CSUSB graduate student Mayra Silva Barcenas, a materials science major, received national recognition for her research at the recent American Chemical Society Fall Meeting 2026 in Chicago.

The ACS Committee on Science selected Silva Barcenas’s poster as one of the conference’s top 10 posters addressing high-impact, emerging topics in chemistry.

“I don’t think I realized how big of an honor it was until the day I was there,” Silva Barcenas said of the selection. Having attended only smaller conferences, Silva Barcenas said the scale of the ACS meeting exceeded her expectations.

“I felt extremely proud of my project and happy to have had the experience to attend this conference and to have been selected,” she said.

Silva Barcenas focuses her research on plasmonics and the use of gold nanoparticles in biosensing applications. Her project explores the development of a wearable sensor that could detect glucose levels through sweat, offering a potential noninvasive alternative to traditional methods, such as finger-prick testing.

The project’s potential real-world application is especially meaningful to Silva Barcenas. With diabetes and insulin resistance affecting many people, she hopes the research will eventually contribute to glucose monitoring that is more accessible and convenient.

The selection earned Silva Barcenas an invitation to present her research during the symposium Wearable Sensors: Chemistry-Powered Technologies for Better Health, Fitness, and Security, which was held as part of the ACS Fall Meeting. During the symposium, she received an additional honor: the Best Digital Poster Award.

“I am very grateful to have received an award for everything I worked on during the summer,” she said. “It means the absolute world to me that this project was recognized.”

Silva Barcenas credited her faculty mentor and principal investigator, Enrique Contreras, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, with supporting her research and encouraging her development.

“I have such an amazing PI, Dr. Enrique Contreras, and he really pushed and encouraged me to learn,” she said.