Doctoral Students Shine in 12th Langer Symposium

On Friday, Dec. 4, the Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering hosted the 12th annual Robet M. Langer Graduate Student Symposium, a student-run forum for graduate students to publicly present their research in a professional setting. This year's symposium featured the work of nine students, all presented under the theme of "The Questions that Drive Our Work."

Organized by Yale doctoral students Drubajyoti Das Bridget Hegarty, Jon Powell, Siam Racharaks, and Andrew Sumner, the symposium highlighted the breadth of research being conducted at Yale, including presentations on novel methods for creating nanomaterials, recent developments in membrane-based energy harvesting, and even research on CO2 capture that was used on NASA's Orion spacecraft. In keeping with the symposium's purpose to recognize exceptional research and professionalism, presenters Chanhee Boo, Brian Drollette, and James Gutierrez were selected by conference attendees as "best presentation" honorees, for which they will receive monogrammed lab coats.

In addition to the scientific advancements on display, this year's symposium was also notable for being carbon neutral and having zero waste in landfills — a key example of the students, many of whom conduct research with implications for sustainability, living out the theme of this year's conference.

"The science and technology industry that we have built over the past few decades is well placed to address our biggest societal problems," said  Paul Van Tassel, chair of the Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering and professor of chemical & environmental engineering & biomedical engineering. "But we’re also at a point in our history where financial support of the scientific infrastructure is diminishing, forcing us to think not only about the types of projects we want to do, but also about the questions that drive those projects."

Here is a list of all this year's presenters, along with the title of their presentation: 

  • Chanhee Boo, “Omniphobic Membrane for Membrane Distillation (MD): Can it outperform state-of-the-art hydrophobic membranes?”
  • Youngwoo Choo, “Understanding the magnetic field induced alignment pathways of liquid crystalline block copolymers. How do block copolymers align in a magnetic field?”
  • Brian Drollette, “Organic compounds in shallow groundwater near shale gas wells of northeastern Pennsylvania”
  • Zachary Fishman, “Should you throw it in the pot? The synthesis of iron oxide nanosheets”
  • Tenghooi Goh, “Economically viable photovoltaics: dream or reality?”
  • James Gutierrez, “A tank full of green slime?”
  • Stacy Kanaan, “How can carbon nanotubes go from science fiction to science?”
  • Amanda Lounsbury, “The role of counter ions in nano-hematite synthesis: Implications for surface area and selenium adsorption capacity”
  • Matthew Paragano, “How small is too small? Mass transfer improvements in CO2 capture by electrospray-based aerosolization”
  • Evyatar Shaulsky, “Membrane-based osmotic heat engine: Can we do better than water?”