Highlights of the weeklong program include a talk by NPR science reporter Richard Harris, campus-wide student poster sessions featuring more than 175 projects, the opening of a new Art of Science exhibit and a two-day conference focused on human rights research.

The schedule includes the first-ever Ignite session in upstate New York, in which graduate students and post-docs will tell a rapid-fire story about their research in just five minutes. There will also be lab tours, lectures, workshops and other programs.

“Research Days gives people from all different parts of campus a chance to see what their colleagues are working on and to appreciate the depth and diversity of scholarship at Binghamton,” said Valerie Imbruce, who chairs the committee that organizes the program.

The theme for this year, the eighth-annual installment of Research Days, is Rethinking Research, and that will be the topic of an undergraduate panel at 12:45 p.m. April 12 in UU-111. The students will reflect on what they expected when they got involved in research and what they found, both personally and professionally.

“For students, Research Days opens opportunities to present their work, maybe for the first time, and to begin to feel part of a community of people engaged in the creation of knowledge,” said Imbruce, who is director of the Undergraduate Research Center and the Office of External Scholarships, Fellowships and Awards.

In addition to her office, Research Days are organized and sponsored by the Division of Academic Affairs, Center for Civic Engagement, College of Community and Public Affairs, Decker School of Nursing, Division of Research, The Graduate School, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation and McNair Scholars Program.

This year’s signature events include:

How I Write: David Sloan Wilson
4-5:30 p.m. April 8, SL-212
The Writing Initiative’s How I Write series presents David Sloan Wilson, SUNY distinguished professor of biology and anthropology and president of the Evolution Institute, on the occasion of the publication of his new book, “This View of Life” (Pantheon).

Ignite Binghamton University
4-6 p.m. April 9, UU-Undergrounds
Five-minute research talks by graduate students and postdocs.

NPR’s Richard Harris on the Need for Rigor in Research
7 p.m. April 10, AM-189 (Admissions Building)
Richard Harris, a science writer who has been reporting on NPR’s flagship news programs for more than 30 years, will give a talk inspired by his most recent book, titled “Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions.”

Art of Science Opening Reception
4-6 p.m. April 11, Center of Excellence Atrium
An exhibit of entries from Binghamton University’s third-annual Art of Science competition. Light refreshments will be served.

Campus-wide Student Poster Sessions
11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 2-3:30 p.m. April 12, UU-Mandela Room
Undergraduate and graduate students from all academic disciplines showcase their research.

Technologies of Human Rights Representation
9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. April 13, Art Museum
This SUNY Conversations in the Disciplines event will examine the moral parameters of human rights research, literary and historical dimensions of human rights, and the role of quantitative and technological methods of research.

Cabrera, a Binghamton senior who is double majoring in sociology and philosophy, politics and law, found that the race of the attacker and whether or not the victim was drinking or drugged has an effect. She published her findings in the campus’ undergraduate research journal Alpenglow and presented a poster session about them during Research Days last spring.

For her study, Cabrera developed a coding system that consists of a checklist of different phrases and content that reflects how much positive or negative language a particular article uses. Negative language downplays a case, shifting blame away from the attacker and toward the victim, whereas positive language supports the victim’s stance.

First, she compared convicted rapists Brock Turner, who is white, and Corey Batey, who is African-American. Both were college athletes whose cases happened around the same time. Media portrayal of Turner’s case used more negative language on average, whereas Batey’s portrayal used mainly positive language.

“They were very big on sexualizing [Turner] and making him seem like this handsome, great all-American swimmer,” Cabrera says. “I now know his GPA, his swim stats. It was very focused on extraneous information that benefited him, which wasn’t done as much for Corey Batey.”

Regarding voluntary drinking, she compared two cases from 2014. Both victims were drinking at a party, but one was drugged before being raped. The victim who was voluntarily drinking received more negative language in media coverage.

Cabrera says her research highlights the importance of the media’s effect on the public view. Turner spent three months in jail before being released; Batey has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

“I want people to see how the language used in newspapers impacts how they see everything,” she says.

Cabrera accomplished her research through the Binghamton Independent Undergraduate Research in the Humanities (IURH) program. “Her research topic is very emotionally sensitive to a lot of people,” says Diana Gildea, Cabrera’s research mentor and IURH coordinator. “She didn’t shy away, and I respect and admire her courage to tackle this kind of issue.”

