Alex (he/him/his) is a senior majoring in Electrical Engineering and Molecular Cell Biology. On campus, he is a part of UConn Engineering Ambassadors (EA), where he is involved as a School of Engineering Tour Guide and member of EA's STEM Education Presentation Team. He is also a part of the Engineering Learning Community, and has been a Resident Assistant since sophomore year. Currently, he is in his last semester, with aspirations to continue his academics through a research-based Masters in Biomedical Engineering.
Alex became involved in research the summer of his first-year, through the Health Research Program, in Dr.Reinhard Laubenbacher’s Lab at the Center for Quantitative Medicine, where he worked on mathematical modelling of dendritic cells in cases of acute, lung aspergillosis, through the use of boolean models and cell signalling networks. This interdisciplinary experience led to a rising interest in clinical medicine and connecting it to engineering. Shortly after, Alex then became involved in the Undergraduate Research Assistant Program, working on a clinical research project at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center on Emergency Department self-harm epidemiology underneath Dr. Amy Hunter.
During junior year, Alex started working in Dr. Monty Escabi’s auditory neuroscience lab, working on a project regarding background noise modulation, and foreground signal processing. Helping to study animal brain auditory physiology in the inferior colliculus and human psychoacoustic perception of the sound permutations. In the Summer of 2022, Alex began a SURF Award under Dr.Escabi’s supervision, focused on logistic regression models and convolutional deep neural networks to generate a physiologically inspired classifier for the perception of sound textures in the auditory system.
In the fall of 2020, Alex started to connect his experiences in Engineering Ambassadors with his experiences in clinical settings and engineering. He applied for and received a Change Grant to launch an initiative to embed STEM education in pediatric medicine with the goal of increasing accessibility to STEM education in a non-academic, applied setting, in diverse communities.
Alex hopes to continue exploring and engaging in research post-graduation, connecting education, engineering and medicine. If you have any questions about getting involved in undergraduate research, the Change Grant, the Health Research Program, STEM Education or have any other questions, he would love to hear from you!
Student Research Blog Posts by Alex: