Defenses and Newcomers

Mayank Jhalaria and Mounica Divvela successfully defended their MS thesis in July. Mayank joined the PhD Program in Chemical Engineering at Columbia University in September, and Mounica moved on to our PhD Program, continuing working on the mesoscale modeling of gas-assisted electrospinning and air-controlled electrospray.

Brian Williams also successfully defended his PhD thesis in August. He joined Axium Nano where he works on the development of mesoporous carbon materials and flexible Li-S batteries.

Dr. Seung Wan Kim joined the group as a postdoc in September. He received his PhD in Materials Science & Engineering at KAIST in 2011. Before he joined the group, he worked in the Open Innovation Team and Technology Planning Group at Samsung SDI as senior research engineer and project manager for LIB anode development for five years. He will take over Dr. Ling Fei’s work on silicon/graphene hybrid anode materials.

Christopher Klaassen, 1st year PhD student, joined the group. Chris received his BS in chemical engineering from Texas Tech Universiity, and will be working on creating synergy between graphene and redox mediator for Li-air battery cathodes.

Rui Zhang and Snatika Sarkar, 1st year MS students, also joined the group. Rui will work on flexible Li-S batteries based on directly deposited sulfur containing block copolymer and reduced graphene oxide, and Snatika will work on the chemical modification of mesoporous carbon nanofibers for energy storage applications.