If interested in any of these projects, students must contact and meet with the relevant faculty member to discuss candidacy. If successful, students must then complete the student application form on the fellowship website.
Available Opportunities
Faculty Name | Department | Working Title | # Openings | Working Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
Desgranges, Caroline | Physics and Applied Physics | Combining AI/ML Methods and Optical Polarization Approach for Cancer Detection. | 1 | The aim of this project is to create new theoretical frameworks, physics-based machine learning algorithms, and artificial intelligence techniques for biomedical optical imaging and image-guided intervention methods in cancer research. The project will require collaboration between two research groups, one experimental and the other theoretical, to use optical polarization imaging (OPI) as a screening tool for detecting cancers. More specifically, spectrally-encoded information captured in OPI will be utilized to develop a deep learning machine learning model capable of evaluating the extent of tumor spread, thus reducing the need for unnecessary surgeries. |
Hajian, Rozhin | Mechanical Engineering | Acoustic Analysis of Porous Airfoil Design | 2 | The study of aerodynamic loads on porous airfoils, inspired by the silent flight of owls, seeks to address the challenge of reducing aerodynamic self-noise in fluid-loaded bodies through passive design structures. The trailing edge, an inherent source of such self-noise in aerodynamic constructs, has prompted extensive research aimed at modeling, measuring, and mitigating noise generated by the interaction with turbulent eddies. Efforts to diminish turbulence noise have explored altering the acoustical impedance near the edge, with numerous theoretical studies predicting the effects of edge boundary conditions on the trailing-edge noise scattering mechanism. In this project, our objective is to utilize developed mathematical models and numerical methods to predict the aerodynamic noise produced by porous airfoils. We plan to examine different porosity distributions across the airfoil to identify an optimized configuration that minimizes noise. To corroborate our theoretical findings, we will employ 3D-printed airfoils, featuring varied porosity distributions, and conduct wind tunnel tests to measure the acoustic pressure emitted from each design. This approach not only bridges the gap between aeroacoustic research and practical application but also paves the way for innovations in the design of quieter aerodynamic structures. |
Kolias, Carisa | Library | Archives Historical Research | 1 | Using the International Institute of Lowell Collection at the Center for Lowell History, UMass Lowell, as well as other primary and secondary sources, the fellow will conduct research into the records of people who immigrated from Armenia from 1900-1920, particularly focusing on the time of the Armenian Genocide from 1915-1916. During the Armenian genocide, up to 1.2 million Armenian people, primarily Christian, were killed by Ottoman authorities and others. Many Armenian people fled before, during, and after the genocide and emigrated from their native land. Some eventually wound up in the United States, and made their home in Lowell, Massachusetts. The goal of this project is to draw out the many stories contained in the International Institute of Lowell collection in order to highlight and learn from the personal stories of Armenian refugees. In doing so, a community that is often overlooked when celebrating the immigrant stories of Lowell, Massachusetts will have its story told. It is not our intention to replicate the work done by previous researchers, or to write a paper about the Armenian community more broadly, but to draw out stories hidden within these records. To that end, the fellow will review the most recent research into Armenians in Lowell at the start of their fellowship to familiarize themselves with the community they will be researching. Expected products at the end of this fellowship are: 1) Minimum 8-10 page paper presenting the research findings 2) Educational libGuide summarizing the findings of the paper for inclusion on the University's libGuides 3) Digital exhibit focusing on three to four people or families' stories to be added to the digital exhibit page of the International Institute of Lowell on the Omeka platform, 4) Creating an interactive map to be included in the digital exhibit 5) Create a 15-minute presentation highlighting the work done in your fellowship |
Kronrod, Ann | Mktg Entr & Innovation | Language and Its Effects in Business and Society | 1 | We can learn a lot from a systematic analysis of language in business and social settings, such as customer complaint sites, advertising or social network posts. Research of the words used in these settings has proven to be insightful, providing first-hand knowledge about people’s emotions, attitudes, behaviors, decisions, intentions, and hidden motivations. Text analysis is used today in business, marketing, political science, and consumer behavior research. The project will focus on the question – what can we learn about business and people by analyzing what they say? For example, how does a fake review differ from a real review, judging only by its language? The prospect student will be able to find and read previous works that show how to analyze text in an insightful way. Students interested in experimental aspects of research will be able to take part in planning, designing and executing studies or surveys, manipulating emotions and attitudes to learn about the way these changes influence thought and language people use to achieve their goals. Students who prefer a more computational approach will be able to apply their coding abilities, to conduct text analysis depending on their level of interest and skill, and to implement it to analyze large datasets, such as Amazon reviews, health forum posts, or Twitter data. |
