Lab News

August

• The undergraduate researchers are back in town! Gwyn Lai returns from the Nuclear Chemistry Summer School, Sanaa Abu Asaad returns for a year-long coop in Rhode Island, and the group welcomes Elitha Nkwera. Looking forward to a fun semester in the lab.

• Prof. Duval traveled to the ACS Meeting in San Francisco to give two invited talks. "Polymer materials to extract value from radioactive mining wastes" in the ENV Division's Women in Environmental Science and Engineering Symposium and "Lanmodulin-derived peptide-functionalized surfaces & polymers for REE purification" in the IE&C Division's Separations Chemistry for Critical Materials Symposium.

• Luke Venturina completes his summer research at CWRU and presents his poster at the Undergraduate Research Poster Symposium. He will return to UNMT to finish his senior year in chemical engineering!

• Izzy completes her summer research project funded by the CWRU SOURCE Office. She will continue her 3D printing efforts during the Fall semester while taking ECHE 350: Undergraduate Research, for course credit.

June

• Bethany defends her PhD thesis and becomes Bethany Kersten, PhD! After graduation, she is joining Argonne National Lab as a postdoctoral researcher and continue pursuing her passion for reprocessing used nuclear fuel.

• Maura defends her PhD thesis and becomes Maura Sepesy, PhD! After graduation, she is joining the faculty at the University at Buffalo in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering as an Assistant Professor of Teaching. Lucky for us, she will spend the summer in Cleveland and will continue working with undergraduate students in the lab. 

• The Duval Lab welcomes undergraduate researchers Izzy Wang and Luke Venturina! Izzy received a SOURCE undergraduate fellowship to support her summer research. Luke is visiting for the summer from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. 

May

• Lianna Johnson attends her first conference and presents a poster at the North American Membrane Society Meeting! Maura presents a poster and Prof. Duval gave a talk in the session on highly selective membranes.

• Tuli Banik graduates with her MS of Chemical Engineering. The group celebrated with a graduation party at Prof. Duval's house. 

• Priyanka Suresh, the first PhD student from our group, returned for the CWRU School of Graduate Studies hooding ceremony! It was great to have her back on campus and meet her family. 

April

• Congratulations to Maura Sepesy and our collaborators in the Renner Research Group! Our paper that leverages click chemistry to attach peptides to a polymer scaffold was published in Soft Matter.

• Bethany Kersten travels to Washington, DC to make her case for nuclear energy as part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering Workshop. She met with members of Congress and learned about the intersection of science and policy!

March

• Postdoc Bernadette Schneider and Prof. Duval travel to the ACS Spring 2023 meeting! Bernadette is speaking in a honorary session for Trish --who she met through the ACS Radiochemistry Summer School. Prof. Duval is presenting in the PMSE Division on ion-ion selectivity in chelating membranes.

• Prof. Duval traveled to the 2023 ARPA-E Energy Summit as an exhibitor with ANL collaborator, Anna Servis.  

• Prof. Duval traveled back to Clemson University to give the seminar in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering.

February

• Prof. Duval receives the NSF CAREER award! This project uses a combined computational-experimental approach and seeks to understand ligand-ligand and ligand-ion interactions in polymer coatings used to separate lanthanides and actinides. These coatings can be used in a variety of separation processes including adsorption, ion-exchange, and electrodialysis.

January

• Postdoctoral researcher Megan Sibley concludes her time at CWRU and joins Nikki Thiele's group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory where she will continue to pursue her passion for ligand synthesis and f-elements!

• The Duval lab returns after a restful winter break and went to see Hamilton at Playhouse Square!

December

• The Duval Lab celebrated a productive year and enjoyed some ice cream from our favorite local shop!

November

• Maura Sepesy and Prof. Duval traveled to the AIChE annual meeting in Phoenix, AZ. Maura presented her work on Cu purification. Prof. Duval recruited students at the graduate school fair, participated in a panel in the "Future Faculty Mentoring Program" hosted by the Education Division, and co-led the Area 2D (membranes) programming meeting with colleague Bill Phillip.

• The Duval Lab is awarded a new grant through the arpa-e CURIE program in collaboration with Argonne National Lab. Led by Anna Servis, Argonne Staff Scientist, this project will investigate rotating packed beds for use in nuclear fuel reprocessing.

October

• Prof. Duval travels to the University of Kentucky to give a seminar and meet with friends of the lab Isabel, Gosia, and DB!

September

• Postdoctoral researcher Megan travels to Brookhaven National Laboratory to perform adsorption studies with Ac-225! She is working closely with radiochemists Jasmine and Pavithra in Cathy Cutler's group.

