Pauline Baniqued is a Ph.D. student in psychology, with research interests in understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms of executive control, and how these control processes change with age, training, and other interventions. Pauline works with Beckman Institute faculty members Art Kramer, Monica Fabiani, and Gabriele Gratton.
April Colette is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science. April’s research interests are broadly related to the human dimensions of environmental change with a specific focus on cities. April currently works with faculty from two SDEP programs: Jesse Ribot from the Program on Climate and Society and Ashwini Chhatre from the Program on Democracy and Environment.
Matt Gelber is a Ph.D. student in bioengineering. He is developing a 3D printer capable of patterning cells, gels, and polymers with micron-scale resolution. Matt collaborates with Beckman faculty members Rohit Bhargava, Martin Gruebele, Jeff Moore, and Narayana Aluru.
Anuj Girdhar is a Ph.D. student in physics. His work, under the supervision of Jean-Pierre Leburton and Klaus Schulten, aims to develop a graphene nanoribbon Quantum Point Contact (QPC) DNA sequencing device.
Michael Odarczenko is pursuing graduate studies in aerospace engineering. His research goal is to develop multifunctional coatings that are capable of healing damage in response to a variety of environmental triggers, such as change in pH due to corrosion, chemical composition, or bacterial growth. He works with Nancy Sottos and Scott White in the Autonomous Materials System (AMS) Group at the Beckman Institute.
Brennan Payne is a Ph.D. student in cognitive science of teaching and learning in the Department of Educational Psychology. His research has focused on two main questions in the cognitive science of aging: first, how do age-related changes in cognitive ability impact sentence and discourse comprehension? Second, what are the mechanisms underlying cognitive enrichment in older adulthood? He works with Elizabeth Stine-Morrow, Kara Federmeier, Kiel Christianson, Dan Morrow, and Duane Watson.
Brendon Smith is pursuing a Ph.D. in nutritional sciences and is working with John Erdman and William O’Brien. His research at Beckman utilizes ultrasound imaging to determine the ability of dietary tomato to prevent or delay aging-related chronic disease in rodent models.
Renjie Zhou is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is supervised by Lynford Goddard and Gabriel Popescu and works on finding isolated defects in 9 nm node semiconductor wafers using quantitative phase microscopy.