| Current students | |||
| Tim J. Mallo | Polymer and PFAS research (entered 8/2022). (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Adam Dumas | Polymer thermal decomposition (Entered 8/2023). (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Ph.D. graduates | |||
| Yuan Tian | “Redox Properties of Mixed Metal Oxides for Chemical Looping Combustion and Beyond.” (Ph.D. 2022; co-advised with Prof. Fanxing Li). Current: Staff III Chemical Engineer at MSA, Cranberry Township, PA.(LinkedIn) |  |
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| Arnab Bose | “Polysaccharide and Heat-Transfer-Fluid Pyrolysis Mechanisms Developed Using Data, Theory, and Machine Learning.” (Ph.D. 2020). Current: Post-doctoral Associate at Boehringer Ingelheim, Ridgefield, CT. (LinkedIn) |  |
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“Computed Elementary Mechanisms of Homogeneous Catalysis by Saccharide-Derived Hydroxyls, Organophosphorus, and Organotin” (Ph.D. 2019). Current: Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical and Life Science Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA. (LinkedIn) |
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| Craig D. Needham | “Crafting Detailed Kinetic Mechanisms for Gas- and Condensed-Phase Systems using Computational Quantum Chemistry” (Ph.D. 2016). Current: Simulation and Modeling Engineer, Inpria, Corvallis OR. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Patrick J. Fahey | “Alcohol and Saccharide Model-Compound Pyrolysis Experiments to Improve Understanding of Cellulose Pyrolysis” (Ph.D. 2015). Current: Technical Sales Engineer at Bio-Logic USA. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Vikram Seshadri | “Pyrolysis and Combustion Kinetics of Biomass-Related Compounds” (Sept 2014). Current: Senior Chemical Process Engineer, Modern Electron, Seattle, WA. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Nicole J. Labbe | “Determining Detailed Reaction Kinetics for Nitrogen- and Oxygen-Containing Fuels” (Dec. 2012). Current: Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Wenjun Li |
“Initial Aromatics Growth in Different Hydrocarbon Flames” (Sept. 2011). Current: Advanced Scientist at ExxonMobil Corporate Research, Annandale, NJ. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Kenneth A. Smith | “Developing Reactive Molecular Dynamics for Understanding Polymer Chemical Kinetics” (Ph.D. 2009, UMass Amherst). Current: Senior Principal Engineer, Raytheon Technologies Research Centers E. Hartford, CT. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Sonia V. Tulyani | “BEBOP, A New Reactive Potential using Bond-Energy/Bond-Order Relationships” (Ph.D. 2008, UMass Amherst); jointly supervised with George A. Petersson, Wesleyan University. Current: Chief Engineer, Materials and Process Engineering, Pratt & Whitney, E. Hartford, CT. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Aurélie Schoemann | “Flammability and Pyrolysis Chemistry of Standard and Novel Fire-Safe Polymers” (Ph.D. 2005, UMass Amherst, Advised jointly with Richard M. Farris (October 2005). Current: Business Development – ADAS and Consumer Electronics, SABIC. (LinkedIn) |
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| Matthew Law | “Molecular-Beam Mass Spectrometry of Ethylene and Cyclohexane Flames (Ph.D. 2005, UMass Amherst). Hewlett-Packard; retired. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Thierry Carrière | “Combustion Modeling of Ethylene/Oxygen and Allene/Oxygen Mixtures: Chemical Oxidation Mechanisms and Numerical Solution of the Non-Adiabatic Flame Equations” (Ph.D. 2004, UMass Amherst). Current: Director of Engineering, Paragon Space Development Corporation, Denver CO. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Huiqing Zhang | “Fire-Safe Polymers and Polymer Composites” (Ph.D. 2003, UMass Amherst); jointly supervised with Prof. Richard M. Farris). Presently Associate Scientist, Dow Chemical, Midland MI. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| George E. Oulundsen, III | “Experimental Kinetics of Hydrocarbon/Chlorine and Ethylene/Allene/Oxygen Flames” (Ph.D. 1999, UMass Amherst); Presently Director of Product Marketing, Coherent Inc., Bloomfield CT. |  |
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| Karin Rotem-Wildeman | “Computational Quantum Chemistry Applied to NOx Chemistry and New Fire-Resistant Polymers” (Ph.D. 1998, UMass Amherst). Current: Chief R&D Officer, Keurig Dr Pepper. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| I. Bradford Graff | “New Diagnostic Techniques for Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition of Amorphous Hydrocarbon Films” (Ph.D. 1998, UMass Amherst). Current: Siegfried (USA), Pennsville NJ. |  |
