Armin VahidMohammadi, an Auburn Engineering student, won first place, out of 168 submissions, in a national research organization’s Science as Art competition.
VahidMohammadi, a Tehran, Iran native, came to Auburn in August 2015 because of Auburn’s strong and well-established engineering school.
“I was interested in Dr. Beidgahi’s [his advisor] research on novel two-dimensional materials and materials for energy-based needs and problems of future emerging technologies and cities,” VahidMohammadi said. “As a researcher and a PhD student, my goal and dream is to contribute to science with advancing energy storage devices like batteries that we use in our daily life to at least enhance one aspect of human’s lives.”
The Materials Research Society (MRS) Science as Art competition has been a part of MRS meetings since 2006 and attracts hundreds of visually enhanced microscopic images from students around the world. It has since offered materials engineers and students the opportunity to transform their research renowned for their own aesthetic qualities.
“I had previously heard about this competition and its rules. However, Dr. Beidaghi introduced me to the competition and encouraged me to submit my scientific art-work for it,” VahidMohammadi said. “I believe my advisor’s support and encouragement had a great impact on my participation throughout the whole competition.”
VahidMohammadi’s image was a depiction of an engineered nanomaterial as the character Lord Voldemort, from the “Harry Potter” movie series.
VahidMohammadi was working on the synthesis of a family of two-dimensional and layered material called MXenes; he was looking at the structure of one of the MXenes when he noticed a particularly interesting particle that looked like the head of a Cobra snake. He then started to color the SEM image and realized the image looked like the Lord Voldemort character.
“When I was characterizing the produced particles using scanning electron microscopy, I found this particular particle that was resembling Lord Voldemort,” VahidMohammadi said. “However, at the beginning and when I decided to visually enhance this image, I was thinking of its resemblance to a head of a Cobra snake, which actually later reminded me of Voldemort from the Harry Potter series.”
VahidMohammadi’s image is very similar to the original image; especially in regards to the structure of the material it shows. He added color to the image considering the original image was black and white and enhanced its brightness and contrast, so his image could amplify visualization. The eyes and teeth were the only elements VahidMohammadi added to help show the resemblance between the original image and Lord Voldemort’s face.
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