Students in the Albert Nerken School of Engineering made their mark at professional and collegiate meetings across the country this semester, presenting research, participating in poster sessions, competing in design challenges, and contributing to the discourses that shape their fields. More than sixty Cooper students, faculty members, and recent graduates traveled to conferences this fall, reflecting the strength of the school’s undergraduate research opportunities.

Among the events were gatherings of some of the nation’s largest professional engineering societies, including the 2025 AIChE Annual Meeting in Boston, MA; the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) 2025 Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA; and the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE), organized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and held this year in Memphis, TN. 

“Attending the BMES Annual Meeting was transformative for my professional and academic development,” said Jaehyeon Park, a senior mechanical engineering student. “Beyond the formal sessions and presentations, the informal networking opportunities, conversations over coffee, discussions after talks, and connections made at the career fair, created relationships that will benefit me throughout my career.”

Park and his teammates—mechanical engineering third-year David Brokhin and alumni Jay Williams EE’25 and Seyeon Park EE’25—presented their work on the AV Fistula Thrill-o-Meter, which addresses problems faced by people with kidney diseases. The project earned the team second place in the Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) challenge in October.

Thirteen Cooper students attended this year’s AIChE meeting along with faculty members Ben Davis, Amanda Simson, and Jen Weiser. The students presented posters on research ranging from biotechnology to materials science to using corrosion modeling to solve environmental problems. Many described the conference as a formative moment. “Being surrounded by thousands of scientists, engineers, researchers, and students reminded me why I am so passionate about advancing innovation at the intersections of chemical engineering,” noted Kayla Lee, a chemical engineering senior.

Other conferences focused on advancing equity and opportunity in STEM fields, including the annual Grace Hopper Celebration, held this year in Chicago, IL; the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers 2025 National Convention in Philadelphia, PA; the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists (ABRCMS) in San Antonio, TX; and WE25, this year’s Society of Women Engineers (SWE) conference in New Orleans, LA.

“During the keynote speaker’s presentation, the energy in the room was one of community,” recalled Vanessa Wu Cen, president of Cooper’s SWE chapter and a third-year mechanical engineering student who attended WE25. “It’s not every day that we get to be in a room with thousands of women who are all in the same field and chasing a lot of the same things we are.”

Cooper students also distinguished themselves at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Undergraduate Research & Technology Conference (URTC), presenting work and participating in sessions related to robotics, sensing, machine learning, and automation. “Attending MIT URTC gave me a deeper sense of what it means to be part of the research community,” said Yushan Luo, who, with fellow electrical engineering senior Lorina Ilkkan, presented a paper on circuit design.

Mechanical engineering senior Wongee Hong presented research conducted at the Dresden University of Technology through Cooper’s Summer Study Abroad Program; his paper on using deep learning models to classify organelles in cell microscopy images was selected as one of the top ten papers from a total of 319 submissions.

Climate research also drove student engagement this fall. Cooper students participated in the MIT Energy & Climate Hackathon, which focused this year on industrial decarbonization and sustainable manufacturing, and the 2025 North American Biochar Conference in Minneapolis, MN.

New to Cooper’s extracurriculars this year is a nine-student team that is designing and constructing a sled to compete in the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race. The Cooper team will race their toboggan—which must have a completely concrete running surface—at the competition in Ontario, Canada this February.

Many of these opportunities were made possible in large part thanks to the generosity of Alan Fortier ChE’97, whose support for the school’s professional development efforts has directly funded student travel this year. His commitment allows students to share their research on national stages, build academic and industry connections, and bring new insights back to Cooper’s engineering community.