2020

12/04 - Suchitha defended her thesis and will soon graduate with a M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering. Congratulations!

11/20 PI Vasquez attended the annual AIChE national conference in a virtual environment. Many interesting talks but not enough time to watch them all.

10/12 - Excited to have a lyophilizer to get dried nanoparticles!

09/17 - Check out Dr. Vasquez using a lightboard to enhance asynchronous teaching!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTMHoP6dgP9h_8QLZ3Lz3BgnIrnS4BYml

09/11 - Congratulations Suchitha! NEMlab celebrates your third place in the Master's category for your poster presented at the 20th Annual SPE ACCE conference!

09/09 - Suchitha Devadas, a Chemical Engineering MS student in the group, will present her work on Lignin/PAN electrospun nanofibers at the 20th Annual SPE ACCE (Automotive Composite Conference & Exhibition) meeting.

09/04 - Sarah McDonald joins the research group! We are delighted to have Sarah--a freshman ChE-- working with us!

08/17 - Peng Chen joins NEMLab as a new Ph.D. student. He did an amazing job during his M.S. studies, including a publication on agitation to approximate blending performance without baffles. (Link) Welcome Peng and let's immerse your knowledge and apply it to the nanoworld.

08/16 - Emily Westphal is back and energized to complete her MS studies in ChE after a summer internship with Alion at AFRL. Welcome back Emily and let's thrive during these times.

08/11 - PI Vasquez seeks to learn more about magnetic "smart" complex-fluids and succeeded in submitting a CAREER proposal to NSF while working at home with a toddler. Thank you NEMLab members, family members and collaborators who supported my intriguing hypothesis. Let's keep tuning the behavior of magnetic materials. Figure shows a magnetic "clock" used to explain my work on magnetic materials to my Family.

08/05 - Emma, a sophomore student in Chemical Engineering working with NEMlab this summer, presented her summer (online-research) poster on the design of a settler for a liquid-liquid extraction apparatus. This apparatus will be assembled this Fall and will be used in the extraction of ethanol from water using castor oil as a green solvent! Great job Emma. #NSF funded, Grant No. 1705331.

07/01 - We have been learning a lot through our remote "research" experiences this summer. The group meets weekly using Zoom, and we like to learn more about each other work. Thank you all for your persistence and dedication to our research. (NOT pictured: Bishal)

06/30 - After almost five years at UD, Vasquez submitted his P&T package for an Associate Professor position. It has been a blast and I have learned many new things in the process.

05/15 Emma Allington and Astella Welsh, both undergraduate ChE students, joined the group and will be working and learning remotely this summer. Welcome!

04/26 - Grace Docken submitted the first undergraduate honor thesis for work done with NEMlab! Congratulations Grace

https://ecommons.udayton.edu/uhp_theses/254/

04/22 - Suchitha presented her work on "electrospinning" lignin-based fibers at the 2020 online Stander Symposium.

https://ecommons.udayton.edu/stander_posters/1837/

04/06 - John Flynn defended successfully his M.S. thesis work: "Optimizing the Discovery And Processability of Biologically Derived Molecular Glass Host Materials for Photonic Applications". John becomes the third M.S. alumni from the group and the first one to complete his research at WPAFB. We thank Dr. Thomas Cooper and Dr. Tod Grusenmeyer for advising and helping John for his work at WPAFB. (Note: John was the first student in our group to defend a thesis using Zoom)

02/03 - NEMLab published its first engineering education paper in The International Journal of Engineering Education, and in the special issue: "Teamwork Assessment in Engineering Education". This study took 3-years for its completion and it focuses on students' teamwork in the chemical engineering unit operations laboratory.