• Bethany's collaborative paper with Argonne National Lab was published in the Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry. She reports on a method for converting americium oxide to americium chloride to study molten salt electrochemistry!

• Priyanka's second paper from her PhD is published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials! She investigates the impact of copolymer chemistry on ligand-ion interactions for lanthanum! 

August

• Undergraduate Chae Young Yoon presents his collaborative research with the Kisley Lab of CWRU Physics at the SOURCE Symposium.

• Maura and Bethany are welcomed back to Cleveland after their summer internships.

• Postdoctoral Researcher Megan Sibley travels to ACS to present her work on functionalizing electrospun membranes with DGA ligands in the NUCL Division.

July

• The Duval Lab clinches its 3rd consecutive title in the CWRU ChEGSO summer olympics! First place finishes include the ping-pong tournament, cutest animal photos, and best figure competitions. Great work team!

June

• Maura Sepesy begins a summer internship with the Environmental Protection Agency in Columbus through the OH Public Interest Fellows Program.

• Bethany Kersten travels to PNNL for a summer internship focused on advanced spectroscopic techniques applied to nuclear fuel reprocessing in molten salts!

May

• Priyanka Suresh defends her dissertation and becomes the first PhD to graduate from our group! After conferring her degree in June, she will join McKinsey & Company in Houston, TX as a consultant.

• Bethany Kersten is awarded a DOE Innovations in Nuclear Technology R&D Award for her research on electrochemical reprocessing of used nuclear fuel! Congrats!

• Undergraduate Chae Young Yoon is awarded a summer research fellowship from SOURCE. This will support his collaborative research with Prof. Kisley's research group in physics at CWRU.

• Sanaa Abu Asaad joins the Duval Lab for the summer. She is working on an industry-funded project related to radiopharmaceuticals.

• Undergraduate Timothy Yen begins his summer research and continues working on the Ac-225 membrane project.

• Prof. Duval, Maura, Joelle, and Priyanka travel to the North American Membrane Society Meeting. 

  • Joelle Scott won first place in the undergraduate poster competition!

  • Prof. Duval presented in the award session for the NAMS Young Membrane Scientist Award.

  • Maura was supported by the Elias Klein Founders' Travel Supplement!

  • Priyanka was recognized with the Honorable Mention for the Graduate Student Fellowship!

April

• Priyanka Suresh is awarded the Elisa Lindsey International Student Award for her leadership within the international student community at CWRU and the graduate student appreciation award for her leadership in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Congrats to Priyanka!

• Bethany Kersten and Megan Sibley travel to the Methods and Applications of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry (MARC) Conference in Hawaii. Bethany presented her work on americium molten salt electrochemistry in support of nuclear fuel reprocessing. Megan presented her work on DGA ligand synthesis and characterization! Not a bad conference location at all. 

• Prof. Duval travels to the AIChE Northwest Central Regional Conference with colleague Prof. Savinell. He judged the undergraduate poster competition and she was a panelist in the session "Is graduate school for me?"

• Prof. Duval gives a virtual seminar in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences at Colorado State University. Thanks to Prof. Ralf Sudowe for the invitation!

March

• Joelle Scott is selected for the NAMS Undergraduate Travel Award. This will support her travel to the NAMS 2022 conference and she will present her research in a special poster session! 

February

• Prof. Duval is selected for the 2022 Young Membrane Scientist Award. She will present the group's research during a special awards session at the NAMS Meeting in Tempe, AZ this spring.

• Priyanka Suresh is selected as an Honorable Mention for the NAMS Student Fellowship. This honor is in recognition of her cutting-edge research in membrane surface functionalization. Well done!!

• Maura Sepesy is selected to receive the Elias Klein Founder's Travel Supplement to attend and present at NAMS 2022.

January

• Bethany Kersten passes her second proposition exam and advances to candidacy. Onward and upward!

• Prof. Duval is elected to the Executive Board of the North American Membrane Society (NAMS). Her term will start in May after the NAMS 2022 Meeting in AZ.

• Maura and Ben's first paper, "Amine-functionalized membrane adsorbers to purify copper from acidic solutions" is published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials! It is featured in the Early Career Forum.

December

• We celebrated the graduations of Spencer Schmidt and Joelle Scott! Spencer will return to Lawrence Livermore National Lab as a post-bachelors research associate. Joelle will stay as a research associate at CWRU working on our DOE project before starting a PhD program in Fall 2022.

• Prof. Duval traveled to Boston to give a seminar at Tufts University and visited friend of the lab, Prof. Ayse Asatekin!

