Northeastern University College of Engineering

BIOE Seminar Series - Fall 2025
2025-09-26 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-09-24 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-09-19 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-09-17 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | 168 SN, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
The Bioengineering Fall Seminar Series features internal and external faculty seminar speakers on a weekly basis. Faculty seminars will predominately be on Wednesdays, with the occasional Friday occurrence. Other Friday slots will host Bioengineering PhD Student seminars. See below for the working faculty seminar schedule, all are welcome.
Wednesdays, 12-1pm in 168 Snell Engineering or Fridays, 12-1pm in 010 Behrakis

SEPTEMBER

9/3: Mona Minkara, PhD, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Northeastern University
Friday, 9/5: Abbas Yaseen, PhD, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Northeastern University
9/10: Qianqian Fang, PhD, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Northeastern University
Friday, 9/12: Ambika Bajpayee, PhD, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Northeastern University
9/17: Silvi Rouskin, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, Harvard University
9/24: Nisha Iyer, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University
Friday, 9/26: George Engelmayr, PhD, Industry: Founder and CEO, Cultivated Biomaterials & Vasavance

OCTOBER

10/1: Joe Larkin, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biology and Physics, Boston University
10/8: None, WIP
10/15: None
10/22: None
10/29: Sufeng Zhang, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook

NOVEMBER

11/5: Larry Bonassar, PhD, Professor in Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University
11/12: None
11/19: Marjan Rafat, PhD, Collab with ChemE: Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Vanderbilt University
11/26: Thanksgiving

DECEMBER

12/3: Hadi Nia, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University
12/10: Erel Levine, PhD, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Northeastern University

Graduate Student Fellowship Writing Club
2025-09-25 15:00 - 16:00, 2025-09-18 15:00 - 16:00 | MA
Join the COE CommLab, NETSI, and the College of Science sponsored weekly graduate student fellowship writing club for support in writing your fellowship application! The fellowship writing club meets virtually on Thursdays from 3-4 pm from September – October. We will offer you an opportunity to ask questions to faculty, staff and students who have reviewed, mentored or applied and received fellowships. We will provide fellowship writing tips and guidance as well as offer writing and draft review sessions. Join this drop-in workshop through Zoom.

Library Webinar: Getting Started with Mendeley
2025-09-25 12:00 - 13:00 | MA
Are you interested in learning how to better organize your PDFs and research sources? Using Mendeley is a citation management tool that can help you become more organized and efficient throughout the research process: from when you first begin to explore your topic to when you are adding citations to your paper. In this online session, you will learn how to download Mendeley and set up an account, organize your research sources and PDFs, annotate PDFs, and create in-text citations and bibliographies.
Registration required.
You will receive the Zoom link for this webinar via email one hour before the event.

University of Virginia Graduate and Professional School Fair
2025-09-25 11:00 - 15:00 | MA
Join COE Graduate Admissions at the 2025 University of Virginia Graduate and Professional School Fair in Charlottesville, Virginia! Ask your questions about our graduate engineering programs across the U.S. and Canada during the fair on September 25th from 11am-3pm. We look forward to meeting you there!

San Jose State University Graduate and Professional Programs Fair
2025-09-25 10:00 - 14:00 | MA
Join COE Graduate Admissions at the 2025 San Jose State University Graduate and Professional Programs Fair in San Jose, California! Ask your questions about our graduate engineering programs across the U.S. and Canada during the fair on September 25th from 10am-2pm. We look forward to meeting you there!

COE Global Co-op Info Session
2025-09-24 18:00 - 19:00 | MA
This is a virtual information session hosted by the College of Engineering Global Co-op team. We will focus on searching for co-ops abroad for the Spring 2026 semester or later. If you may be interested in attending, think about:

Have you ever thought about doing co-op in another country?
Would you like to learn more about available co-op opportunities, or creating your own opportunities abroad?
Are you curious about the logistics associated with a global co-op?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, we hope you’ll attend so that we can introduce you to the search process and provide you with some important resources.
These info sessions are a great opportunity to connect with Global Co-op team members and students who have participated in global co-op in past semesters.
Zoom: https://northeastern.zoom.us/j/97915201381
If you have questions or would like more information, please find our contact information below:
Sally Conant, s.conant@northeastern.edu
Kristina Hubbard, k.hubbard@northeastern.edu
We look forward to meeting you!

