Senior Thesis and Independent Research Requirements

There is no separate requirement for a Junior or Senior Project or Independent work in addition to the requirements in your home Department, but to receive the Certificate you must do Independent work or a Senior Thesis in your home Department. We assume you will find a thesis that satisfies your interests in Engineering Biology among theses offered in your Department. Many students do their theses under the direction of a faculty member in another Department or co-advised by a faculty member in their Department and one in another Department. You can check with the Engineering Biology Office to get a listing of faculty who sponsor interdisciplinary topics that relate to Engineering Biology. Arrangements for theses are at the discretion and by approval of your home Department.

Past Senior Thesis and Independent Work Topics

Here is a listing of Senior Thesis and Independent Projects that have been done by students in the Program:

Year	Name	Dept	Project Title
'07	Anand Atreya	EE	Closed-loop control of stem cell differentiation using real-time fluorescence image analysis
'07	Thomas Brennan	CHE	Applications of Chi-Square-Directed Subfamily Generation in Protein Sequence Characterization and Alignment
'07	Deborah Chen	MOL	A High Throughput Screen for Compounds
'07	Caroline Chopko	CHE	That Inhibit Aggregation of the Alzheimer’s Peptide
'07	Sara Conwell	CHE	Survival of the Unfittest: Establishing the Tunability of Thymidylate Synthase-Based Selection
'07	Samira Farouk	CHE	Modeling, Patterning, and Quantification of and EGF Receptor Ligand and Targets in Drosophila Oogenesis
'07	William Fowler	CHM	Modeling Nitrogen Assimilation in Eacherichia coli
'07	Nathan Harbacek	WWS	Athletic enhancement:confronting doping in the modern age – a political and social evaluation
'07	Meir Hasbani	CHE	Stability and Functionalization of Nanoparticles for Cancer Drug Delivery
'07	Ritu Kamal	EE	Multiplexed Cell Fate Determination in Mouse Embyronic Stem Cells
'07	Sandor Kovacs	CHE	Dynamic Micro-Pixelated Materials with Biological Applications
'07	Kathleen Lee	CHE	Purification of organophosphate hydrolase by self cleaving affinity tag
'07	Tara Lloyd	CHE	NMR-Based Analysis of Complex Biological Fluids as a Reflection of Disease Onset and Its Outcome -- A Case Study of Pregnant Mares Grazing Endophyte Infected Fescue
'07	Zack McKinney	MAE	Electroactive Polymer Artificial Muscles as Prosthetic Actuators
'07	Safiyy Momen	EE	A Microfluidics-based Biochip for Exogenerous Control of Genetic Circuits
'07	Frank Mycroft	MAE	Tracking the Migratory Patterns of Small Animals from
'07	Andrew Park	CHE	Modeling Immune Responses and an Equation-Free Approach to Modeling Cellular Dynamics
'07	Christian Theriault	MOL	In Vitr analysis of a new targeted Drug Delivery system using PEG-PCL Block Co-polymer Micells Nano particles
'07	Vikram Vijayan	EE	Space: Designing the Communication Link
'07	Diane Weiner	CHE	Analysis of the mechanisms of tissue morphogenesis and gene expression patterns of cell adhesion molecules in Drosophila melanogaster
'06	Christopher Bohn	ChE	Applications of Hot Atom Reactions
'06	Amanda Chi	Chm	Synthesis of Clofilium Analogs and Examination of their Antiproliferative Effects
'06	Cole De Forest	ChE	Experimental and Computational Studies for the Elucidation of Complex Signal Transduction and Metabolic Pathways
'06	Colin Fuller	CHM
'06	Vinitha Jacob	ChE	Toward the Development of a Liquid-Based Genetic Selection System: Efficient Separation of Inteins with Differing levels of Activity
'06	Ranjani Krishnan	ChE	Drosophila Modeling
'06	Lydia Leinsdorf	ChE	The Tethering by Aggregation and Growth of Phosphonate Films to Pure Tantalum for the Promotion of Cell Adhesion
'06	Stephanie; Malone	ChE	Surfactant-Induced Membrane Perturbation: What controls surfactant flip-flop?
