Chemical engineering undergraduate students at the University of Colorado at Boulder won awards in all five categories of the student poster competition at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual meeting in November in Dallas.
Three students received first-place awards and two won second-place awards for their research projects. The winning students and their projects are:
* Martin Linck, a senior from Denver, who received a first-place award for his project titled, "Laboratory Studies of Frost Boils." The National Science Foundation and CU-Boulder's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program sponsored the research. Linck's faculty adviser is William Krantz.
* Jacob A. Johnson, a senior from Grand Junction, who won a first-place award for his project, "Modeling and Simulation of the Rapid Carbothermal Reduction Synthesis of Ultra-Fine Silicon Carbide Powders." The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation; Johnson's faculty adviser is Alan Weimer.
* Alan Peterson, a senior from Loveland, who won a first-place award for "Photocurable Collagen for Tissue Engineering Applications." The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation; Peterson's faculty adviser is Kristi Anseth.
* Joe Tamburini, a senior from Arvada, who won a second-place award for the project, "Permeation Properties of Novel Borosilicate Membranes." The National Science Foundation sponsored the research; Tamburini's faculty advisers are John Falconer and Richard Noble.
* Theresa Zawistowski, a senior from Littleton, who won a second-place award for the project, "Fate of Free Cyanide in Surface Waters," which she performed during the summer at Clarkson University in New York. The project was sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
More than 50 percent of undergraduates in the department of chemical engineering participate in research guided by a faculty member before graduation.
"Research helps enforce all the things learned in the classroom and helps to further develop problem-solving skills," Tamburini said.
"It has been an enormous amount of fun and has given me the chance to accumulate a wide range of very valuable, real-world experience," said Linck.
The College of Engineering and Applied Science has launched a Discovery Learning Initiative to increase the number of undergraduates who are involved in research experiences throughout the college.