Scientific Oral Communication : CommLab Drop-In Workshops
2025-09-24 13:30 - 14:30 | https://coe.northeastern.edu/event/scientific-oral-communication-commlab-drop-in-workshops-2/2025-09-24/
The NU CommLab is hosting a weekly hybrid Scientific Oral Communication Drop-in practice for graduate students. Drop-in virtually or in-person any week to practice for your upcoming oral exams, proposals, thesis, dissertation or talks. Receive and implement feedback on your verbal and non-verbal public speaking skills. Drop-in any Wednesday from 1:30-2:30 pm in 306 Egan or on Zoom. Note on September 10 and October 8 the workshop will be in 334 Curry Student Center.

Chemical Engineering Fall Seminar Series: Elsie Sunderland
2025-09-24 12:00 - 13:00 | MA
Insights into the fate of precursors and novel PFAS using organofluorine mass budgets across diverse media
Location: 108 Snell Engineering Center
Abstract: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a diverse family of highly fluorinated and persistent anthropogenic chemicals first synthesized in the 1940s that are not known to degrade under natural conditions. They are broadly used in modern commerce and are now detectable in the most remote environments on Earth. Manufacturing and industrial use of PFAS has shifted dramatically since the onset of their widespread production as concerns about human and ecological exposures to legacy PFAS have grown. The result has been abundant production of compounds in recent decades that are unknown/poorly identified because they lack available analytical standards needed to quantify their presence. Resulting major uncertainties about their fate include degradation in the environment and metabolism by organisms, propensity for bioaccumulation, and even their definition as part of the PFAS family of chemicals. This presentation will provide an overview of recent work toward developing total organofluorine mass budgets for U.S. human serum and liver samples and exposure media including freshwater fish, agricultural products, drinking water, and consumer products. Results will highlight major classes of compounds identified using targeted and non-targeted mass spectrometry in combination with combustion ion chromatography to characterize extractable organofluorine. Modeling techniques that help interpret these data and better identify and attribute sources of PFAS contamination will be reviewed. These data will be used to discuss the implications for future policy mechanisms and consumer interventions such as water filtration for mitigating future exposures.

Professor Elsie Sunderland is the Fred Kavli Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, where she has been a faculty member since 2010, and leads the Biogeochemistry of Global Contaminants Research Group. Her research aims to better understand how chemical pollutants interact with natural ecosystems and affect life. Her group quantitatively analyzes the entire exposure pathway for environmental pollutants to identify key processes that have a large influence on their accumulation in living organisms. Prior to joining the Harvard Faculty, she spent five years at the headquarters for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency working on regulatory impact assessments and developing guidance on how to best use environmental models to inform regulatory decisions. Over the past 20 years, she has collaborated extensively with indigenous groups, NGOs, and state, federal and international government organizations. Her work has informed strategies for managing risks associated with environmental chemical exposures from energy infrastructure such as coal-fired power plants and hydroelectric dams, and global regulatory efforts for mercury and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Professor Sunderland has mentored >50 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. She is the Editor-in-Chief for the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts and on the Editorial Advisory Board for the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology. Prof. Sunderland received her B.Sc. from McGill University in 1997 and Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University in 2003. Outside of science, she is interested in dogs (particularly if they have beards), running, being a soccer/sailing mom for her two kids, and coastal conservation.

Library Webinar: Getting Started with RefWorks
2025-09-24 12:00 - 13:00 | MA
Are you tired of losing track of your research sources? Need help adding citations to your research papers? Attend this webinar to learn how to get started with RefWorks, an online citation management program that will allow you to collect and organize references and help you cite them in your papers. This session will cover:

how to create a RefWorks account
how to add references to your RefWorks library
how to organize and edit your library of references
how to add RefWorks citations to Word documents and Google Docs

Registration required.
You will receive the Zoom link for this webinar via email one hour before the event.

University of Miami Graduate School Fair
2025-09-24 11:00 - 15:00 | MA
Join COE Graduate Admissions at the University of Miami Graduate School Fair in Miami, Florida! Ask your questions about our graduate engineering programs across the U.S. and Canada during the fair on September 24th from 11am-3pm. We look forward to meeting you there!

Crafting Posters with Visual Impact and Designing Poster Narratives: CommLab Drop-In Hours
2025-09-24 10:00 - 11:00, 2025-09-17 10:00 - 11:00 | 206 Egan, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, United States
Working on a poster? Stop by the CommLab Drop-In hours to brainstorm ideas, get feedback and fine tune the visual and oral presentation of your research or project. Join any Wednesday from 10-11am in person in room 206 Egan or join virtually on Zoom.