'06	Courtney Mee	ChE	Tangential Flow Filtration Protein Purification Using a Self-Cleaving Elastin-like Polypeptide Fusion Tag
'06	Gina Monaco	ChE	Addiction in Mice
'06	Sarah Moore	ChE	Developing a Cyclic Peptide as a Tuberculosis Intein Splicing Antagonist
'06	Christopher O’Neil	ChE	Self-healing Nanofilled Materials
'06	Julia Philip	ChE	Time resolved dynamic
'06	Boris Russ	ChE	Nanoparticle Drug Delivery for Cancer and Drug Resistant TB
'06	Patrick Ryan	ChE	Desulfurization Catalysis for Low Sulfur Diesel Fuel and Gasoline
'06	Anshuman Sahoo	ChE	Applications of Statistical Functional Domain Based Subfamily Identification in Dihydrofolate Reductase
'06	Anitra Thomas	Mol
'06	Ted Yeh	ChE	Graphene-based Ultracapacitors
'05	David Chen	ELE	Outcoupling for Shaped Substrates in White Organic LED's (WOLEDs)
'05	Haihua Chu	CHE	Optimization of a Self Purifying Protein Expression System
'05	Andrea Hafeman	CHE	An Experimental Investigation of Protein Stabilization in Glassy Matrices
'05	Lauren Hayward	MAE	The Gordian Knot: Using Magnetite Nanoparticles to Detect and Treat Reproductive Cancers
'05	Rachael Hoff	CHE	Experimental And Computational Studies For The Elucidation Of Complex Metabolic Pathways In Eukaryotic Cells
'05	Kristen Hudacek	CHE	Nanoparticle Drug Delivery for Cancer and Drug Resistant TB
'05	Paul Kelley	CHE	Origin and structure of voidage waves in fluidized beds
'05	Jerome Ku	ELE	Synthetic Consensus System for Coordination of Population Behavior
'05	Christina Kuhn	CHE	Synergistic Perturbation of Cellular Membranes
'05	Lauren Lyons	MAE	Mechanisms of Human Osteosarcoma Cell Adhesion and Spreading onto Porous Ti-6A1-4V Surfaces
'05	David Matthews	MAE	Timing Dependent Learning Rules at Cerebellar Granule Cell-Purkinje Cell Synapses
'05	Katherine McJunkin	MOL	Optimization of Triplex-Forming Oligonucleotides to Repair the Sickle Cell Mutation by Site-Directed Mutagenesis
'05	Lina Mountziaris	CHE	Stretching DNA to Direct the Assembly of Nanomaterials: Structural Characterization by AFM
'05	Ho Chung Shum	CHE	Corrosion Inhibition of Metals by Surfactants
'05	Nicholas Stroustrup	CHE	Computational Analysis and Experimental Verification of Protein Networks in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
'05	Michael Tseng	ELE
'05	Swati Vadrevu Murthy	ELE	Genetic Circuit for Line Formation Among a Colony of Cells
'05	Annie Yu	MAE	Autonomous Vertical Lift Vehicle for Aerial Exploration of Titan
'04	Randal Bly	MAE	Shear Assay Analysis for Improved Titanium-Osteoblast Bonding Using an RGD Protein Surface Treatment
'04	Hannah Duggan	MOL	A New Quantitative Reporter Assay for Intein Activity
'04	Brian Greenwald	CHM	Explorations in the Control, Optimization, and Analysis of Neural Systems
'04	Colin Ligon	MAE	Development of a Portable EEG-Based Alertness Detector for Operational Environments
'04	Katy Liu	CEE	Building Enhancements to Extreme Hazards (including Biochemical Hazards section)
'04	Willard Moore	MAE	Shear Assay Analysis for Improved Titanium-Osteoblast Bonding Using RGD Protein Surface Treatment
'04	Allison Pieja	CEE	Not Available
'04	Thomas Reichel	CHE	Controlled Single-step Affinity Purification using Self-cleaving Intein to Produce Constant Concentration of Purified Green Fluorescent Protein
