Congratulations to graduate students Aaron Chen and Marek Simon, who both received Ohio State Graduate School Presidential Fellowships.

This prestigious fellowship recognizes outstanding scholarship and research ability and provides recipients with the opportunity to devote full time to their dissertation research. Only 17 Presidential Fellowships were awarded across the univesity during the Autumn 2011 fellowship competition.

Chen's research, with professor Sooryakumar, involves identifying how fluid-borne superparamagnetic microspheres interact with magnetic patterns imprinted on the surface - in particular, how to utilize the self-assembling behavior of the microspheres confined in a bowl-like magnetic confinement for application as a tunable photonic crystal or as micro-forceps that probe intracellular mechanics. Simon's research, with professor Poirier, involves investigating mechanical properties of biological polymers and their interactions through force spectroscopy at the individual molecule level.