Three Graduate Students Awarded EPA Fellowships

Three Chemical & Environmental Engineering graduate students have been selected as recipients of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's STAR Fellowships.

Amanda Lounsbury, Devin Shaffer, and Jamila Yamani will each receive a total of up to $42,000 each for this year and each of the next two years.

The STAR fellowship program provides a steady stream of environmental specialists that are meeting society's environmental challenges by performing new environmental research in engineering and in the physical, biological, health, and social sciences.

"The EPA star award gives me the opportunity to explore new and innovative methods for heavy metal contamination of wastewater streams, said Yamani. "It also provides me with an incredible group of scientists, researchers, and policy-makers to connect with and to exchange ideas and feedback so we can develop our research further for more impactful science."

"I'm grateful for the support of the EPA STAR Fellowship," added Shaffer. "The Fellowship encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and provides three years of funding, which greatly benefit my research about antifouling desalination membranes."

More information on EPA graduate and undergraduate research fellowships can be found at http://epa.gov/ncer/fellow/

The recipients' projects:

  • Amanda Lounsbury: Semiconductor Photocatalytic Electrospun Nanofiber Mats as a Green Filter Media for Removal of Heavy Metals from Groundwater
  • Devin Shaffer: Improving the Quality, Availability, and Sustainability of Drinking Water Supplies through Antifouling and Antiscaling Desalination Membranes
  • Jamila Yamani: A Novel Technology for the Treatment of Wastewater using a Ubiquitous Chitosan Matrix with Varying Active Components