Group Members
PhD Students
Eric Fell
G7 - Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering
Eric is from Vancouver, Canada where he received his BSc in Chemistry at Simon Fraser University. In his undergrad, under the supervision of Prof. Gary Leach, he focused on photonics and electrochemical catalyst characterization. He also spent time in Germany developing water splitting catalysts and toxic gas sensors at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the Universität Paderborn. He is currently exploring high-throughput electrochemical techniques for the screening of redox-active molecules for aqueous organic flow batteries. Here is a video of him presenting our group research. While he is constantly excited about energy storage, he also has a passion for nuclear science, CO2 capture, and space exploration.
Tommy George
G5 - Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering
Tommy studies ion exchange membranes for aqueous electrochemical reactors such as organic redox flow batteries and salt splitting for carbon dioxide removal. Tommy received a B.S. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Tufts University, and did undergraduate research focused on catalysis and mechanism studies of the oxygen reduction reaction.
Jordan Sosa
G5 - Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering
I received my Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics from the University of Tulsa, where I pursued different research areas from carbon electrode materials to optics to metallic glasses. By combining cycling experiments of static cells for faster and less noisy data with simulations of what happens inside the porous electrodes, I hope to better understand the effects from 1. physical properties of the electrode, 2. transport, chemical, and electrochemical properties of the electrolyte, and 3. the interface between those two phases. I am also a big fan of using open-source platforms to model and analyze our experiments.
Dawei Xi
G4 - Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering
Dawei received his B.S. in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China, focusing on CO2 reduction and electrocatalysis. Now he is working on the development of molecules for redox flow battery and seeking applications based on the developed flow battery system, combining insights from inorganic chemistry and catalysis.
Michael Emanuel
G4 - Applied Mathematics
Co-advised by Chris Rycroft
Michael got his undergraduate math degree from Harvard in 1999 and spent 17 years working in finance before returning to graduate studies in 2018 and completing a master's of data science at Harvard IACS in 2020. Michael is part of a team investigating the properties of porous electrodes used in redox flow batteries, where he performs numerical simulations. Michael has three young children and enjoys distance running and playing bridge and piano with his kids. In his younger days he placed 90th in the 2011 Boston Marathon in a time of 2:29:52.
Abdulrahman Alfaraidi
G3 - Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering
Co-advised by Richard Liu
Abdulrahman received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Southern California, and M.S. in Materials Science & Engineering from KAUST. He did his master thesis under the supervision of Prof. Jorge Gascon, working on the design and application of Titanium-MOFs for photocatalytic hydrogen production. Currently, Abdul is working on designing molecules to advance Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Batteries.
Sofía Edgar
G2 - Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering
Sofía is from Boise, Idaho, and received her B.S. in physics at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Her past research used computational methods to model defects in nanocrystalline materials and quantify uncertainty in measurements of star formation rates in high-redshift compact starburst galaxies. She is currently exploring new research directions.
Kyumin Lee
G2 - Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering
Kyumin received her B.S. in Material Science from Korea University, and M.S. in Material Science from Seoul National University. She did her master thesis under the supervision of Prof. Ki Tae Nam, exploring the use of redox-neutral reactions in electrochemical CO2 reduction to expand the product scope and achieve higher efficiency. Currently, she is interested in improving energy storage devices and developing CO2 capturing system.
Taobo Wang
G2 - Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering
Taobo started his undergraduate as a Pharmacy major at Peking University and later transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, finished his degree with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and an Honor Degree in Chemistry. In his undergraduate studies, he conducted research in organic synthesis and finished his thesis with Prof. Weiping Tang. Also, he worked with Prof. Marcel Schreier in electrochemistry and electrocatalysis, focusing on small-molecule transformations. As a newcomer in Aziz Lab, Taobo is always open to opportunities in discovering more about electrochemical engineering in batteries.
Undergraduates
Manav Bansal
Undergraduate Researcher
Manav is a freshman planning to cocnentrate in Environmental Science and Engineering with a secondary in Chemistry. His research focuses on investigating different cell structures and catalysts that can be utilized in (direct air) carbon capture.
Sedona Kessler
Undergraduate Researcher
Sedona is an undergraduate concentrating in Chemical and Physical Biology with a secondary in Statistics. Her research is focused on the all-green electrosynthesis of anthraquinones and their performance in aqueous organic redox flow batteries.