November

• Dr. Sibley presented the results of her postdoctoral research at the DOE Isotope Program Virtual Seminar Series.

• Bethany, Maura and Prof. Duval travel to AIChE! Lots of cool science was shared by the Duval Lab:

  • Bethany presenter her poster in the Separations Division titled "Recycling Americium from Spent Nuclear Fuel through Molten Salt Electrodeposition” 

  • Maura gave an oral presentation in Area 2D: Membrane-Based Separations titled "Cu-selective membrane adsorbers for medical isotope purification."

  • Bethany, Maura and their CWRU Beer Brewing teams took home several awards!

  • Prof. Duval chaired the session "Highly Selective Separations" with Profs. DB and Steve Ritchie.

  • Prof. Duval was elected to be Co-Chair of Area 2D: Membrane-Based Separations. After 2 years she will become the Chair of the Area.

October

• It was a busy month for seminar travel. Prof. Duval visited the University of Washington and Vanderbilt to speak in the Chemical Engineering research seminars.

• Prof. Duval traveled to Washington, DC to give an invited talk at the TechConnect World, "Membrane-based devices for medical isotope purification."

September

• Bethany Kersten's first journal article is published in ECS Interface. This work, in collaboration with Argonne National Lab, discusses the challenges of electrochemical reprocessing of used nuclear fuel.

• Two new graduate students, Tuli Banik and Lianna Johnson, join the group! Tuli will join the DOE team synthesizing membranes for Ac-225 purification. Lianna will join the NSF ECO-CBET team purifying rare earth elements from fertilizer tailings.

• Two new undergraduate researchers, Alexa Ford and Tim Yen, join the DOE project to work with Dr. Sibley synthesizing DGA ligands.

August

• Priyanka, Maura and Joelle travel to Estes Park, Colorado for the North American Membrane Society Meeting. While there, Priyanka will be presented with the Elias Klein Founders' Travel Award!

• The Duval Lab is leading a $1.7 million grant through the NSF ECO-CBET program to study the recovery of rare-earth elements from radioactive fertilizer tailings. She leads this interdisciplinary project and will collaborate with Julie Renner (CWRU), Rachel Getman (Clemson), Lauren Greenlee (Penn State) and Rui Shi (Penn State).

• The Duval Lab welcomes back Bethany from her NEUP IUP-funded internship at Argonne National Lab! She spent the summer doing solid-state chemistry and performing electrochemistry experiments using Americium.

July

• Undergraduates Amy Che, Alec Johnson, Chae Young Yoon and Trent Kozar present their research at the first annual CWRU ChBE Undergraduate Research Symposium. It was their first time making a research poster -- way to go!

• Undergraduate student Chae Young Yoon joins the group and will work on the collaborative project "Single molecule imaging of f-elements" with the Physics Department at CWRU.

June

• Dr. Duval was a panelist for a North American Membrane Society event on Work-Life Balance with Tina Carbrello (Millipore), Zach Smith (MIT) and Xiaosong Wu (Pall).

May

• Seniors Kevin Pataroque, Dylan Kulbacki and Manan Gupta graduate from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering! Kevin will pursue his PhD at Yale and Dylan will begin a new position at RoviSys. Manan will join Sherwin Williams.

• Priyanka Suresh is featured in The Daily's Spartan Showcase during Asian, Pacific Islander, Desi and Asian American Heritage Month. 

• Graduate Student Maura Sepesy receives the Graduate Student Service Award from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering! 

• Dr. Duval gives an invited seminar at the University of Notre Dame titled "Radiopharmaceuticals: a new frontier for membrane separations."

• Alec Johnson, Trent Kozar and Amy Che begin their summer research experiences with the Duval Lab! Alec and Trent are supported by SOURCE grants which they earned through a competitive review process at CWRU.

• Dr. Duval gives an invited seminar "From nuclear forensics to medical isotopes: membranes enable rapid separations" in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.

April

• Dr. Duval is the keynote speaker at the Northeast Ohio ACS Annual Award Ceremony. Her talk was titled "The role of separation science in nuclear medicine."

• Dr. Duval gives an invited seminar at the University of Alabama in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering!

• Undergraduate researchers Spencer Schmidt and Joelle Scott present their research at the North Central Regional AIChE Meeting hosted by the Ohio State University. Spencer wins an award for his poster "Development of Micron-Thin Polymer Films to Observe Transport in the Selective Layer of Membrane Adsorbers Using Single Molecule Spectroscopy "

March

• Dr. Duval (co-PI) and collaborator Dr. Lydia Kisley (PI: CWRU Physics) are awarded a collaborative grant to examine the mass transport of fluorescent species within grafted-polymer films. This work was pioneered by Ricardo Monge Negro (PhD student in Physics) and Spencer Schmidt (UG in ChemE). We're excited to get the project started!

