Chemical engineering senior Anika Mahajan Jena has received UC Santa Barbara’s 2026 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, one of the university’s highest honors for undergraduate researchers. The award recognizes Jena’s wide-ranging research journey at UCSB, spanning molecular diagnostics, soft-condensed materials, and engineered nanostructures. 

“Winning this award makes me feel recognized for my work at UCSB by the university’s research community,” said Jena, who also received a 2026 Tau Beta Pi Graduate Fellowship and a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. “This award underscores the validity of my research and continued study as a path to solving impactful problems in science and engineering.” 

Jena began conducting research during her first year at UCSB, when the California NanoSystems Institute supported her internship at Serimmune, a Santa Barbara molecular diagnostics startup. There, she learned laboratory techniques such as assay development, PCR, and DNA sequencing, while gaining an early appreciation for interdisciplinary research. The experience also sparked her interest in the physics underlying molecular interactions.

She went on to join the lab of then-chemical engineering assistant professor Sho Takatori, working with graduate student mentor Daniel Arnold (PhD, chemical engineering, ’24) on membrane-actin interface physics.

“Sho and Daniel’s mentorship was foundational for me,” Jena said. “Their guidance and trust empowered me to grow quickly as a researcher, take ownership of my work, think critically through failures, and chase the thrill of successful experiments.”

In the Takatori Group, Jena investigated active matter physics, phase separation dynamics, and polymer nematics. Her work with Arnold resulted in a publication in Physical Review E, the American Physical Society’s journal for complex systems and soft materials, and contributed to her selection as a 2024 Barry Goldwater Scholar.

The experience also helped her discover an interest in polymers as tunable, biocompatible materials. During her second year in the lab, she launched an independent project to characterize the viscoelastic behavior of membrane-bound actin polymer networks, work that culminated in her 2025 first-author paper in Soft Matter.

After two years researching membrane-polymer composites, Jena joined the lab of physics professor Deborah Fygenson, where she engineered DNA nanotubes and nanostars to self-assemble into complex molecular architectures. Her work could help advance DNA suprastructure-based nanomachines and molecular sensors. She presented the work at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. as an Eli Lilly Fellow and is finalizing another first-author paper.
Jena said that UCSB’s culture of mentorship and cross-department collaboration shaped her development as a scientist.

“My most rewarding experience at UCSB has been dropping by and talking to my chemical engineering and materials professors about the fascinating research projects commencing in their labs and sharing my recent discoveries, curiosities, and potential research directions with them,” Jena said. “The fact that these professors, despite their intense schedules, take the time to listen, offer insights, and help refine my thought process is incredible and embodies the supportive collaborative spirit of the UCSB research community.”

She also credited the Materials Research Laboratory’s Research Internships in Science and Engineering program and the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities for helping her gain exposure to UCSB’s cutting-edge research and build confidence presenting her work to researchers from different disciplines, both on campus and at national meetings.

After graduating from UCSB, Jena will pursue a PhD in chemical engineering at Stanford University, where she plans to study advanced functional polymeric materials. Her research interests include self-assembling, self-healing, biocompatible, and stimuli-responsive composite materials with potential applications in soft robotics, nanodevices, and brain-computer interfaces.

“I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to conduct undergraduate research in UCSB’s rare and powerful culture of boundary-pushing, impact-driven discovery,” Jena said. “I have thrived in UCSB’s interdisciplinary, collaborative, and uplifting environment.”