Van Dam, Noah | Mechanical Engineering | High Performance Computing for Energy Applications | 2 | The multiphase and reacting flows laboratory works on high fidelity computer simulations of multiphase and reacting flows such as fuel sprays and combustion. These flows appear in a variety of energy applications, including internal combustion engines and gas turbines. The lab always has several projects students may work on. Current primary projects are two projects funded by the US Navy. The first project is investigating the impacts of salt particles in the intake air on an atmospheric pressure burner that could be used to power future Navy vessels. In this project, students are looking at the combustion process and how the salt particles interact with the flame. Important questions include combustion efficiency, gas temperatures, and locations of salt deposits in the system. The second project is looking at using ammonia-hydrogen blends as a zero-carbon energy source for stationary power generation on remote bases. There are important questions about how the flame behavior of these blends and how to operate internal combustion engines running on these blends to maximize efficiency and minimize NOx or other unwanted combustion products. Students will run computational fluid dynamics simulations on high performance computers, and will perform post-processing of the results using several different tools, including paraview and matlab or python programs. |
Yan, Mingdi | Chemistry | Developing New Click Type Cycloaddition Reactions | 2 | The goal of project is to develop new click type cycloaddition reactions based on electrophilic azides. The project will involve testing different reaction conditions and reagent scope, as well as characterization of the products using spectroscopy techniques. The candidate will have completed organic chemistry 1 and 2 and the corresponding labs, and have good academic records. |
Previous Opportunities
Faculty Name | Department | Title | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Chain, Frederic | Biological Sciences | For my Honors Fellowship, I plan on working with Dr. Frederic Chain from the biology department. My project will be centered on the topic of figuring out the gendering of different stickleback species and populations to verify the sex of the organism without the use of sequencing. Currently, we have five known species of stickleback from various populations in which I will be investigating this sex chromosome genetic differentiation. To investigate this genetic differentiation in male/female stickleback I will be computationally (using R: coding language) to compare genome/transcriptomes in male vs female. I will then design a DNA primer to target the location of the sex chromosome from my computational investigation. To visualize that I have successfully designed the primer to figure out the genetic differentiation a PCR diagnosis test will be performed on the samples we have. DNA segments of the different species will be amplified by PCR and visualized through performing gel electrophoresis. This project will allow me to enhance my wet lab skills (pipetting, PCR, gel electrophoresis) and also dry lab skills (R-coding) for preparation for a biology graduate program in the future. | |
Gautam, Ramraj | School of Nursing | For my fellowship, I want to focus on the following research question: How can interested emerita/us professors and retired faculty continue to engage with the university? After briefly reviewing literature, I discovered that there are a great number of studies performed on aging in general; However, fewer studies on Age Friendly Universities (AFU’s) have been done (Montepare et al., 2020). As a result, I have discovered that there are an unlimited number of benefits that come from being part of an Age Friendly University (Montepare et al., 2020). It is important for students to be knowledgeable about aging and older adults, so that we can make our community more age-friendly and age-inclusive (Montepare et al., 2020). UMass Lowell is an AFU (Age Friendly University), and it strives to integrate the 10 AFU principles at the university. The article presented many ways to incorporate these initiatives into our university, in the form of campaign/theme for our campus (Montepare et al., 2020). From communication with HR, Dr. Karen Devereaux Melillo found that a few faculty members choose to participate in exit interviews. However, UMass Lowell has identified a need and has planned workshops on pre-retirement where we can discuss issues related to pre-retirement. These workshops on pre-retirement will be organized in Spring 2024, by the UML AFU Steering Committee. I plan to transcribe, summarize, and conduct content analysis of the table-top discussions that will be a planned part of the pre-retirement workshops. As a student, I will take the lead on some of these table-top discussions, in addition to serving as a scribe for the discussions. Also, my role is to promote awareness about the proposed pre-retirement workshops/program offered by the AFU Collaborative initiative through social media and announcements and poster announcement preparation. I will have a role in outreach to faculty and staff, such as through Departmental Chairs and ADVANCE Departmental Faculty Ambassadors. I will create a potential theme and campaign when doing so. I will be developing posters and engaging in social media messaging for pre/near-retirement faculty. Then, I will be able to offer content derived from the content analyses of the table-top