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