Spotlight Stories
Feb 19, 2026
Becoming Intentional at Dennis Lab with Warisha Tahir
Warisha Tahir, PhD’27, chemical engineering, currently works at Dennis Lab under Professor Alison Dennis. With a focus on positive human impact, Tahir will use her skills and experience to develop new innovations in the public health realm.
Feb 19, 2026
Minkara Wins 2026 Sloan Fellowship for Pulmonary Protein Research
Assistant Professor Mona Minkara, bioengineering, was given the 2026 Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship for her research at Northeastern. She is studying a protein called collectins within the pulmonary surfactant, hoping to model its functions to enhance innate immunity from the lungs.
Feb 12, 2026
Engineering Faster Drug Delivery: A PhD Journey in Fluid Mechanics
Langqi Xing, PhD’28, mechanical and industrial engineering, currently works in the Multiphase Transport Research lab as a graduate researcher. Drawing on his interdisciplinary background and experiences at Northeastern, Xing plans to pursue an industrial role advancing fluid mechanics applications in medicine.
Feb 11, 2026
Recent Scuba Diving Trip in Antarctica to Study Sea Star Wasting Disease
Richard Whalen, director and teaching professor within the first-year engineering program, has recently completed a scuba diving off the coast of western Antarctica. The trip’s purpose was to study evidence of sea star wasting disease in Antarctic waters.
Feb 09, 2026
New and Knowledgeable Experiences Through LEADERs
Elifnur Sunger, MS’25, PhD ’26, electrical engineering, reflects on her internship at Sanofi-blending machine learning and biology-as well as crucial lessons from the LEADERs Program.
Feb 09, 2026
Motivation to Innovation: Passion for Improving Lives
Shaghayegh Mesforoush, PhD ’26, electrical and computer engineering, is a graduate researcher at eSOIL at Northeastern. Shaqo values hand-on experiences and uses her passion for positive impact to pioneer innovative research in the medical field.
Feb 06, 2026
New Robot Arm created to Help with Mundane Chores
Jakub Kowalewski, PhD, mechanical engineering, MIE Assistant Professor Jeffrey Lipton, and the Transformative Robotics Lab created a novel elephant trunk-like robot arm that has the torque power to clean dishes effectively using a mechanical system called a planetary gearbox.
Feb 05, 2026
Curiosity and Learning Lead to Positive Impact
Fereshteh Sadeghian, PhD’26, bioengineering, is currently a graduate research assistant at the Cram Lab at Northeastern. With her passion for learning and a desire to improve healthcare research, Sadeghian will continue to apply her knowledge and experience to find innovations in the medical field.