discussions at pre- /near-retirement workshops for use/consideration by HR in exit interviews (Honors Student Learning Outcome #1) and for future Pre-Retirement Workshop series presentations. As I reviewed literature, I learned that AFU’s must address the needs of older adults, such as students/staff/professors/emeriti (Silverstein et al., 2019). The gerontology faculty leading these initiatives are a part of the Gerontological Society of America, both with designated Fellow status. My reading component will consist of articles from the Dropbox folder provided by Dr. Gautam. I will be doing a brief literature review on these articles (Honors Student Learning Outcome #3). My written component will be the manuscript I will write. For my presentation component, I will be presenting with the Honors College and will consider an abstract submission to the Gerontological Society of America/Mass Gerontology Association (Honors Student Learning Outcome #4). | |
Hajian, Rozhin | Mechanical Engineering | For this fellowship, we will be researching the silent flight characteristics of owl wings. Specifically, we will be trying to understand the noise reduction caused by porosity in their wings. To do this, we will be applying various porosity distributions to a model airfoil. The project will include a theoretical and experimental component. The theoretical component will involve finding the ideal distribution of porosity on the wing in order to balance noise reduction and lift. The experimental component will involve testing these distributions using 3D printed models in a wind tunnel. The results of the experiment will then be used to inform future theory. | |
Mendes Fakhoury, Renato | Political Science | We are searching for a student to help us gather and analyze data for a project focusing on Russian narratives of expansionism. Much literature on Russian foreign policy since the mid-2000s has characterized the expansionist nature of Russian behavior as part of Russia’s re-emergence from a post-Cold War slumber. However, Russian understandings of foreign policy are often based on identity constructed through space. In other words, Russia’s sense of self is based on the need for space and geography – a counterintuitive thought if we consider Russia is the largest country in the world! Rather than claiming that such an identity begins only post-Cold War, we argue that such a conception began as early as the Appanage era (860-1689) and can be traced across Imperial Russia (1689-1916), Soviet-era Russia (1917-1991), through today. This has serious implications for how we can understand how Russia narrates war, conflict, and future policy engagements – as seen more recently in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the Russo-Georgian war of 2008. This project would be a great fit to any student interested in learning more about international relations, the history of Russia, and the standing of Russia in current (and past) international developments. | |
Mendes Fakhoury, Renato | Honors College | Test | |
Ross, Michael | Chemistry | I am currently working on a project, observing the growth of Au-Bi nanoparticles over a period of 24 hours. There are three shapes being monitored, concave tetrahedra, star tetrahedra, and concave star tetrahedra. I will be synthesizing these nanoparticles, using a time-stop method and analyzing them by UV-visible spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Additionally, I will be keeping an eye out for any odd shapes that appear during the synthesis and imaging those for possible future research. | |
Steinel, Natalie | Biological Sciences | Parasites affect their host’s immune system and can impair their ability to fight off infections. In mammals it has been observed that parasites (specifically helminths) can co-opt normal host regulatory pathways. One way this can occur is through the induction of anti-inflammatory cytokines. This allows parasites to suppress the host’s immune system, thereby increasing their host’s susceptibility and severity of co-infections. We have extensive knowledge of cytokines and their role within the mammalian immune system, but their expression and role in parasite-mediated immunomodulation has yet to be explored in fish species. To address this question, the cytokine profiles of infected and uninfected threespine stickleback will be explored. Within stickleback (and humans) there are soluble proteins, known as cytokines, that aid in controlling the inflammation within the body: Interleukin-17 (IL-17) and Interleukin-10 (IL-10). Interleukin-17 promotes inflammation within the body. This is important for the defense against pathogens such as bacteria and fungi present to harm the body. Conversely, Interleukin-10 promotes an anti-inflammatory cytokine which promotes the repair of damaged tissues after an infection. From work in mice and humans, we know that helminths can use this to their advantage, as they can induce the production of IL-10, thereby downregulating the host’s immunological response, allowing parasites to persist and reproduce. However, this leads to our central research question - “How does helminthiasis affect the cytokine profiles of stickleback?”