2022 News Archive

The Geise Research Group wrapped up 2022 with a group lunch before the holiday break. See you in 2023!

Graduate student Sean Bannon presented a poster titled Engineering polymers to study structure/property relationships in desalination membranes at the Polymer Reaction Engineering XI meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona. Engineering Conferences International supported Sean's attendance at the meeting via a student travel award.

Lena Keesecker (pictured 3rd from the left along with other UVA ChE students) and Dr. Luca Kim presented at the 2022 AIChE Annual Meeting. Lena presented a poster during the undergraduate research poster session, and Dr. Kim presented a poster during the future faculty candidate poster session and two oral presentations.

Prof. Geise presented a seminar titled Structure/property relationships in desalination polymer membranes at Stanford University.

The Geise Research Group is excited to welcome its newest member, Caroline Morin! Caroline is a Chemical Engineering B.S. graduate from Carnegie Mellon University. Welcome to the group, Caroline!

Patrick McCormack (co-advised by Prof. Gary Koenig) successfully defended his doctoral thesis titled Transport phenomena in non-aqueous redox flow battery membranes. Congratulations to Dr. McCormack!

Prof. Geise was invited to present water purification research at the first U.S.-Africa Frontiers of Science, Engineering and Medicine Symposium.

According to a recent data analysis reported by Stanford's John Ioannidis, Prof. Geise ranks in the top 2% of chemical engineering researchers according to the composite indicator reported in the September 2022 data-update for Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators. Geise was listed along with UVA ChE current and former faculty members: Carta, Davis, Epling, Gainer, and O'Connell.

Prof. Geise presented a poster title Engineering Selective Transport in Polymer Membranes at the Chemical Separations Gordon Research Conference in Ventura, CA.

Dr. Luca Kim has been invited to participate as a mentee in the AIChE Future Faculty Mentoring Program. The program pairs senior graduate students and post-doctoral scholars with senior and junior faculty mentors.

Dr. Abhishek Roy and Dr. Mou Paul hosted Prof. Geise for a seminar at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO. Prof. Geise presented a seminar titled Engineering ion transport in polymer membranes for water purification and energy applications.

Chemical Engineering third year student Bea Tremblay joined the Geise Research Group as an undergraduate researcher. Welcome Bea!

Geise Research Group graduate student Charlie Leroux won 2nd place for his UVA ChE Summer Grad Student Seminar Series presentation titled Highly conductive branched copolymer membrane for non-aqueous redox flow battery applications. The seminar series invites Ph.D. students to present their research to peers and faculty.

Summer undergraduate resesarchers Jaysen Dildy (Norfolk State Electrical and Electronics Engineering – left) and Shruti Elango (UVA Chemistry – right) presented their research at the UVA Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Research Symposium. Both students were advised by graduate student Charlie Leroux.

Team TELEPORT (led by Prof. Geise and in collaboration with Prof. Gary Koenig, Prof. Gaurav Giri, and PowerTech Water) is 1 of 5 teams advancing to the final round of the American-Made Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize!

The American-Made Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize is designed to find solutions that de-risk and increase market viability for direct lithium extraction (DLE) from geothermal brines. Advancement of DLE technologies allows for improved methods that lower cost, lessen environmental impact, and further the mission to turn the threat of climate change into an opportunity to revitalize the U.S. energy and critical materials supply chain. The American-Made Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize is directed and administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Geothermal Technologies Office.

Prof. Geise was invited to write a perspective article to highlight recently published theory related to transport of solvents in solvated membranes: Hegde, Doherty, Squires, A two-phase model that unifies and extends the classical models of membrane transport, Science, 377 (6602), 186-191, 2022.

Dr. Jung Min (Luca) Kim attended the 2022 Future Faculty Workshop Diverse Leaders for the Future at the University of Delaware. The workshop focused on mentoring and professional development for aspiring independent academic researchers.

The Geise Research Group is hosting multiple undergraduate researchers this summer via NSF-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) programs and the UVA nanoSTAR Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP). Graduate Sean Bannon gave an overview of ion sorption measurements to undergraduate students Anna Harris (UVA ChE), Shruti Elango (UVA Chemistry), Colleen Piccolo (Germanna MechE), and Jaysen Dildy (Norfolk State Electrical and Electronics Eng) while the rest of the group joins in to watch.

Prof. Geise delivered an invited lecture on the group’s research related to flow battery membrane separators at the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry Workshop: Polymers for Fuel Cells, Energy Storage, and Conversion. The presentation focused on recent advances in poly(phenylene oxide)-based membranes for non-aqueous redox flow batteries and in modeling redox shuttle crossover properties using a thermodynamic framework.

Dr. Jung Min (Luca) Kim presented his research at the 2022 North American Membrane Society (NAMS) annual meeting. Dr. Kim discussed the transport of alkali cations in sulfonated polysulfone materials that contain poly(ethylene glycol) functionality.

Graduate student Sean Bannon presented his research at the 2022 North American Membrane Society (NAMS) annual meeting with a poster titled, “Salt sorption in charged polysulfone membranes exposed to high salinity environments.”

Prof. Geise participated at the Harrisonburg High School STEM Academy STEM-H Career Fair and talked to dozens of 8th through 12th grade students about chemical engineering careers and the role that chemical engineering plays in polymer science, water purification, and energy storage applications.

Graduate student Patrick McCormack (right) delivered an oral presentation about his research on membrane separators for non-aqueous flow battery systems during the UVA Chemical Engineering Research Symposium (CHEERS). Graduate student Charlie Leroux (left) chaired the student research presentation segment of the technical program.

A collaborative project between the Geise and Koenig research groups at UVA and Luna Innovations Inc. has been selected for Phase I funding via the U.S. DOE SBIR/STTR program in response to the FY 2022 Release 1 topic Membranes for Electrochemical Energy Storage Applications. The project seeks to accelerate the development of a nonaqueous flow battery membrane separator material.

Graduate student Sean Bannon was awarded a NAMS Elias Klein Founders' Travel Supplement to support expenses associated with attending the 2022 North American Membrane Society (NAMS) Annual Meeting in Tempe.

The article titled A critical review and commentary on recent progress of additive manufacturing and its impact on membrane technology was led by colleagues at the University of Connecticut. The invited contribution, published in the Journal of Membrane Science, included contributions from colleagues at six universities.