Page 15 - Kettering Magazine Spring 2017

Two Graduates Receive Prestigious NSF Fellowships

wo Kettering University alumni recently received prestigious National me with his strong work ethic and commitment, as well as his innovative
Science Foundation (NSF) fellowships to support STEM research for the thinking and problem solving,” she said. “It’s an exciting time for him, and I
Tnext three years. have no doubt he’ll continue to succeed and exceed expectations throughout
his time in graduate school.“
Lixi Liu ‘15 and Nate Dwarshuis ‘15 both received awards through the National
Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP). The Liu studied Mechanical Engineering at Kettering. She’s now studying
program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF- sustainable energy systems in the Mechanical Engineering department at the
supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who University of Michigan.
are pursuing research-based master’s and Ph.D.s at accredited United States
institutions. “I am currently doing life cycle optimization for solid-state lighting. As solid-
state technologies, particularly Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), are becoming
“The NSF graduate fellowship is a very prestigious award for first-year the next energy-efficient and long-lasting light source, I am using life cycle
graduate students. It’s only awarded to a small percentage of applicants. assessment and design optimization techniques to optimize the adoption and
It’s quite an impressive accomplishment,” said Dr. Susan Farhat, associate replacement schedule for LED lamps and luminaires in order to reduce the
professor of Chemical Engineering at Kettering. cost, energy consumption, and environmental impacts
owing to lighting,” Liu said. “These results can help
For the 2016 awards, NSF received close to 17,000 applications and made only inform manufacturers on better lighting design as
2,000 award offers, according to the NSF GRFP website. well as policymakers on the design of incentives and

Both Liu and Dwarshuis were surprised and humbled to regulations for lighting.”
be chosen for the fellowship, which will allow them to Liu is looking into what to pursue next after this project
have more freedom in their research. but she is considering studying carbon capture and

Dwarshuis, who studied Chemical Engineering at sequestration technologies, which aim to mitigate climate change by capturing
Kettering, is now studying Biomedical Engineering at carbons from the air or at the points of emission.
Georgia Tech. Receiving the NSF fellowship was a big step for Liu.
His research at Georgia Tech aims to manufacture T cells for immunotherapy. “I just woke up that morning and went and checked my email as usual. I saw

“T cell immunotherapies have shown promise in treating a variety of cancers, the acceptance letter and I started bawling. I was hopeful but I was preparing
but we barely have the capability of producing enough T cells for one dose. myself for the worst,” she said. “It means that I get more freedom to pursue
This limits the possibility of multiple dosing, safety testing, and long term the ideas that I want and work with the faculty I want. It’s validation that I’ve
storage,” Dwarshuis said. been doing something right.”

“Current T cell manufacturing protocols do not recapitulate many of the factors Dr. Craig Hoff, Dean of the College of Engineering at Kettering, said Liu’s work
that are present in the human body such as the lymph nodes. Therefore, our ethic and love of learning impressed faculty at University of Michigan and the
goal is to improve T cell expansion by creating a process/environment that will reviewers at NSF.
mimic the human body, thus optimizing T cell expansion and manufacturing “Lixi was one of my favorite undergraduate students ever. I first got to know
throughput,” he said. “The ultimate goal is to manufacture T cells analogously her when she took my hybrid vehicle course a couple of years ago. Despite
to the way we produce complex, inanimate products such as cars.” having little background in automotive engineering or MATLAB/Simulink

Farhat was not surprised when she heard Dwarshuis received the fellowship. software she took quickly to both subjects,” Hoff said. “She was not content
just to get the right answers on the projects, she really wanted to understand
“I’ve known Nate to be a truly exceptional student whether in one of my what the numbers meant. She applied this inquisitive nature and love of
classes or in the lab working on research projects. He has always impressed learning to all of her courses.”

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