Fall 2026 Seminar Series
Seminars are Wednesdays at 4:00 p.m. in the Larrañaga Engineering Auditorium, Centennial Engineering Center unless otherwise noted, and are sponsored by CBE, BME, and NSME. Topical seminars are scheduled throughout the semester and can be used for seminar credit.
2026
September 30, 2026
From Observing Dynamic Electrocatalytic Sites to Controlling Reaction Pathways
Qiaowan Chang, Washington State University
4:00 p.m., Larrañaga Engineering Auditorium
Abstract: Electrocatalysis provides a promising platform for sustainable chemical conversion powered by renewable electricity. Under electrochemical conditions, however, catalysts can undergo dynamic structural and electronic evolution, while changes in reactive intermediates can reshape reaction pathways and product selectivity. Understanding these dynamic processes and developing strategies to control them are therefore important for the rational design of electrocatalytic systems.
In this seminar, I will discuss our efforts to establish relationships among catalyst structure, structural evolution, and catalytic performance through controlled materials synthesis, in situ characterization, and theoretical calculations. CO2 electroreduction over metal organic frameworks and ethanol oxidation on Pt nanocubes decorated with isolated Rh atoms will illustrate how changes in local coordination and catalyst structure influence catalytic stability and selectivity. I will then extend this perspective from understanding dynamic catalytic sites to controlling reaction pathways through electrochemical process design. A dual-cathode strategy enables the generation and regulation of reactive oxygen species for methane activation under ambient conditions, where controlled radical chemistry promotes C-C coupling toward liquid oxygenates, including acetic acid. In sum, these studies demonstrate approaches to understanding and controlling electrocatalytic transformations, from dynamic active site evolution to reaction pathway regulation.
Bio: Dr. Qiaowan Chang is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Washington State University. Her research focuses on developing catalytic and electrochemical technologies for the conversion of methane, biogas, and biomass into value added chemicals under ambient conditions, with particular emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI) and large language model (LLM) guided catalyst design, programmable control of reactive species, mechanistic understanding via in-situ characterization, and machine learning (ML) guided pulse electrochemical reactor engineering.
Dr. Chang received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego, under the guidance of Prof. Zheng Chen, where she was awarded the Marye Anne Fox Endowed Fellowship in recognition of her distinguished academic achievements. She subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Columbia University with Prof. Jingguang Chen and Prof. Alissa Park, expanding her expertise in electrocatalysis, carbon conversion, and sustainable chemical processes.
Her research has been recognized through several awards, including the ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Award, the Voiland School Junior Research Faculty Award, recognition as an Emerging Investigator by the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, and recognition as an Early Career Materials Researcher by MRS Communications. Her research has received support from the U.S. Department of Energy, the ACS Petroleum Research Fund, the National Science Foundation, and Washington State University. She has published broadly in leading journals including the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Communications, ACS Catalysis, Chem Catalysis, and other journals in catalysis and energy research. Her publications have received more than 6,600 citations, with an h index of 22, and she holds one U.S. patent. Her research aims to bridge fundamental understanding of electrocatalytic reactions with scalable technologies for distributed and sustainable chemical manufacturing.
September 23, 2026
Microfluidics-based High-throughput Bioassays & COFs for Water Treatment
Alireza (Ali) Abbaspourrad, Cornell
4:00 p.m., Larrañaga Engineering Auditorium
Abstract: In the first part of this presentation, I will discuss how we can utilize microfluidic platform to design bioassays and devices for cell manipulation to address challenges in infertility. In the second part of my talk, I will describe our approach to synthesize porous materials for gold sequestration from e-wastes and remove PFAS from water.
Bio: Ali holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Isfahan University of Technology in Iran. After 6 years of post-doctoral research on designing microfluidic-based platforms at Harvard University, School of Engineering, in 2015, he joined the Department of Food Science at Cornell University.
He is currently an associate professor at Cornell, leading a group of 42 scientists. In 2023, Ali served as a Vice President of R&D (12 months, full-time) at Fairlife, LLC, a subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company in Chicago.
He is the co-author of over 310 peer-reviewed publications and holds more than thirty patents and co-founder of three startups in IVF (in vitro fertilization) and antibacterial susceptibility tests platforms. He also serves as science advisor to Bill Gates Foundation, National Dairy Council, CJ Foods, Chick-Fil-A, and IFF.
September 16, 2026
Random Walk to 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Materials
Anand Chamarthy, CEO/Co-Founder, Lab 91 Inc
4:00 p.m., Larrañaga Engineering Auditorium
Abstract: Since graphene's isolation in 2004 showed that atomically thin, stable crystals could be manufactured, researchers have asked which two-dimensional materials might carry that promise into real devices. The 2010 discovery that monolayer MoS₂ has a direct bandgap, unlike its semimetallic bulk parent, reframed transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) as genuine semiconductors and set off a research arc that has increasingly intersected with the semiconductor industry's own scaling roadmap. This talk follows that arc — a random walk in the truest sense — from early exfoliated flakes in university labs to TMD channels now being integrated on 300mm production-format wafers by imec, ASML, TSMC, Intel, and others.
