Beyond the enriching experience of developing technical skills and critical thinking through research, students can also grow their ability to communicate research results. Some undergraduate researchers serve as lead or co-authors in peer-reviewed publications. You may also be able to submit your faculty-mentored research, or an independently led project, to an undergraduate research journal. Student publishing is an excellent way to showcase your contributions, gain recognition and prepare for research-centric careers.
Publishing in an Undergraduate Research Journal
Submitting your work to an undergraduate research journal is an excellent way to test your ideas and analyses against other undergraduate researchers and burgeoning experts in your field. There are many undergraduate research journals, some of which are open to Stevens students. Please check the submission deadlines and your submission eligibility in the Undergraduate Research Journal database hosted by the Council on Undergraduate Research. In your pursuit of this extracurricular educational experience, you will be supported by staff and faculty.
Spotlighting Stevens Undergraduate Researchers
Below are some recent achievements by Stevens undergraduates who have contributed to peer-reviewed research articles.
Programmable “Smart Materials”
Sally Mangassa is a mechanical engineering major, who worked alongside graduate students and under the mentorship of Dr. Gizem Acar. Together, they published a study on programmable “smart materials” that can change how they vibrate and modulate material stiffness by adjusting tiny built-in parts called resonators. Sally helped create a simplified model to understand and predict material behavior, which could help engineers design materials that better control vibrations in things like buildings, vehicles, or electronic devices.
Learn more about Dr. Acar and Sally's work
How Gut Cells “Rewind” Themselves to Fuel Tumors
The work of two undergraduate alumni, Thompson Hui, a biology major, and Simon Garcia, a computer engineering major, mentored by Prof. Ansu Perekatt, has shown that some mature cells in the intestine can “rewind” back into stem‑like cells when key genes are altered, giving them new abilities that help early tumors grow. These transformed cells become extra flexible, as they change their identity, tap into new energy sources, and activate signaling pathways that normally wouldn’t be turned on in that part of the gut. Together, these features make them surprisingly good at sustaining tumor growth, helping explain how certain colon cancers may begin and persist.
See the full publication by Dr. Perekatt, Thompson, Simon, et al.
Generative AI Hallucinations
Gursimran Vasir is a computer science major, who worked under the guidance of Dr. Jina Huh-Yoo, to create a systematic understanding of generative AI hallucinations. Their work that has been published as a conference paper is a strong first step in the field to holistically understand the biases and flaws of AI-generated content.
Read more Dr. Huh-Yoo and Gursimran’s research
Predicting How Antibody Medicines Behave in the Body
Miles Cabreza is a Biomedical Engineering major, and William Hojegian is a Chemical Engineering major. With support from Dr. Pin-Kuang Lai, they used advanced computer models to explore how well different antibody medicines can be absorbed by the body when they’re given just under the skin. By analyzing the amino‑acid sequences that make up each antibody, they trained machine‑learning tools to recognize patterns that influence how much a dose reaches the bloodstream. To make the tool widely useful, the researchers also created an online platform that allows others to quickly estimate an antibody’s likely performance using only its sequence.
Get the full story of Dr. Lai's, Miles', and William's research.
Analysis of AI’s Use in Software Engineering
Aaditya Kulkarni, Bowen Jian, Luo Xu, Mariam Elnaggar, Mitchell Ruffolo, Sofia Martinez, and Teia Canini, students majoring in computer science, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and software engineering, recently published three papers on the use of AI for software engineering. With the support of Dr. Eman AlOmar, they wrote two systematic literature reviews and a primary literature article on how AI can help software engineers adjust the architecture of their code.
Chemical Reactions that Produce Nitroxyl
Daisy Morgan, a chemical engineering major, worked a graduate student and Prof. Yong Zhang in their recent publication. Daisy used advanced computer simulations to help understand the complex chemical reactions that produce nitroxyl, a biologically important signaling molecule. The findings offer new insight into how the body might naturally generate this medically relevant molecule.
Discover the insights from Dr. Zhang and Daisy’s study
Financial Trading Predictions using Machine Learning
Stevens School of Business students, Tasha Khosla, Evan Knaak, Maksim Makarovskiy, Cleopatra Mozolewski, and David Zecca wrote and submitted an article based on their Senior Design project. Their work assessed the efficiency of using machine learning models in financial trading. They published this worked on the pre-print server SSRN.
Take a closer look at Khosla et al.'s financial research project
Developing Sustainable Reactions using Computational Chemistry
Vrinda Modi is a recent alumnus who majored in chemical biology. With Dr. Yong Zhang, Vrinda performed computer simulations to reveal how proteins normally found in blood cells can guide certain chemical reactions, showing which molecular features make the reactions work better or more selectively. Understanding these details helps researchers design cleaner, more efficient catalysts for future sustainable chemistry.