Amanda Nash, a first-generation undergraduate student at the University of Houston, likes to combine biology, engineering, research and awards.

“I love learning new things and trying to understand the world around me,” Nash said about what fuels her research. “I think it is so cool to think about everyday things from a scientific point of view.”

Tianfu Wu used to dream of the day when cancer could be detected long before it was diagnosed. Now he sees that day dawning because of a system his research group created called the ultrasensitive polymeric sensing system (UPSS), which may detect biomarkers early – well before an illness strikes.

Approximately 120 Houston high school students blasted onto the UH campus to launch into engineering! The 5th annual “Launch into Engineering” is a STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) outreach event to attract college-bound students to the STEM fields.

When Jameel Jordan became a petroleum engineering student at the Cullen College he never dreamed he'd also become a mentor to third graders.

“It never crossed my mind,” said Jordan.

But the opportunity found him when he learned of iEducate, a group that pays you to share your knowledge of STEM courses (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) with students in Houston’s underserved communities.

It seemed a good fit. Turns out it was perfect.

Undergraduate mechanical engineering students Tam Nguyen, a senior, and Serrae Reed, a junior, focus on their studies with the precision of the engineers they are becoming. Upon graduation, Nguyen has an engineering job nailed down at Shell, and Reed is conducting research on solar cells and the efficiency in which light is harvested for energy production.

Ilknur Telkes, a fourth-year biomedical Ph.D. student in the Cullen College of Engineering, spends a good bit of her time in the operating room at Baylor College of Medicine.

A 2013 graduate of the UH biomedical engineering doctoral program, now completing her fellowship at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, has discovered the existence of a tumor suppressor -- a micro ribonucleic acid (miRNA) -- inside ovarian cancer cells that could lead to new ways to combat the deadly disease.

Maya Gough, a biomedical engineering graduate student at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, was invited to speak at the 2016 Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC’16) International Conference this summer.

At the University of Houston, graduate students aren’t the only ones diving into research this summer.