Cabrera, who is from Queens, participated in the law and humanities program and mock trial throughout high school, both of which led her toward pursuing a law career. Eventually, she says, she may want to become a prosecutor.

She plans to go to law school after she graduates a year early in the spring of 2019. There she may continue her research. “I would have to bring it more into the law field, which I’m excited about,” says Cabrera, who was elected president of Binghamton’s Thurgood Marshall Pre-Law Society. “I wanted to do that to begin with.”

Lakshmi Hareendran was part of a research team investigating drug treatment for Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disorder caused by a loss of the brain chemical dopamine.

The dopamine circuit involved in motor movements consists of two receptors in the brain, the D1 and the D2 receptors. The current treatment for Parkinson’s is the drug L-DOPA, which acts on both of these receptors to release and replenish dopamine in the brain.

Hareendran and her colleagues in the Freshman Research Immersion program (FRI) at Binghamton provided evidence that stimulating the D2 receptor produces cognitive deficits, illustrating that L-DOPA may not be the best treatment for Parkinson’s.

The researchers treated rodents with L-DOPA and drugs that target either the D1 or the D2 receptors and then observed the effects on their ability to complete a behavioral task.

Stimulating the D2 receptor caused attention deficits on the behavioral tasks in both Parkinson’s and control models. Stimulating the D1 receptor produced no such effects.

“Parkinson’s disease is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases in the world,” Hareendran says. “Knowing that the current treatment isn’t as effective as it could be is important.”

Hareendran, 21, has wanted to be a doctor since she was growing up on Long Island, influenced by several doctors in her family. Even then, she was interested in neuroscience.

“I had an uncle who was a brain surgeon,” Hareendran says. “As a kid, just thinking about him being able to understand something as complex as the human brain really inspired me to go down that path.”

Hareendran wants to work with Doctors Without Borders someday. An experience with MEDLIFE, an organization that provides medical care to impoverished areas, helped to solidify her goal. Hareendran traveled with the group to Peru and Ecuador to help set up medical clinics.

“My parents are refugees from Sri Lanka,” Hareendran says. “There was a genocide happening there for a while, so specifically with Doctors Without Borders I want to go and give back there.”

Hareendran is also president of the Indian International Student Union and was a peer mentor for FRI after she finished the program.

Corinne Kiessling, research educator for the FRI neuroscience stream, emphasized Hareendran’s dedication.

“She was one of those students that puts extra hours in, came in early, stayed late,” Kiessling says. “As a peer mentor, she was very open and receptive, and she challenged students to find answers. She’s a natural leader.”

Hareendran and her colleagues published their research in UCLA’s undergraduate research journal.

The Binghamton University senior received a prestigious National Science Foundation grant to live with a veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder in Syracuse last summer.

“It was such an amazing project,” says Shaw, a double major in psychology and human development. “Too often I think researchers are separate from the population they are studying. It was great to hear the perspective of the veterans and to collaborate with them.”

The NSF funds intensive summer programs where students live at other universities to conduct research. Shaw was with four other students and five veterans, and says that her roommate was one of the strongest people she’s ever met. Shaw says the veteran, who is in her late 20s, had been on tour for about six years and has faced a multitude of hardships not obvious to others.

“Due to sandstorms, the air quality is deemed unlivable in some of the countries our veterans are deployed,” Shaw says. On top of the trauma caused by war itself, there is a whole different struggle of being a woman in the military, she says.

Right after her graduation this week, Shaw will present her research in Boston at the Association for Psychological Science conference. Her project focuses on attachment and the effect of social support on veterans who have PTSD.

“Everyone always makes fun of me because I pick the dark stuff, but I’m really interested in trauma and human resilience,” Shaw says.

Shaw, who grew up in North Babylon, N.Y., studies in two research labs at Binghamton. She works in a sex and gender lab under the supervision of Ann Merriwether, lecturer in psychology and human development, and Sean Massey, associate professor in women, gender and sexuality studies. She conducts both independent and group projects there. Shaw also works in the Couples Adjustment to Stress and Trauma Lab (CAST) under the supervision of Christina Balderrama-Durbin, assistant professor in psychology.

In the sex and gender lab, Shaw says, she had a lot of freedom to explore her interests and pick her own research topic. Her honors thesis focuses on intoxicated hookups and confidence in consent.