February

• The Duval Lab hosts a virtual outreach event for Engineers Week at CWRU! It's an interactive tale of using nuclear forensics to find your lost radioactive puppy, Pluto.

• Classes resume at CWRU and Dr. Duval teaches a graduate-level Radiochemistry course for the first time! This is a key component of the DOE NEUP fellowship program.

January

• Dr. Megan Sibley (PhD in Chemistry from Clemson University) joins the Duval Lab as a postdoctoral researcher. She is part of the DOE-sponsored project on Ac-225 purification and will lead the organic synthesis efforts.

• Maura Sepesy passes her second proposition exam and becomes a PhD candidate. Congrats Maura!

• Undergraduate students Amy, Alec and Trent join the group!

December

• Priyanka and Bethany finish their internships at Lam and Argonne. We're looking forward to having them back on campus in 2021!

November

• Priyanka passes her second proposition exam and becomes a PhD candidate!

• Professor Duval co-hosts the first virtual NAMS Student Workshop on Industry Careers. Over 60 students tuned in from across the US.

• The Duval Lab sent 5 undergraduate students to the AIChE National Meeting Student Poster Session and 2 graduate students to present their research in area 2D: Membranes! 

  • • Kevin Pataroque won 1st place in the undergraduate poster competition in the Environmental Division!

    • Dylan Kulbacki won 1st place in the undergraduate poster competition in the Separations Division!

    • Joelle Scott won 2nd place in the undergraduate poster competition in the Separations Division!

• The Duval Lab hosts a virtual booth at Sciencepalooza! A reverse science fair for students at John Hay High School in Cleveland.

October

• Professor Duval receives the Case School of Engineering Undergraduate Teaching Award!

• Bethany travels to Argonne National Laboratory to perform electrochemical measurements on Americium in high temperature molten salts!

August

• Maura is featured in the Student Spotlight of the International Filtration News!

• First year PhD student Bethany Kersten passes her first proposition exam. Way to go!

• The Duval Lab clinches the gold medal in the first annual ChEgSO Olympics :)

June

• Prof. Duval receives a DOE Early Career Research Award!  Read more about it in Case's The Daily and CRAIN'S Cleveland Business.

• Third year Ph.D. student Priyanka started her summer internship at Lam Research.

• Priyanka's first paper on uranium sequestration was published in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

May

• Priyanka is featured in the Student Spotlight of the International Filtration News!

• Some group members attended the North American Membrane Society meeting virtually! Priyanka and Maura presented in the Graduate Student Poster session, Prof. Duval presented in the Downstream Processing session and chaired the session on Membrane Synthesis and Casting. What a fun week of membrane science!

• Ming's paper from his M.S. research project on recovering lanthanides from wastewater was published  in Frontiers in Chemistry. We were invited to submit with our collaborator Prof. Julie Renner as part of the Women in Science Special Issue.

• Prof. Duval receives a Nord Grant from CWRU's UCITE Office to support service learning activities in nuclear science.

April

• First year Ph.D. student Bethany Kersten was selected as a NEUP IUP Graduate Fellow! This fellowship will support her research on molten salt electrolysis of actinides to advance nuclear fuel reprocessing. She was featured Case's The Daily.

• Prof. Duval's application with the Nuclear Energy University Program was approved! Now, Case Western can administer graduate research fellowships for incoming and first year graduate students who do research related to the nuclear fuel cycle.

• M.S. student Ming Yu gave his final presentation for his research project--completing his graduate requirements!

March

• Due to Covid-19, the Duval Lab has suspended laboratory work and will be working from home.

February

• Our student office renovation is complete!

• The Duval Lab participated in the Gelfand STEM Center's Engineering Challenges Carnival. Manan, Spencer, Bethany, Priyanka, Ming and Prof. Duval talked to kids and their parents about radioactivity, showed off our cool cloud chamber and let kids use a geiger counter!

January

• The Duval Lab hosted our first "Get to Know Nuclear Workshop" for Girl Scouts in Northeast Ohio. Thirty middle-school girls came to campus to learn about nuclear science and radiation detection. Graduate students Bethany, Maura, Priyanka and Ming helped lead the event! CWRU Chemical Engineering students Sara Jorgensen, William Dean and Becca Segel volunteered, too!