Anna Konvicka EE'23 Wins Top Paper Award at 2022 IEEE MIT URTC

POSTED ON: October 31, 2022

Image
Anna Konvicka

Anna Konvicka receives the Best Paper Award at the 2022 IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference

Anna Konvicka, a senior studying electrical engineering in the Albert Nerken School of Engineering, was the top winner at the 2022 IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference (URTC). Held earlier this month, URTC is a research conference for undergraduates by undergraduates themed around engineering and technological research breakthroughs made by student researchers from schools across the United States. 

Konvicka’s award-winning paper explored a method that may ultimately help with improving cancer therapies. Her work looked at tumor mutational burden (TMB), a biomarker used to help plan cancer treatment since TMB has been found to be predictive for immunotherapy response. Konvicka’s research proposed a better method for the measurement of TMB mutations.

This research was part of a joint collaboration between Cooper Union and the Sohrab Shah Lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Gryte Satas, an MSKCC postdoctoral research fellow, served as Konvicka’s advisor. Konvicka is the first Cooper Union student ever to attend and present at URTC.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.