2016 News Archive

Undergraduate researcher, Kevin Bahati, was featured in a UVA Today Student Spotlight. Kevin is conducting research in the group with the support of the UVA USOAR program.

The Geise research group is excited to welcome new graduate students Saringi Agata (Columbia University), Kevin Chang (University College London), and Hongxi Luo (University of Missouri Columbia and East China University of Science & Technology) into the group.

Prof. Geise delivered an invited lecture titled Structure/property relationships in polymer membranes for water purification and energy applications to the Materials Science & Engineering Division at NIST in Gaithersburg, MD.

Fourth year undergraduate student Drew Biedermann was awarded a 2016-2017 Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Scholarship by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. This award is presented annually to 15 AIChE undergraduate student members on the basis of academic achievement and involvement in student chapter activities. The award will be presented at the 2016 AIChE Annual Student Conference in San Francisco on Sunday, November 13.

Huan Zhang's publication titled Modeling the water permeability and water/salt selectivity tradeoff in polymer membranes has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Membrane Science.

The Geise research group is pleased to welcome Dr. Bill Morris (Ph.D., Chemistry, 2016) as a postdoctoral scholar. Dr. Morris will be studying backbone dynamics and dielectric properties of hydrated membrane polymers.

Congratulations to graduate student Tianyi Xue for earning her M.S. degree in chemical engineering with her thesis, "Polymer backbone dynamics influence water/ion transport selectivity in membranes for water purification"!

Prof. Geise was selected to receive the ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award. Each year, ORAU member institutions are permitted to nominate up to 2 junior faculty members for the award to enhance their research. Prof. Geise was nominated by UVA this year and was one of 35 junior faculty from across the nation to be selected for the award. He was chosen from 132 applicants from ORAU’s 121 institutions.

Prof. Geise was selected to receive the Engineering Conferences International (ECI) New Professor Award. This award is made to assistant professors to develop future talent by enabling their attendance at an ECI meeting. Prof. Geise will present the group's research at the Advanced Membrane Technology VII meeting in September 2016.

Prof. Geise delivered an invited presentation titled Structure/property relationships in polymer membranes for water purification and energy applications at the APS March Meeting in Baltimore.

More than 5 years after publication, Prof. Geise's article Water purification by membranes: The role of polymer science is still 'topping the charts' in the Journal of Polymer Science: Part B as it was the most accessed article in the journal during 2015.

Additionally, Prof. Geise's article Water permeability and water/salt selectivity tradeoff in polymers for desalination is listed as one of the most cited articles in the Journal of Membrane Science.

The Geise research group traveled to Oak Ridge National Lab to meet with researchers in the Center for Nanophase Materials Science (CNMS) and Neutron Sciences to discuss mutual interests in polymers for membrane-based water treatment and energy applications.