Winners Selected for Originality and Quality of Research, Quality of Presentation, and Skillful Use of Visual Aids

Minh Dang Nguyen and Jacob C. Hickey received first and second prize awards at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at University of Houston’s 58th Student Research Symposium. Both are Ph.D. students in chemistry.

Fourteen graduate students presented their research at the juried competition. The symposium provides students with a formal venue to enhance their presentation skills, interact with other students and faculty from various disciplines, and compete for cash prizes. Winning students are eligible to apply for TcSUH Travel Awards, which help defray expenses to present their work at conferences and workshops.

The IEEE Council on Superconductivity is offering each prizewinner a free, one-year IEEE student membership. Once they are an IEEE student member, the students are eligible to join the Council, where there are opportunities to apply for student fellowships, receive assistance for attending conferences, and engage in leadership activities for young professionals.

Zhifeng Ren, M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Physics and director of TcSUH, said the quality of all 14 presentations was outstanding, which made it difficult to narrow down the selections. He commended all students for their efforts before announcing the judges’ results.

Minh Dang Nguyen – First Prize

Presentation: “Tailoring the Size, Shape, and Crystallinity of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles for Studies of Nano-Magnetism and their Potential Applications”

Nguyen is a Ph.D. student in chemistry, and his advisor is T. Randall Lee. His research focuses on synthesizing magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles with different sizes and shapes for studies of their magnetic properties for biosensing and biomedicine. He obtained his B.Sc. in advanced materials science and nanotechnology from the University of Science and Technology of Hanoi.

Jacob C. Hickey – Second Prize

Presentation: “The Limits of Proxy-Guided Superhard Materials Screening”

Hickey is a fourth-year chemistry Ph.D. candidate in Jakoah Brgoch's group. His research involves using a combined approach of experimental and computational-based methods to discover new hard materials. He received his B.S. and M.S. in chemistry from San Jose State University.

Three TcSUH-affiliated faculty members served as judges: Jiming Bao (Electrical and Computer Engineering), Audrius Brazdeikis (Physics), and Arnold Guloy (Chemistry). The prizewinners were selected based on originality of research (25%), quality of research (25%), quality of presentation (25%), and skillful use of visual aids (25%).

Chairs for the three sessions held throughout the day were James Meen and Vassiliy Lubchenko (Chemistry), and Lihong Zhao (postdoctoral fellow).

- Susan Butler, TcSUH Public Affairs