(Left to right): Dr. Lara LaDage (Biology), Alexandra (Lexi) Lonas (Biology), Leon Yang (Computer Engineering), Cullen Kaschalk (Electrical Engineering), Manu Pathariya (Nuclear Engineering), Naomi Wallerson (Biobehavioral Health) , Dr. Kofi Adu (Physics), Chenzhang Zhou (Engineering Science and Mathematics), Sean Spratt (Physics), and Sebastian Forest (Engineering Science).
Involving undergraduate students in research is an important part of the college experience. When they participate in university research projects, they learn how research happens, utilize critical-thinking and communication skills, and often are in contact with established businesses, which could lead to job opportunities upon graduation. The Multi-Campus Research Experience for Undergraduates (MC REU), a program across the Penn State campuses, gives students a solid introduction to research in eight- or ten-week sessions. At Penn State Altoona, Associate Professor of Physics Kofi Adu and Assistant Professor of Biology Lara LaDage work with students on a number of projects.
At the beginning of the program, cohorts are created, comprised of a student and two faculty members, one from University Park and one from a Commonwealth campus. “It’s a team-building and collaborative research experience,” says LaDage. “During the program, students are primarily at their home campus but they also spend two weeks doing research at University Park,” one at the start and one part way through the program. Further, students develop skills in scientific communication, as they must write a paper and present a poster of their work to their peers/faculty and families at the end of the summer.
Students Lexi Lonas and Naomi Wallerson began growing neurons for their research project. LaDage explains: “Kofi [Adu] was interested in growing neurons for analysis using Raman spectrometry. When a neuron grows and migrates, it expresses different proteins and these protein markers are very specific for certain stages of neuronal development. After a neuron matures, you do not see those particular protein markers. Raman would allow us to measure protein expression, in real time, as a neuron transitions through the different stages of growth” without damaging the neuron.
Lonas describes the detailed procedure: “We make a serum with underdeveloped neurons, put the serum in covered wells, and store it at 37C. After 24 hours, we replace the serum. Because neurons stick to the bottom of the wells, it’s easy to take the liquid off. Then we add neuronal growth supplement and incubate them for four days so the neurons can grow. After that we drain it and add new serum and growth supplement to stimulate continued growth. After another seven days we replace the serum and growth supplement. This process takes four or five weeks, depending on if they’re growing. Eventually we can see them; they’re a white blob. However, they will die if the temperature gets too hot or too cold.”
And why do they follow this laborious process? Because the procedure mimics “the chemical composition of the developing mammalian brain,” says LaDage, and allows study without the issues associated with studying an actual brain (e.g., sacrificing the animal, being able to look for only two or three proteins at a time, and having a process that takes a long time to complete). Once the neurons are grown to an acceptable size, they are frozen and the students then work at University Park measuring protein expression using Raman spectrometry. Ideally, researchers would be able to measure them at Penn State Altoona but the campus doesn’t have the right equipment.
Other students in the cohort have their own research emphasis:
- Chenzhang Zhou, junior engineering science major, says, “My research topic involves trying to probe the different vibration modes [in phonons] in a two-dimensional material called transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). These kinds of materials can be used in optical and electronic devices in the emerging nanoelectronics and optoelectronic industries. I’m looking at factors that can change the vibrations modes because that could change how the devices functions.” Adu notes that the study has been successful: “We have identified five processes that can affect the vibrational mode and how the vibrational mode can affect the electronic/optoelectronic properties.”
- Batteries and capacitors are both energy storage devices. One of the difference is the energy in a capacitor is stored in an electric field, whereas battery stores its energy in chemical form. Capacitor discharges its energy in a very short time compare to that of a battery. Cullen Kashalk, senior engineering major, says, “There’s a whole industry exploring how to take advantage of the best of both worlds. That’s the world of supercapacitors.” And that’s what he is working on: “We’re making flexible all-solid-state supercapacitors using carbon-based materials such as carbon nanotube membranes as the flexible electrodes. These all-solid-state supercapacitors have no liquid” and are expected to perform better than their aqueous counterparts.
- Junior mechanical engineering major Manu Satya Prakash Pathariya is working on a project to improve the electrical conductivity of aluminum using carbon nanotubes as filler. He says, “Aluminum has good conductivity and mechanical strength,” but “carbon nanotubes could improve that strength and conductivity.” And so Pathariya is running simulations to try to find the best combination of the two materials. Adu elaborates on the choice of materials: “The most conductive metal is silver; however, due to the cost and availability, copper is widely used in electrical wiring. The price of copper could be as much as five times that of aluminum per pound. Can we take advantage of the extremely high conductivity of carbon nanotubes to enhance the properties of aluminum and have it perform as well as or better than copper? That is the question. The goal is to make ultraconductive wires with better properties and at cheaper cost.”
- “Today there’s a lot of sources to generate electricity,” says engineering science major Sebastian Forest, “but one of the sources we are yet to take full advantage of is the wasted heat in our environment. Much of the energy that we use is lost in a form of heat energy; using thermoelectric modules we can get that [heat] back as electrical energy. Currently, there are lots of materials that are being explored in this area across large temperature ranges. But we’re interested in harnessing low-grade waste heat to electricity, that is, more efficient systems at lower temperature ranges. We are exploring organic polymers and carbon nanotube composites. The carbon nanotubes are mixed into the polymer at different ratios to explore its effect on the conductivity of the polymer host, since it is one of the parameters that determines the efficiency of the performance.”
- Leon Yang, a sophomore computer science major, is also working with graphene quantum dots to explore the effect of size on their optical properties, such as photoluminescence: “Basically, I synthesize graphene quantum dots into different sizes and probe their optical properties.” “Many people are looking at graphene quantum dots,” Adu says, because they have “a lot of applications, such as optical displays including flat-screen LED monitors/TV.”
- Sean Spratt’s project involves creating graphene quantum dots and “using them to create batteries. They’re nanometer size so they’re really tiny,” he says. “We use a really low tech but efficient technique to fabricate different sizes of the quantum dots—that is, sugar, polyethylene glycol, and water in a standard tabletop 700watt microwave. We produce different diameters by varying the microwave time.” Adu says the “easily producible graphene quantum dots are used to make the electrodes for energy storage and conversion systems, like ultra-batteries and capacitors. When you make the size very small, the surface area increases and they become more active, which enhances their performance.”
“The main idea [of MC REU] is for faculty who are interested in research to come up with ideas to get students exposed to research,” Adu says. “Anyone from freshman to senior can have a research experience. The main goal is to expose as many students as possible.” After everything else that students gain from a college education, he says, being involved in research is “the icing on the cake.” There are quantifiable advantages to this work: Adu shares the example of a student who had been participating in a research project on campus and then applied for a job at a local company. Four of the other applicants had a 4.0 GPA but, thanks to this student’s research experience, when it came time to write a short description of a research project (as a writing sample), he “put in a lot of details and he got the job.”
And that’s an important additional lesson, Adu says: it is critical that scientists be good writers. “It doesn’t matter how good your results are, it matters how you write it. Science is art. There is an art component and then there is a science component. How you frame it is the key.”
—Therese Boyd, ’79