UC Merced Connect: Research of tiny things could change students’ lives

For UC Merced students in this year’s nanoBIO internships and research program, working with something extremely small could have huge implications.

“I had no idea nanotechnology could have so many applications in biology,” said John Harvey Paredes, a fourth-year student majoring in materials science. “This internship opened so many doors, so many possibilities.”

Professor Sai Ghosh recommended he apply for it, so he gave it a shot. He was one of seven students accepted into the two-year-old partnership between UC Merced and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

The undergraduate students are partnered with UC Merced faculty members working on projects using nanotechnology in a wide range of applications. They attend a two-week workshop at UC Merced, where they are introduced to the projects and research in general.

Then they spend two weeks at UIUC, working with graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and professors from all over the country, learning about different projects and the online tools they can adapt and use for their own research.

This year’s participants – Ana Arteaga, Kiran Chauhan, Kyle Chism, Dylan Dahlquist, Paredes, Joseph Silva and Seth Spitulski – were successful, agreed program coordinators Ghosh and Petia Gueorguieva, the UC Merced STEM Resource Center coordinator.

“For most of them, this really is their start in research, and the summer school they attended was designed at levels well above what they are used to,” Ghosh said. “They met the challenge and really represented UC Merced well.”

Third-year materials science student Silva got hands-on experience in five labs at UIUC, and the internship only fanned his passion for grad school.

“I’ve always been interested in medical research because I feel it has the greatest benefit to society, and it’s very intriguing,” Silva said. “But taking part in these projects and working with graduate students really helps you see your work from different perspectives. It can only help with my own research.”

School of Natural Sciences Dean Juan Meza and Professor Mike Colvin started this partnership when they received $175,000 a year for five years from the National Science Foundation to form a nano-bio “node” that offers all the partnering schools access to the nanoBIO facilities and online tools housed at UIUC.

The UC Merced undergraduates lived in the UIUC dorms with about 50 graduate and undergraduate students from many other universities, working and socializing with peers and internationally recognized researchers from all over the country. Silva and Paredes both connected with researchers at all levels there, and have stayed in touch since.

“We’d like to see more of our students take advantage of these kinds of programs,” Gueorguieva said. “They get different experiences than in classrooms and gain excellent skills in understanding academic research and professional networking.”

Programs earn engineering accreditation

UC Merced’s undergraduate degree programs in environmental engineering, materials science engineering and mechanical engineering have been accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, the recognized accreditor of college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering and engineering technology. ABET accreditation demonstrates a program’s commitment to providing its students with a quality education.

Formerly known as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, ABET is an organization that accredits programs, not institutions; UC Merced as an institution is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

“Earning ABET accreditation is one more benchmark for our maturing campus,” said Erik Rolland, interim dean of the School of Engineering. “It shows that our programs meet the standards of the engineering profession, which eases the process of professional licensure, registration and certification.”

Some employers, like the federal government, require that job candidates in certain fields have graduated from ABET-accredited programs. This accreditation can also open doors to government-sponsored funding in the form of student loans, grants and scholarships.

This story was originally published December 16, 2014 at 4:36 PM with the headline "UC Merced Connect: Research of tiny things could change students’ lives."