COEIT Research Day 2026 – Agenda
Schedule at a glance organized by time and location
External Speaker and Panelist Bios are also available.
Friday, May 1, 2026
8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Parallel Session Program Organized by Time (Schedule version)
Parallel Session Program Organized by Location
UC Ballroom
Opening remarks (9:00 – 9:30 AM)
Poster set-up (9:30 – 10:30 AM)
The poster session will feature 100 posters representing all four academic departments and many of the research centers within COEIT.
The session will be broken up in the following way:
Morning poster session (10:30 AM – 12 PM)
Poster viewing hour and refreshments (12 to 1 PM – All presenters stay with their poster)
Afternoon poster session (1 PM – 2:30 PM)
UC 310
Session 1: Bioengineering, Chemical Synthesis & Materials (9:30 – 10:45 AM, UC 310)
Themes: Bioengineering, Environment and Sustainability, Manufacturing, Security
- Heparin/Collagen Multilayers Enhance Extracellular Vesicle Production in Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells
Authors: Melanie J. Nelson and Jorge Almodovar (Presenter) - Leveraging cell-free synthetic biology and protein language models to produce biological polymers
Author: David Garcia (Presenter) - New strategies for generating hybrid anion-exchange resins for selective treatment of (ultra)short-chain PFAS
Authors: Marylia Duarte Batista, Trevor Gibson, Emily Piazza, Ke He, and Lee Blaney (Presenter) - In vitro assessment of Bicuspid Aortic Valve (BAV) hydrodynamics with varying heart rate
Authors: Nadeem Shah (Presenter), Charles D. Eggleton, and Sayantan Bhattacharya - Effects of Anisotropy and Defects on Mechanical Performance of Brittle Materials
Authors: Keith Bowman (Presenter), Gizaw Melese, Rokia Elgharably, Daniel Combs, Isaac Poole, Cenia Sims, and Ye Lu
Session 3: Quantum, Physical Systems & Security (3:15 PM – 4:00 PM, UC 310)
Themes: Artificial Intelligence, Security, Physical Systems, Software Engineering
- A Unified Multiphysics Modeling Framework for Photodetectors
Authors: Ishraq Md Anjum (Presenter), Seyed Ehsan Jamali Mahabadi, Thomas F. Carruthers, Ergun Simsek, and Curtis R. Menyuk - Variational Gibbs State Preparation on Trapped-Ion Devices
Authors: Reece Robertson (Presenter), Mirko Consiglio, Josey Stevens, Emery Doucet, Tony J. G. Apollaro, Sebastian Deffner - AI Agents in Offensive Security
Authors: Sairam Bokka (Presenter) and Keke Chen
UC 312
Session 2: Healthcare Solutions with AI Technology & Engineering (9:30 – 10:45 AM, UC 312)
Themes: Artificial Intelligence, Bioengineering, Healthcare, Human-centered Technology and Accessibility, Community Partnerships, Energy, Environment and Sustainability
- Acoustic Intelligence for Everyday Healthcare
Author: Dong Li (Presenter) - Sensorization, with Care: Community-Driven Smart Technology for Assisted Living
Authors: Tera Reynolds and Roberto Yus (Co-presenters) - Title: Closed-loop Embodied AI Under Physical Constraints for Health and Agriculture
Authors: Anuradha Ravi (Presenter) and Nirmalya Roy - COHERE: Collaborative Optimization of Human Engagement and Robot Effectiveness
Authors: Sruthi Sundharram, Jake Whitt, Golnaz Moharrer, Andrea Kleinsmith (Co-presenter), Charissa Cheah (Co-presenter), Christine Mallinson (Co-presenter), and Ramana Vinjamuri (Co-presenter) - Evaluating the Impact of Pathogen-Mediated Infective Endocarditis on Bioprosthetic Aortic Valve Function
Authors: Corine Jackman Burden and Sayantan Bhattacharya (Co-presenters)
Government Panel (11:00 AM -12:00 PM, UC 312)
- Matt Cimino, Maryland Department of Commerce
- Paul Pellegrino, US Army Research Laboratory
- Dan Kostov, NIH Office of Translational Initiatives and Program Innovations (OTIPI)
- Ed Gorzkowski, US Naval Research Laboratory
Industry/Entrepreneurship Panel (1:00 – 2:00 PM, UC 312)
- Sohail Chaudhry, Precise Software Solutions
- Rahul Thakar, NIH NHLBI Catalyze Program
- Ramana Kumar Vinjamuri, Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, UMBC
Keynote Talk (2:00 – 3:00 PM, UC 312)
- Susan Gregurick, Associate Director for Data Science and Director of the Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Session 4: AI & Learning (3:15 PM – 4:00 PM, UC 312)
Themes: Artificial Intelligence, Education, Software Engineering
- Exploring Peer-to-Peer Evaluation with an AI-Supported Learning Tool in an Introductory Programming Course
Authors: Ben Cohen (Presenter), Omobolanle Niyi-Owoeye, Kevin Lemus, Srushti Dharmale, Carine Marette, Patricia Ordóñez, and Edward Dillon - Sequentially Acquiring Concept Knowledge to Guide Continual Learning
Authors: Shivanand Kundargi (Presenter), Kowshik Thopalli, Tejas Gokhale - How to write bug-free scientific computing software
Author: Tyler Josephson (Presenter)