. We found that the tapeworm Schistocephalus solidus can manipulate stickleback host immunity, including suppressing Melanomacrophage centers (MMCs) and B cells. My previous work in the lab examined how parasites suppress the immunological response of their host. This was done by characterizing melanomacrophage centers (MMCs) within the splenic tissues of stickleback using fluorescence microscopy and then quantifying the data. My proposed work will expand on this study and assess parasite-mediated changes in cytokine expression. Based on previous work in mice and humans, I hypothesize that infection with the tapeworm S. solidus will lead to an increase in the number of IL-10+ cells, compared to uninfected fish. To test this hypothesis and expand our limited knowledge of stickleback cytokine profiles, I will start by conducting an antibody test called immunofluorescence. Immunofluorescence is used to detect and tag antigens within tissues with fluorescent dye called fluorophores, causing them to fluoresce allowing for easier quantification of IL-10+ cells. For the procedure, three groups of stickleback: infected with S. solidus, exposed to but uninfected and unexposed (control) will be used. Then, I will cryosection the spleens, followed by staining the slides with IL-10 antibodies. After staining the slides, they will be imaged using fluorescent microscopy. Finally, using ImageJ, the fluorescent images will be analyzed in order to quantify the number of IL-10+ cells found in each sample. If we detect significant changes in IL-10 levels, the next step will be to see if there is a correlation between IL-10 and other immune pathways that we know are suppressed in infected stickleback like MMCs and B cells. Additionally, moving on to possibly investigate the levels/expression of IL-10 in other populations of stickleback can be done. We have previously found that different populations of stickleback do not experience the same MMC suppression with parasitic infections, therefore seeing if IL-10 is differentially expressed between fish populations would be interesting to observe. Finally, if we do find that IL-10 levels change with infection, it may be interesting to investigate IL-10 expression in other tissues such as the head kidney, gills, and even intestines. | |
Steinel, Natalie | Biological Sciences | Mucous is an important barrier in the prevention of infection, as it protects mucous membranes such as areas in the lining of the gastrointestinal tubes, sinuses, and in fish; the gills. The viscosity, content and thickness of the mucosal layers can be important factors in preventing pathogens from invading the host mucosal barriers. Intestinal mucous is a physical barrier with thick gelatinous lower layers and slippery upper layers. To successfully invade the host, parasites must penetrate both of these barriers. In addition to serving as a physical barrier, mucous also has chemical properties that make it a good defense against pathogens and parasites. Antimicrobial peptides and secreted immunoglobulins are both present in mucous that have the ability to chemically degrade and/or block pathogens. Both of these mucosal functions contribute to preventing parasite infection in mammals, but as of now, we have little insight into what role the intestinal mucous membrane plays in preventing parasite infections in fish. To determine the role of mucous in fish parasite infections, we will study the threespine stickleback fish. Sticklebacks are relatively small fish that live about two years on average. They are a good choice for this study because they have short, relatively simple digestive tracts that are easy to assess. We know that stickleback become infected with a species of tapeworm known as Schistocephalus solidus by eating infected crustaceans. Infection with S. Solidus occurs in the stomach and or upper intestine, however, worms spend very little time in the digestive tract of these fish and quickly penetrate the intestinal wall and reside in the body cavity of the fish. S. solidus susceptibility varies substantially among different stickleback populations, which we suspect may be due to differences in the intestinal mucosal barrier. Variation in intestinal mucus is likely due to a combination of genetics and immune phenotypes. My project will be the first to investigate the stickleback intestinal mucous layer and the role it plays in S. solidus infection. I hypothesize that elevated intestinal mucous and/or mucous producing cells will be associated with lower S. solidus infection rates. To test this hypothesis, I will first need to develop the skills and methods needed to carry out the research. Through this fellowship, I will learn intestine dissection, cryostat sectioning, microscopy, and image analysis software. I will also determine which stains will work best to stain both the mucosal layers and mucous-producing goblet cells. Some of the stains in mind are PAS, Alcian blue, and lectins. I will develop quantitative methods to compare mucus and mucous-producing cells. This research experience will extend beyond this honors fellowship, and will be the foundation for an honors thesis in the 2024-2025 academic year. A potential future direction for this honors thesis is to compare mucosal membranes between different stickleback populations. These populations may include individuals from different freshwater lakes, or be comparisons between freshwater and marine stickleback populations. This experience will meet all six of the honors college student learning outcomes, and Furthermore, this experience will give me skills for future work as a grad student, or for industry work. The technical, disciplinary, and applied skills learned from this experience will really help me move forward in research, school, and ultimately help meet the goal of a career in biological research. | |
Yan, Mingdi | Chemistry | The fellowship project will explore cycloaddition click-reactions with electrophilic azides (PFAA) and conjugated aldehydes. It will involve exploring different reaction conditions, reagent scope, and characterization of the synthesized product using spectroscopy. Base and amine catalyzed reactions with conjugated aldehydes will first be explored, while Michael reagents are a subject for possible future testing. This project will be a continuation of my senior thesis topic during the summer break. |