Electrical Engineering undergraduate student Joshua Bernstein is the recipient of the 2021 ECE Undergraduate Student Research Excellence award. The award is given yearly to the top ECE undergraduate student who excelled in his/her research during the academic year. Students are nominated by their faculty advisor.

Bernstein has worked on two projects in the UF Integrated Circuits and Sensor Physics Lab under supervisors Dr. Soumyajit Mandal and Dr. Swarup Bhunia. The first project is a wearable device meant to aid in COVID-19 detection. Bernstein wrote software and helped perform testing for the device. The second project is a device used to detect fake medicine, where Bernstein worked on designing a coil used in the front end of the detector.

“I would just like to thank Dr. Bhunia and Dr. Mandal for giving me the opportunity to work on these projects in their lab, and the department as well for presenting me with this award,” Bernstein said.

Research and the development of new technologies is something Bernstein is interested in and winning the award has encouraged him to stay on this path.

“It’s shown me that research is something that I can do well in and I hope to continue working in research labs in the future,” Bernstein said.