Three Syracuse University students took first place in the Ph.D., master’s and undergraduate categories at the annual 16th Annual Syracuse Center of Excellence Symposium student poster competition.

The two-day symposium was held from Sept. 21-22 and composed of presentations by speakers and a student poster competition. During the presentation portion, 33 competing students each had five to 10 minutes to display their research and discuss their topics with judges, said Chetna Khosla Chianese, the associate director of research in Environmental and Energy Systems at the Center of Excellence.

Most of the students have been preparing for this completion since the summer, but their research has spanned over a year.

“(The poster competition) was a great opportunity for the students to highlight their research to a wide variety of people,” said Chianese. “I’m always impressed when I go around (to see the posters) — these students are very knowledgeable of their topics of research. This is evidence of their ability to do research, and they’re able to show that they’re doing research that’s impactful.”

First place winners include Meng Kong in the Ph.D. category for his poster “Modeling and Experimental Study of Using Micro-Environment Control for Thermal Comfort,” Matt Rushby in the master’s category for his poster “Exploring the Performance of Dual-Phase Oxygen Transport Membranes for Carbon Capture Purposes” and Bryan Morris in the undergraduate category for his poster “Design and Testing of a Micro Scroll Compressor”.

Kong did research that will help him create a product focusing on sustainable indoor environmental quality. With his micro-environment product, Kong had to find the balance between being eco-friendly while also “enhancing the productivity of the worker.”

“The primary objective of my project is to try to reduce energy consumption of buildings,” Kong said.

Currently, Kong is working on finalizing the prototype design. Once perfected, four prototypes will be sent to Cornell University for human subject tests.

For his project, Rushby created a material that will make cleaner combustions and much more efficient combustions. Overall, he said, it could highly reduce carbon emissions in combustion environments and highly reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.

“I was surprised at first, I’m going to be honest,” Rushby said. “It makes you feel like you have a lot of confidence in yourself.”

Rushby is continuing his research until at least the end of the summer by testing the material’s stability and performance in pure carbon dioxide environments.

Chianese said the students eligible for the competition next year will continue their research in the same field and will likely compete again in the CoE poster competition.

Second place winners were Oliva Chen for undergraduate, Leah Harnish for master’s and Ryan Milcarek for Ph.D. Third place went to Joshua Saxton for undergraduate, Sebastien Simonnet and Christine Robillard for master’s, and Kristina Gutchess and Shannon Garvin for Ph.D.

SU students from the College of Engineering and Computer Science, School of Architecture, the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Visual and Performing Arts presented posters. In addition, a few students from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Rochester Institute of Technology and Clarkson University participated as well.

Published on October 10, 2016 at 11:35 pm

Contact Ali: akharfor@syr.edu