Research

For over a decade, researchers and students in UNC Charlotte’s Center for Metamaterials have studied and created materials that can bend, absorb, transmit, and otherwise manipulate light and sound waves that pass through them. The center has joined a select group of such centers to earn a third phase of National Science Foundation (NSF) funding.

Chemistry undergraduate Terawit Kongruengkit and political science alumnus Anthony Lindsay each will receive a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. They are among just 12 percent of applicants selected nationwide this year for the highly competitive honor.

UNC Charlotte researcher Rosario Porras-Aguilar is fascinated by light, inspired by its beauty and its usefulness. Specifically, she focuses her pioneering research on how light can enable more accurate quantitative data in fields ranging from microbiology to high-tech manufacturing. To support her research, Porras-Aguilar this spring received a coveted National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award.

With demand growing for renewable energy and for novel energy storage options, UNC Charlotte chemist Christopher Bejger is conducting innovative research that holds promise for new solutions. To support his research, Bejger this spring received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award.

Nontraditional student Megan Mitchem is changing the face of research inside and outside the lab. Read more

Eighteen researchers in UNC Charlotte’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (CLAS) are among the top 2% percent of the world’s most cited researchers, detailed in a Stanford University study. CLAS researchers from five academic departments represent almost 45 percent of the UNC Charlotte researchers on the list.

As people react to the 2020 U.S. presidential election results, we have turned to the animal kingdom to see how animal societies make decisions and resolve conflict. We asked CLAS researchers to consider what we can learn from animal societies. Alan Rauch, an English professor, earned degrees in zoology and literature, and he studies and writes about dolphins. Stanley Schneider, a biologist, studies honey bees and their hive behavior. Anthropologist Lydia Light researches gibbons and other primates.

Spiders and their sticky webs can seem scary, but for UNC Charlotte spider researcher Dr. Sarah Stellwagen, they’re also a source for scientific discovery. Her research centers on spider glues, gene discovery, and sequencing technologies.

Researchers have proposed a test method to standardize a key immunological evaluation of nucleic acid nanoparticles, detailed in their paper in “Nature Protocols.” They believe a accurate, affordable and easily reproduced protocol for assessing immune effects could further research collaboration and advance the therapeutic use of new medicines.

Optical Science and Engineering doctoral student Shohreh Shadalou is one of five award winners in Synopsys’ 2020 Robert S. Hilbert Memorial Optical Design Competition. Shadalou competed against graduate and undergraduate students from across North America.