2025 News Archive

Geise Research Group alum, Dr. Sean Bannon (second from the right in the photo), won 2nd place for his presentation in the Area 8A Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research session at the 2025 AIChE Annual Meeting in Boston. Sean was selected to deliver a presentation during the invitation-only session on his research related to Engineering Ion Sorption in Neutral Polymers for Desalination Applications.

Prof. Geise gave an invited lecture on Characterizing and Modeling Ion Partitioning in Charged Polymers at the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry workshop on Polymers for Fuel Cells, Energy Storage, and Conversion. Graduate student Charlie Leroux and group alum Dr. Sean Bannon presented their research at the 248th ECS Meeting and the 2025 AIChE Annual Meeting, respectively.

The Geise Research Group has been busy publishing research results over the last few months:

Leroux published Selective Membrane for Non-Aqueous Electrochemical Flow Cells in Advanced Functional Materials.

Bannon, Tremblay, Morin, Leroux, and Phan published Characterizing hydrated polymers via dielectric relaxation spectroscopy: Connecting relative permittivity, state of water, and salt transport properties of sulfonated polysulfones in Macromolecules.

Saasi published Lithium Capture from Simulated Geothermal Brine via Chemical Reduction of Iron Phosphate in a Packed Bed Reactor in Separation and Purification Technology.

Bannon, Fetter, and D'Cunha published Engineering the water/salt sorption selectivity of polymers for desalination applications in ACS Macro Letters.

Bannon and Fetter (along with collaborator Slava Freger) published The influence of ion solvation and association interactions on mean ionic activity coefficients in neutral polymeric membranes in Macromolecules.

Graduate student Amin Tia Saasi presented his research, titled Lithium Capture from Simulated Geothermal Brine via ChemicalReduction of Iron Phosphate in a Packed Bed Reactor, at the 2025 CHEERS event run by the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Board and won second place for his presentation!

Congratulations to graduate student Charlie Leroux on winning a travel award from the Electrochemical Society to attend and present at the 248th ECS Meeting in Chicago, IL. Charlie will present results on membranes for flow batteries and lithium-sulfur batteries.

Geise Research Group alum, Bea Tremblay, was back on grounds to visit, so the group celebrated with a trip to Asado for lunch!

Graduate student Sean Bannon won the 2025 AIChE Separations Division Dibakar Bhattacharyya Graduate Student Research Award for Membrane-Based Separations for his paper Influence of Donnan and dielectric exclusion on ion sorption in sulfonated polysulfones.

Graduate student Amin Tia Saasi kicked off the UVA Chemical Engineering Summer Seminar Series with a presentation on his research into highly selective redox-active sorbents for targeted lithium capture from geothermal brines.

Graduate students Rachel Fetter and Sean Bannon as well as Prof. Geise presented research at the 2025 North American Membrane Society (NAMS) meeting. Additionally, research from graduate students Inara Oliveira do Carmo Nascimento and Anna Harris was featured in presentations by Yasmin Bimbatti (graduate student in Prof. Jeff McCutcheon's group at UConn).

Congratulations to recent Geise Research Group award winners! Caroline Morin has been honored with the UVA ChE Teaching Assistant Award, a VSGC Graduate Fellowship, and a UVA Double Hoo Project Award reflecting her dedication to both research and mentorship. Charlie Leroux won the 2025 DuPont Student Safety Award and was also selected to lead a UVA Double Hoo Project, highlighting his commitment to safety and mentorship. Natasha D'Cunha took home 1st place in the poster competition at the Engineering Undergraduate Research Symposium and received the Dudley M. Harman Scholarship, showcasing her excellence in undergraduate academics and research. Finally, Sean Bannon won the Gaden Excellence in Doctoral Studies Award, the UVA ChE Best Paper Award, and the 2025 NAMS Student Fellowship. He was also selected to present in the Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research session at the 2025 AIChE Meeting—an incredible recognition of his scholarly impact.

Sean Bannon successfully defended his doctoral thesis titled Engineering water/polymer interactions to control the transport properties of hydrated polymers for desalination. Congratulations Dr. Bannon!

Congratulations to undergraduate Natasha D'Cunha who won 1st place at the UVA Undergraduate Engineering Research and Design Symposium for her poster titled Understanding interactions between ions, water, and polymer in hydrated membranes for desalintion applications!

Congratulations to doctoral candidate Charlie Leroux on winning the 2025 DuPont Student Safety Award! The award, which recognizes and incentivizes efforts to make safety-related improvements or changes to laboratory practices, is given annually by the UVA Department of Chemical Engineering Safety Committee.

Graduate research assistant Inara Oliveira do Carmo Nascimento presented a poster titled Characterization of a sulfonated polyamide membrane for electric-driven processes at the 21st University of Virginia Engineering Student Research Symposium (UVERS) Poster Session.

Graduate student Sean Bannon won the 2025 North American Membrane Society (NAMS) Student Fellowship award! The award recognizes excellence in graduate research in membrane science and engineering. Sean will present his research and accept the award at the NAMS 2025 meeting in Nashville.

Prof. Geise published research resulting from collaborations with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas at Austin, and Jeonbuk National University in Korea. The Effects of Morphology and Hydration on Anion Transport in Self-Assembled Nanoporous Membranes is published in ACS Nano. Engineering Lithium–Magnesium Selectivity in Hydrated Polymer Membranes through Polymer Backbone Rigidity is published in ACS Macro Letters. Finally, Advanced Layered Nanocomposites with Controllable Aligned Channels for Efficient Solar-Driven Desalination is published in Chemical Engineering Journal.