Clark Atlanta University PhD candidate Allea Campbell was looking for a place where she could network job opportunities, meet peers, and brainstorm possible applications for her research into covalent organic frameworks. So she went to CAMPS. “This seemed like a place where I can connect with other people who have different ideas that I can bring to my research,” she said. The student-led Conference Across MRSEC-PREM Schools (CAMPS) is held each year at a different university affiliated with two National Science Foundation (NSF) programs – Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC), which supports interdisciplinary research on materials science, and Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM), which is designed to enhance diversity in materials research and education. The NSF funds the yearly event.

Texas State University PREM Student, Dillon Gee, was recently awarded the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) Award for his presentation “Leveraging Valence of Star-like PEGs to Tune Rheology and Gelation Pathways of Dynamic Hydrogels,” based on his UT REU research. With over 6,000 attendees at the ABRCMS and 3,000 presentations, only 300 participants received awards—and Gee was one of them.

Tania Betancourt, Texas State University Director of PREM CIMA, has been selected as one of AIMBE’s 17 Inaugural Emerging Leaders for her exceptional contributions to medical and biological engineering. This recognition by the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) highlights Betancourt’s remarkable contributions to biomedical engineering and her dedication to innovation and mentorship.

PREM researchers, Junaid ur Rehman and Scott Barrett, recently presented their innovative research and were awarded the 2024 Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management (EM) Scholarship at the DOE-EM Symposium held at Texas State University.

Three PREM undergraduates—Amelia Scott, Dillon Gee, and Melany Bouyer—were recently awarded $1,000 Undergraduate Research Fellowships (URF) to support their innovative projects in materials science.

Exciting research presented at the UT Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium (FURS)! We’re thrilled to announce that Dillon Gee and Brandon Taylor recently shared their innovative research projects in oral presentations.

The Lung-on-a-Chip team at Fort Lewis College developed a novel fabrication method to produce a viable porous silicon biomembrane that mimics the functionality of the human interstitial space that separates the alveolar cells and the capillary cells where the gas exchange occurs in the lungs.

PEAQS students have begun to grow and characterize more than half a dozen new crystals, including CaFe2 4, Ba-doped CaFe2 4, CuBiz 4, MgCr204, BaFeGaO4, PdGa, and PiGa.

PEAQS hosted its first student retreat March 25-26th at CU Boulder.

The undergraduate researchers at Fort Lewis College developed a microscope and an optical signal detector circuit to quantify single bacterium in microdroplets from environmental water samples.