Northeastern University College of Engineering

Intro to Quantum Seminar for the Northeastern Community
2026-04-01 10:00 - 11:00, 2026-03-25 10:00 - 11:00, 2026-03-18 10:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York)
Spring 2026, West Village H Room 366, Fridays 10-11am, Weekly
Gregory A. Fiete, Professor of Physics, College of Science, Northeastern University
Purpose and Synopsis: Curious about quantum physics but not a physicist or physics major? This seminar series is your chance to learn the fundamentals of quantum physics, quantum computing, quantum sensing, quantum cryptography, and quantum communication in an informal atmosphere without the need to register for a class. The seminar, open to all in the Northeastern community, will begin from basics assuming no prior knowledge of quantum mechanics and build through key concepts relevant to quantum technologies. The first weeks of the seminar will feature tutorial lectures and then the seminar will host experts from across campus who will give accessible talks on their quantum research. The aim is to bring together the entire Northeastern community in a single setting for establishing multi-disciplinary ties across the university for all who have an interest in quantum. Students, postdocs, staff and faculty at all levels are welcome. Questions and interactive discussions during the seminar are encouraged.
Topics Covered: Entanglement, Measurement Disturbance of Quantum Systems, Logic Gates, Quantum Advantage, No Cloning Theorem, Quantum Teleportation, EPR Paradox, Spin, Hilbert Spaces, Basic Mathematical Structure of Quantum Mechanics, Heisenberg Uncertainty Relations.
Speaker/Instructor Bio: Greg is a theoretical physicist specializing in the study of exotic quantum properties of materials. He received his PhD in physics from Harvard University and did postdoctoral work at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara. He was a Lee A. DuBridge Prize Fellow in Theoretical Physics at Caltech. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the DARPA Young Faculty Award, a DARPA Director’s Fellowship, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), a Simons Fellowship in Theoretical Physics, and a Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. Greg is a core and founding member of the Quantum Materials and Sensing Institute (QMSI) at Northeastern University.
Schedule of seminars

ECE Distinguished Lecture: Ubiquitous Active Surfaces
2026-03-31 15:30 - 17:00 | 102 ISEC, 360 Huntington Ave, 102 ISEC, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
ECE DISTINGUISHED LECTURE: Ubiquitous Active Surfaces
Prof. Vladimir Bulović
Professor of Emerging Technologies, MIT
Tuesday, March 31
3:30-5:00 PM (ET)
102 ISEC Auditorium or Teams
What if any surface could generate light, harvest solar energy, sense motion, or emit sound? Paper-thin devices are making this possible — turning walls, windows, and everyday objects into active technology. Prof. Bulović will showcase newly invented MIT technologies and the startups bringing them to market.
About the speaker: Founding Director of MIT.nano, holder of 120+ U.S. patents, and author of 300+ research articles (cited 70,000+ times). His lab’s spinouts — including QD Vision, Ubiquitous Energy, and Swift Solar — have brought thin-film technology to millions of users worldwide.

MIE Seminar: Modeling freezing-induced damage in soft materials - aka why can’t we just freeze organs?
2026-03-31 15:30 - 16:30
MIE Seminar Series:
Dr. Mrityunjay Kothari, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of New Hampshire.
“Modeling freezing-induced damage in soft materials – aka why can’t we just freeze organs?”
This seminar presents a thermo mechanically coupled phase field modeling framework that integrates heat transfer, phase change, nonlinear elasticity, and damage mechanics to predict and understand freezing induced tissue damage during cryopreservation.
Location: 011 Kariotis Hall or Teams

CV/LinkedIn/Resume CommLab Drop-In Hours
2026-03-31 11:00 - 12:00, 2026-03-24 11:00 - 12:00 | https://northeastern.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEof-quqzwiGNCi3nAuNVzIyX1jgXA03KYO
Graduate students, do you need to increase your on-line presence or update your CV or Resume? Join the CommLab’s LinkedIn, CV, and Resume drop-in hours any Tuesday from 11 am to 12 pm ET. This collaborative space offers valuable advice and peer feedback to enhance your online profile and professional presence. Join this drop-in workshop in person in room 334 CSC or through Zoom.