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| Pierre-Andre Bui | “Modeling Reactive Flows near Reactive Surfaces: Catalytic Oxidation and PECVD” (Ph.D. 1998, UMass Amherst). Current: Principal Engineer, General Electric Global Research, Schenectady NY. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Anuj Bhargava | “Measurements and Modeling of Chemistry in C2H4 Flames” (Ph.D. 1997, UMass Amherst). Current: Vice President, Aftermarket and Services, Carrier Corporation, Palm Beach Garden FL. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Wyn Shi | “Fundamental Chemistry of Steam Cracking of Propane” (Ph.D. 1994, UMass Amherst). Current: Vice President, JP Morgan Wealth Management, Newark DE. |  |
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| Roberto A. Pugliese, Jr. | “Reaction Kinetics of Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition” (Ph.D. 1993, UMass Amherst); Presently MEMS R&D Manager, Hewlett-Packard, Corvallis OR. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Scott D. Thomas | “Molecular-Beam Mass Spectrometry and Mechanistic Modeling of Lean and Rich Propene Flames” (Ph.D. 1992, UMass Amherst). Current: Vice President of Research and Development, Solventum. (LinkedIn) |  |
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M.S. graduates |
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| Madison Demel | Research topic: Modeling the coupled gas and solid reactor kinetics of chemical-looping oxydehydrogenation (M.S., December 2021). Current: Assistant Center Director, Mathnasium. (LinkedIn) | ||
| Chris Montevecchi | Research Topic: Developing chemical looping MBMS for studying ethane conversion to ethylene (M.S., December 2021). Current: Production Engineer at Ascend Performance Materials. (LinkedIn) |
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| “Comparing the Pyrolyses of D-Xylose, D-Arabinose, and L-Fucose” (M.S. thesis, December 2020). Current: Ph.D. Candidate at Arizona State University, Chemical Engineering. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Research Topic: Flammability Limits from Predicted Flame Speeds (M.S., December 2019). Current: Process Control Engineer, Honeywell, Paducah KY. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| “Reaction Paths for Hemicellulose Pyrolysis Using Reactive Molecular Dynamics” (M.S. thesis, May 2019). Current: PhD candidate, Louisiana State University. (LinkedIn) |  |
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Michael Gerber |
“Investigation of Oxygen Exchange and Methane Combustion Kinetics for CaMnO3-based Oxygen Carriers” (M.S. thesis, July 2017, co-advised with Fanxing Li). Current: Sterlitech Corporation, Kent WA. |  |
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| Saugata Gon | “Molecular-Beam Mass-Spectrometric Analyses of Hydrocarbon Flames” (M.S. 2007, UMass Amherst). Current: Staff Scientist, ChampionX, Sugar Land TX. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Aude Morel Ramat | “Molecular-Beam Mass Spectrometric Measurements and Modeling of Propene and Related Flames” (M.S. 2005, UMass Amherst). Current: Production Line Manager, B. Braun Group, Lausanne, Switzerland. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Mikael Vienneau | “Analyzing Levels of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Produced in Fuel-Rich Ethylene Flames” (M.S. 2004, UMass Amherst). Current: Managing Director at Broadway Capital Inc. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Rishi Gupta | “Reaction Engineering Aspects of Homogeneous Catalysis and of Combustion” (M.S. 2003, UMass Amherst). Ph.D. 2006, University of Connecticut. Current: Associate Director, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Libertyville IL. (LinkedIn) |
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| Taline Inguilizian | “Correlating Polymer Flammability Using Measured Pyrolysis Kinetics” (M.S. 1999, UMass Amherst). Current: Head of Rare Disease, Asset Development and Portfolio Management at Biogen. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Daniel J. Hennessey | “Applying Reaction Theory in Modeling Ethene Flames” (M.S. 1994, UMass Amherst). Current: Technical Manager, Coerent / Nufern, E Granby CT. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Melissa G. Michaud Wadkinson |
