Ricardo Gonzales
After completing his associate’s degree at Oxnard College, Ricardo transferred to the University of California, Davis, where he majors in Computer Engineering. Following a previous REU experience that focused on machine learning, Ricardo wanted to gain additional lab experience before pursuing a PhD in nanophotonics. Hardware Programming for nano-electrical-mechanical systems (NEMS): Ricardo’s project with Kamil […]
Nathan Cao
Nathan entered his junior year following his REU summer at BU, He studies electrical and computer engineering with a focus on medical imaging and optical technologies at Rice University. Nathan is passionate about math and science outreach. While in high school, he co-founded a free tutoring organization for middle school students. As an undergraduate, Nathan […]
Ella Brown
Ella completed her first year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute before participating in the 2025 REU program. At WPI, she majors in robotics. She discovered her passion for computer programming and the utility of computer science while she was in high school. Ella aims to pursue a career in robotics engineering to help find solutions to world […]
Kylie Bray
Kylie came to the BU REU as a rising junior from the University of Virginia, where she majors in biomedical engineering. Drawn to the Photonics Center REU program for its location in Boston, she aimed to gain proper experience in a lab setting to help determine her post-graduation plans. Advancing Early Alzheimer’s Detection with Biosensing: […]
Generation, transmission and manipulation of optical Skyrmions
Project Description In various areas of physics, Skyrmions are topological particles that display exceptional stability to perturbations. An optical means of generating them allows the lab-scale study of topological phenomena. Moreover, optical Skyrmions can interact with the spin-texture of materials to yield new forms for memories that could be beneficial for computing applications since they […]
Targeted Therapeutic Delivery through Modified Nanocarriers
Mentors Project Description The ability to programmably deliver immunotherapies is an emerging area of vaccine design as it enables us to manipulate molecules that stimulate the immune system (e.g. proteins, DNA) to make more potent responses. Although nanocarriers used in drug delivery research stabilize the immunogenic molecules they encapsulate and allow for their controlled release, […]
Characterizing Relaxin-2 as a Therapeutic Candidate for Fibrosis
Mentors Project Description Biomaterials are essential tools in biomedical research, providing physiologically relevant environments that support the study of disease mechanisms and the evaluation of therapeutic candidates including relaxin-2 in fibrotic conditions. Using the endogenous hormone relaxin-2, this project will evaluate its therapeutic potential for reducing fibrotic tissue within a uterus-mimicking environment. Throughout this project, […]
Developing Anchoring Methods to Generate and Mature 3D-Engineered Tissues
Mentors Project Description The field of tissue engineering commonly employs post-like 3D mechanical boundaries as a useful way to give cues to the cells for compacting and remodeling the extracellular matrix. These boundaries and anchoring play a key role since they define the shape of the tissue and report forces tissues generate through their deformations. […]
Real-Time Integrated ORBGRAND-Based Transceiver (RIOT)
Mentors Project Description With the rapid advancements in high-speed computing and digital signal processing for the Internet of Things (IoT), the volume of data transmitted and received across multiple devices has increased exponentially. However, received data is often susceptible to corruption due to noise, necessitating the use of efficient decoding techniques to mitigate its effects […]
How to Use Machine Learning to Automate Aligning Optical Components in Experiments
Mentors Project Description The goal of this project is to develop a machine learning-based approach for automated laser beam alignment using mirrors. By leveraging optical simulations, we aim to train algorithms that can optimize mirror adjustments to achieve precise beam positioning. This project will explore various ML techniques, such as reinforcement learning and gradient-based optimization […]