'04	Cathy Shu	ORF	An Epidemiological Study on the Growing Problem of Obesity in China
'04	Hugh Strange	MAE	Optimal Control of Disease Processes: Improving Current HIV Chemotherapy
'03	Niraj Bhatt	ELE	fMRI-EEG Integration
'03	Lydia Contreras	CHE	A Novel Statistical Analysis For Identifying Subfamilies of Intein Proteins Based on Functional Domains
'03	Erik Hanley	CHE	Guided Self Assembly of Collagen Arrays with an Electric Field
'03	ChristopherLanghammer	MAE	TheEffects of Contact Guidance on Osteoblast Adhesion to Ti-6Al-4VSubstrate
'03	Brian Mickus	CHE	A Novel Approach for Alpha-Helical Topology and Structure Prediction
'03	Joseph Peach	ELE	Cell Manipulation using Dielectrophoresis
'03	Ray Wang	ECO	Information Diffusion among Individual Investors: The Geography of Information Transmission and its Effects on Portfolio Allocation
'02	Eric Aaltonen	CHE	Mutagenesis of the Mycobacterium Xenoopi GyrA and the Saccharomyces Cerevisiae VMZ Inteins
'02	Afsheen Afshar	ELE
'02	Elizabeth Condliffe	MAE	Constitutive Properties of Cells
'02	Kemesha Delisser	CHE	Designer Interfaces for Osteoblast Adhesion to Titanium Implant Surfaces
'02	Virginia Diavolitsis	MOL
'02	Raj Jain	MOL	Patterning of Protein Functionalized Colloids and the Effect on Cell Behavior
'02	Preetesh Kantak	CHE	Monte Carlo of Di and Triblock Copolymer Micelles
'02	Lauren Mauro	CHE	Further Development of a Thymidylate Synthase Based Genetic Selection System
'02	Irene Pak	COS
'02	Tom Petersen	ELE	Development of Synthetic Gene Networks In Vivo
'02	Matthew Truppo	CHE	Size Stabilization of Nanoparticles Using Block Copolymers
'02	Colin Walsh	MAE
'01	Christina Brown	CHM	Structural Characterizatiion and Template-Directed Assembly of a De Novo β-Sheet Protein
'01	Steve Chen	ELE	Use of RFID Technology for Environmental Applications
'01	Kathryn Dean	CHE	A comparison of the Interactions between Carbon Nanotubes and Asbestos with DNA
'01	Maura George	MAE	Strength of Adhesion of MC-3T3 Cells Grown on Titanium
'01	Eileen Higham	CHE	Two-Dimensional Protein Patterning and Its Effects on Cellular Behavior
'01	Jason Kutch	MAE	State Observability of Neuromuscular Control Systems: Optimal Subspace Representations and EMG Reconstruction
'01	John Lerch	ELE	Determining the Phasing of a focused Ultrasound Array for Sonication through the Human Skull
'01	Adam Ruben	MOL	Microfluidic and Computational Approaches to DNA Computing
'01	Laura J. Schutz	CHE	Vesicle properties required for alkaline phosphatase activity
'01	NeilPravin Shah	COS	Promoter Recognition in Yeast Genome
'01	Maxim Shusteff	ELE	Piezoelectric Touch Sensing
'01	Kelcy Walker	CHE	Pore Formation in Membranes as Probed by Permeability Studies
'01	Darice Wong	CHE	"Wired" Redox Enzymes for use in Microscale Biosensors
'00	Nicole A. Appelle	MOL	The Effect of CDI on the Incidence of Diabetes in NOD Mice
'00	Mary A. Evans	CHE	Electrokinetics of Particles with Adsorbed Polyelectrolytes
'00	Andrew A. Glass	CHE	Determination of the Second Transcriptional Activator of the Adenovirus Major Late Promoter