As silicon FinFET and gate-all-around (GAA) nanosheet architectures approach their electrostatic and mobility limits at sub-1nm-class nodes, the industry has looked to sub-1nm-thick 2D channels as one of the few material options that can, in principle, preserve carrier mobility and gate control at these dimensions. I will trace how TMDs moved from IEDM device demonstrations in the mid-2010s into formal roadmap discussions, culminating in their explicit inclusion in imec's logic scaling roadmap and the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS) as a candidate scaling booster and eventual channel-replacement technology.
The current state of the field will be framed around the challenges that stand between lab-scale devices and manufacturable ones: wafer-scale growth of low-defect TMD films; the persistent trade-off between contact resistance and further pitch scaling, challenge in dielectric deposition, and the need for CMOS-compatible, complementary n- and p-type integration flows. I will discuss the June 2026 milestone reported by imec, ASML, and TSMC — the first demonstration of complementary MoS₂ nFETs and WS₂/WSe₂ pFETs at a 50nm contacted poly pitch on a 300mm wafer, patterned with EUV lithography down to 28nm channel lengths and yielding 94% functional devices — as a marker of how close, and how far, the technology remains from foundry adoption.
Finally, I will discuss where TMDs are likely to enter production first — plausibly in back-end-of-line devices rather than front-end logic — and how that nearer-term path relates to the longer-range roadmap positions publicly discussed by imec and reflected in IRDS projections, which place complementary FET (CFET) architectures around the early 2030s and full 2D-channel logic considerably later, in the early 2040s. I will close with an honest assessment of the open questions that will determine whether TMDs become a mainstream logic material or find their first lasting home elsewhere in the technology stack.
Bio: Anand Chamarthy is a technical leader with over a decade directing semiconductor and hardware programs from early-stage R&D through foundry qualification and production deployment, with a focus on two-dimensional materials, analog & RF devices, and AI accelerator technologies. Serves as the primary technical liaison between end customers, defense primes, foundry partners, and equipment-ecosystem collaborators, translating research and customer requirements into qualified engineering programs. Anand is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer for Lab19 Inc. in Austin, TX.
September 9, 2026
Environmental Pollution and Human Liver Disease: Studying the Canaries in a Coal Mine of Hepatic Pathologies
Rama Gullapalli, UNM
4:00 p.m., Larrañaga Engineering Auditorium
Abstract: The global burden of metabolic disease has reached epidemic proportions. In the United States (USA), approximately 40 million individuals (~11–12% of the population) are diagnosed with type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and nearly 40% of adults are pre-diabetic emphasizing the growing healthcare burden of metabolic disease. Obesity, insulin resistance, and chronic inflammation are well-established drivers of metabolic (dysfunction) associated liver disease (MASLD). New Mexico is ranked # 1 for chronic liver disease burden in the US. Environmental pollutants are a key risk factor of increasing human metabolic disease burdens including MASLD. Chronic exposures to heavy metal pollutants are an important yet underrecognized contributor to metabolic diseases. Cadmium (Cd), a non-essential heavy metal, is a ubiquitous environmental pollutant that represents a significant public health concern. Due to its exceptionally long biological half-life and poor excretion, Cd progressively accumulates throughout life, particularly in metabolically active organs such as the liver and kidneys. Research in the Gullapalli lab has focused on understanding the role of environmental pollutants (e.g., cadmium, nano- and microplastics) as a driver of human liver metabolic diseases. The Gullapalli lab has established multiple experimental toxicological and imaging protocols to understand environmentally driven MASLD. This talk will focus on environmental pollution driven hepatocellular molecular changes (e.g., insulin resistance, mitochondrial dysfunction and altered lipid metabolism) as key drivers of human metabolic liver diseases.
Bio: Rama Gullapalli, MD, PhD is an associate professor and a physician-scientist in the departments of Pathology, Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of New Mexico (UNM). The Gullapalli research lab is focused on understanding the role of environmental pollutants (e.g., cadmium, microplastics, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) as risk factors for hepatobiliary diseases with a focus on metabolic diseases of the liver. On the clinical side, Dr. Gullapalli is interested in the convergence of emerging technologies with traditional pathology clinical practice, with a focus on next generation sequencing, digital pathology, clinical informatics and personalized medicine.
September 2, 2026
Acoustofluidic Trapping of Particles for Improved Separation
Ruben Trujillo, Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemical & Biological Engineering, UNM
4:00 p.m., Larrañaga Engineering Auditorium
Abstract: Separation of micro- and nano-sized particles is necessary for a wide range of processes including water purification and biological sample preparation. However, current separation techniques such as ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, and ultracentrifugation generally require high pressures, membrane replacement, high energy input, and can be limited to batch processes. There is a growing need for scalable isolation technologies that enable efficient, label-free isolation of micro- to nano-scale particles from complex media. Acoustophoresis is a technique that applies an acoustic wave via mechanical vibration to a fluid under laminar flow, creating pressure gradients that directly manipulate particles flowing in media. In the Graves Lab, we leverage acoustophoretic systems to not only manipulate particle flow, but to additionally trap and isolate these particles from solution. In our most recent work, we demonstrated the successful trapping of particles (>90% removal) in a novel acoustofluidic device using a stainless-steel wire placed in the center of a cylindrical capillary. Future work will continue to expand on this foundational study, and improve upon acoustofluidic devices for the capturing of nanoparticles.
