The Beckman Graduate Fellows Program, supported by funding from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, offers University of Illinois graduate students at the M.A., M.S., or Ph.D. level the opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary research at the Institute.
Research projects must involve at least one Beckman faculty member in addition to a second U of I faculty member, and preference is given to those proposals that are interdisciplinary and involve the active participation of two Beckman faculty members from two different groups.
Current Graduate Fellows
Nitin Agarwal:
Nitin is working on a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. His research aims to improve the performance and reliability of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). The first objective of his work will be to develop a framework to quantify the effect of variations in material properties, geometry, or operating conditions on various output parameters relevant to dynamic analysis of MEMS. Agarwal will then employ this uncertainty quantification data to identify the parameters which are critical to device performance and design effective and reliable MEMS devices.
Peter Freddolino:
Peter is pursuing his Ph.D. in Biophysics and Computational Biology from the School of Life Sciences. As a Beckman Graduate Fellow he plans to focus his research on creating a better theoretical framework to describe the protein folding process. Freddolino hopes this research path will both aid in the understanding of diseases caused by point mutations in proteins, and will also allow the design of protein variants with novel function.
Justin Haldar:
Justin is pursuing his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. His research is developing a novel multi-modal approach to magnetic resonance neuroimaging which allows brain physiology to be characterized from structural, biochemical, and functional perspectives. Current limitations for multi-modal studies include long acquisition times and low signal-to-noise ratios. Justin's work will fuse information from multiple modalities to permit high quality image reconstructions from significantly shorter experiments.
Agatha Luszpak:
Agatha is part of the Medical Scholars Program (M.D./Ph.D. Program) where she is working on her M.D. from the College of Medicine and Ph.D. in Neuroscience. Her work is exploring the causes of fragile X syndrome, a genetic disorder that includes mental retardation, attention deficit, hyperactivity, and behaviors characteristic of autism. Luszpak’s research will look at deficits in neuropeptide release as a possible cause of some neurobehavioral abnormalities of fragile X syndrome. Her goal is to discover therapeutics that could alleviate neuropeptide release and provide a possible therapy for fragile X syndrome.
Mahdi Rastad:
Mahdi is working toward a Ph.D. in Economics. His research is probing the effects of emotions on economic behavior, specifically on fostering or reducing trust and cooperation. In his experiments participants are given the opportunity to send signals about their emotions by way of dynamic facial expressions thorough a 3D animation software (Poser). Coupling this novel methodology with a special statistical technique, Functional Data Analysis, provides Rastad with way to effectively measure and quantify emotions as they relate to trust and cooperation.