The Graduate Student Association (GSA) and the Graduate College welcome the Drexel community to join us for Scholars Share (formerly Books and Bagels) on Friday, January 26, 2018 at 12:00PM in the Graduate Student Lounge in Main Building, Room 010A (Basement) to hear from current graduate students about their research endeavors and a faculty moderator who will facilitate questions and discussion from the audience. Lunch is provided.

View the live broadcast of the program on YouTube.

MICHAEL RYAN, PHD

Director of Graduate Student Organizations, Graduate College
Moderator

Pietro Ranieri

Delivery of Plasma-Generated Species and Effects for Medical and Agricultural Applications
PhD in Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering

Summary: My research focuses on the stabilization and delivery of plasma treatment for antitumor and antimicrobial applications. Plasma itself is a surface treatment consisting of reactive chemical species, an electric field and some UV radiation. Whereas treating cancer cells or bacteria in petri dish is nontrivial, applying plasma to patients or on industrial scales is a major challenge. I will focus on the underlying chemical similarities between the two problems as well as the interdisciplinary approach needed to push the field forward.

Bryan Byles

Tailoring earth abundant tunnel manganese oxides for water desalination
PhD in Materials Science and Engineering
College of Engineering

Summary: As population levels and pollution of natural water sources continue to trend upward, there is increasing strain placed on the limited fresh water available on our planet. Therefore, it is imperative to develop low energy desalination methods based on abundant materials that can produce fresh water from the vastly larger brackish and salt water sources on Earth. One emerging technology for brackish water desalination is capacitive deionization, or CDI. This process utilizes low electric potentials to extract salt from solution into electrodes, providing distinct advantages in terms of cost and energy consumption over current methods such as reverse osmosis and thermal distillation. In our work, we utilize earth abundant and environmentally friendly manganese oxides and tailor their structures to maximize the amount of salt that can be removed from water in a modified CDI process.