Last Tuesday, nearly a thousand students, mentors, parents, and friends flocked to the Student Union for this spring’s Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement (EURēCA). The annual event lets undergrads from all disciplines of the University of Tennessee showcase their work to the public, and students from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) always take full advantage of the opportunity.
This year, 21 MSE students representing every class level presented their work, as did three undergraduates from other departments who conducted work under MSE faculty. Their research spanned integrating paper into automotive components and carbon capture efforts; improving scintillation materials for radiation detection; and even forging a steel replica of one of George Washington’s swords.
In addition to writing informative posters about their research, the students gave oral presentations and answered questions from guests and EURēCA judges. Most importantly, they demonstrated the incredible value that undergraduates can contribute to materials science and engineering research!
Group Projects
| Students | Project Title | MSE Mentor(s) |
| Caleb Allen, Kaden Castanada, Meredith Harpel, John Hinton, Maddie Maben
(All MSE seniors) |
Near-Net Forming of Ceramics for Nuclear Energy Technologies
|
Professor Claudia Rawn |
| Davis Granger, Nolan Lees, Fabriana Prawiranata, Daniel Rasmussen, Jakob Scroggins
(All MSE seniors) |
Material Selection, Design, and Fabrication of a Cast Sword
|
Assistant Professor Dustin Gilmer |
Individual Projects
| Student | Project Title | MSE Mentor(s) |
| Meredith Harpel
(MSE senior) |
Optimizing Powder Processing for High-Entropy Rare-Earth Aluminum Garnet Ceramics | Associate Professor Mariya Zhuravleva, Professor Chuck Melcher |
| Maddie Maben
(MSE senior) |
Synthesis of Skyrmions in Fe1-xCoxSi | Associate Professor Dustin Gilbert, MSE doctoral student Charlotte Buchanan |
| Jocelyn Hess
(MSE junior) |
Exploring Effects of Additives on the Thermal Stability and Processability of Paper Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene for Automotive Applications | Professor David Harper
|
| Jakob Scroggins
(MSE senior) |
Synthesis and Characterization of Lignin-Derived Quantum Dots for CO2 Absorption and Cellular Imaging | Professor David Harper |
| Kaden Castanada
(MSE senior) |
Mechanochemistry-assisted Synthesis of Compositionally Complex Rare Earth Titanate Pyrochlores | Assistant Professor Kate Page, MSE doctoral student Joshua Safin |
| Fabriana Prawinarata (MSE senior)Callie Jee (MSE first-year) |
Carbon Dioxide Selectivity for Various Combinations of Modified Carbon Quantum Dots | Professor David Harper, Professor David Keffer, MSE doctoral student Mohsen Samandari |
| Mariana Milano-Beniez
(Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering senior) |
Lignin Fractionation for Specific Molecular Weight Fractions Isolation and Advanced Material Applications | Professor David Harper |
| Bryson Graham
(Mechanical Engineering senior) |
Design and Development of High-Entropy Alloys through Physics-Based Machine Learning | John Fisher Professor Peter Liaw |
| Marlena Alexander
(MSE junior) |
Investigation of Sintering Conditions for Optimization of High Entropy Garnet Ceramics | Associate Professor Mariya Zhuravleva, Professor Chuck Melcher |
| Mohammad Husein
(MSE junior) |
Demonstrating the Reprocessability of LCENs | Professor David Harper
|
| Megan Gillespie
(MSE junior) |
Development of the Tammann Diagram of the RbI-SrI2 System | Associate Professor Mariya Zhuravleva, Professor Chuck Melcher |
| Luke Sakhleh and Becan Hahn
(Both MSE sophomores) |
Exploration of the Density and Thermomechanical Properties of Compositionally Complex Rare-earth Aluminum-based Garnets (CCREAGs) | Professor Claudia Rawn, MSE doctoral student Vincent Garcia |
| Luke Wathen
(MSE sophomore) |
Effects of Zinc Content on RCO-containing Aluminum Alloys | MSE doctoral student Elizabeth Heon |
| Ronan Tollefsen
(MSE sophomore) |
Effects of Conductive Additives on the Composition and Morphology of Electrospun Lignin Fabrics | Professor David Harper |
| Andrew Marotta
(Nuclear Engineering first-year) |
Reducing Afterglow and Enhancing the Performance of CsI:Na Scintillator via Cation Co-Doping | Associate Professor Mariya Zhuravleva, Professor Chuck Melcher |
Contact
Izzie Gall (865-974-7203, [email protected])