AI Essentials with MATLAB: A Hands-On Introduction
2025-09-23 17:00 - 18:30 | MA
Join us for a practical introduction to artificial intelligence (AI), designed specifically for beginners. In this 90-minute online session, you’ll explore the essential concepts behind AI and machine learning, and learn how to apply them using approachable tools and workflows. Through hands-on exercises, you’ll see how AI techniques are used in real-world data science scenarios.
During this training, you will:

Grasp the fundamental concepts and terminology of AI and machine learning
Build and evaluate simple supervised learning models, such as regression and classification in MATLAB
Visualize model results and assess their performance

Library Webinar: Introduction to Citation Managers
2025-09-23 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-09-22 12:00 - 13:00 | MA
Learn how to manage your references, organize your research and quickly create citations and bibliographies using a citation management program. The session will cover: an introduction to EndNote, Refworks, Zotero and Mendeley; similarities and differences between different citation management programs; how to choose the right citation manager for you; and how to install and use a citation manager.
Registration required.
You will receive the Zoom link for this webinar via email one hour before the event.

LinkedIn, CV, Resume: CommLab Drop-In Hours
2025-09-23 11:00 - 12:00 | https://coe.northeastern.edu/event/linkedin-cv-resume-commlab-drop-in-hours-2/2025-09-23/
Graduate students, do you need to increase your on-line presence or update your CV or Resume? Join the CommLab’s LinkedIn, CV, and Resume drop-in workshops any Tuesday from 11 pm to 12 pm ET. This collaborative space offers valuable advice and peer feedback to enhance your online profile and professional presence. Join this drop-in workshop through Zoom.

Start Smart: Foundations of Evidence Synthesis
2025-09-23 11:00 - 12:00, 2025-09-16 11:00 - 12:00 | MA
This Fall, the Library will be running a virtual workshop series on conducting evidence syntheses. The workshop series will focus on planning for and embarking on an evidence synthesis project. The intended audience includes faculty, staff researchers, postdocs, and graduate students. The workshop series will comprise of 5 one-hour-length virtual sessions on the following dates, all at 11 AM Eastern time:

September 16: Session 1: Overview of evidence syntheses types, tips for managing a project
September 23: Session 2: Methods & automation
September 30: Session 3: Protocols & planning
October 28: Session 4: Searching
November 18: Session 5: Covidence & tips for the next stages

Learn more and register for the workshop series here.

Graduate Student Writing: CommLab Drop-In Writing Hours
2025-09-23 09:00 - 11:00 | https://northeastern.zoom.us/j/95748947707?pwd=[REDACTED]
Graduate students, are you looking for a time for focused research writing? Join the CommLab drop-in writing hours on any Tuesday between 9 -11 am ET. Drop in on any Tuesday and stay for a short time or two hours. A CommLab Fellow will be available to provide feedback on your writing. We will be meeting virtually on Zoom.

Fusion Book Club
2025-09-22 16:35 - 17:40 | MA
Fusion Book Club: where STEM meets story and belonging takes root.
Whether you’re passionate about engineering, curious about untold stories in science, or simply seeking a community that celebrates belonging in STEM, there’s a place for you in the Fusion book club. Join us monthly in engaging discussions of fiction and non-fiction books that highlight diverse voices in STEM. We aim to provide a supportive environment where all are welcome.
Co-organized by Women in Engineering (WIE) Program and Northeastern University Library.
Where: Snell Library Research and Teaching Hub (SL-215) and online (Teams meeting link)
When: Third Monday of the month, 4:35-5:40pm  ET (Sept. 22, Oct. 20, Nov. 17, 2025)
What are we reading? For this month’s book, visit the Fusion Book Club webpage. You can also vote for future book selections and suggest titles you’d like to read!

Scientific Oral Communication : CommLab Drop-In Workshops
2025-09-17 13:30 - 14:30 | https://coe.northeastern.edu/event/scientific-oral-communication-commlab-drop-in-workshops-2/2025-09-17/

Chemical Engineering Fall Seminar Series: Dennis Leung & Tahnee Dening
2025-09-17 12:00 - 13:00 | MA
Small But Large: Transforming Drug Delivery with Nanoparticle Formulations
Location: 108 Snell Engineering Center
Abstract: This seminar will provide an in-depth exploration of drug nanoparticle formulations, highlighting the principles, advantages, and commercial applications of nanotechnology in drug delivery systems. The discovery of resonant acoustic milling as a new technology for the preparation of drug nanoparticles will be presented, resulting in a highly scalable and translatable process as well as allowing for high-throughput experimentation. The application of resonant acoustic milling results in nanoparticle formulations with improved drug load and enhanced chemical and physical stability, as well as extending its application to modalities beyond small molecules, including peptide therapeutics, and paves the way towards on-demand personalized medicine. Mechanistic insights into the origin of nanoparticle stability are provided through analytical characterization and molecular dynamics simulations.

