A Message from the Associate Dean for Research

A Message from the Associate Dean for Research The second declension of the word Ingenium has several meanings – ‘innate or natural quality’, ‘intelligence, natural capacity’, ‘talent, art’, and ‘a man of genius’. In medieval times, Ingenium was held in contrast to the wisdom gained from practice and experience and considered to be a divine stamp on the soul delivered at the instant of one’s birth. Here at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering, we believe that our methods are tuned to reveal and cultivate the uniqueness of our students while impressing the habits of uprightness that guide their Ingenium to a common good. On behalf of the Swanson School of Engineering and Dean James R. Martin II, I proudly present the sixth edition of Ingenium: Undergraduate Research at the Swanson School of Engineering, a compilation of articles representing the achievements of our exceptional undergraduate students’ 2019 summer research. With each year and with each edition of Ingenium, we continue to see notable and impressive academic and professional growth and development in our undergraduate students when given opportunities to engage in scientific research. We witness students taking the knowledge, skills, and information that they learn in their coursework and apply it in a meaningful and intentional manner outside of the classroom. These thriving students are our future – of both our highly accredited institution and our world. Each will go on to be engineers, scientists, physicians, and whatever else they set their mind to, and they will, undoubtedly, make significant impacts in the fields of technology, medicine, travel, space, communication, and so much more. The student authors of the articles contained within this issue of Ingenium studied mostly under the guidance of a faculty mentor in the Swanson School of Engineering. In some cases, the research took place at other institutions and even overseas. At the conclusion of the program, students were asked to submit an abstract summarizing the results of their research, and the abstracts were reviewed by the Ingenium Editorial Board, made up of Swanson School graduate student volunteers. The authors of the highest ranked abstracts were invited to submit full manuscripts for consideration to be included in Ingenium, and those that were submitted were “peer-reviewed” by the Editorial Board. Therefore, Ingenium serves as more than a record of our undergraduate student excellence in research, but also as a practical experience for our undergraduate students in scientific writing and the author’s perspective of the peer-review process. It also provides graduate students with an opportunity to experience the editorial review process and the reviewer’s perspective of the peer-review process. I would like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the Co-Editors-In-Chief of this issue of Ingenium, Monica Liu and Jianan Jian, as well as the production assistance of Marygrace Reder, Reiko Becker, and Jaime Turek. This issue also would not have been possible without the hard work by the graduate student volunteers who compromised the Ingenium Editorial Board and who are listed by name in this issue. It is also altogether fitting to thank the faculty mentors and other co-authors of each of the reports included in this issue.

On behalf of the entire Swanson School of Engineering and Dean James R. Martin II, I hope that you enjoy reading this sixth edition of Ingenium and that the many talents of our students inspire the engineers of the future. David A. Vorp, PhD

Hail to Pitt!

David A. Vorp, PhD Associate Dean for Research Swanson School of Engineering University of Pittsburgh