Yang earns First Place Award from Sigma Xi Northeast Regional Conference

Lei Yang (Ph.D. candidate co-supervised by Professors Brian Sheldon and Thomas Webster) received the First Place Undergraduate and Graduate Student Poster Award at the Sigma Xi Northeast Regional Conference in New Haven, CT for his contribution: "The Role of Substrate Topography in Mediating Osteoblast Functions: Experiments and Modeling."

Here is a short interview with Lei Yang:

How does participating in conferences such as Sigma Xi impact your Brown Engineering experience?
(Lei) Sigma Xi is one of the oldest and most famed scientific societies, attending this conference is not only a honor but also a great opportunity to meet the top students and researchers in the New England region. It's also a good opportunity to showcase the cutting-edge research led by Brown Engineering faculty and students.

What is the impact of your research?
(Lei) It was the best poster presentation during a conference that I have ever attended so far, because I obtained so many new ideas and comments related to my project. The conference was very well organized, and each participant had many chances to talk to most of the professors and students. I received a lot useful comments on the methodology and techniques I used for my study, and surprisingly, many of them were from the people outside of my research field. So I think I also benefited from the multi-disciplinary atmosphere of the conference.

What degree are you seeking and when will you graduate? What do you hope to do with your degree?
(Lei) I am seeking PhD in Engineering and will graduate in May 2011. I want to become faculty in Materials Science after my PhD.