Dr. Dennis Leung is an accomplished scientist with expertise in drug delivery and pharmaceutical sciences, combining extensive experience in both academia and industry. He earned his PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and currently serves as the Director of the Discovery Pharmaceutics group at Genentech. Over the course of his career, Dr. Leung has contributed to a di-verse range of research areas, focusing on leveraging mechanistic insights to develop innovative strategies for overcoming challenges associated with new drug candidates. His work has been instrumental in advancing small molecule and peptide therapies, with a particular focus on nanoparticle-based drug de-livery systems. Beyond his research achievements, Dr. Leung is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of scientists and fostering collaborations that bridge the gap between academia and industry.

Tahnee Dening is a Principal Scientist in the Discovery Pharmaceutics group within the Synthetic Molecule Pharmaceutical Sciences Department at Genentech in South San Francisco. She received her PhD from the University of South Australia and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Kansas, prior to joining Genentech. Her research focuses on development and application of enabling formulations for challenging molecules and novel modalities, such as peptides, as well as characterizing and understanding peptide behavior in the gastrointestinal environment.

Virtual Graduate Open House: Connect with our Student Ambassadors
2025-09-17 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual
Join us over two days and change your future.
During this flexible two-day event, you’ll be able to:

Join us live for College of Engineering Welcome (9/16/25 @ 8 AM)
Learn about our top-ranked co-op and internship programs available to College of Engineering students (9/16/25 @ 9 AM)
Best Practices When Applying to College of Engineering PhD programs (9/17/25 @ 9 AM)
Connect with our Student Ambassadors (9/17/25 @ 12 PM)

Virtual Graduate Open House: Best Practices When Applying to a PhD program
2025-09-17 09:00 - 10:00 | Virtual
Join us over two days and change your future.
During this flexible two-day event, you’ll be able to:

Join us live for College of Engineering Welcome (9/16/25 @ 8 AM)
Learn about our top-ranked co-op and internship programs available to College of Engineering students (9/16/25 @ 9 AM)
Best Practices When Applying to College of Engineering PhD programs (9/17/25 @ 9 AM)
Connect with our Student Ambassadors (9/17/25 @ 12 PM)

Our schedule is flexible. Attend as many sessions as you want and participate in live or on-demand sessions. You’re in control of your time.

Get Ahead with MATLAB: A Practical Workshop for Future Engineers & Scientists
2025-09-16 17:00 - 18:30 | MA
Curious about how to use MATLAB in your classes, labs, or future career? This hands-on workshop is designed especially for students who want to build a strong foundation in MATLAB. You’ll learn how to use MATLAB to analyze data, perform computations, and develop algorithms—all through live demos and guided exercises.
No prior experience? No problem! This beginner-friendly session will give you practical experience and confidence to start using MATLAB in your coursework right away. You’ll also discover how MATLAB is widely used in industry—from engineering and finance to biotech and robotics—and how adding MATLAB to your skillset can strengthen your résumé and help you stand out to employers.
Workshop Highlights:

Work with real-world data from multiple sources (files, sensors, software, etc.)
Use interactive tools for exploration, design, and problem-solving
Automate your work using scripts and functions
Generate reports and share results easily
Learn the basics of building apps with MATLAB’s GUI tools

Speakers
Neha Sardesai
Principal Education Application Engineer
MathWorks, Inc.
Neha Sardesai is a Principal Education Application Engineer. She partners with university customers to understand their technical and business challenges, and identifies how MathWorks products can help address these challenges in education and research. She demonstrates the value of MATLAB and Simulink to grow their adoption in curriculum, research, and commercial projects. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with a focus on Biomedical Instrumentation from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2016. She has been working at MathWorks for 8 years.

LinkedIn, CV, Resume: CommLab Drop-In Hours
2025-09-16 11:00 - 12:00 | https://coe.northeastern.edu/event/linkedin-cv-resume-commlab-drop-in-hours-2/2025-09-16/
