Gray Research Group, Summer 2012
Professor Kimberly A. Gray
Kimberly Gray joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University in 1995. After receiving her Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University she worked as a research engineer for the Lyonnaise des Eaux in Paris, France for 2 years. Her areas of expertise are environmental catalysis and physicochemical processes in natural and engineered environmental systems with particular focus on energy and sustainability applications. She studies the synthesis, characterization and performance of photo-active nanomaterials for application in renewable energy (CO2 reduction, water splitting) , water recycling (reactive membranes for chemical oxidation and disinfection) and air quality control (cabin air, building air handling). She also studies various aspects of ecosystem goods and services, particularly as it relates to how contaminants accumulate in aquatic food webs and how nutrients are assimilated in wetlands and streams. She is particularly interested in the design and operation of sustainable cities and in solving problems of water scarcity and gender equity in developing countries such as India.
Gray was a recipient of the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award. She was the Associate Director of the NSF Environmental Molecular Science Institute for Environmental Catalysis at NU from 1998-2005 and was the Director of the Environmental Science, Engineering and Policy Program from 2003-2010. She is a former president of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors and was member of the Board of Directors. She directed the Northwestern Institute for Sustainable Practices. In 2007 she received the McCormick Excellence Award in Research, Teaching and Citizenship. She was selected as the 2008-2010 Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer for her work in the areas of sustainability, energy and ecological restoration. Gray was chosen one of the 2008 Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows by the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. She works closely with the Chicago Legal Clinic to provide technical expertise to solve environmental problems for low-income urban communities. She is the author of over 100 scientific papers and lectures widely on energy and environmental issues.
Lab Members
Postdocs
Chao Liu
- B.S., Applied Chemistry, Guangxi University, Nanning, China (2008)
- Ph.D., Chemistry, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (2015)
Chao Liu joined Professor Gray's lab at NU in Fall 2015. During his Ph.D. training, he studied the heterogenization of homogeneous catalysts for solar fuels production using electrochemical and spectroscopical techniques. In Gray's lab, he is working on photothermal production of solar fuels using metal oxides.
Ph.D. students
Carolyn Wilke
- B.S., Chemical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (2010)
- M.S., Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA (2013)
Carolyn is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Engineering. She studies the environmental fate and toxicity of nanomaterials. Specifically, she examines the chemistry of silver and titanium dioxide nanomaterials in surface waters and their toxicity to bacteria under dark and solar irradiated conditions. She is also part of the Gaillard Research Group .
Carolyn blogs about environmental topics at Northwestern University’s HELIX magazine. You can find her blog posts at her HELIX page .
Yechan Won
- B.S., Chemical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA (2011)
- Ph.D. Student, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (2015)
- B.S. Molecular and Cellular Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (2015)
- Kevin Schwartzenberg - Tradewater, LLC
- Tiezheng Tong - Yale University
- Sarist Macksasitorn Bravos - Beghou Consulting
- Todd Eaton - National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Daniel Finkelstein-Shapiro - Arizona State University
- Anas Shereef-
- Olga Lyandres - Alliance for the Great Lakes
- Baiju Vijayan - Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology, India
- Gonghu Li- University of New Hampshire
- Carla Ng - ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
- Alex Agrios - Univ. of Connecticut
- Gonghu Li- University of New Hampshire
- Paul DeSario - Naval Research Lab
- Joy Chen - Lawrence Berkeley Lab - Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis
- Shannon Ciston - Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Univ. of California-Berkeley
- Marshal Lindsey - VP of Strategy and Research, Blue Northern Energy
- Cari Ishida - Geosyntec
- Adam Zacheis - Carrolo
- Jill Kostel - The Wetland Initiative
Yechan joined Professor Gray’s research group in 2015 as a Ph.D. student and is currently involved in an industry funded project in which he focuses on synthesis and application of TiO2 based composites. His goal in this project is to make a transparent TiO2 based composite coating on a borosilicate glass screen that displays the most photocatalytic and antimicrobial activities. Yechan is eager to expand his knowledge and understanding of chemical and physical properties of TiO2.
Masters Students
Bettina Wunderlich
Bettina is a Masters student in Biotechnology. She works with Carolyn Wilke to study the phototoxicity of nano-silver and nano-titanium dioxide in the aquatic environment. Specifically she has examined the production of reactive oxygen species from these nanoparticules under simulated solar irradiation using spectroscopic probes.