“It’s really interesting to look at consent on a scale because most studies on consent have a black-or-white answer,” Shaw says. “But there is a gray area. Only about 21 percent of people were absolutely confident that they gave consent in their last hookup in which alcohol was involved. A lot of people fall in the 2 to 5 range on a scale from 1 to 7.”

Shaw became interested in trauma when she interned for the Interpersonal Violence Prevention Program during her first year at Binghamton. She was an educator on campus about sexual assault and bystander intervention, as well as serving as an advocate for those who were sexually assaulted. Now she is an intern at Rise – Comprehensive Domestic Violence Services, in Endicott, N.Y.

“My goal for the future is to understand how we foster resilience,” Shaw says. “Some people have the ability to overcome such intense trauma and it motivates me to want to help others do the same.”

As lead tutor for the University Tutoring Services, president of the Psi Chi International Honor Society, and business manager for the Student Association Ink, Shaw knows a lot about balancing a busy schedule. She says she gets joy out of being surrounded by people and learning from them.

“A lot of being a leader is clearly communicating with people all the time,” Shaw says. “You have to trust that you have a good team. Organization is so important in every aspect of life, especially if you want to be a leader.”

Shaw plans to pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology at the University at Buffalo, where she will study alcohol and PTSD.

She says she’s grateful for the great friendships she made in Binghamton.

“I’ll always remember just sitting in my kitchen with my friends,” Shaw says. “We started this thing where we record each other randomly, like a cooking fail or something, and we call the videos #everydaymoments so that we’ll always have them.”

In a tiny lab tucked away in the basement of Science II, a team of graduate and undergraduate researchers is studying the properties of transparent conducting oxides (TCOs).

Typical transparent materials, such as glass and plastic, are not great conductors of electricity, yet TCOs are used in electronics such as phones and laptops. Zachary Lebens-Higgins, a senior physics major from Rochester, hopes that classifying TCOs by their physical properties will allow him to determine why they have conductive properties.

Developments in this field have already led to the creation of touch-screen technology that is used in phones and tablets, along with the solar cell. “My hope is that with our characterizations we will, down the road, better understand these systems and be able to make devices — in particular solar cells — cheaper and more sustainable,” Lebens-Higgins says.

Characterizing these materials is a very broad field to research, so the Binghamton team collaborates with several other labs around the world. “We are trying to create a cohesive story,” Lebens-Higgins says.

This multi-faceted approach includes working with University of College London, University of Bath and Cornell University. The Binghamton scientists conduct research on thin films created in a Cornell lab, and then compare their experimental findings to the theorists’ discoveries abroad, a holistic approach that sets this team apart from the others.

Louis Piper, Lebens-Higgins’ research adviser and an assistant professor of physics at Binghamton, helped nurture his thirst for knowledge. He chose Lebens-Higgins to accompany him to Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. There, the researchers used advanced spectroscopy technology to supplement their research at Binghamton.

“I usually only take undergraduates there if they have a very promising result,” says Piper, “and Zach’s been down there three times.”

Along with his research on campus, Lebens-Higgins was also selected to travel with a small group of students to Germany. He presented his research, but he says the best part was talking to scientists about their unique approaches to work toward the same goal.

In fact, Lebens-Higgins points to being able to understand the groundbreaking research others are doing as one of the most rewarding parts of his work. It wasn’t easy; he spent an entire summer learning and researching the physics of TCOs before he stepped foot in a lab.

Piper says Lebens-Higgins is a standout among his students, taking on a workload that rivals that of graduate researchers. This work ethic will aid Lebens-Higgins, who has been accepted to a summer undergraduate laboratory internship at Brookhaven to work on photocathode materials. Afterward, he plans to follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue a doctorate in physics.

“When the dean or provost says Binghamton is a center of undergraduate excellence,” Piper says, “it is students like Zach they are talking about.”

“I have the mindset of an investigator, and I really think that’s where my career path is headed,” says Mihalik, a senior physics major from Patchogue, N.Y., who works in the thermoelectric energy generation lab of Bruce White, associate professor of physics and department chair. “I like finding things out, and I view this as a challenge. I know something is happening, and I want to get to the bottom of it.”

