Anjli Patel, Chemical Engineering BS ’16. Honors.
Anthony Abel, Chemical Engineering BS ’15. Honors.
Universities are able to nominate up to four students for consideration for the Goldwater Scholarship, a highly prestigious award that recognizes the nation’s top undergraduates committed to cutting-edge STEM research careers. In an unusual move, Drexel’s Goldwater Committee selected two students from the same lab this year. In an even more unusual move, both students received the award from the Goldwater Foundation, 2 of only 68 engineering students selected nationally this year. The students are Anjli Patel and Anthony Abel, and the lab is Dr. Jason Baxter’s Nanomaterials for Energy Applications and Technology (NEAT) Lab.
Anjli is a junior Chemical Engineering student and Anthony is a pre-junior in the same department. Both got involved with Dr. Baxter’s research as STAR Scholars the summer after their freshman year.
The Baxter lab investigates the synthesis of nanostructured materials and thin films and their use in solar cells in order to improve efficiency and reduce cost of this important sustainable energy technology. Both Anthony and Anjli are working on projects involving solar energy conversion, specifically the use of iron oxide to produce hydrogen from water and sunlight. They have published a paper together in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C and have presented their work at several conferences.
According to Dr. Baxter, "Anthony and Anjli are excellent students and researchers. They have made great contributions to my lab and I am lucky to have them in my group. We are so proud of their accomplishments.”
Anthony is currently on co-op at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where he is studying high-efficiency water splitting systems for grid-scale energy storage, and plans to go on for a PhD after graduating. For her part, with graduation one year closer, Anjli plans to pursue a PhD in semiconducting materials for solar energy applications, and ultimately hopes to be a materials researcher in the photovoltaics industry.