Queen Mary Centre for Undergraduate Research News

QMCUR exhibits at the Queen Mary Industrial Liaison Forum

g.viola@qmul.ac.uk (Giuseppe Viola) — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

On the 11th of March, QMCUR participated in the Queen Mary Industrial Liaison Forum, marking our 5th consecutive presence at the event. In total, approximately 35 undergraduate researchers from our team presented 15 diverse posters, showcasing research across a wide range of engineering disciplines ranging from robotics and bioengineering to fluid dynamics and materials science. The awards for the Best Poster this time were obtained by: Allegra Celesia – for her work on "Data-Driven Path Planning for Methane Monitoring Drones", Supervised by Dr Nikos Bempedelis Jensen Jill Rajesh – for his work on the development of a "Sensorised Residual Limb Phantom", Supervised by Thilina Dulantha Lalitharatne Both projects exemplify the high calibre of undergraduate research conducted within QMCUR, addressing real-world challenges in environmental monitoring and healthcare technology. The attached photograph captures a group photo of some of our presenting members, reflecting the collaborative spirit and enthusiasm of the team. We extend our congratulations to the whole team of presenters for their hard work and dedication. Special thanks are also due to their supervisors for their continued guidance and support throughout the research process. We look forward to seeing the future progress of their research at upcoming dissemination events, and conferences.

QMCUR Students at Posters in Parliament and a standing ovation for Rindhiya Vishnu Shankar

g.viola@qmul.ac.uk (Giuseppe Viola) — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

For the third consecutive year, our team participated in Posters in Parliament. This prestigious event brings together the most innovative undergraduate researchers from across the UK, offering them the opportunity to present their work directly to legislators, policymakers, and leading academics. This year, we showcased the following selected posters: 1. "A Search for New Physics: FEA-Driven Modelling of a Liquid Cooling System for the Belle II iVTX Detector", by Dhyey Joshi (2nd-year Mechanical Engineering), supervised by Prof Oliver Fenwick. This project is in collaboration with the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences at QMUL and other partners abroad, including KEK (Tsukuba, Japan), IPHC (Strasbourg, France), IJC Lab, INFN (Pisa, Italy) and University of Bonn (Germany). Dhyey has impressed all collaborators by the progress he has made in only few months of research. Based on his experience, Dhyey commented: "It was a valuable opportunity to present my work and connect with passionate researchers contributing significantly on solving vital challenges. I am grateful to Professor Oliver Fenwick and Professor Adrian Bevan for their guidance and support, and Dr Giuseppe Viola for helping organise these opportunities". 2. "Designing Microfluidic Devices for Drug Diffusion Testing" by Rindhiya Vishnu Shankar (3rd Year Biomedical Engineering), supervised by Davide Carta (PhD student) and Prof Julien Gautrot. This research tackles a critical challenge in pharmacology, by developing a microfluidic chip for efficient, reproducible, and scalable drug diffusion testing. The device incorporates hydrogel-based barriers to replicate biological tissue characteristics, with the long-term objective of reducing reliance on in-vivo animal testing. After winning the internal selection by a substantial margin, Rindhiya's poster was shortlisted among the eight best submissions nationally and ultimately received a Commended Poster Award, placing it among the top three posters presented at the event. This remarkable recognition, introduced this year for the first time at the event, was awarded for the strength and clarity of the scientific poster design, excellent subject mastery, a compelling long-term research vision, and a clear pathway for continued development. Feeling excited for the award, Rindhiya commented: "PiP was an incredibly rewarding experience. Meeting researchers working on innovative and emerging projects was truly inspiring. The event also encouraged me to view my research through a regulatory lens, helping me better understand its future impact. I am grateful that my work was recognised, which further motivates me to continue working for better results. I would like to sincerely thank Prof Julien Gautrot, Davide Carta, and Dr Giuseppe for their guidance, support, and for providing this valuable opportunity". QMCUR extends its warmest congratulations to Rindhiya for this tremendous achievement and thanks to Davide Carta and Prof Julien Gautrot for their excellent supervision, which made such a significant accomplishment possible. Congratulations also to Dhyey for the excellent posters presented, and Prof Oliver Fenwick and Prof Adrian Bevan for their guidance on this impactful research.

Jensen J. Rajesh co-authors paper accepted for RoboSoft 2026

g.viola@qmul.ac.uk (Giuseppe Viola) — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0100

Jensen Rajesh, a 3rd-year student in Biomedical Engineering and a member of the Queen Mary Centre for Undergraduate Research (QMCUR), supervised by Dr Thilina Lalitharatne, has co-authored a paper accepted for presentation at RoboSoft 2026 (IEEE-RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics) in Kanazawa, Japan. The paper, titled: "Sensorised Residual Limb Phantoms: An Exploratory Study Towards Developing Physical Twins of Residual Limbs for Prosthetic Socket Testing", addresses a critical challenge in soft robotics. It targets the problem of painful and inefficient prosthetic socket fitting by enabling prosthetic arms to be tested and refined on a sensorised soft residual-limb phantom using quantitative force measurements, rather than requiring direct testing on amputees. The research team developed a sensorised phantom using Ecoflex silicone instrumented with eight Force Sensitive Resistors. This setup enables the repeatable measurement of local contact forces at the prosthetic socket–limb interface. By integrating the phantom with a UR5 robotic manipulator, the team established a physical testing platform capable of simulating representative upper-limb daily motions, such as horizontal lifts and vertical swings. This approach achieved consistent and motion-correlated force sensor responses, reliably capturing directional pressure changes and load redistribution during dynamic movements. Jensen will present his contribution to this work at the upcoming conference in Kanazawa. Reflecting on this opportunity, he commented: "I'm very excited about this achievement and about the opportunity to build on this work using the knowledge gained throughout the project. Attending RoboSoft will be a valuable experience, as I'm looking forward to engaging with researchers doing outstanding work in the field. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Professor Thilina for supervising this project, as well as to Giuseppe Viola for his support and for recommending me as part of QMCUR. I am also deeply thankful to Chenhao Hong and Saitarun Nadipineni for their incredible support throughout the project." QMCUR congratulates Jensen and thanks Dr Lalitharatne for his continued openness in hosting undergraduate students in his group and for his excellent supervision, as evidenced by the repeated significant outputs of his undergraduate students. This testifies to the important contributions they can make to research when given the opportunity and appropriately guided.