“Modeling and Measurement of Pollutants in Flames” (M.S. 1992, UMass Amherst). Current: Chief Engineer, Fulton Thermal Corporation, Pulaski NY. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Francine Communal Fayolle |
“Plasma Measurements and Gas-Phase Kinetics in Silicon Deposition by PECVD” (M.S. 1990, UMass Amherst). Current: Professor, Département Génie Procédés Alimentaires, ENITIAA, Ecole Nationale des d’Ingénieurs des Industries Alimentaires et Agricoles, Nantes FRANCE. (LinkedIn) |  |
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Prior post-doctoral associates and visitors |
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| Haiying Wang | Research Topic: Kinetics of catalyzed lignin pyrolysis; Visiting Chemical engineering Ph.D. student at NCSU, July 2019-July 2020. |  |
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Xin Tian, visitor |
Chemical looping materials and MBMS analysis. Visiting Ph.D. student 2017-18 from State Key Laboratory of Coal Combustion, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. |
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| Pyrolysis kinetics of wood and cellulose (Senior Research Associate, 2013). Staff Scientist at Novonesis. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Molecular-beam mass spectrometry and elementary kinetics (Assistant Research Professor 2011-12). Presently Director of Engineering at Armistice Capital LLC. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Young Seok Kim | Post-doctoral associate: MBMS characterization of flames (2009-10). Presently Senior Hardware Engineer, Apple, Cupertino CA. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Andrey Pereverzev | Post-doctoral associate: Oxygen functionality for Reactive Molecular Dynamics (2008-09). Presently Research Assistant Professor, Chemistry, University of Missouri-Columbia. |
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| Hari Singh, visitor | Visiting Associate Professor: Polymer decomposition chemistry (2002-2003). Presently Emeritus Professor, DDU Gorakhpur University, Department of Chemistry. |
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| Stanislav I. “Stas” Stoliarov | Post-doctoral associate: Polymer decomposition chemistry using TGA data, computational quantum chemistry, and molecular simulations (2000-2002). Current: Professor, Dept of Fire Protection Engineering, Affiliate Professor, Dept of Mechanical Engineering, Director, Fire Testing and Evaluation Center (FireTEC), University of Maryland, College Park. |  |
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| Voleti Sreedhara Rao | Post-doctoral associate: Predicting NOx kinetics with computational quantum chemistry (1996-98). Presently MD/CEO, INDRAS Pvt. Ltd. |  |
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| Other past group members | |||
| Tommy Sadej | Undergraduate Research Assistant: Reaction mechanisms for PFAS combustion. Class of 2023. Presently at Merck. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Noah Stallcup | Undergraduate Research Assistant: Development of GC and HPLC capabilities. Class of 2024. |  |
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| Jennifer Wang | Undergraduate Research Assistant: Extending the use of GC and GCxGC-ToFMS; Class of 2023. Presently Process Engineer at Chemtex Global Corporation. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Abdulaziz Swead | Undergraduate Research Assistant: Conducted research in combustion chemistry and reaction engineering. Class of 2022. Presently Process Engineer at SABIC. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Jonathan Falso |
Undergraduate Research Assistant: HPLC development. Class of 2023. (LinkedIn) | ||
| Nupur Jain | Undergraduate Research Assistant: Applying GCxGC-ToFMS to monosaccharide pyrolysis; Class of 2023. (LinkedIn) | ||
| Gayathri Janarthanam | Research Topic: Reactive Molecular Dynamics for Xylans; Chemical engineering M.S. student at NCSU, entered fall 2018. |  |
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| Emily Heckard | Undergraduate Research Assistant: Pyrolysis GCxGC/ToF-MS. B.S.Ch.E. 2021. Current: PhD student, Georgia Institute of Technology. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Chris Weber | Undergraduate Research Assistant: Flame speeds and flammability. B.S.Ch.E. 2019. |  |