Crafting Data Visuals to Tell a Scientific Story: CommLab Drop-In Hours
2026-03-31 10:00 - 11:00, 2026-03-24 10:00 - 11:00 | https://northeastern.zoom.us/j/99770601100?pwd=[REDACTED]
Looking to illustrate your data? Join our Data Visualization Drop-In sessions Tuesdays from 10-11am on Zoom to discuss strategies or receive feedback on your data visualization process.

LSU Opportunity Knocks STEM Career Fair
2026-03-31
Join COE Graduate Admissions at the 2026 LSU Opportunity Knocks STEM Career Fair in Baton Rogue, Louisiana! Ask your questions about our graduate engineering programs across the U.S. and Canada during the fair on March 31st. We look forward to meeting you there!

The Last Cookies with This Dean
2026-03-30 14:00 - 16:00
All COE students are invited to join COE Dean Gregory Abowd one last time for cookies and other treats in the first-floor lobby of the Snell Engineering Center.

JOINT SPECIAL COLLOQUIUM: New Degrees of Freedom for Quantum Hardware
2026-03-30 11:30 - 12:30
JOINT SPECIAL COLLOQUIUM
College of Science, College of Engineering & Quantum Materials and Sensing Institute (QMSI)
New Degrees of Freedom for Quantum Hardware
Dr. Haoxin Zhou
University of California, Berkeley
Monday, Mar 30, 2026; 11:30am to 12:30p.m.
Hosts: Prof. Arun Bansil & Prof. Kin Chung Fong
Venue: Elliott Hall – Room 130C, 147 S. Bedford St, Burlington, MA
Remote: MS Teams Link
Abstract
Realizing the full potential of quantum information processing requires overcoming fundamental limitations in qubit coherence, connectivity, and scalability. One promising pathway is to harness new quantum degrees of freedom in emerging materials to build hybrid quantum hardware. Advances in condensed matter physics have revealed rich macroscopic quantum phenomena in solids, arising from collective dynamics of electrons and lattice vibrations. Harnessing these excitations opens new opportunities for storing, transmitting, and manipulating quantum information.
In this talk, I will explore how such phenomena emerge and how they can be integrated into quantum devices. I will first briefly illustrate how strong electronic interactions generate macroscopic quantum coherence, for example in graphene van der Waals heterostructures. I will then present recent work revealing interface-induced piezoelectric coupling in superconducting circuits, which introduces a new qubit decoherence channel while also enabling coherent coupling to acoustic phonons. Finally, I will outline future directions for hybrid quantum platforms integrating phonons and other collective excitations, and discuss how artificial intelligence may assist the control and optimization of these complex architectures.
Biography
Haoxin Zhou is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, working with Prof. Alp Sipahigil. His research lies at the intersection of circuit quantum electrodynamics and condensed matter physics, exploring hybrid quantum systems that couple superconducting qubits to acoustic phonons. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2021, where he worked with Prof. Andrea Young on correlated electronic phases in graphene Van der Waals heterostructures utilizing cryogenic electrical measurements. He received his B.S. in Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2015.

Deep Dive into Bioengineering Research Webinar
2026-03-27 09:00 - 09:30 | Virtual
As you continue exploring your graduate school options, we invite you to join a special webinar highlighting the exciting research taking place within our Bioengineering Department. Our faculty’s work spans several key areas—Biomedical Devices and Bioimaging, Biomechanics and Mechanobiology, Molecular, Cell and Tissue Engineering, Systems, Synthetic and Computational Bioengineering.
During this session, you’ll hear an overview of each research area and have the opportunity to ask faculty members questions about their work. Presenters will include Dr. Chiara Bellini, Dr. Christa Haase, Dr. Amir Vahabikashi and Dr. Lital Davidi.