'00	Nouhad T. Husseini	MOL	Characterization of Integrin Function in Caenorhabditis elegans Through Overexpression of the Alpha Pat2 Subunit
'00	Jeffrey M. Jacobson	MAE
'00	Sophie Kallinis	MOL	Characterization of the Activated Vacuolar t-SNARE Vam3p
'00	Ellen F. Krasik	CHE	k-Carrageenan in Solution: Sequestering Potential and Complex Formation with Iodine
'00	Conrad W. Liang	ORFE	The Application of Constrained Optimization Towards Improved Statistical Analysis of fMRI Images
'00	Aaron J. Link	CHE	Photochemistry of Naphthocarborane
'00	Julie Chih-I Liu	CHE	DNA Stretching
'00	Michael R. Pagnotto	CHE	The Effects of Ceramic Implant Pore Size on Osteoblast Development
'00	Susan M. Rea	CHE	Electrostatic Assembly and Analysis of Multilayered Polyelectrolytes for the Functionalization of Orthopedic Implant Surfaces
'00	Marc A. Steyer	MOL	Biological Weapons: Understanding the Threat and Planning for the Future
'00	Catherine R. Stoia	CHE	Determination of Critical Micelle Concentration for Dimethyltetradecylamine Oxide and Dimethylhexadecyl Betaine in Water as Pure and Mixed Systems
'00	Joanna M. Zurada	CHM	Towards the Fusion of Man and Machine: Improving Orthopedic Inserts through Sol-Gel Deposition of Calcium Phosphates
'99	Angela L. Carrelli	CHE	Production of Hydrogen with Low Carbon Monoxide Levels
'99	Wayne Way-Fu Chan	CHE	A Physical Model for Hexameric Ring Helicases: Towards a common molecular mechanism
'99	Sulene L. Chi	CHM	Partial Construction of a Single-Chain Linked Actin Trimer
'99	Rebecca M. Debernard	CHE	Synthesis and Characterization of Novel PAA-Borate Polymers for Oil Recovery Operations
'99	Narissa Dudar	CHE	Short Term Memory in the Human Brain
'99	Aaron J. Dulgar	CHE	Osteo-Inductive Properties of Two Dimensional Ceramic Scaffolds and Thin Film Carbonated Calcium Phosphates
'99	Ronit Gilab	MOL	The Isolating, Cloning, and Sequencing of a Ubiquitous Promoter in Polyshondylium Pallidum
'99	Evan M. Lew	ELE	Multimedia Computer Therapy in Attention Shifting Training for Autistic Children
'99	David Ta-Wey Liu	ELE	Design and Implementation of an Infrared Remote Control Interface for an Optical Tweezers Trapping System
'99	Joanna S. Mysen	CHE	The Effect of Substrate on Crystal Growth and Orientation of PZT
'99	Robert L. Owens	CHE	Capillary Electrophoretic Screening of Endocrine Disruptors
'99	Jeffrey S. Swers	CHE	The Influence of Electrostatics on Protein Partitioning
'98	Michelle J. Clark	MAE	Reducing Cocaine Addiction in Rats
'98	Joseph J. Corkery	COS	Neural Network Simulation of Task Selection in the Prefrontal Cortex Using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
'98	Caterina M. Gallippi	ELE
'98	Todd A. Lestina	CHE	Application of Guar Polymers in Agricultural Spraying
'98	Sara A. McCowen	CHE	Branching in Oligomeric Surfactants
'98	Ihemba M. Mwamufiya	CHE	Rheology and Phase Behaviour of Natural Polymers Guar and Xanthan
'98	Xuan V. Nguyen	CHE	1. DNA-Nucleic Acid Interactions Involving Xenopus Laevis Transcription Factor IIIA 2. Global Optimization in Protein Folding
'98	Millicent M. Ow	CHE	The Peptide Docking Problem: Computer Modeling of Amino Acid Binding to HLA-DR4
'98	Annemarie Stroustrup	MOL	Characterization of a Novel Myc-Associated Protein
