Archived News
2018
September 2018: I have been somewhat lax in updating this website but a number of great things have happened in the group.
1. A number of pending papers have been finally published. Check out our Google Scholar profile for updates.
2. Our group and group alumni were very involved with the Gordon Research Conference on Membranes. Manish was chair of the GRC and Yuexiao and Boya (alums) were chairs of the GRS. Here is a picture of Kumar group students and alums on a hike.
3. Manish and Woochul attended the Faraday Discussions on Artificial Water Channels. Manish was Deputy Chair. It was a unique experience. The new volume on all the papers that were presented and discussed are out. Check it out here.
4. The department had written a story about our work on artificial water channels including some information on the artificial water channels meeting. It can be seen here.
August 2018: Tyler's paper on the microstructure of reverse osmosis membranes determined using electron tomography is online in PNAS. This work was conducted in collaboration with Dow Water and can be seen here. A news story on this paper can be found here.
June 2018: Our paper on redesign of the OmpF membrane protein to target (any) precise pore size between 3 and 10 Angstroms was accepted today for publication in Nature Communications! Congratulations Ratul and Tingwei on this fantastic piece of work. Paper # 14 for the year.
June 2018: Our paper on the first macro-scale membrane created using artificial water channels is online. It can be accessed here (open access). Congratulations to Yuexiao and Woochul!
June 2018: Our 13th paper of the year was accepted today. Some highlights of our publications this year so far
1. Yuexiao and Woochul's paper on making a macroscale membrane with PAP5 artificial water channels is in press at Nature Communications.
2. Hasin's paper on halorhodopsin has been accepted for publication in Biophysical Journal after a long journey
3. A review on Artificial Channel based Membranes led by Woochul was published in Annual Reviews of Materials Research and can be accessed here.
February 2018: Patrick, Megan, and Emelia's paper in Energy and Environmental Science has been highlighted by EES Editors as a HOT manuscript in 2017. See the entire collection here. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. This massive review was put together in 3 months!
January 2018: Boya's paper on Moringa oleifera cationic protein (MOCP) enhanced sand filters for sustainable water treatment was highlighted in a beautiful cover on ES&T Letters and in a article in the C&EN magazine from ACS.
1. A number of pending papers have been finally published. Check out our Google Scholar profile for updates.
2. Our group and group alumni were very involved with the Gordon Research Conference on Membranes. Manish was chair of the GRC and Yuexiao and Boya (alums) were chairs of the GRS. Here is a picture of Kumar group students and alums on a hike.
3. Manish and Woochul attended the Faraday Discussions on Artificial Water Channels. Manish was Deputy Chair. It was a unique experience. The new volume on all the papers that were presented and discussed are out. Check it out here.
4. The department had written a story about our work on artificial water channels including some information on the artificial water channels meeting. It can be seen here.
August 2018: Tyler's paper on the microstructure of reverse osmosis membranes determined using electron tomography is online in PNAS. This work was conducted in collaboration with Dow Water and can be seen here. A news story on this paper can be found here.
June 2018: Our paper on redesign of the OmpF membrane protein to target (any) precise pore size between 3 and 10 Angstroms was accepted today for publication in Nature Communications! Congratulations Ratul and Tingwei on this fantastic piece of work. Paper # 14 for the year.
June 2018: Our paper on the first macro-scale membrane created using artificial water channels is online. It can be accessed here (open access). Congratulations to Yuexiao and Woochul!
June 2018: Our 13th paper of the year was accepted today. Some highlights of our publications this year so far
1. Yuexiao and Woochul's paper on making a macroscale membrane with PAP5 artificial water channels is in press at Nature Communications.
2. Hasin's paper on halorhodopsin has been accepted for publication in Biophysical Journal after a long journey
3. A review on Artificial Channel based Membranes led by Woochul was published in Annual Reviews of Materials Research and can be accessed here.
February 2018: Patrick, Megan, and Emelia's paper in Energy and Environmental Science has been highlighted by EES Editors as a HOT manuscript in 2017. See the entire collection here. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. This massive review was put together in 3 months!
January 2018: Boya's paper on Moringa oleifera cationic protein (MOCP) enhanced sand filters for sustainable water treatment was highlighted in a beautiful cover on ES&T Letters and in a article in the C&EN magazine from ACS.
2017
November 2017: We have had three new papers accepted/in press in the last few weeks.
1. Boya's paper on making sustainable filters with moringa seed extract was published in ES&T Letters and can be read here. It provides design guidance for these filters. It took a record 3 weeks from submission to being online! 2. Boya's paper on chemical transformation on polyacrylamide used for hydraulic fracturing was finally accepted after a very long period of review (~ 11 months) in ES&T. It is here. 3. Ben and collaborator Margaret Kowalik's paper was finally accepted into RSC Advances and can be read here. This paper has been 5-6 years in the making. October 2017: Three new graduate students join the group. Welcome Mike Geitner, Yu-Ming Tu, and Charan Samineni! Watch for their profile on the people page (coming soon). October 2017: Manish receives an "Excellence in Review" award from ES&T Letters. Reviewing is not always a thankless activity! See announcement here. September 2017: Our group is included in the "2017 Class of Influential Researchers" by I&EC Research. Hasin's artwork graces the cover of this issue! Check out the announcement here. August 2017: Manish receives the Della and Rustom Roy Award in Materials Research from the Materials Research Institute. This award is very meaningful for Manish as it is named after Professor Rustom Roy, a giant in the field of materials and co-founder of the Materials Research Society (MRS), and a native of Manish’s home state of Bihar in India. July 2017: Manish receives tenure in the department of Chemical Engineering at Penn State. June 2017: The Kumar group had a good AEESP (American Association of Environmental Engineering Professors) Conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Manish won one of the two non-student best presentation awards based on our work on probiotic biofilms to prevent membrane fouling! Boya and Yuexiao attended the conference as well. June 2017: Tingwei's first paper is online in the new journal from Wiley, Advanced Biosystems. This is a paper our group has been working on for years and deals with defining compatibility between polymers and membrane proteins. Check it out here. June 2017: Raj Guha and Ben Schantz defend their PhD theses. They are the fourth and fifth PhD students graduating from our group. Congratulations! May 2017: Our group receives two new NSF grants. See details here and here. May 2017: Boya is featured in a video produced by the CEE Department at Penn State. Check this video out here. April 2017: Kumar group undergraduate researcher and Schreyer Honors Scholar Elsa Koninckx is student marshall for Chemical Engineering. See news item here. We are very proud of her! November 2017: We have had three new papers accepted/in press in the last few weeks.
