On April 15, 2025, 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, coordinated by Undergraduate Research & Fellowships (URF), lets undergrads from all disciplines of the University of Tennessee showcase their work to the public—and students from the Tickle College of Engineering (TCE) always take full advantage of the opportunity.
Over a hundred individuals and teams from TCE presented at EUReCA this year, making up more than one fifth of the entries. Their projects illustrated the breadth of problems engineering can solve, like personalizing insulin delivery, improving nuclear fusion reactor safety, and upcycling invasive weeds into supercapacitors.
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 engineering research.
EUReCA’s judges evaluated each project based on factors including the scholarly context of undergraduates’ work, research significance and timeliness, and presentation clarity. Awards were presented on April 29, 2025, in the Student Union.
Design First Place went to EECS seniors Maria Hernandez Rivero, Daniel Mallett, Jamin Hanna, Chris White, Steven Dao, and Jonathan Tran for their team’s work, “Neuromorphic Artificial Pancreas: Evolving Neural Networks for Insulin Delivery.” Their research mentor was Charles Rizzo.
Design Second Place went to MSE senior Meredith Harpel for her work, “Near-Net Forming of Ceramics for Nuclear Energy Technologies.” Her research mentor was Hahn Choo.
Research First Place was awarded to CBE senior Kaitlin Ly for her work, “Kudzu Biomass Based Carbons for Supercapacitor Applications.” Her research mentor was Gabriel Goenaga.
Research Second Place went to MSE senior Jakob Scroggins for his work, “Synthesis and Characterization of Lignin-Derived Quantum Dots for CO2 Absorption.” His research mentor was David Harper.
Research Third Place was awarded to MABE junior Sai Lakshanya Rangoon for her work, “Exploring the tunability of Mechanical Properties in Hybrid Emulsion-Based Tissue-like Materials for Advanced Tissue Engineering and Bioelectronics.” Her research mentor was Andy Sarles.
In addition, 16 TCE students earned Research Awards of Merit.
| Student | Project Title | Faculty Mentor |
|---|---|---|
| Madeline Maben (MSE senior) | Synthesis of Skyrmions in Fe(1-x)Co(x)Si | Dustin Gilbert |
| Joshua Hilner (MABE senior) | Development of an ELISA assay to determine antibody response to poly-ethylene-oxide (PEO) and poly-ethylene-glycol (PEG) nanoparticles. | Paul Dalhaimer |
| Alexandra Ritter and Ava Wallace (MABE seniors) | Investigating Blood Clot Formation in Cardiovascular Disease Anatomies Utilizing Ultrasound | Bryan Good |
| Halle Rogers (MABE senior) | Design and Characterization of pH-Responsive DNA Nanopaddle for Membrane Sculpting | Stephen Sarles |
| Adam Buchalter (NE senior) and Logan Goodbred (CEE senior) | Phase-Contrast Imaging Using X-ray Grating Interferometry with Application to Computed Tomography | Dayakar Penumadu |
| Davis Freeman and Samuel Haid (NE seniors) | Extension of cluster dynamics framework to model large helium bubbles in tungsten | Sophie Blondel |
| Emily Enright (CEE junior) | Influence of Chitosan on Bentonite Behavior: Sedimentation and Rheological Properties | Angel Palomino |
| Jackie Liu (CBE senior) | Synthesis and characterization of Janus particles for targeted drug delivery | Michael Danquah |
| Ian Rogers (EECS senior) | Design Space Exploration and Variation Analysis of Radiation-Hardened 10T SRAM in 10 nm FinFET Technology | Ahmedullah Aziz |
| Jackson Mowry (EECS senior) | VRISP – A Fast Vectorized Neuroprocessor | James Plank |
| Meredith Harpel (MSE senior) | Investigating the Use of Dispersants During Ultrasonication of Rare-Earth Aluminum Garnet Powders for Ceramic Scintillator Synthesis | Mariya Zhuravleva |
| Lemona Thompson (MSE junior) | Optimization of A-site Composition and Processing Parameters in Rare Earth Zirconates (RE2Zr2O7) for Enhanced Thermal Barrier Coatings (TBCs) | Katharine Page |
| Kaden Castañeda (MSE senior) | Mechanochemistry-assisted Synthesis of Compositionally Complex Rare Earth Titanate Pyrochlores | Katharine Page |