Subsurface Engineering & Analysis Laboratory
University of California, Los Angeles
We investigate processes that occur in subsurface soil - the layer responsible to grow food, support terrestrial lives, and keeps our groundwater clean.
Research Mission
Subsurface soil helps filter and degrade pollutants from stormwater and protects groundwater. However, the soil health can deteriorate by anthropogenic activities and under extreme events during climate change. Our team studies the effect of these stressors such as compaction, excess pollutant loading, wildfire, drying, freezing, and flooding on the biogeochemical processes in subsurface soil, and develops innovative engineering solutions to remediate contaminated soils or treat polluted runoff for the protection of drinking water resources in changing climate. We work with federal, state, and local agencies to further these research agendas, and our research informs their policy related to managing soil and water resources. Our work is broadly in these four areas: (1) subsurface processes, (2) remediation, (3) transport of particles or colloids such as microplastics, (4) geochemical and climate forcing of soil microbe.
Dr. Mohanty is showing all the green infrastructures and stormwater management plans on UCLA campus to students from one of his classes.
Education and Outreach
SEALab team is led by Dr. Sanjay Mohanty at Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Currently, the members include 18 students: 1 postdoc, 6 Ph.D. students, 1 M.S. student, and 10 B.S. students—all have complementary expertises. We help students from high schools to graduate programs in developing critical thinking skills needed to innovate in environmental engineering and science. They all get training to communicate science by writing peer-reviewed manuscript and speaking at professional conferences and public setting. Dr. Mohanty teaches introductory and professional courses related to environmental sustainability at UCLA: (a) Introduction to Environmental Engineering, (b) Waste Management and Remediation, and (c) Green infrastructure. In the later two courses, students conceptually design engineered systems and write reports proposing a sustainable solution to environmental problems related to contaminated soil or water management.
UCLA SEALs (November 2021, left to right): Sanjay (and Sriyan) Mohanty, Weiyang Zhao, Kevin L. Yang, Tonoy Das, Onja Raoelsion, Srijan Satpathy, Annesh Borthakur, Samiha Karim, Shruti Indiresen, Vera Smirnova, Jamie Leonard, Samantha Prehm, and Renan Valenca.
UCLA SEALs are from more than 10 different countries spanning over 5 continents as shown in the map above. Blue pins represent current members and pink pins represent former members.
September 03, 2020
Onja passed her Ph.D. comprehensive exam and became a Ph.D. candidate.
Congratulations, Onja, for passing the Ph.D. comprehensive exam (proposal). Her research on wildfire impact on stormwater quality and potential mitigation measures will help millions solving this long term crisis.
July 14, 2020
NETL-supported collaboration with Wayne State University (WSU) developed an environmental friendly process to economically concentrated rare earth elements (REE) from fly ash.
In an NETL-supported collaboration with Wayne State University (WSU), researchers used a newly developed sorbent and a process previously developed for nuclear applications to produce an economically viable concentration of rare earth elements (REEs) from domestic coal fly ash, signaling an important step toward commercialization. The new sorbent media developed by WSU researchers, in collaboration with the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), successfully concentrated the REEs in a coal fly ash sample taken from a coal-fired power plant near Detroit, resulting in a rare earth oxide (REO) powder of more than 13 percent weight, which demonstrates potential for economic viability.
July 09, 2020
Huong (Cami) published her work on biochar breaking mechanism at Environmental Pollution
Congratulations, Cami for publication of her MS thesis work at Environmental Pollution. Her research shows how to best size up biochar, a soil amendment, for the application in roadside biofilters so that they don't break under compaction of soil and don't clog the biofilters that treat road runoff and keep our environment clean. Way to go, Cami, for publishing one lead author and one coauthor paper during your MS, which is a great achievement.
May 23, 2020
Maryam published her work on moisture effect on performance of compacted biochar-amended biofilters at Science of The Total Environment.
Congratulations, Cami for publication of her MS thesis work at Environmental Pollution. Her research shows how to best size up biochar, a soil amendment, for the application in roadside biofilters so that they don't break under compaction of soil and don't clog the biofilters that treat road runoff and keep our environment clean. Way to go, Cami, for publishing one lead author and one coauthor paper during your MS, which is a great achievement.
April 29, 2020
Undergraduate student team won 1st prize in US EPA's Campus RainWorks Challenge competition.
Congratulations, Allison, for leading the team of UCLA undergraduate students to win 1st prize in the national competition sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The team proposed to redesign elements of a Los Angeles elementary school to improve its environmental sustainability. Their project was focused on Brockton Avenue Elementary School, 3 miles southwest of the UCLA campus. The project, Little Steps to a Sustainable Future, received top honors in the Campus RainWorks Challenge’s demonstration project category. In all, 50 teams of college students from 20 states submitted proposals last fall in the competition’s two categories. The winners of the eighth annual contest were announced April 29, 2020.
Announcement: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-winners-its-annual-campus-rainworks-challenge
Congratulations Jamie for being selected to receive the prestigious 2020 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF). She is one of 40 students in Environmental Engineering selected nationwide out of thousands of applicants! We are proud to have her continue to work in SEALab!
Announcement: https://samueli.ucla.edu/five-ucla-engineering-students-receive-2020-nsf-graduate-fellowships/
Congratulations, Annesh, for winning the inaugural John Ries Scholarship. His proposal on using ‘baked’ aggregated clay to treat stormwater was selected, and he is excited to get to work!
Announcement: https://www.escsi.org/e-newsletter/john-ries-2019-20-scholarship-awarded/
Research
Publications
Teaching
Resources
Email:
Phone:
(+1) 310-206-7624
Shipping Address:
420 Westwood Plaza, 5732-C Boelter Hall
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1600
Laboratory:
Boelter Hall 6802
Join UCLA SEALab
We welcome highly motivated students/postdocs to be part of our UCLA SEAL Team. However, currently we don't have a funded position for Ph.D. or Postdoctoral researcher. If you are interested to work with us in future, you may fill up the following forms, so that we will contact you if an opportunity becomes available and your skillsets match with the project need.
