News

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.

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.

Link: https://netl.doe.gov/node/9851

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.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.115195

Congratulations, Maryam for publishing her work in Science of The Total Environment. Her work shows how to best add biochar on roadside soil before compaction so that it won’t limit infiltration and improves treatment of stormwater. She found that adding moisture during compaction of biochar and sand mixture can partially alleviate the issue with low infiltration —a design that could make our roadways a water treatment network

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139180

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/