Chemical Engineering undergraduate Mike Siedlik took first place in the student poster competition held at the 221st Meeting of the Electrochemical Society on May 7. His poster, entitled "Orchestrated Structure Evolution: Electroless Copper Deposition", went toe-to-toe against 70 other student posters, mostly graduate students, from across the globe in two categories: Electrochemistry and Solid State Science.

Siedlik won the first place for the electrochemical science technology. “The judges were really surprised when they learned Mike was an undergraduate researcher. He did such a thorough job answering tough research questions posed by the judges,” said Student Poster Chair Venkat Subramanian (Associate Professor, Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis). "I've been involved with the student poster competition since 2005, and do not recall having seen an undergraduate student win first place at the poster competition at one of our large international meetings,” he added.

Siedlik’s work used sophisticated electron beam lithography methods and simple geometric measurements to characterize kinetic rate parameters in electroless materials growth processes. He worked closely with graduate student mentor Dr. Sathana Kitayaporn, currently at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. They carried out their work in the Electrochemical Materials and Interfaces Laboratory led by Dan Schwartz.

Next year, Siedlik will bring his deep undergraduate research experience to Princeton University, where he will continue his chemical engineering studies as a graduate student.