Mr. Zehan Chen won Champion of the Mr. Armin and Mrs. Lillian Kitchell Undergraduate Research Award competition in 2021. Mr. Chen, a 4th-year Physics student who is enrolled in the International Research Enrichment program. He explored the nonlinear and nonreciprocal skyrmion dynamics driven by the current under the supervision of Prof. Qiming SHAO. In Prof. Shao's group, Mr. Chen developed an analytical formulation of current-driven nonlinear skyrmion dynamics in the presence of deformation, which is verified by micromagnetic simulations. In addition, this formulation has been used to predict and understand the nonreciprocal dynamics of skyrmions. Since joining Prof. Shao’s group in September 2019, Zehan has published 2 research papers [1,2].

The Second Runner-Up of the Mr. Armin and Mrs. Lillian Kitchell Undergraduate Research Award competition was Mr. Yangbo Zhou. Mr. Zhou is a 4th year Biochemistry and Cell Biology student who carried out his award-winning research under the supervision of Prof. Hyokeun Park in the Departments of Physics and Life Science. Mr. Zhou has been working on “Real-time imaging of single motor proteins”. He along with postgraduate students tracked single myosin X molecules along actin filaments and actin bundles with an accuracy of nanometers and found that coiled-coil region of myosin X plays an important role in stepping of myosin X. His results were presented at the 66^th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting held in San Francisco in the USA in Feb 2022.

[1]  Zehan Chen, Xichao Zhang, Yan Zhou, and Qiming Shao, Physical Review Applied 17, L011002 (2022).

[2] Laichuan Shen, Jing Xia, Zehan Chen, Xiaoguang Li, Xichao Zhang, Oleg A. Tretiakov, Qiming Shao, Guoping Zhao, Xiaoxi Liu, Motohiko Ezawa, and Yan Zhou, Physical Review B 105, 014422 (2022).