(2iv) Advanced Membrane Designs and Fundamentals at the Water-Energy Nexus

Polymer-based membranes play a significant role in water purification, energy storage, and conversion. In the field of water purification, there is a growing interest in understanding and controlling the selective transport of ions and water in membranes. Precise control of water and ion transport may allow for reduced energy consumption, and promote appropriate product purity. In energy storage and conversion systems (batteries and fuel cells), membranes are essential for maintaining ionic conductivity and preventing electrical contact between anode and cathode within an electrochemical cell. Membranes technologies are key to augmenting our nation’s water and energy security, thus the design of materials and understanding of transport processes within selective polymeric systems is only growing in importance.

My research interests have revolved around designing membrane materials and quantifying structure-property relationships of polymeric membranes for energy and environmental applications. Specifically, my Ph.D. research contributions focused on the synthesis and fabrication of organic-inorganic membranes by incorporating carbon-based nanomaterials in polyamide-based reverse osmosis membranes for water desalination and organic solvent nanofiltration applications. My previous/current projects are based on 1) layer-by-layer assembly of graphene oxide desalination membranes, 2) crosslinked carbon nanodots membranes for organic solvent nanofiltration, 3) designing nanomaterials-assisted bipolar membranes for electrocatalytic carbon sequestration & nutrition recovery, 4) advanced characterization of polymeric membranes using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. My future research aims are based on 1) bipolar membrane designs for carbon-neutral technologies, 2) microplastic removal from wastewater by use of porous mediums, and 3) fundamentals of water and ion transport in porous polymeric nanofilms.

My research attempts to narrow the gap between academic research and industrial applications. Many of these technologies rely on the development of new materials which do not exist, and the goal of my lab would be to use our expertise in chemical engineering, material science, polymer science, analytical chemistry, and electrochemistry to accelerate membrane development.

Teaching Interests

As a teacher, I aim to contribute to the knowledge and values that will enhance the quality of the life for this and future generations. Teaching is important to me because it is my responsibility to advance my students with ability to think holistically, develop problem solving skills, and prepare students to be creative in finding solutions to challenges. I strive to create a culture of inclusiveness by designing interactive and experiential learning experiences to empower students in being leaders and decision makers. My goal is to adopt evidence-based strategies to reduce the achievement gap, enhance student performance, student diversity, and inclusive approaches in teaching. During my Ph.D. studies, I have had the opportunity to teach the course of Unit Operations Laboratory (I & II) for two consecutive semesters for over 100 CHE undergraduate students. In Unit Operations class, I was a co-instructor where I was teaching various lab experimentations such as fuild mechanics of mixing, membrane gas separation, drainage and filling in cylindrical containers, batch reactor operations, mass transfer, and distillation column. There, the most valuable opportunity for me was to make direct interactions with students where I could be instrumental in preparing students in developing hands-on experience, critical thinking, and proper lab techniques for their future careers in industry/academia as young engineers/scholars. I found out that building student-teacher relationship is key in understanding students goals, needs, and learning abilities on an individual level. Additionally, I served as a teaching research assistant for the course of Engineering Materials at undergraduate level and mentored summer undergraduate REU students. I held weekly office hours and review
sessions. Through running weekly homework review sessions and office hours, I worked on the fundamentals of material and polymer science with undergraduate students and encouraged them to have exam reviews and extra appointments with me. This was beneficial for students as they not only discussed the course materials, but also they got advice on attending graduate school in future. Additionally, I invited some of students to come to the laboratory and have a tour on visiting different soft material characterization tools such as Rheology, Atomic Force Microscopy, contact angle and tensile test systems. These were topics that they were learning in Engineering Materials class and the experience of visiting the lab left them
with much greater understanding of the technical processes they were being taught at class. I aim to incorporate the Universal Design for Learning Principles (UDL) in my course outline and teaching. The outline provides clear expectations, objectives and list of related assignments, and activities. I align the assignment with course objectives and provide multiple means of representation for the contents, including audio, video and multimedia components which follow the recommendations of UDL principles. Students gravitate towards a broad spectrum of learning and performing ability depending on their skills, personality, and learning needs. As a teacher, my objective is to be student-focused, competent, flexible and aware of uniqueness amongst my students. I specifically aim to focus on advancing students skills such as teamwork by designing projects where each team of 3-4 students would perform in projects by reviewing literature, conducting experiment and presenting the outcome to the class on a specific technical based subject. In order to measure the success of my students, and my success as an instructor, I aim to use multiple avenues of assessment methods including examination, research paper, group projects, and short in-class quizzes. Regular short in-class quizzes provide a useful way to ensure students stay up-to-dated with materials already covered in class previously and a good source for instructor to understand which part of the syllabus needs to be further explained fundamentally in future sessions based on students success rate in quizzes. By including formative and summative evaluations and rubrics, I evaluate my effectiveness and Seeing my students find materials they have learned helpful in being an effective engineer and succeed in their careers would be the most rewarding part of a teacher for me. I look forward to continuing teaching chemical engineering fundamentals, recent developments and processes to students throughout my career, maintaining a high level of expectations for my students.