Dr. Nellone Reid, Principal Investigator
Nellone Reid has mentored dozens of undergraduate students through his involvement in multiple grants and student organizations. As the former PI of the HBCU, Hampton University’s I-Corps grant, Nellone managed LeanLaunch Pad, training 14 students in technology product development for the innovation grant. This led to students earning 3 venture capitalist investments and 4 consecutive innovation awards at the Advancing Minorities' Interest in Engineering (AMIE) design competition. Dr. Reid was the Director of Education for the Hampton-Brandeis Partnership for Research and Education in Materials grant, resulting in 90% student placement in doctoral (Ph.D. or MD) graduate programs. Dr. Reid continues to stay in communication with the majority of the 36-student cohort. As the co-director of the University of California (UC)-HBCU Pathways to Biophotonics and Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Reid assisted in placing three HBCU students in University of California graduate programs. In addition, five students gained experience through the program that led admission to graduate programs at top universities such as Carnegie Mellon, Northeastern University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Chicago, and City College of New York. Dr. Reid currently conducts research on pharmacokinetic studies determining the effects of non-invasive electromagnetic fields on lipid metabolism, via optically observed breast cancer cells on microfluidic devices intended to develop and manage a new drug delivery systems product.
Dr. Sagnik Basuray, Co-Principal Investigator
Sagnik Basuray has advised over twenty undergraduate students in his laboratory, thirteen of whom are women, five amongst them have an African-American and Hispanic background. Four students are planning to continue their research. Six are pursuing a doctoral degree in STEM (four of them are women). Sagnik has mentored and facilitated high-achieving undergraduates, specifically women, to work independently and perform a leading role in executing their research projects. The undergraduates in Sagnik's lab have featured in multiple publication. It is worthwhile to note that the undergraduate students in his labs have won numerous prizes in poster competitions at AIChE (regionals and national), SCiX, American Electrophoresis Society National Meeting, ACS. Sagnik is also active in research, as is shown by the numerous grants he has received, including NSF Career, "ASSURED" electrochemical platform for multiplexed detection of Cancer Biomarker Panel using Shear-Enhanced Nanoporous-Capacitive Electrodes in 2018 in Nanobiosensing, a collaborative $1.1 million Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) grant in 2021 for Field-Scale Demonstration of a Novel Real-Time Sensor for PFAS. In conjunction with his graduate students, the innovation by his undergraduate students has resulted in 5 patents, 3 start-ups, a senior member in the National Academy of Inventors for Sagnik. Sagnik’s undergraduate student was instrumental in getting a national NSF I-Corps grant, “I-Corps: Point-of-use microfluidics-based electrochemical platform for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) detection in source water”.