ChE MS Thesis Defense: Benjamin Peck
2026-03-26 14:00 - 15:00
Name: Benjamin Peck
Title: Generalizable Image Analysis Pipelines for Junction Fragmentation and Vascular Marker Analysis Applied to Blood-Brain Barrier Disease Models
Date: 03/26/2026
Time: 02:00:00 PM
Committee Members:
Prof. Eno Ebong (Advisor)
Prof. Abigail Koppes
Prof. Erel Levine
Rebecca Pinals
Location: East Village 102
Abstract:
Quantifying blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity from fluorescence microscopy remains limited by subjective scoring and categorical classification methods that lack reproducibility. This thesis addresses these limitations by developing two semi-automated pipelines that replace manual scoring with automated, continuous-variable measurement of BBB-associated vascular markers in vitro and in vivo.
The in vitro pipeline, implemented in Python, quantifies tight junction fragmentation by measuring discrete zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1) fragment objects within manually traced junction regions, yielding continuous-variable metrics including average fragment area, junctional fragmentation ratio, and total junctional area. In human brain microvascular endothelial cells under glycocalyx knockdown (KD), the pipeline detected significantly reduced fragment area (37%, both p < 0.015) and junctional fragmentation ratio (both p < 0.014) in both CD44- and syndecan-1-KD conditions.
The in vivo pipeline integrates ilastik-based machine learning classification with FIJI macro automation to quantify vascular marker colocalization and resolves vessel signal from microglial contamination within a single fluorescence channel without requiring a dedicated counterstain. Applied across four mouse cohorts [young, aged, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and traumatic brain injury (TBI)] and three brain regions (prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus, and midbrain), the pipeline revealed concurrent ZO-1 loss and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) elevation in the PFC and hippocampus of aged and AD mice, with no significant differences between the two groups. Total endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) was the sole marker to show an AD-specific effect, nearly doubling in the PFC of AD mice (p = 0.0013). TBI mice showed persistent ZO-1 loss with transient changes in ICAM-1 and eNOS, consistent with published recovery timelines.
Both pipelines are deterministic, publicly available on GitHub, and designed for adoption beyond the specific markers and systems analyzed here.

Benjamin Peck is a second-year Master of Science candidate in Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University, expected to graduate in April 2026. His graduate research is conducted in the Ebong Mechanobiology Lab, where he investigates blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction across Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury, and aging mouse models. His thesis, Generalizable Image Analysis Pipelines for Junction Fragmentation and Vascular Marker Analysis Applied to Blood-Brain Barrier Disease Models, centers on quantification of vascular markers in vitro and in vivo by examining tight junction integrity in cultured brain endothelial cells, and quantifying vascular marker expression across multiple brain regions and disease cohorts in mouse models, supported by custom image analysis pipelines developed for both. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University in 2021. Prior to his graduate studies, Benjamin worked in industry across pharmaceutical and medical device settings. At Bristol Myers Squibb, he worked within the compound management departments at two Bay Area locations, supporting early-stage cardiovascular drug development through compound characterization and analytical testing. Before that, he worked at Genapsys, Inc. during the scale-up of a next-generation genomic sequencer, with responsibilities in quality systems and manufacturing operations. Benjamin’s industry background spans pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device environments, with demonstrated expertise in analytical method development, quality systems, and workflow optimization. This fall, he will begin his doctoral studies, where he intends to continue investigating the mechanisms underlying vascular dysfunction and neurodegeneration.

Oral Presentations: CommLab Drop-In Workshops
2026-03-26 11:00 - 12:00, 2026-03-19 11:00 - 12:00 | https://northeastern.zoom.us/meeting/register/Z5yCbd9WQ_OvtJoYqYSsMA
The NU CommLab is hosting a weekly hybrid Oral Presentation Drop-in practice for graduate students. Drop-in virtually or in-person any week to practice for your upcoming presentations whether it is for your oral exams, proposals, thesis, dissertation or conference. Receive and implement feedback on your verbal and non-verbal public speaking skills. Drop-in any Thursday from 11-12 pm ET in 334 Curry Student Center or on Zoom.

University of Scranton Spring 2026 Career Expo
2026-03-26
Join COE Graduate Admissions at the 2026 University of Scranton Spring 2026 Career Expo in Scranton, Pennsylvania! Ask your questions about our graduate engineering programs across the U.S. and Canada during the expo on March 26th. We look forward to meeting you there!

Urban Infrastructure Risk Analysis with GeoDatalytics Webinar
2026-03-25 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual
An overview of GeoDatalytics capabilities for simulating, visualizing, and analyzing risks to urban environments.

Speakers

Aashish Chaudhary, Assistant Director of Business Development
Anne Haley, Senior R&D Engineer
Auroop Ganguly, Northeastern University
August Posch, Northeastern University

Prestigious Collaborators

Northeastern University

Urban infrastructure systems, such as transportation networks, are increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather, aging infrastructure, and rising demand. These pressures can lead to cascading failures with real consequences for public safety and equity. This session introduces GeoDatalytics, a collaborative effort between Kitware and Northeastern University, designed to help teams explore what-if scenarios and make informed, data-driven decisions.
In this webinar, we’ll demonstrate:

Project and dataset management workflows within GeoDatalytics.
Custom geospatial visualizations on interactive maps for urban environments.
AI-based flood event simulation using GeoDatalytics analytics workflow.
Network analysis of transportation systems impacted by simulated flooding.
Integrated visualization techniques to assess cascading infrastructure impacts.