According to one hypothesis, the samples might simply be contaminated, possibly through an interaction with ultraviolet light. According to another, there might be a gap in the three omega method, the technique that’s used to test materials in White’s lab and around the world. If that’s true, then Mihalik might be on the trail of something that could change the way scientists measure thermoconductivity, and someday lead to materials that efficiently convert heat to electricity.

“We’re still at the beginning stages of discovery,” White said. “We know there are some strange, non-linear responses creating these spurious measurements. The question is whether we can describe them mathematically, and whether we can get to a level that would allow us to see the appropriate thermoconductivity of the materials we’re testing. If Darin is successful in doing that, it would be a great service to the community.”

During his remaining months at Binghamton — between playing baritone sax in the Harpur Jazz Ensemble, working as president of the College Republicans, leading campus tours and serving as a captain in the Civil Air Patrol — Mihalik is committed to solving this puzzle, hoping it might lead to his first published paper. It could also help him set a course for doctoral work in emerging phenomena, which he calls “one of the greatest mysteries in solid state physics right now. I want to get things done,” he says, “and I want to have a part in helping, really helping people.”

White considers Mihalik a natural leader. “He’s very intelligent, and his work ethic is tremendous,” White says. “That’s a powerful combination. Once he starts working on a problem, he’ll keep coming up with clever ways to attack it, and won’t let go until he’s found a way to solve it. That shows up in the successes he’s having in the laboratory, and I know it will keep showing up in whatever he’s going to do in life.”

Joy Hallmark began conducting research in high school. Now, she studies treatments for Parkinson’s disease in a Binghamton University laboratory. 

Parkinson’s is treated with a compound called Levodopa, or “L-dopa,” which causes abnormal involuntary motions after prolonged use.

Hallmark works with Christopher Bishop, an associate professor of psychology, to test several compounds that may allow Parkinson’s to be treated without this side effect. They rely on an animal model, observing the effects different Parkinson’s treatments have on rats’ body movements.

“The thing that attracted me most about this research was the fact that it was translational, so what you do in the lab applies in the field,” says Hallmark, who plans to pursue a doctorate or go to medical school after graduation. “We take what we’re learning now, and we can apply it by making new drugs and helping people.”

For the past year, Hallmark has been researching two compounds to see how they would affect Parkinson’s patients. As a part of the Undergraduate Research Center’s Summer Scholars and Artists program, Hallmark completed an eight-week fellowship with a postdoctoral student studying the serotonin system and its relationship to Parkinson’s.

“I’ve always had an interest in neurodegenerative disorders, so it was cool to come here and find Dr. Bishop’s lab and be able to take my interest a step further,” Hallmark says.

When she was in high school, the Queens native studied Alzheimer’s disease for three years at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine as part of the Intel Science Talent Search program.

Hallmark’s “prolonged interest” in medicine began even before that, though. “From a young age, I always wanted to be challenged,” she says. “I used to sit in the medical section at Barnes & Noble and just read the medical dictionary and learn new terms that I didn’t know.”

Bishop says Hallmark seemed like a great fit for his lab when they first met, and her work since has been “a testament to that fit.”

“She has demonstrated a commitment and growing knowledge base that has made her not only increasingly autonomous, but a true asset,” Bishop says. “Joy has proven herself to be an excellent young scientist, and her trajectory is outstanding.”

Hallmark says her passion for studying neuroscience stems from her curiosity and her willingness to explore uncharted territories. “The brain, I think, is just so intricate and there are so many things that we have yet to know about it,” she says. “I love going into the unknown and trying to figure things out.”

This year’s keynote will be delivered by Jonathan D. Moreno, a philosopher and historian who specializes in the intersection of bioethics, culture, science and national security. His talk, titled “Mind Wars: Brain Science and the Military in the 21st Century,” begins at 7 p.m. March 26 in the UU-Mandela Room and will be followed by a book signing.

Moreno, the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor of Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, is also a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. In his talk, he will explore the role of the national security community and the field of neuroscience in preparing the military and intelligence services for the 21st century. Super soldiers; drugs that ease fear, alter memories and reduce the need to sleep; internal and external neurostimulation; advanced prosthetics and other initiatives may change the nature of warfare and raise many complex ethical, legal and social issues.

“Research Days gives the University an opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of our researchers at all levels,” said Donald Loewen, vice provost for undergraduate education and chair of the group that organizes Research Days. “It’s also a way to help undergraduates recognize the role of research at the University.”