Bio: Ruben Trujillo received a B.S. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from The University of New Mexico in 2019. Ruben completed his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University in 2024 where he studied polymer microgel systems for osteoarthritis treatment under Dr. David Putnam. Ruben is now a postdoc in Dr. Steven Graves’ lab in the Chemical and Biological Engineering department at UNM, working on microfluidic systems and separating particles using acoustic waves. Throughout his academic career, Ruben was named an NSF-GRFP Fellow, a Cornell Engineering Commercialization Fellow, and is now an ASERT-IRACDA Postdoctoral Fellow. Additionally, Ruben has participated in and received entrepreneurial funding through the NSF Innovation Corps program, the Cornell Ignite Acceleration program, and the UNM Rainforest Pitch Deck competition.
Computational and Experimental Study of Turn-On Luminescence of Amyloid- Targeting Oligomeric p-Phenylene Ethynylenes
Benjamin Fetrow, NSME PhD student, advised by Eva Chi
4:00 p.m., Larrañaga Engineering Auditorium
Abstract: The interaction between oligomeric p-phenylene ethynylenes (OPE) and amyloid beta oligomers involved in Alzheimer’s disease have been well documented, but the mechanisms underlying the turn-on behavior are complex and poorly understood. Initial work suggests that OPE undergoes aggregation-induced emission on the protein. This work studies the mechanisms of restriction of internal motion, intramolecular charge transfer, and coherent exciton formation through combined experimental and computational methods. We conclude that the initial direction of aggregation-induced emission was misguided, and that OPE-protein interactions are better characterized as aggregation-caused quenching partially disabled by protein binding.
Bio: I am a sixth year PhD student, co-advised by Professors Eva Chi and Will Bricker. I have an undergraduate degree in chemistry from UNM. In 2020, I began my graduate research synthesizing OPEs for my project and have since moved to a combined experimental and computational study of these molecules. I’ve been awarded the Griffith Fellowship in 2022, founded and ran the CBE student journal club from 2023-2024, and was one of the winners of the ACS 2025 Rocky Mountain Regional Meeting poster awards.
August 26, 2026
Keynote Address: Lipid Nanoparticles for Overcoming Biological Barriers to RNA Delivery
Michael J. Mitchell, Ph.D., Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
4:00 p.m., Larrañaga Engineering Auditorium
Abstract: Recent years have witnessed tremendous developments and breakthroughs in the field of RNA-based therapeutics and vaccines. The distinct mechanisms of exogenous RNAs and analogs, including messenger RNAs, small interfering RNAs, microRNAs, and antisense oligonucleotides, have brought them unprecedented potential to treat a variety of pathological conditions. However, the widespread application of RNA therapeutics and vaccines is hampered by their intrinsic features (e.g., instability, large size, and dense negative charge) and formidable host barriers. Development of safe and efficient vectors is key for successful delivery and translation of RNA therapeutics and vaccines. In this talk, I will discuss our efforts towards the development of new lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that enable the delivery of RNA therapeutics and vaccines to target cells and tissues in vivo. Furthermore, I will describe new therapeutic strategies utilizing these LNPs for (i) mRNA delivery to solid tumors for cancer immunotherapy, (ii) in vivo reprogramming of immune cells for in situ CAR T cell engineering, (iii) targeting the placenta to treat deadly pregnancy disorders.
Bio: Michael J. Mitchell is the Hibbert Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Lipid Nanoparticle Delivery Systems Group Leader at the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation. He received a BE in Biomedical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in 2009, a PhD in Biomedical Engineering with Prof. Michael King from Cornell University in 2014. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Engineering with Prof. Robert Langer at MIT from 2014-2017, prior to pursuing his independent career at University of Pennsylvania in 2018. Mitchell is an internationally recognized expert in lipid nanoparticle technologies for the delivery of mRNA and other genetic medicines. His interdisciplinary research bridges biomaterials science, drug delivery and molecular engineering, with applications ranging from cancer immunotherapy and vaccines, genome editing, aging, cardiovascular disease, and fetal and maternal therapeutics.
Mitchell has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications, including those in Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Materials, Nature Chemistry, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Cancer and Nature Biomedical Engineering. He is an inventor on over 80 pending or awarded patents, and is a co-founder and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of numerous biotechnology companies focused on developing non-viral delivery technologies for genetic medicines. His work has earned numerous distinctions, including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Penn’s Emerging Inventor of the Year Award and Young Investigator Awards from the Society for Biomaterials and the Controlled Release Society. He has also been twice-designated a Clarivate World’s Top 0.1% Highly Cited Researcher, elected a Fellow of the Controlled Release Society, and received the Kabiller Rising Star Award.
August 19, 2026
Mandatory Safety Training
Fernando Garzon and Geoff Courtin, UNM
4:00 p.m., Larrañaga Engineering Auditorium