Areas of Specialization

 

 


Prof. Michael G. Benton

Energy, Biochemical

Current Research: Genomics - the role of DNA damage response in cancer prevention; biosensors for the enhanced detection of carcinogens; metabolic engineering of yeast for increased ethanol production

Prof. Bhuvnesh Bharti

Energy, Environmental, Advanced Computations, Materials

Current Research: Nanoscience; colloids and surface science; soft matter and complex fluids

Prof. Kunlun Ding

Energy, Catalysis, Materials

Current Research: Catalysis; materials chemistry; spectroscopy

Prof. Kerry M. Dooley

Energy, Catalysis

Current Research: Catalysis - supported acids and mixed metal oxides; synthesis/characterization - rare earth oxide catalysts and energetic material/catalyst composite materials; hydrogenation/dehydrogenation

Prof. John C. Flake

Energy, Catalysis, Materials

Current Research: Electrochemical processes and materials; energy storage technology - electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction and materials for lithium batteries

Prof. Gregory L. Griffin

Energy, Catalysis, Materials

Current Research: Preparing improved electrodes for electrochemical conversion of CO2 into usable fuels and chemicals; colloidal and electrochemical methods for preparing nanoparticle electrodes

Prof. Jimmy Lawrence

Energy, Environmental, Advanced Computations, Materials

Current Research: Functional polymers and nanomaterials; nano-mesoscale assemblies; stimuli responsive-adaptive materials; continuous/scale-up preparation of high performance and advanced materials

Prof. Kevin M. McPeak

Environmental, Catalysis, Materials

Current Research: Photocatalysis; plasmonic materials; nanoscale chirality

Prof. Krishnaswamy Nandakumar

Energy, Environmental, Advanced Computations

Current Research: Integrating multi-scale, multi-physics processes to understand the impact of turbulent transport on mass transfer and reaction processes - focusing on the design of a novel bio-reactor and a bubble column; modeling of near well transport processes in the presence of surfactants using multiphase CFD to understand the impact of deep water oil spills; using DNS and DPM framework to study fundamental problems of spontaneous pattern formation and dynamics of fluid-particle suspensions; driven cavity problem of granular flows, suspension dynamics, bubble column dynamics, fractal distributors and mixers, multiphase coalescers, in-situ pyrolysis of shale deposits

Prof. Craig Plaisance

Energy, Advanced Computations, Catalysis, Materials

Current Research: Computational Investigation of the Potential for Overcoming the Challenges of Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction by Synergistically Combining Organocatalysts and Catalytic Transition Metal Sulfide Surfaces

Prof. Jose A. Romagnoli

Advanced Computations, Process Systems Engineering

Current Research: Process Systems Engineering (PSE); advanced multi-scale modelling architectures for complex processes; advanced multiresolution image analysis and characterization techniques; design and synthesis with economic-environmental-operability considerations; intelligent data processing, reconciliation, monitoring; advanced process control; enterprise-wide optimization

Prof. William A. Shelton

Energy, Advanced Computations, Catalysis, Materials

Current Research: Catalysis; alloy theory; chemistry - surface science

Prof. James J. Spivey

Energy, Catalysis

Current Research: Catalytic conversion of syngas into clean fuels; fuel processing; C1 catalysis—methane conversion; biomass-derived syngas to higher hydrocarbons and oxygenates; fuel reforming

Prof. Xun Tang

Biochemical, Advanced Computations, Process Systems Engineering, Materials

Current Research: Optimal control for self-assembly, synthetic biology, genetic circuits

Prof. Karsten E. Thompson

Environmental, Advanced Computations

Current Research: Porous materials—microscale fluid mechanics, interfacial and multiphase behavior, dispersion, solute and particle transport; materials processing; oilfield processes; environmental transport; separations; developing computational modeling techniques, particularly for pore-scale and multiscale modeling

Prof. Kalliat T. Valsaraj

Environmental

Current Research: Transformations of pollutants on atmospheric aerosols – fog, rain, ice, snow; mercury sequestration in sediments; studies on chemical dispersant design for sub-sea oil/gas spill

Prof. Mary Julia (Judy) Wornat

Energy, Environmental

Current Research: High-temperature fuel-conversion processes such as pyrolysis and combustion; formation of environmental pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and soot; gas-phase, heterogeneous, and supercritical-phase reactions; analytical techniques for the compositional determination of complex organic mixtures

Prof. Ye Xu

Energy, Advanced Computations, Catalysis, Materials

Current Research: Theoretical and computational investigation of surface chemical thermodynamics, kinetics, and reaction mechanisms; computational heterogeneous catalysis and electrocatalysis; rational design of catalytic materials; energy conversion and storage