Donald Nieman, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said faculty members across the disciplines are encouraged to take several minutes during class to introduce themselves as scholars. “Bringing research and teaching together enriches learning, nurtures critical thinking and communication skills and helps students understand how knowledge is created,” he said.

Binghamton students will have several opportunities to present their work during Research Days. Two campus-wide poster sessions are planned March 28 in the UU-Mandela Room, one at 11 a.m. and another at 1 p.m. Each will feature more than 40 student posters focusing on research in the sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities.

Other Research Days events include:

• A workshop focused on research funding opportunities for graduate students and post-doctoral associates. The session, organized by the Office of Sponsored Programs, will run from 10:30 a.m.-noon March 27 in UU-215. Staff members will highlight funding opportunities for graduate students at any stage.
• An Environmental Genetics Minisymposium and Poster Session, to be held from 3-5 p.m. March 27, in UUW-324. This event, sponsored by the Transdisciplinary Area of Excellence in Health Sciences, seeks to build a community of researchers on campus with a shared interest in gene by environment interactions.
• A special installment in the Faculty Breakfast Series focused on conducting research with students, to be held at 8:30 a.m. March 28 in the Chenango Room.
• Newing College Research Day, to be held from 2-4 p.m. March 29 on the Newing side of the Chenango-Champlain Collegiate Center.

For more information about Research Days, which is sponsored by the Provost’s Office, the Division of Research, the Undergraduate Research Center and the McNair Scholars.

Medications like the insulin she has injected every day since she was 16.

Now, as a biochemistry and neuroscience major at Binghamton University, she’s taking the first steps: helping to understand how nanoparticles can improve rechargeable batteries.

There’s no disconnect here: The skills and knowledge she’ll acquire working on Assistant Professor Gretchen Mahler’s project can be taken in many directions.

The connection, MacAneney said, is this: Industry leaders are interested in using nanoparticles of vanadium oxide as a cathode in rechargeable lithium ion batteries. “But before they can use nanoparticles in batteries, they need to understand the health effects,” she said, both on production workers making the products and the everyday user.

Vanadium in various forms can help lithium batteries store more energy, discharge more power and recharge faster — perfect for any number of smart energy projects from hybrid-electric or all-electric vehicles to household energy storage.

That is, if it doesn’t harm people. Acute vanadium oxide exposure in its larger form has been linked to increased bronchial infections, pneumonia, inflamed tissues and irritated eyes, throat, lungs and nasal tissue — even nervous disorders and paralysis. The health effects of vanadium oxide nanoparticles have never been studied.

“Our hypothesis is that when these nanoparticles come in contact with epithelial cells, it’ll cause inflammation and absorption,” MacAneney said.

The data will help Mahler and a colleague at the State University of New York at Potsdam to prepare a proposal for grant funding. And it’s a good project to help put a new researcher through her paces, using newly acquired skills from eight weeks of lab training.

“I put them through a pretty rigorous training program,” Mahler said. It weeds out people unsuited to a life of research and keeps the new researcher and her colleagues safe. “She is just starting to dive into the nanoparticle work.”

But understanding how a body can absorb nanoparticles relates directly to McAneney’s interest in medication. Insulin today cannot easily survive gastric acids, making oral insulin impractical.

“But can you encapsulate it in something to protect it?” she asked. “It wouldn’t degrade in the stomach.”

Interesting question, and one McAneney plans to keep asking on her way to a doctorate and perhaps a medical degree, too.

These are just some of the lessons that senior William Marsiglia learned from conducting research at Binghamton University. Those lessons helped the biochemistry and music double major receive a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years.

“The benefits of performing research while taking classes are essential to a student’s academic development,” Marsiglia said. “We are lucky here at Binghamton University to have so many faculty members who are doing high-level research with students who gain experience.

“Although our university is already achieving outstanding research, it’s exciting to know that it’s only going to get better.”

Marsiglia, who has worked with chemistry professor Christof Grewer on the study of transport proteins in the brain and also won the Music Department’s Concerto Competition, delivered the student address at the Research Days celebration April 19.

