News & Events

The group attended Dr. Jana's daughter's wedding in Cleveland. One of the most well organized weddings! We all kind of forgot the appetizers were not the dinner, but they were all delicious. Dr. Jana's glad this is the last wedding he will have to plan, but he admittedly mentioned only doing the last 20% of planning. Still nicely done! 

Abdul successfully had his article, Keratin-Derived Particle Reinforced Kevlar Aerogels for High-Efficiency Ultrafine Particle Filtration, published in Separation and Purification Technology. Three more to go, Abdul!

Abdul, Peyton, and Moni all presented posters on their research, and Abdul additionally did an oral presentation on his work. Moni showed his latest polyolefin work, while Peyton deftly discussed characterization of residence time through packed bed materials using NaCl and batch PFAS results which was an agglomeration of work done by Peyton, Brandon, and Moni. Dr. Jana attended early in the week on Tuesday to teach his short course on aerogels and applying aerogel materials. 

Congrats to #37! Luffy defended his projects involving sustainability of polyolefins, thermal insulation and management for windows, and 3D printing. It should be highlighted that Luffy only covered his major projects, but he worked on other topics like designing macroporous materials for direct-CO2 capture. After our group meeting reviews on his slides, he went back to the lab and did more experiments in anticipation of the committee's questions. Crazy, but great job Luffy! His committee included Drs. Sadhan Jana, Kevin Cavicchi, Chris Barney, James Eagan, and Jae-Won Choi. 

Peyton completed his first year in grad school, and with that, his first and last year of TA-ship. He was recognized as one of the top TAs based on student and faculty feedback in the Physics Department. This is likely the last year the department will give out the awards since the polymer faculty will take over teaching Physics I/II after the dissolution of the department from retrenchment. 

The group pictured from left to right (Abdul, Brandon, Moni, Amani, and Dr. Jana) attended the American Filtration Society's spring meeting in Louisville, KY. 

Moni won a whopping $3,000 for best student poster presenter, in addition to giving his oral talk. Abdul, Brandon, and Amani also presented their posters, altogether among 16 posters. 

Students came home with many goodies, and of course, new knowledge from their conversations that that they are eager to apply to their research. 

Moni and Brandon joined several other water startups in Washington D.C. to pitch GelPure. The event was hosted by DC Water and ran by Dr. Cat Shrier of the nonprofit WaterCitizen. In addition to the pitches and reverse pitches, staff from the EPA and US Patent Office stopped by to make short introductions of some of the resources available. We also got the chance to visit some of the halls of our House of Representatives. 

The group plus wives had a small gift exchange before everyone took off for the Winter Break. We also went out to dinner at The Spice Delight and had a few drinks at the High St. Hop House to welcome our newest member, Peyton. Punya clearly had a good time. Welp, another year at least of all boys in the group! 

Dr. Jana, Brandon and Natalie, the NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) coordinator, attended the national program mid-October to network and share insights with participants among the  NRT programs throughout the country. This conference celebrated the program's 10th anniversary, and R1 institutions like Yale, Princeton, and Harvard make up 67% (79/118) of the institutions winning awards, further demonstrating the distinction for UA to be a part of the program as an R2. In addition, we apparently have one of the highest participation rates of awardees in our program. A necessary building block of the program at any institution is the interdisciplinary nature of various subjects, and in UA's case, our program focuses on the combination of materials science, computer science, and data science & AI. 

Whether it be a line, an "x", or a "z" for Zippy, we were losers on this bingo night. Better luck next time Moni on getting that 50" TV, iPad, or deck of cards. But we had fun at the university's welcome-back event.

We loved the buffet at Saffron Patch in North Olmsted. Excellent choice and thanks for organizing, Moni! Some of us had three plates and a few lassi (might need to add a few extra miles to your next hike, Abdul).

First photo from left to right:

Abdul, Inji, Brandon, Moni, Aparna, Pratik, Punya, Luffy, Helen

Aparna Agrawal, a recent graduate of the group, is a co-founder of the start-up company Auxilium, which is designing improved wound-healing bandages. They recently received The Ohio Third Frontier Technology Validation and Start-up Fund ($200k), which is support the research and licensing of new technologies. Keep up the great work!