UC Merced School of Engineering Industry Day
Friday April 17, 2026 @ 10:00am-1:00pm | Science & Engineering Bldg 2, Ste 102 (Activity Center) 
Join Us! | Register Here
Overview
As part of UC Merced’s Research Week 2026, the School of Engineering is preparing an Industry Day to connect faculty researchers with industry partners through a curated showcase of cutting-edge research, innovation, and collaboration opportunities.
Program | Research Presentations
Details on participating faculty, research posters, and the full program are coming soon -- please check back for updates as we periodically update the showcase lineup.
Below is a current roster of the research presentations lined up for Industry Day. Stay tuned as more are coming soon!
| Presenter Name | Faculty Lab Affiliation | Poster Title |
|---|---|---|
| A S M Rokonuzzaman, Shadi | Abel Chuang | Electrochemical Energy Devices for Energy Conversion |
| Alex Hartzler | Ashlie Martini | Linking Tribological Mechanisms to Engineering Performance Through Integrated Experimental Methods |
| Andrew Silverstein | Sarah Kurtz | Drone Applications in Agrivoltaics |
| Daria Bakalets, Taylor Fugere, Tea Lempiala | Tea Lempiala | Innovation and Collaboration Practice Lab |
| Fan Zhao | Wan Du | Data-Driven Decision Making: Optimizing Outcomes Under System Uncertainty |
| Giacomo Lugano | Stefano Carpin | Tree Skeleton Visual Odometry |
| Han Meng | Dong Li | StrataCache: A Unified Hierarchical Memory Framework for Large Model Serving |
| Hexiao Duan | Dong Li | Load-Balanced Mixture-of-Experts Training with Adaptive Expert Tensor Parallelism |
| Hossein Ashrafpour | Sarah Kurtz | Is there a Special Opportunity for Agrivoltaic Systems in California? |
|
Iman Ebrahimi |
Ricardo Pinto de Castro | Pack-Level Fast Charging Control of Lithium-Ion Batteries Using Efficient Control Barrier Functions |
| Jannatul Ferdous Srabonee | Ahmed Sabbir Arif | AI for Accessibility |
| Joy Marie Mora, Ayon Karmakar | Abel Chuang | Study of Rheological Properties and Coating Processability of Complex Fluids |
| Lavanya Dalin Annappa | Ahmed Sabbir Arif | AI for Inclusivity |
|
Maria Florencia Dotta Brugman |
Abel Chuang | Hydrogen Economy Enabled by Renewable Energy |
| Manvir Singh | Eric Cheng | Electric Vehicles and Power Electronics Lab |
| Marcos Zuzuarregui | Stefano Carpin | Leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) in Precision Agricultural Applications |
| Nadiya Rowshan | Francesco Danzi | Physics-based Accelerated Design of Composite Structures |
| Niki Zamani | Spencer Castro | Acceptance of Training Across SAE Levels of Driving Automation |
| Nirvan Mehra | Kara McCloskey | Inducing Tip-Endothelial Cells from Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells |
| Poonam Maurya | Wan Du | Metasurface-Enabled IoT Connectivity for Smart Agriculture |
| Rahul S Hoskeri | Hua Huang | Power Sensing Without Wires: Usage Monitoring Leveraging Sensing of Electromagnetic Fields: PULSE |
| Rui Filipe Castro Martins | Ricardo de Castro | Wood Waste Removal |
| Samuel Simoes | Francesco Danzi | Graph-Based Element Removal Method for Gradient-Based Topology Optimization |
| Shadi Salehian, Joy Marie Mora, Ayon Karmakar | Abel Chuang | Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Hydrocarbon-Based Pemion Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells |
| Shariful Islam | Sarah Kurtz | Understanding Heating Behaviour of Solar Cell under Partial Shade |
| Shivam Sahu | Francesco Danzi | Programmable Architected Materials: Predictive Control of Elastic, Thermal, and Wave Response |
| Sourabh Kumar | Ashlie Martini | Integrated Simulation Approaches for Tribology and Mechanochemical Processes |
| Teodoro Lima | Stefano Carpin | RIPEN: Robotic System for Autonomous Grape Berry Sampling in Vineyards |
| Utkarsh Srivastava | Francesco Danzi | Aeroelastic Tailoring for Climate-Efficient Next-gen Transport |
| Yuanlin Yang | Wan Du | Orc-RIS: Polarization‚ and Impedance‚ Adaptive Reconfigurable Surface for Robust LoRa Links |
| Zhibo Hou | Wan Du | Beyond Noisy-TVs: Noise-Robust Exploration Via Learning Progress Monitoring |
| Zoe Loh | Spencer Castro | The Divergence of Perceived Cognitive Workload and Performance |