Research Days, a series of events showcasing University research, scholarship and creative activity, took place April 17-19. The schedule included faculty panels, tours of research facilities and a keynote speech by NPR science correspondent Shankar Vedantam. The Friday celebration in Old Union Hall recognized Marsiglia and more than 30 other student researchers and their faculty mentors.

“We bring together the essential elements of a great university,” Provost Donald Nieman said. “We bring together bright, curious, hard-working students with faculty who are passionate about teaching and mentoring, and are engaged in cutting-edge research that is recognized by their peers and around the world.”

Student work takes center stage

More than 90 undergraduate and graduate students presented their work in two student poster sessions held April 19.

Phillip Emeritz, a senior majoring in history, English and classical civilization, displayed a project that examined Romanization in Ancient France and how currency was introduced to the Celtic society. “I focused on the social and cultural impacts, because the coins were basically used as propaganda with the images and inscriptions on them to implant Roman values into the minds of natives in France,” said Emeritz, whose project earned him one of the two initial Summer Scholar awards in 2012.

Emeritz’s project, titled “Changing Money, Changing Minds,” documents how the introduction of currency to France affected culture and class distinctions. The topic stems from Emeritz’s interest in classical studies.

“I am very passionate about classic studies, and Roman history has always been my favorite,” said Emeritz, whose faculty mentor is Andrew Scholtz, associate professor and chair of classical and Near Eastern studies. “And I am very interested in Celtic societies because, although they’ve been classified as primitive in the minds of Romans, their societies are a lot more complex than they’re given credit for.”

While Emeritz studied societal issues in a historical context, other students examined how technology can impact the future.

Zachary Birnbaum and Patricia Moat, both first-year doctoral students, conducted a project on computer security. Their faculty mentor is Victor Skormin, distinguished service professor in electrical and computer engineering. “You keep hearing in the news that there are various websites getting hacked and all these problems with new computer viruses,” Birnbaum said. “We’re trying to find new ways of detecting this type of attack.”

Titled “Intrusion Detection Systems: Object Access Graphs,” the project focused on tracking computer viruses. “What we do is take a picture of what your computer is doing, and then we compare a picture of your computer behaving normally to one of an infected computer. Then, we just look at the differences,” Birnbaum said. “From that, we can see if your computer has an infection, what type of infection, and from there you know you’re under attack and you can take action.”

Other student-presenters, including Jessica Huey, took a medical approach to their projects. “I’m a part of a larger lab that’s doing research in Lyme disease,” she said. “So what I did specifically was (study) Lyme disease in canines and other tick-borne diseases.”

Huey, a senior majoring in biology and anthropology, worked with Ralph Garruto, research professor of anthropology, on her project, “Prevalence of Tick-Borne Infection in a Canine Population Sample.”

While Huey hopes that her research raises awareness about Lyme disease, some students aimed to raise awareness of immigrant assimilation. Jillian Shotwell, Tara Perkins and Fédia Louis were among about a dozen students who got involved with the Binghamton community. They went to the American Civic Association in Binghamton, where they interviewed refugee students in ESL classes as well as their teachers to get their opinions on learning and teaching English.

“We just wanted to get their perceptions. For the teachers, why they began teaching ESL and what the biggest challenges were. So that’s what this poster is about,” said Shotwell, a double major in environmental health and geography. “(A second poster) is about the students’ perspective and how they think that the classes could be improved. What did they like most about learning English? What were the challenges in learning English?”

Shotwell said that to conduct the quantitative study, she and her fellow group members recorded interviews with the students and the teachers. The initiative to do this project came from an Africana Studies course, Refugees and Immigrants Health, taught by Titilayo Okoror.

“I think just knowing how these experiences affect the students and the teachers alike is beneficial in approaching immigrants, because not everybody can speak English,” said Perkins, a sophomore majoring in bioengineering. “Many of them were actually PhD students and business owners in their own countries. Then they came here and they can’t speak English, so they’re kind of at a disadvantage.”

Productive partnerships

Sponsored by the Undergraduate Research Center, the Division of Research, the McNair Scholars Program and Academic Affairs, Research Days highlighted student and faculty successes, Vice President for Research Bahgat Sammakia said. Research success is necessary for Binghamton University to become the premier public university of the 21st century, he noted. “The great thing about research today is that it is starting to blur between departments, between schools, and even between graduate and undergraduate students,” he said. “It is wonderful to see. It is exciting.”

