Derrick Bakuska – Chair

I completed my BSc. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Calgary in 2018. Through my internship in research and development, I realized research was a career I would be passionate towards. My internship gave me exposure to R&D from the industrial side and I gained valuable experience bringing one of our innovations through the commercialization process which included leading several pilot tests. I wish to continue to bridge the gap between academia and industry by developing innovative solutions that incorporate commercial considerations, allowing for accelerated adoption. My research is related to developing a low-cost method for producing vanadium electrolyte, which, due to high costs is limiting deployment of grid-scale vanadium redox-flow batteries. Furthermore, Alberta currently has a significant amount of vanadium resources contained in waste-streams from the petrochemical industry that are being sent to landfills. By developing novel solutions for purifying vanadium at low cost through either physical or electrochemical means, we can derive value from these sources while reducing the facility’s environmental impact. Altogether, through discovering a way to utilize these resources we can accelerate investment in energy storage facilities, decreasing society’s reliance on fossil fuels and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions

Stephanie Kedzior – Co-Chair

Stephanie completed her PhD in chemical engineering at McMaster University in Dr. Emily Cranston’s group where she studied the use of renewable materials, in particular cellulose nanocrystals, to improve the properties of polymer latexes. She has experience with polymer chemistry, interfacial engineering, and nanomaterials. She currently holds an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship and her postdoctoral work is joint with Drs. Milana Trifkovic, Steven Bryant, Kunal Karan, and Phil Egberts. She is working on the preparation and characterization of nanocomposite films for use as conductivity-based sensors, nanocellulose-based films and aerogels for battery applications, and the fundamentals of polysaccharide stabilized emulsions.

Niloofar Misaghian

Niloo is working on pore-scale modeling of flow battery electrodes. The flow battery is an auspicious technology for large-scale energy storage from such renewable energy resources as solar and wind. Despite its invaluable efficiency, its large extent commercialization is restricted to its expensive cost as well as some uncertainty from technical point of view. Therefore, there is always need to optimize the flow battery design and modeling with the goal of reducing the cost while providing a better performance.

Chengying Ai

Chengying is a M.Sc student in Chemical Engineering. She completed her bachelor degree in Applied Chemistry from China. Her research focuses on developing carbon materials for capacitive deionization (CDI). Capacitive deionization is a promising technology for water desalination, which features low energy-consumption and high efficiency. Through electrodepositing conducting polymers into a novel free-standing nanoporous carbon materials, she has improved the electrochemical performance of the material, for example, the electrical capacitance has increased by 10 times after conducting polymer coating. With improved electrical capacitance, the new material is supposed to have higher salt adsorption capacity, which means better CDI performance.

Ashutosh Singh

Ashutosh Singh is a PhD student in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering under Prof. Edward Roberts research team at University of Calgary. He Completed his B.tech in chemical and electrochemical engineering from Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI), India. During his undergraduate studies at CECRI, he was involved in various interdisciplinary projects related to material electrochemistry such as cathodic material testing for Li – ion batteries and Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC). These projects and their prospective impact on our society developed a strong interest under him to pursue different electrochemical technologies especially on energy storage and generation front. With this strong interest as seed and background, Ashutosh is currently working along with his research team on electrode materials for flow batteries application. He likes travelling to different places across globe and learn about different cultures.

Orrsam Aadil Abubaker

Orrsam is a M.Sc. student in chemistry under Dr. Venkataraman Thangadurai. He completed his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at the University of Calgary. His research focuses on developing and testing cathode materials for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFCs).  SOFCs are energy conversion devices which can generate electricity from hydrocarbon fuels with high efficiency and low pollution. However, the high operation temperature between 800 -1000 ºC results in numerous disadvantages such as material degradation, long start-up and shut-down times, along with expensive sealant and interconnect materials. Thus, reducing the operating temperature to the intermediate range of 500-750 ºC can mitigate these disadvantages. Along with his research in SOFC cathodes he is a member of the chemistry graduate student association (CGSA). He has participated in planning regular events in the chemistry department including but not limited too: the departments coffee parties, the new grads welcome party and the alumni event.