rd (tie): Xi Zhang, Doctoral in Innovation and Entrepreneurship
“From Ugly Duckling to Swan: CVC, Open Innovation, and the Advent of Unicorn Ventures”
Adviser: Raja Roy
To see view the full showcase schedule, including links to the recorded presentations, visit here.
For more information about the 16th Dana Knox Showcase, visit: https://www.njit.edu/provost/events/studentresearchshowcase/.