Nieman stressed the importance of students engaged in research with faculty mentors. “This creates a rich opportunity for our students to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to original research,” he said. “By doing so, they are able to join in the process of creating new knowledge – something that is at the heart of what we stand for and do every day as a university.”

Binghamton junior Yudi Pardo works on one of the first hurdles: taking the photosynthetic engine out of a plant cell and putting it somewhere it can be used. It’s a problem he has been examining for nearly five years — since before he received his high school diploma.

Now, as a bioengineering major working in Assistant Professor Gretchen Mahler’s laboratory, he’s taking advantage of his opportunities.

He’s working with cyanobacteria ― essentially a blue-green algae — seeking a way to harvest its photosynthetic thylakoids. “How do I extract the complexes in a way where they won’t degrade over time?” he asks.

The solution, eventually, is to graft the thylakoids, which reside in the cell’s inner membrane, onto the cell’s outer membrane. “So when the outer membrane flakes off, you have a working photo system,” he says. “There’s a lot of genetic manipulation.”

Mahler sometimes has difficulty mentoring him, because bio-energy isn’t her research focus. “A lot of students don’t realize they’re into research so early,” Mahler says, much less develop such a specific interest. “He came to me with the project.”

“It’s an interesting problem,” she says, “That’s a good area of research. Nobody has done it.”

It’s an area of research with useful implications. Nathan Nelson of the University of Tel Aviv has developed an ultra-small working solar cell based on a pea plant; it generates 10 volts and with 20 percent efficiency is moderately more efficient than current silicon-based cells.

Nelson and Pardo understand some parts of a plant’s photosynthetic engine are 95 percent to nearly 100 percent efficient. If those parts can be harnessed properly, it could lead to great advances in bio-solar cell efficiency — enough to make them cost effective.

“If we can bring that to the entire device, that would make solar technology more viable for people,” Pardo says. “That really high efficiency on a small scale is what drew me in.”

Biological cells would be faster to construct and largely carbon neutral, although questions remain about how durable biological cells would be, and how they would distribute their energy.

But Pardo, who’s just 20 years old, has time to answer them. “I don’t know specifically where I want to go with this,” he says, citing interests in bio-medicine and medical instrumentation. “But alternative energy has always been at the top of my list.”

Isaac Patka, a sophomore studying electrical engineering, began researching the efficiency of solar cells last summer at Columbia University’s Lab for Unconventional Electronics (CLUE). At CLUE, Patka also developed kits for an upper-level class to use in a lab studying displays such as the electroluminescent display, used in backlights of digital watches, and LED screens used in cell phones.

“My role in that was to look at the lab kits that they currently have and to improve them,” the Albany native says. “Some of their circuit boards weren’t working so I designed a new circuit.”

Patka’s work at CLUE included studying organic LED displays. Organic electronics use small organic molecules that behave like a semiconductor, the electricity-conducting material that Patka describes as the “basis for how all electronics work.”

“The organic materials are easier to process, easier to work with in a lab, and they’re a lot cheaper,” Patka says. “The No. 1 focus that I want to get more into is improving the efficiency of organic solar cells, and there are a lot of different ways that you can do that.”

At Binghamton, Patka has begun that focus in a research group under the direction of Peter Borgesen, a professor in the systems science and industrial engineering department. Last semester, Patka learned how to perform stress tests to evaluate the durability of the layers of organic solar cells.

“The overall goal is to produce solar cells with a good balance between cost, efficiency and long-term reliability,” Borgesen says. “I work with both juniors and seniors, but Isaac is the first to approach me already as a sophomore, and I am impressed.”

Patka plans to continue researching organic solar cells with Borgesen’s group, and he would also like to work with Binghamton’s Center for Autonomous Solar Power (CASP) to investigate the properties of solar cells. “What I would like to do is work with fabricating solar cells for the CASP and do some characterization or improve the fabrication process,” he says.

Improving solar cells can help military operations, researchers far from a grid power source and people in regions such as central Africa that lack adequate sources of energy. “I think it’s important because as the technology is improved and as it will get cheaper and cheaper, it will be able to provide people away from the grid a source of power,” Patka says.

Patka says a week-long program at the U.S. Naval Academy inspired him to become an engineer. “We got to tour some of their research labs,” he says, “and that just got me interested in technical things, and development of research and building practical things.”