Graduate students from Dedman College and the School of Engineering exhibited their academic work at Research Day Tuesday.

Research Day is an event where graduates have the opportunity to show and tell about the research they are currently conducting. The event was held in the lower level of Hughes-Trigg and is sponsored by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies and the SMU Chapter of Sigma Xi.

The event included exhibits from students with focuses in electrical and mechanical engineering, as well as biological and geological sciences, mathematics, physics, anthropology, statistical science and engineering management and information systems.

One display for biological sciences was titled “Calorie Restriction in Musca Domestica,” or the common housefly. The researcher, Mike Cooper, performed an experiment using flies, mice and rats to test the effects of calorie restriction relating to the aging process.

In the experiment with mice, his findings are that fewer calories in an organism’s diet caused the organism’s lifespan to extend 150 to 180 percent. In the experiment involving houseflies, he found that flies that consumed fructose (a natural sweetener) lived longer than flies that consumed sucrose (a refined sweetener).

Two other graduates, Linglin Jiang and Carolyn Zhao, had displays in the EE section of the ballroom.

Jiang’s exhibit was the LaserLab project. She said that she integrates lasers into fiber optics for the transfer of data. The LaserLab is designed to test the performance of semiconductor lasers. The result is to find a faster mode of transferring data across fiber optic wires.

Zhao’s research also deals in telecommunications. She works with semiconductor laser technologies in the packaging of laser diodes. She said that she is also looking for a more efficient way of transporting information.

Ivan Charamisinau, a graduate student of mechanical engineering, and his team project works with photodynamic therapy. They used a laser light delivery system using semiconductor lasers. Charamisinau said that he and his colleagues are developing a device that can help in cancer treatment. He said that so far, they’ve designed a device that can be used in the treatment of esophagus cancer.

An awards ceremony that recognized the best projects on display took place to end Research Day . Dara Lesley Burdette and Leena Prabhudesai tied for the biological sciences award. The statistical science award went to Patrick Carmack, Jeff Spence and Huiping Jiang. The computer science and engineering award went to Zhigang Li. The electrical engineering winners are Susan Wilson, Jin Wang, Joy Chuang and Tao He. Mechanical engineering had a tie between Remus Ciobotaru and Mingde Song. Other awards were for Thomas McLoud in EMIS and Liang Lu in Physics.

Ericsson awarded cash prizes to Amitabh Dixit, Jiang Yue and Yi Zeng.