Davidson School of Chemical Engineering faculty members will co-advise two Purdue College of Engineering 2019 Lillian Gilbreth Postdoctoral Fellows.

Dr. Vilas Pol, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Associate Professor of Materials Engineering (by courtesy), will co-advise Hamid R. Seyf (left), who received a PhD degree from George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned two masters’ degrees, Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Missouri, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Islamic Azad University, Karaj Branch. Prior to attending graduate school, he worked as an R&D engineer in the automotive and energy industries for two years. Hamid’s research interests include grid-scale energy conversion and storage, atomistic level modeling and simulation of thermal transport in various materials, solid-state energy conversion, and energy storage technologies. Along with Dr. Pol, Seyf will be working with his co-advisor, Dr. Partha Mukherjee, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, to suppress lithium dendrites in Li-S batteries.

"I strongly believe that Purdue's Lillian Gilbreth Postdoctoral Fellowships are going to generate high-class academicians and scientists for handling global challenges," said Dr. Pol. "It is an honor to mentor and work with Dr. Hamid Seyf, a distinguished research fellow, on solid state energy storage area making next-generation batteries safer."

Dr. Letian Dou, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, will co-advise Ke Ma (right), who received her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder in December 2017. She received her BS degree in Chemical Engineering & Technology from Zhejiang University. Her research interests include inorganic nanomaterials, photocatalysis, and DNA nanotechnology in catalysis and biomedicine. In addition to Dr. Dou, Ke will be working with her co-advisor Dr. Jianguo Mei, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, to use polyelectrolytes to guide perovskite growth and improve their electronic properties for next-generation optoelectronics.

"We are excited about Dr. Ke Ma’s expertise in nanomaterials, energy harvesting, and biotechnology," explained Dr. Dou. "We firmly believe that she will help to bring our research on soft semiconductors to the next level towards practical applications.”

The Gilbreth Postdoctoral Fellowships at Purdue Engineering are awarded in memory of Dr. Lillian Moller Gilbreth (left), Professor at Purdue from 1935-1948. A world renowned pioneer in the application of psychology to industrial engineering, Dr. Gilbreth’s work epitomized interdisciplinary research and broader impact on industry and society.

The goal of the Lillian Gilbreth Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at Purdue Engineering is to attract and prepare outstanding individuals with recently awarded PhDs for a career in engineering academia through interdisciplinary research, training, and professional development.

The Lillian Gilbreth Postdoctoral Fellows are selected not only for their outstanding scholarly achievements and proposed innovative interdisciplinary research but also for their potential for broader impact on industry and society. They undertake research with faculty mentors in different fields and participate in professional development activities tailored to their chosen path in academia.

Read the complete list of 2019 Lillian Gilbreth Postdoctoral Fellows at: https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/Research/GilbrethFellowships/awardees.

Source: Dr. Vilas Pol, vpol@purdue.edu, (765) 494-0044

Source: Dr. Letian Dou, dou10@purdue.edu, (765) 494-4194