2012 Meeting of the Minds Award Winners

The Undergraduate Research Symposium, or the "Meeting of the Minds," is a university-wide celebration of undergraduate research. Over 400 students share their work through poster sessions, oral presentations, art installations, prototype demonstrations, and live performances. Judges award prizes in 16 different competitions. This year, the 21 CIT students listed below were recognized. See photos from the Meeting of the Minds.

Boeing Blue Skies Award

First Place: Nathaniel Barshay (CS), Tomer Borenstein (ECE), Brandon Kase (CS), Dylan Koenig (ECE), Evan Shapiro (CS), Nisha Singh (Psychology, Social & Decision Sciences), Leonard Sokol (H&SS Interdisciplinary), "Effortless Embedded Engineering"

Third Place: Benjamin Cowley (ECE), "DataHigh: Graphical User Interface for Visualizing and Interacting with High-Dimensional Neural Activity"

CIT Senior Honors Research Poster Competition

First Place: Kathryn Kukla (BME, ChemE), "Evaluation of Adipose ECM Gels for Breast Reconstructive Surgery"

Second Place: Cecily Sunday (EPP, MechE), "An Investigation of Adaptive Electrically-conductive, Solid Lubricants in Sliding Contacts"

Third Place: Steven Devincentis (ECE), "Drone–RK: A Multi-agent UAV Platform"

IBM Smarter Planet Award

Nathaniel Barshay (CS), Tomer Borenstein (ECE), Brandon Kase (CS), Dylan Koenig (ECE), Evan Shapiro (CS), Nisha Singh (Psychology, Social & Decision Sciences), Leonard Sokol (H&SS Interdisciplinary), "Effortless Embedded Engineering"

Douglas Bernstein (BME, MechE), "A Flexible Wireless Capsule Endoscope with Biopsy Potential"

Brent Strysko (ECE), "Wireless Monitor and Control"

Christopher Tomaszewski (CS, MechE, Robotics), "Cooperative Robot Watercraft and Hull Design Planning"

Johnson & Johnson Undergraduate Research Award

Second Place: Nathaniel Barshay (CS), Tomer Borenstein (ECE), Brandon Kase (CS), Dylan Koenig (ECE), Evan Shapiro (CS), Nisha Singh (Psychology, Social & Decision Science), Leonard Sokol (H&SS Interdisciplinary), "Effortless Embedded Engineering"

Sigma Xi Poster Competition

Third Place: Neereja Sundaresan (ECE), "The Future of Magnetic Media, Self-Assembly of Block Copolymers"

SRC-URO Poster Competition

First Place: Leah Yingling (BME, MSE), "Automated Histological Classification of Teratoma Tissue Classes"

Second Place: Andrea Pickel (MechE), "Properties of Iron Cobalt Magnetic Nanoparticle-based Solder Composites"

Third Place: Kwabena Agyeman (ECE, EPP), "CMUcam4: Open Source Programmable Embedded Color Vision Sensor"

Toyota Ideas for Good Scholars Award

Undergraduate Environmental Research Award

First Place: Masanari Kato (ChemE), "Synthesis and Surface Tension Reducing Performance of a Bacitracin-Derived Molecule"

Runner-Up: Sophie Grodsinsky (CEE, EPP), "Nanomaterial Measurement Consistency"