You’ll also hear directly from the GeoDatalytics development team about the project’s goals, current capabilities, and future direction, with time set aside for live Q&A.
Key Takeaways

Understand how GeoDatalytics supports comparative visualization and analysis of urban risk scenarios.
See how AI-driven flood simulations can be combined with infrastructure network analysis.
Learn how geospatial visualization can reveal vulnerabilities and cascading failures in urban systems.
Engage with Kitware experts to get your technical and workflow questions answered live.

Register

Chemical Engineering Spring Seminar Series: Steven Wrenn
2026-03-25 12:00 - 13:00 | 108 SN
Realizing emergent properties in functional composite from directed assembly at the micro-scale
Location: 108 Snell Engineering Center
Abstract: This talk will describe fundamental studies and practical applications of biological colloids in the context of human disease. The talk will begin with endogeneous colloids and how they contribute to disease pathogenesis, including the important roles that microstructural transitions and particle aggregation dynamics play. Specifically, it will be shown how an incomplete transition from hepatic vesicles to bile salt micelles leads to enhanced vesicle aggregation and faster rates of cholesterol nucleation to produce gallstones and how aggregation of low density lipoproteins within the intima contributes to foam cell formation and subsequent atherosclerotic plaques.
The talk will then focus on how exogenous biological colloids can be designed to diagnose diseases or treat diseases, or both. Specifically, interactions between ultrasound, phospholipid monolayer-coated gas bubbles, phospholipid bilayer vesicles, and cells will be reviewed with an eye toward diagnostic ultrasonic imaging and ultrasound-induced controlled drug delivery. Microbubble physics, including inertial cavitation and the influence of membrane properties will be reviewed, and a comparison between model predictions and experimental measurements will be made. Noteworthy is the predicted dependence, or lack thereof, of inertial cavitation on area expansion modulus through the variation of PEG molecular weight and mole fraction in the microbubble monolayer coating.
The talk will also involve a discussion of nesting microbubbles inside the aqueous core of vesicles and how this significantly increases the inertial cavitation threshold. The talk will conclude with an examination of the role that triglycerides play during the nesting process, how this contributes to encapsulation efficiency, and how this could give rise to novel microbubble architectures going forward.

Steven Wrenn earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from Virginia Tech in 1991. While an under-graduate, he worked as a co-op for G.E. Plastics (formerly Borg Warner) in Parkersburg, WV. After graduating he worked for three years as a process engineer for Zeneca, Inc. (formerly ICI Americas, Inc.) in New Castle, DE. He then returned to school, earning his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware in 1999. After graduating from Delaware, he joined the chemical engineering faculty at Drexel University in Phil-adelphia. In 2006 he became an Alexander von Humboldt research fellow and spent a year at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. In 2021 he returned to Virginia Tech to serve his alma mater as Department Head of Chemical Engineering.

Bioengineering Spring Seminar Series
2026-03-25 12:00 - 13:00, 2026-03-18 12:00 - 13:00
BIOE 7390 – Spring 2026
Bioengineering Seminar Series Schedule
Internal and external faculty seminar speakers, weekly 12-1pm on Wednesdays in Richards Hall 300
JANUARY
1/7 – Jonathan Weissman, PhD
Professor of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Whitehead Institute
1/14 – Joey Davis, PhD
Associate Professor Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1/21 – David Cronin, MBA
*Industry Seminar, Industrial Advisory Board Member
Chief Executive Officer, Cognition Corporation
1/28 – Amir Vahabikashi, PhD
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Northeastern University
FEBRUARY
2/4 – Wilson Wong, PhD
*Collab with CHME
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University
2/11 – Christopher Evans, PhD
Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Mayo Clinic
2/18 – None
2/25 – None
MARCH
3/4 – None, spring break
3/11 – Vijay Vedula, PhD
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University
3/18 – Ibraheem Badejo, PhD
*Industry Seminar, Industrial Advisory Board Member
Senior Director, External Innovation, Johnson & Johnson Innovation
3/25 – Tao Sun, PhD
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Northeastern University
APRIL
4/1 – Marsha Rolle, PhD
*Collab with CHME
Director, Advancement, Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives
4/8 – Era Jain, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, Syracuse University
4/15 – Meghan Rebuli, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the curriculum in Toxicology and Environmental Medicine, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