'97	Corinne I-San Chao	MOL	A Sequential Model of Receptor Editing
'97	Celine R. Gounder	MOL	The Feasibility of Eradicating Infectious Diseases: Analysis of Polio Eradication Initiative and Prospects for a Future Measles Eradication Program
'97	Grace Fang-yi Liou	CHE	A Systematic Study of Photodamage by Optical Tweezers
'97	Kara A. Struck	CHE	Protein Diffusion Through Polymerized Cubic Phase Gels
'97	Yon K. Sung	CHE	Studies on the Physical Aging Properties of a Fully-Cured Epoxy Amine Thermosetting System
'96	Catherine-Ann Cukras	CHE	Isolation of Enzymes in Carrageenan Polymers to Carry Out Non-Aqueous Reactions
'96	Navin Nayak	CHE	Optimization in Molecular Structure Determination
'95	David Altreuter	CHE	Development and Characterization of Konjac Glucomannan as a Novel Gel for DNA Electrophoresis
'95	Angela Choi	CHE	Formation and Characterization of Surfactant Bilayers on Colloidal Particles
'95	Ashley Cordell	CHE	Power-Assisted Elbow Flexion and Extension
'95	Dilshad Shahid	CHE	Formation of Barium Titanate on Biological and Synthetic Scaffoldings
'94	Elizabeth Garcia	CHE	Elastic Properties of Embryonic Tissues
'94	Rajesh Krishnan	CHE	Development of Microcarrier Process Techniques for the Culturing of Chick Embryo Fibroblasts
'94	Benjamin Leung	CHE	The Effects of Amino Acid Substitution of Tyrosine-7 in E. coli Tryptophan Repressor
'94	Timothy Lyons	CHE	A Study of Dioxin Emissions from Hazardous Waste Incinerators
'94	Cathy Pfleger	MOL	Morphogenetic Significance of Tissue Liquidity: Interfacial Tensions of Embryonic Tissues Correlate with Their Envelopment Behavior
'93	Kenneth Chuang	CHE	Elongational Viscosity of Structured Fluids
'93	Michael Connolly	CHE	Freeze Crystallization of Imipenem
'93	Joachim Granzow	CHE	Investigation into Optimal Vial Freezing and Lyophilization Techniques for Merck & Company Products
'93	Greg Hosler	CHE	Modeling Calcium Diffusion in Dendritic Spine
'93	Sharon Maynard	CHE	Computer-Aided Hypothesis Testing of the Renal Concentrating Mechanism
'93	April Whorley	CHE	Purification and Immobilization of Glucose Dehydrogenase from Bacillus megaterium M 1286
'93	Jennifer Wu	CHE	Mathematical Models of IL-2 Binding and Internalization in T-Cells
'92	Anjali Advani	CHE	Characterization of an Escherichia coli Mutant Showing Hyper-Stability in Phosphate Starvation
'92	Kirsten Anderson	CHE	A Preliminary Analysis of Tubulin Stability and pH Dependence of the Tubulin Lattice
'92	Nancy Zoeller	CHE	The Use of Transposon Mutagenesis for the Indentification of Catabolite Repression Regulatory Genes in Pseudomonas cepacia
'91	Paul Conrad	CHE	A Mathematical Model for Short-Term Memory Storage Based on Ca²⁺ Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinase II
'91	Adina Knight	CHE	Oxygen Limitation and Sporulation in Bacillus Subtilis
'91	Alyssa Kuhn	CHE	Purification, Crystallization, and Preliminary X-Ray Analysis of Porcine Growth Hormone
'91	Kelvin Lee	CHE	Isolation of a Hyper-Stable Phosphate Starved Escherichia coli Mutant
'91	Kevin Leong	CHE	The Expression of Mammalian Profilin in Escherichia coli: Towards an NMR Structural Determination
'91	Margaret Speed	CHE	Biochemical Engineering Experiments for an Undergraduate Laboratory