5th Annual Southern California Micro and Nanofluidics Symposium was held on Friday August 24th at the Los Angeles Arboretum

Date: 

Thursday, October 4, 2018

The 5th annual Southern California Micro and Nanofluidics Symposium was held on Friday, August 24th, 2018 at the Los Angeles County Arboretum. This year’s symposium, generously sponsored by Amgen and UCLA California NanoSystems Institute, brought together students and faculty from UC campuses to share research ideas and progress, seek opportunities for collaboration, and learn more about recent developments in the field of micro- and nano-fluidics.

At the event, student and postdoctoral researchers presented interdisciplinary work with applications in tissue engineering, electrochemistry, biosensing, and drug delivery. In addition, a number of students presented research relevant to the fundamentals of fluid dynamics.

The symposium opened with a keynote address by Dr. Wei Gao from the California Institute of Technology, who detailed his work with bioelectronic devices for healthcare, as well as micro/nanomachines for drug delivery. From there, the day included nine research talks from students and postdocs, a featured talk from Amgen’s Scientific Executive Director, Dr. Linda Narhi, and a poster presentation session.

UCSB Chemistry graduate student, Austin Abrams earned a 2nd place speaking award for his talk, “Continuous Surface Potential Monitoring: Uncovering Reaction Kinetics and Biological Analyte Detection.”

UCSB Mechanical Engineering gradate student, Mike Garcia, earned a 2nd place poster award for his presentation, “A Linearized Model for Calculating Inertial Forces on a Particle in the Presence of a Permeate Flow.”

The Southern California Micro and Nanofluidics Symposium was initiated in 2014 by Professors Dino Di Carlo and Sumita Pennathur in an effort to foster collaboration between local students. Since that time, the event has both grown and maintained free student registration due in large part to support from generous sponsors. The symposium is now completely student run, providing an excellent forum for local students to gain exposure to a wide breadth of research topics at all stages of their graduate careers, without the burden of expensive travel fees. “Building a network of young students who share their ideas and build collaborations can only accelerate progress in Micro and Nanofluidics” says Professor Di Carlo, “We plan to expand this successful event to encompass a broader set of research groups in future years spanning the Southern California area”.

 

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