MIE Seminar: Distributionally Robust Learning – From Traditional to Deep and to Reinforcement Learning
2026-03-24 15:30 - 16:00
MIE Seminar Speaker: Dr. Ioannis Paschalidis, Distinguished Professor of Engineering, Founding Professor of Computing & Data Sciences, and Director, Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering at Boston University.
Dr. Paschalidis will present a seminar titled: “Distributionally Robust Learning – From Traditional to Deep and to Reinforcement Learning.” This seminar presents a distributionally robust machine learning framework that addresses outliers and uncertainty by optimizing worst-case performance, with applications ranging from medical decision-making and deep learning to safe reinforcement learning in robotics and autonomous systems.
Location: 011 Kariotis

ChE PhD Dissertation Defense: Victus Kordorwu
2026-03-24 15:00 - 16:00 | 333 CSC, 360 Huntington Ave, 333 CSC, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Name:
Victus Kordorwu
Title:
Understanding the role of mucus in supersaturated drug delivery
Date:
03/24/2026
Time:
03:00:00 PM
Committee Members:
Prof. Rebecca Carrier (Advisor)
Prof. Steve Lustig (Co-Advisor)
Prof. Mansoor Amiji
Steven Castleberry, PhD
Dennis Leung, PhD
Location:
CSC 333
Abstract:
Many drugs entering clinical trials today are poorly water-soluble and rely on supersaturating formulations such as amorphous solid dispersions (ASD) to generate transient supersaturated states in the gastrointestinal tract to enhance the bioavailability. However, correlating the rate and extent of drug precipitation observed in vitro to in vivo performance of supersaturating formulations has proven to be very difficult with limited success in establishing predictive relationships. This difficulty suggests that some aspects of the relevant in vivo environment which impact the performance of supersaturating formulations is possibly overlooked by current biorelevant dissolution methods used to evaluate the in vivo performance of these formulations. Mucus and mucins are key components of the in vivo environment and can undergo numerous types of interactions with different molecules and solutes (e.g., drugs, polymers, additives). Yet, many in vitro biorelevant dissolution testing methods used to evaluate the performance of metastable formulations do not incorporate mucins, leading to potential discrepancies between in vitro and in vivo drug performance prediction.
Detailed in this work are mechanistic, thermodynamic, and translational investigations into the role of intestinal mucin as an active modulator of drug supersaturation stability and formulation performance. Mucin is shown to mimic and impact the ability of ASD polymers to stabilize supersaturated drug solutions. Mucin-mediated supersaturation translated to increased drug absorption through transport studies using Caco-2/HT29-MTX-E12 co-culture. Importantly, mucin is found to alter the apparent performance of classical polymeric precipitation inhibitors, either synergistically enhancing or antagonistically diminishing polymer effectiveness depending on the drug system, thereby reshaping excipient rankings under physiologically relevant conditions.
The thermodynamics of drug-mucin interactions were explored using isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and ATR-FTIR 2D dimensional correlation spectroscopy. Small molecule binding exhibits two-event association behavior and is predominantly enthalpy driven, consistent with hydrogen bonding and conformational ordering within the mucin network. Spectroscopic analyses reveal coordinated perturbations across hydroxyl, amide, carboxylate, hydrophobic, and saccharide associated domains, confirming heterogeneous interaction environments and diffusion coupled structural rearrangements.
Building on these mechanistic understanding, a thermo-statistical Gibbs energy framework is developed to quantitatively predict the rank ordering and impact of mucin and excipients on drug precipitation across diverse compounds. The framework employs Gibbs energy curvature, described as the second derivative of the Gibbs energy with respect to composition, as a predictive descriptor of resistance to concentration fluctuations. Extension of this framework to the hydrophobic macrocyclic peptide, cyclosporine A, demonstrates that mucin also stabilizes peptide supersaturation through distinct entropy driven interaction pathways involving solvent restructuring. Curvature based predictions correlate with experimental precipitation outcomes and enable rational comparison of mucin and polymeric excipients as stabilizing agents. Overall, this work demonstrates that intestinal mucus is an active modulator of supersaturation, precipitation risk, and formulation performance across both small molecule and peptide systems. Thus, biorelevant dissolution testing should include appropriate mucus activity to enhance the predictive assessment of drug precipitation risk in supersaturated drug delivery systems.

