SCIENCE OUTREACH

LLP Student: Kaia Wainwright

Research Department:

Chemistry

Research Focus:

This summer I have been developing a machine learning system to quantitatively assess clasping behavior in mice using DeepLabCut, enabling automated behavioral analysis to help detect neurodegeneration in aging mice from video data. My work has included training and augmenting models, using Princeton’s Della high-performance computing cluster for large-scale computation, and using RStudio to analyze and interpret behavioral datasets. Through this project, I have gained experience with computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and data-driven behavioral research.

LLP Student:

Charlotte Wei

Research Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department 

Research Focus:

I am researching how to use behavior inspired neural networks to learn the inherent structure and theory underlying maximally smooth voice leadings in tonal music. We are exploring geometric models of music pieces, beginning from modeling musical notes as agents and songs as collective behaviors. Rules of collective behavior learned from the songs may verify existing theory or reveal new insights into methods for smooth voice leading. 

LLP Student: Aritra Ray

Research Department: Psychology

Research Focus:

 I’m investigating if the writings of people in involuntary isolation tend to fixate on topics more than the writings of those not in isolation. Using a dataset that documents the texts of authors written in environments in both involuntary isolation and social environments, my research contributes to a broader conversation about the concentration of social content in works written in isolation. A greater tendency to fixate on certain topics in environments of isolation carries implications about the thought horizon for individuals isolated from social content.

LLP Student: Nina Tadych

Research Department: Chemical and Bioengineering 

Research Focus:

This summer I'm working with my mentor to engineer bacteria that can break down and consume chemicals within plants called opines. Plants typically only produce opines when their DNA is hijacked by certain pathogenic bacteria. We're using plants that already carry inserted genes causing them to produce opines, paired with engineered bacteria that can eat those opines and release beneficial nutrients back to the plant. Another project we're working on is developing a visual reporter system called RUBY, which turns plants red during an immune response. I'm super grateful to be able to spend some time in the lab at Princeton. 

LLP Student: Nina Hassimi

Research Department:

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Research Focus:

The students are working with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) osteological collection under the supervision of Mary McLaughlin, together with Daniel Vásquez from the Simoes Lab. They are classifying and cataloging vertebrate skeletal specimens that were recently relocated from Guyot Hall to the new Environmental Studies building. As part of this work, they have gained hands-on experience with 3D imaging techniques, including photogrammetry, surface scanning, and computed tomography (CT), to digitize the collection and generate morphological data for future research.

LLP Student: Thomas Solitro

Research Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering

Research Focus:

Our research project is on active colloids, particles that consume energy to move autonomously. My work involves helping to fabricate these micromotors, which have a particular surface geometry that allows them to create a chemical gradient under UV light, propelling them forward. This type of UV-activated motion will also lead to collective behaviors such as phase separation. I also have been creating computational programs to analyze the motion of these particles under the microscope.

LLP Student:

Angela Zhang



Research Department:

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department

Research Focus:

We are working on the project, "Multi-agent systems: Generating music with BINNs". We're adapting the Behavior-Inspired Neural Network (BINN) architecture to symbolic music, treating musical voices or MIDI pitches as interacting agents whose latent preferences evolve through nonlinear opinion dynamics. Through training the model on a selection of Bach chorales and a selection of pop songs, we have generated short samples through prediction. Our current follow up work focuses on investigating and understanding smooth voice-leading motion.

LLP Student:

Krishay Maskara

Research Department:

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Research Focus:

I am researching how artificial intelligence can better understand and create computer-aided design models used in engineering. My project explores whether representing a design as a structured graph of parts, operations, and geometric relationships can help AI reason more accurately than treating the design as a flat sequence of commands. 

LLP Student:

Oceana Li

Research Department:

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Focus:

I am working on an agentic paper retrieval system that integrates Model Context Protocol (MCP) with a domain-finetuned Small Language Model (SLM). MCP enables the SLM to access and parse a massive water engineering paper database locally, preventing privacy risks and reliance on cloud APIs. Using a hybrid search method, the most relevant papers and their metadata are returned based on a user's query. Furthermore, the user may also chat with one or more papers to enhance comprehension and/or extract specific details.

LLP Student:

Zafir Shamsi

Research Department:

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Research Focus:

I am working in the Allen-Blanchette Group on morphology-aware multi-agent reinforcement learning for quadrupedal locomotion. Our approach models each actuated joint as an individual agent, with joints of the same type sharing policy parameters and communicating through a graph representation of the robot’s physical structure. We are investigating whether higher-order relationships—such as limb modules, bilateral symmetry, support polygons, and gait cycles—can improve the learning and generalization of reusable motion primitives.

LLP Student:

Scarlett Liu

Research Department:

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Focus:

I am researching bioremediation of PFAS using Acidimicrobium sp. strain A6 by investigating how iron amendment and redox conditions influence the Feammox process under field-relevant conditions. My work supports open-column experiments designed to bridge the gap between laboratory studies and real contaminated sites. I collected biological and geochemical data, including pH, redox potential, Fe(II), ammonium, and qPCR measurements, to monitor A6 activity and treatment performance. The long-term goal is to develop practical strategies for scaling biological PFAS remediation in the environment.

LLP Student:

Abby Knowles

Research Department:

Department of Chemistry

Research Focus:

This summer, Abby has discovered and is studying a new enzyme that makes a peptide! We are characterising the protein, looking at the different amino acids it can accept, and looking at the proteins surrounding it to see what other modifications could be going on when making the final product! We hypothesise that we have found a gene cluster that makes a modified peptide, which are highly important products in the pharmaceutical industry. The picture shows us at the LC-QTOF with our peptide peak.

LLP Student:

Sevanna Knoch

Research Department:

Molecular Biology

Research Focus:

This summer, I worked in the Lynch Lab alongside Nicolò Bancaro, where my project focused on investigating how cholesterol directly affects tumor-cell behavior in vitro using the B16F10 melanoma cell line. The goal of the study was to determine whether different concentrations of cholesterol could alter cell proliferation.

LLP Student:

Layla Lynch

Research Department:

Molecular Biology

Research Focus:

I am very grateful for getting the opportunity to experience this program. The learning lab program has allowed me to explore different procedures including cell culture, organoid culture, ELISA, RNA extraction, and various types of imaging which has expanded my knowledge of medicine and knowledge of our bodies systems.