Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) student assistant Radu Reit will represent Georgia Tech in March among the other Atlantic Coast Conference schools. But the competition isn’t sports-oriented, as Reit will present the research he has conducted as an undergraduate student.

Funded in part by revenue from athletic events, the three-day ACC Meeting of the Minds Conference focuses on undergraduate research and scholarship at the 12 ACC member schools. Each year, a different school hosts the event. Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., will be the site of this year’s meeting, held from March 30 to April 1, 2012.

Showcasing his research on the fabrication and optimization of vertical carbon-nanotube (VACNT) based supercapacitor electrodes, the biomedical engineering student serves as a student assistant in GTRI’s Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory for researcher Jud Ready’s lab. Previously, Reit also worked with Dr. Todd McDevitt in the Engineering Stem Cells laboratory in Georgia Tech’s Biomedical Engineering Department.

“I was accepted to work at GTRI for course credit during the summer of 2011,” Reit said. “Starting in fall 2011, I received a President’s Undergraduate Research Award [PURA] to start paid research work, and I have been actively employed by GTRI since then.” He initially interviewed to work to combine nanotechnology and biomedical engineering. He plans to graduate in December 2012.

Of the 12 Georgia Tech students that applied, eight will present at the conference. “These students are typically those that faculty from across campus felt were some of the best,” said Christopher W. Reaves, director of Undergraduate Research and Student Innovation at Georgia Tech’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. “We have a diversity of ages and disciplines participating, which is a great example of how high-quality research pervades all disciplines at Tech at the undergraduate level.”