QMCUR Showcase at the November 2025 Industrial Liaison Forum

g.viola@qmul.ac.uk (Giuseppe Viola) — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0100

A team of our student researchers marked QMCUR's fourth consecutive presence at the Industrial Liaison Forum (5th November 2025) by presenting 11 research posters on a wide range of topics, reflecting the breadth of activities conducted at our Centre. Approximately 20 students participated as authors and co-authors of the posters and enthusiastically engaged with academic staffs and visitors to explain their projects and receive feedback and exchange ideas with their peers. The prize for the Best Poster was awarded to the work presented by the Cybathlone group, titled "Seeing Through Touch: A Method for Navigation of the Visually Impaired" by Mr Bohdan Skulimovskyi (current President of Cybathlone) Ms Seagull Presanna Nithyanandam (current Vice-President, Rindhiya Shankar and Jensen Rajesh. This project aims to develop a device that helps visually impaired individuals travel independently in public transports using a tactile assistive sensing mechanism, designed to provide feedback in real-time, thereby enhancing mobility reducing isolation. QMCUR thanks everyone involved for their participation. This ongoing engagement significantly enhances the Centre's visibility and reputation within SEMS, across QMUL, and with external industrial collaborators, reinforcing our commitment to research and knowledge dissemination.

Excellence on Display at the Undergraduate Research Forum 2025

g.viola@qmul.ac.uk (Giuseppe Viola) — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 23:00:00 +0100

The Queen Mary Centre for Undergraduate Research (QMCUR) successfully hosted the second Undergraduate Research Forum: Engineers Meet Gene Editors (URFEMGE 2025). Building on the previous year's success, the forum was again held in collaboration with the University of Westminster's Gene Editors of the Future group, led by Dr Kalpana Surendranath. The three-day event featured a rich program, including 33 student presentations from various universities, two expert seminars, a student panel, and a leadership and team-building workshop. The 30-minute format for each presentation allowed sufficient time for detailed discussions during the Q&A sessions. All students demonstrated in-depth knowledge, remarkable engagement, and a surprising level of maturity, displaying the confidence and rigour of experienced researchers. Dr Kalpana Surendranath, Director of Gene Editors of the Future, commented: "It was wonderful to witness such energy, creativity, and passion at the second edition of URFEMGE 2025. The talks delivered by students from both the QMCUR and the Gene Editors of the Future programme were true gems of innovation and inspiration. The event clearly demonstrated the growing enthusiasm among students at all levels and across disciplines to collaborate for the advancement of science and society". Dr Giuseppe Viola, Director of QMCUR, reflected on the event's significance: "The forum was a memorable experience that left a lasting impression. It showed that students are ready to play an important role in research activities and to embrace interdisciplinarity. The quality of the presentations was exceptional, and the students' preparation and professionalism were truly remarkable. A huge thank you to all the academic staff who guided them to achieve this. Special thanks to our expert speakers, Dr Sandeep Sundararajan, for sharing the latest developments in gene editing, and Dr Shahrar Ali, for his thought-provoking insights into epistemology. I look forward to hosting more events of this kind to broaden participation further, allowing everyone to enjoy the inspiring atmosphere of these unique learning environments".

Ruxandra Cocu secures RS Student Fund

g.viola@qmul.ac.uk (Giuseppe Viola) — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 23:00:00 +0100

Congratulations to Ruxandra Cocu, soon to begin her second year in biomedical engineering, for securing the RS Student Fund. Her project will focus on developing oxygenation membranes for wearable artificial lungs, aiming to make respiratory support more accessible beyond hospital intensive care units. Ruxandra's innovative design is based on a multi-layer composite membrane purposefully engineered to enable oxygen intake and CO2 expulsion. Her long-term plan is to fabricate the composite membranes with an optimized hierarchical structure to achieve optimum flows conditions, and to evaluate of gas transfer performance, blood-material interaction, and long-term stability of the device. The plan appears highly challenging and ambitious, but very exciting from a scientific and technological perspective, given its multidisciplinary character and potential to acquire a valuable know-how and capabilities for the development of advanced respiratory aids. The project will be directly supervised by Dr Colin Crick and supported by QMCUR.

Mr Arvin Tharumalingam and Mr Hashir Hamid presented a poster at the Hamlyn Medical Robotics ...

g.viola@qmul.ac.uk (Giuseppe Viola) — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 23:00:00 +0100

Mr Arvin Tharumalingam (3rd Year in Robotics Engineering) and Mr Hashir Hamid (2nd Year in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence) presented a poster at the Hamlyn Medical Robotics Symposium 2025, held at Imperial College London. The poster showcased their undergraduate research activities conducted under the direct supervision of Dr Abu Dawood in Prof Kasper Althoefer's group. Their work focuses on developing a soft, stiffness-controllable, vision-based force-sensing probe to advance minimally invasive surgery. The sensor enhances surgical robots' ability to interact with tissues, improving precision and safety while reducing invasiveness during operations. QMCUR congratulates the students on this achievement, thanks the hosting group for their guidance, and looks forward to future developments in this research.