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| Mazin Al-Omairi | Undergraduate Research Assistant: Analysis of LBNL Synchrotron MBMS flame data. B.S.Ch.E. 2019. Current: Validation Engineer at Trinity Consultants – Advent Engineering Life Science Solutions. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Katie Cao (Stoltz) | Undergraduate RA, 2017-18, Performance and calibration of GCxGC/TOFMS. B.S.Ch.E. 2019, presently Consultant II, Sequence Inc. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Haley Key | Undergraduate RA, 2015-16, Flow-tube MBMS analyses, B.S.Ch.E. 2016, presently Air Quality Chemical Engineer, RTI International, RTP, NC. (LinkedIn) |  |
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| Brian Gentry | Undergraduate RA, 2015, Flow-tube MBMS analyses, B.S.Ch.E. 2016. | ||
| Kristen Bowman | Summer undergraduate RA, 2015, PrIMe database development, B.S.Ch.E. 2016. | ||
| Connor Thompson | Summer undergraduate RA, 2015, PrIMe database development, B.S.Ch.E. 2016. | ||
| Shujun Ye | Summer undergraduate RA, 2015, PrIMe database development, B.S.Ch.E. 2016. | ||
| Celeste McFarlane | Summer high-school RA (NC School of Math and Science), 2015, Poly(acrylonitrile) pyrolysis products. Presently Incoming Analyst at Analysis Group, Boston MA. |  |
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| Joseph H. Gilliam | Undergraduate RA, 2014-15, Pyrolysis chemistry. | ||
| Nicola Kelfkens | Undergraduate RA, 2014-15, Pyrolysis chemistry. B.S.Ch.E. 2017, presently Associate Applications Engineer at Henkel, Cary, NC. (LinkedIn) | ||
| Andrew Crothers | Undergraduate RA, 2013, VASP simulations. B.S.Ch.E./B.A. Economics. Current: Dynamics Team Lead at Boston Metal. (LinkedIn) | ||
| Cristiana Lopes-Lara | Undergraduate exchange-student RA, 2012, PrIMe database and cyberinfrastructure development. Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University. Current: Senior Research Scientist at Amazon (LinkedIn) | ||
| Jordan R. Keith | Undergraduate RA, 2011-12, Computational chemistry for biomass. B.S.Ch.E. 2012; Ph.D. U. Texas Austin. Current: Senior Research Specialist, Dow. (LinkedIn) | ||
| Charles A. Lane | Undergraduate RA, 2010-12. Archiving PI-MBMS Data in PrIMe; Lignin pyrolysis. Presently Automation Engineer, Biogen. | ||
| Scott D. Crymble | Ph.D. student, 2012-2015. Hydrocarbon Pyrolysis. | ||
| Shane Di Dona | M.S. researcher, 2011-12, Setup of CUDA-enabled computer for molecular simulation. PhD ECE 2018 at Duke, presently Co-founder and Lead Programmer of Ion Innovations Inc. (LinkedIn) | ||
| Jin Yang | Ph.D. Student, 2008-09. High-performance molecular dynamics. |  |
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| Tyler Upton | Undergraduate independent study and summer RA, 2002. PAH sampling. |  |
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| Bryan Looze | Undergraduate summer RA, PAH sampling, 2002. |  |
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| Jessie Ip | Undergraduate independent study: Polymer decomposition (1999-2000). |  |
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| Kerry Z. Camp | Undergraduate independent study: Polymer decomposition for fire safety (1998). |  |
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| Jeffrey W. Peterson | Ph.D. student: “State-to-State Energy Transfer in Chemically Activated Reactions” (1991-97). |  |
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| Prasad Teella | Molecular-beam mass spectrometry of flat flames, 2005-06. |  |
Members
The Westmoreland Group in November 2021. Kneeling: Mitchell Haselow, Jared Haselow. L-R: Madison Demel, Claire Murphy, Chris Montevecchi, Yuan Tian, Jennifer Wang, Tommy Sadej, Phil Westmoreland, Hrishi Ram.
The Westmoreland Group celebrated member Chas McGill’s Ph.D. thesis defense (2019). Left to right: Haiying Wang, Phil Westmoreland, Ankush Jain, CHas and Lauren McGill, Arnab Bose, Yuan Tian.
The Westmoreland Group in December 2018. L-R: Chris Weber, Amrutha Raghu, Mazin Al-Omairi, Phil Westmoreland, Emily Heckard, Vernon Mascarenhas, Ankush Jain, Yuan Tian, Chas McGill, Gayathri Janarthanam, Arnab Bose.
The Westmoreland Group celebrated member Craig Needham’s Ph.D. thesis defense (March 2016). Left to right: Phil Westmoreland, Craig Needham, Arnab Bose, Sara Jo Taylor and Michael Gerber.
The Westmoreland Group celebrated member Wenjun Li’s Ph.D. thesis defense (September 2011). Left to right: Pat Fahey, Vikram Seshadri, Wenjun Li, Jordan Keith (BS ’13), Xueliang Yang, Nicole Labbe, Phil Westmoreland, and Prof. Fanxing Li of NC State’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, a former classmate of Wenjun’s at Tsinghua University.
The Westmoreland Group in January 2011 in North Carolina State University’s EB1 atrium. Left to right: Xueliang Yang, Jordan Keith (BS ’13), Pat Fahey, Phil Westmoreland, Wenjun Li, Nicole Labbe, Vikram Seshadri