Victus Kordorwu is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, where he will graduate in April 2026. His doctoral research focuses on understanding the role of mucus in supersaturated drug delivery to improve formulation performance prediction. Victus holds a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering and Technology from Dalian University of Technology in China and a Bachelor’s degree in Petroleum Engineering from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana.
During his doctoral studies, he completed a 6-months research internship at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, where he gained expertise in RNA-lipid nanoparticle and oral solid dosage formulation and process development. His research contributions have resulted in peer-reviewed publications and presentations at conferences including the AIChE Annual Meeting, Controlled Release Society , the American Chemical Society and the Society for Biomaterials.
His research interests span formulation and process development, biomaterials and soft matter systems and the development of predictive tools for complex chemical and biological systems. He is particularly interested applying chemical engineering expertise to solve problems across pharmaceutical development, biotechnology, energy related materials, and other complex chemical systems. In the short term, he looks forward to working as chemical engineer and formulation scientist in the pharmaceutical industry to deepen his expertise in pharmaceutical development. Outside of academics, Victus enjoys playing bass and publishing bass tutorials, kayaking and swimming.

Deep Dive into Chemical Engineering Research Webinar
2026-03-24 09:00 - 10:00 | Virtual
As you continue exploring your graduate school options, we invite you to join a special webinar highlighting the exciting research taking place within our Chemical Engineering Department. Our faculty’s work spans several key areas—Biomolecular & Biomedical Systems, Complex & Computational Systems, Energy & Sustainability, Engineering Education & Pedagogy, and Materials & Nanotechnology. Across these domains, Northeastern is advancing the integration of biological and physical systems, creating innovative opportunities for interdisciplinary discovery.
During this session, you’ll hear an overview of each research area and have the opportunity to ask faculty members questions about their work. Presenters will include Dr. Eno Ebong, Dr. Adam Ekenseair, and additional members of our research community.

University of South Carolina Career and Internship Fair
2026-03-24
Join COE Graduate Admissions at the 2026 University of South Carolina Career and Internship Fair in Columbia, South Carolina! Ask your questions about our graduate engineering programs across the U.S. and Canada during the fair on March 25th. We look forward to meeting you there!

Fusion Book Club
2026-03-23 16:30 - 17:30
Join the Fusion Book Club on Monday, March 23rd at 4:30pm (ET) in Snell Library (SL-215A) online via Teams.
We’ll start with an open discussion about reading recommendations, then discuss this month’s book: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.
Copies are available to borrow from the library in e, audio, and print formats.
All are welcome!

Leading with AI: An Alumni Perspective on Engineering, Innovation & Collaboration
2026-03-19 14:00 - 15:30
You are invited to join the MGEN Speaker Series for an exciting talk featuring Northeastern alumnus Nikunj Doshi, a Cloud & AI Solutions Architect and AI researcher focused on building scalable AI solutions and advancing responsible digital policy.
Talk Title: Leading with AI: An Alumni Perspective on Engineering, Innovation & Collaboration
Nikunj will share insights from his professional journey and discuss how AI is shaping engineering practice, industry collaboration, and innovation. This is a great opportunity to learn directly from an industry leader, explore career pathways, and ask questions about working in AI and cloud technologies.
Event Details
📅 Date: Thursday, March 19th
⏰ Time: 2:00 PM ET/ 11:00 AM PT
📍 Location: Boston Campus, Behrakis 315 & Online for Network Participants
We encourage you to register early and take advantage of this opportunity to engage with an accomplished MGEN alumnus and connect with peers interested in AI and engineering innovation.
We hope to see you there!

