Students from American University of Sharjah (AUS) won top honors at the fifth UAE Undergraduate Student Research Competition held on May 8, 2017 at Abu Dhabi University. Held under the patronage of His Excellency Hussain Ibrahim Al Hammadi, UAE Minister of Education, the award recognizes outstanding student research being conducted at the academic institutions in the UAE, and allows students a chance to present their results in a nationwide competition. This year over 1,000 students from than 30 universities participated in the competition.

Taraneh Taghaddosi, from the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Environmental Sciences, was awarded first place for her project entitled "Chemical and structural analysis of Sharjah sand and their potential application for organic compounds and toxic metal removal." The winning project was supervised by Dr. Yehya Elsayed, Associate Professor in Biology, Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. Three projects from the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Environmental Sciences, made it to the finals this year.

Two submissions from the College of Engineering (CEN) also won accolades at this year's competition. Entitled "Development of a Biomedical Microwave Imaging System," a project by Mohammad Suhail AlAwar, Omar Mohammed Al Aryani, Uzma Ahmed Din, and Yousuf Khalid Abo Rahama, won second place in the Electrical and Electronics Engineering category. The project, which focuses on developing a biomedical imaging system for cancer diagnostics, was supervised by Dr. Nasser Qaddoumi, Professor in Electrical Engineering, and Dr. Amer Zakaria, Assistant Professor in Electrical Engineering.

Supervised by Dr. Adil Tamimi, Professor in Civil Engineering, another CEN team comprising Dia Al-Shamsi, Alya Al-Mansoori, and Muneb Zamanwas was declared runners-up in the Civil Engineering category. Their project was entitled "Silica Fume and GGBS-based recycled aggregate concrete."

"The UAE Undergraduate Student Research Competition provides an excellent forum for students from across the country to share and display their commitment to research. AUS has done well at this competition in the past and this year was no different, with students from CEN and CAS winning accolades for AUS," said Dr. Björn Kjerfve, Chancellor of AUS.