MathWorks Day 2026: Making Renewables Resilient: Models, Methods, and Real-World Impact
2026-03-19 13:00 - 15:30 | Alumni Center, 716 Columbus Ave, 6th Floor, Boston, MA, 02120, United States
Join us for MathWorks Day 2026, featuring a discussion panel, product demonstrations, and an interactive poster session.
MathWorks Day 2026 explores “Making Renewables Resilient: Models, Methods, and Real-World Impact” through a collaborative event between Northeastern University and MathWorks. The program features a panel discussion and Q&A session on the topic of renewable energy and the modern renewable grid. The panel will be led by speakers Dr. Bradley Lehman from Northeastern University’s College of Engineering and Dr. Graham Dudgeon, Senior Principal Product Manager for Electrical Technology at MathWorks, with panelists Dr. Luca Caracoglia from Northeastern University’s College of Engineering and Dr. Mehdi Vahab, Academic Manager for Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at MathWorks.
After the panel, demonstrations by MathWorkers will showcase the breadth of MATLAB and Simulink applications across engineering domains, including:

bioreactor modeling and optimization with AI-assisted development;
digital twin technology for fault detection in electric aircraft propulsion systems;
advanced control design using real bi-copter hardware; and
autonomous underwater vehicle simulation built on Unreal Engine 5.3.

The event concludes with a poster session where participants can engage with current research and projects.
MathWorks Day 2026 will take place on the 6th Floor of Columbus Place, which is located at 716 Columbus Avenue in Boston. We hope to see you there!

The Gordon Institute: Virtual Information Session
2026-03-18 17:30 - 18:30 | Virtual
Learn how you can earn a Graduate Certificate in Engineering Leadership through The Gordon Institute as a stand-alone certificate or in combination with one of 25+ Master of Science degrees offered through Northeastern University College of Engineering, Northeastern University College of Science, or Khoury College of Computer Sciences.
You will have the opportunity to hear from alumni about how The Gordon Institute propelled their engineering careers, speak with program professors about the curriculum, and ask the director of admissions your application questions for fall 2026.
Upcoming Information Session Dates:

January 14, 2026 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm
February 11, 2026 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm
March 18, 2026 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

The Gordon Institute also offers one-on-one info calls with admissions representatives. If you are interested in scheduling a call, please contact Amy Manley at a.manley@northeastern.edu.

Chemical Engineering Spring Seminar Series: Andrew D. Jones
2026-03-18 12:00 - 13:00
Come to my window: Porosity and binding distribution provide better predictors for biofilm penetration
Location: 108 Snell Engineering Center
Abstract: The Jones Systems for Engaging the Environment Lab builds novel tools to study biofilm dynamics. In this presentation we will discuss two such tools: a mechanical tool and a mathematical tool describing Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 interaction with antibiotics. Biofilms are the common mode of life for bacteria in infections and in the environment. Biofilm infections have been shown to be more recalcitrant to antibiotic treatment than planktonic bacteria. This recalcitrance has been partially attributed to periphery sequestration, where antibiotics fail to penetrate biofilm cell clusters. Biofilms have also been identified as the primary environmental sink of engineered nanomaterials. However, there have been results attributing charge as the main predictor of biofilm uptake of these nano-sized materials. We developed a model for antibiotic accumulation in bacterial biofilm microcolonies using heterogenous porosity and attachment site profiles replicating the periphery sequestration reported in prior experimental studies on Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 biofilm cell clusters. We account for periphery sequestration using two physical phenomena: biofilm matrix attachment and volume-exclusion due to variable biofilm porosity. The antibiotic accumulation model which incorporated both phenomena better fit observed periphery sequestration data compared to previous models that leveraged charge. We propose a novel tool for being able to conduct medium throughput screens with microscopy measurements on these biofilms and validate it against existing standards. We show quantifiable effects of antibiotics on biofilm streamers and propose that this may be useful for quantifying the attachment site density and porosity.

Akhenaton-Andrew (Andrew) D. Jones, III is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering and affiliate faculty in the Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science Department, Duke Materials Initiative, and Integrated Toxicology & Environmental Health Program at Duke University. His research uses engineering and policy analysis to help solve global challenges related to water and health. He is a 2021 recipient of the NIH R35 Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award to develop new models and tools for studying biofilms and a 2019 Sloan SEED fund award to develop new tools for point of use water quality monitoring systems. He was recognized as Young Investigator by the Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State, the premier center for biofilm research in the US. He received a BS in Mathematics and BS, MS, and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from MIT where he was a Lemelson Presidential Fellow and Alfred P. Sloan UCEM Scholar. He completed post-doctoral training as a Future Faculty Fellow at Northeastern University. He has directly supervised 2 high school students, over 20 undergraduates, 5 MS, 6 PhD, and 2 post-doctoral trainees including 12 from underrepresented backgrounds and 24 women. He and his team have presented at over 50 conferences and seminars. He is the 2023 Recipient of the Duke Outstanding Postdoctoral Mentor Award.