1. Boya's paper on making sustainable filters with moringa seed extract was published in ES&T Letters and can be read here. It provides design guidance for these filters. It took a record 3 weeks from submission to being online! 2. Boya's paper on chemical transformation on polyacrylamide used for hydraulic fracturing was finally accepted after a very long period of review (~ 11 months) in ES&T. It is here. 3. Ben and collaborator Margaret Kowalik's paper was finally accepted into RSC Advances and can be read here. This paper has been 5-6 years in the making. October 2017: Three new graduate students join the group. Welcome Mike Geitner, Yu-Ming Tu, and Charan Samineni! Watch for their profile on the people page (coming soon). October 2017: Manish receives an "Excellence in Review" award from ES&T Letters. Reviewing is not always a thankless activity! See announcement here. September 2017: Our group is included in the "2017 Class of Influential Researchers" by I&EC Research. Hasin's artwork graces the cover of this issue! Check out the announcement here. August 2017: Manish receives the Della and Rustom Roy Award in Materials Research from the Materials Research Institute. This award is very meaningful for Manish as it is named after Professor Rustom Roy, a giant in the field of materials and co-founder of the Materials Research Society (MRS), and a native of Manish’s home state of Bihar in India. July 2017: Manish receives tenure in the department of Chemical Engineering at Penn State. June 2017: The Kumar group had a good AEESP (American Association of Environmental Engineering Professors) Conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Manish won one of the two non-student best presentation awards based on our work on probiotic biofilms to prevent membrane fouling! Boya and Yuexiao attended the conference as well. June 2017: Tingwei's first paper is online in the new journal from Wiley, Advanced Biosystems. This is a paper our group has been working on for years and deals with defining compatibility between polymers and membrane proteins. Check it out here. June 2017: Raj Guha and Ben Schantz defend their PhD theses. They are the fourth and fifth PhD students graduating from our group. Congratulations! May 2017: Our group receives two new NSF grants. See details here and here. May 2017: Boya is featured in a video produced by the CEE Department at Penn State. Check this video out here. April 2017: Kumar group undergraduate researcher and Schreyer Honors Scholar Elsa Koninckx is student marshall for Chemical Engineering. See news item here. We are very proud of her! 2016December 2016: A paper that Manish, Tyler, and Yuexiao wrote as a part of Manish’s invited presentation at the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Conference (2016) was selected for publication. This article was published in the winter edition of NAE’s quarterly “The Bridge”. It can be downloaded at this link and is titled "Water Desalination: History, Advances, and Challenges". This is indeed an honor for our young group!
November 2016: Penn State Materials Research Institute recently published their quarterly magazine "Focus on Materials" with the theme “Water”. Several of our collaborations including those with Andrew Zydney, Stephanie Velegol, and Chris Gorksi were highlighted. Our lab was featured as well. Check it out here. November 2016: Our review paper on biomimetic approaches for linking redox proteins to electrodes was accepted by Energy and Environmental Science and is online. Great job Patrick, Emelia and Megan! I still cannot believe you guys put this very detailed paper together in 2-3 months. You can check out the accepted manuscript here. October 2016: Our proposal to host a Faraday Discussions conference on Artificial Channels has been accepted. These discussions are important gatherings of experts in a research subspecialty and shows the growing influence of a particular research area. See more details in this cool video here. Collaborator Mihail Barboiu will be the chair and Manish will be the Deputy Chair. October 2016: Four new graduate students join our group. Welcome Cory, Derrick, Rebeca, and Woochul! Read about them on the People page. September 2016: Our collaborative paper with the Zimmer, Nixon and Bulone groups showing that a single isoform of plant (poplar) cellulose synthase is sufficient for cellulose microfibril formation was published in PNAS! Read it here. September 2016: Patrick's paper on PSI in block copolymers and on block copolymer conductive interfaces linked to electrodes is published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A (after a long journey). Read it here. July 2016: Several members of our lab visited the exciting Gordon Research Conference on Membranes: Materials and Processes.
July 2016: Our collaborative paper with Prof, Na Wei's group (Notre Dame) on surface display of laccases for environmental remediation is online. It was published in Environmental Science and Technology. Read it here.
November 2015: Akhila, Megan and Tyler join the group as graduate students. Check out their profiles on the People page. August 2015: Yuexiao's artificial channel paper is online. This paper is on testing an artificial water channel that has permeabilities approaching those of aquaporins and was published in PNAS. Check it out here. July 2015: Undergrad Stanley Chan wins the Astronaut Scholarship. Check out the news story here. June 2015: Yuexiao wins the NAMS graduate student fellowship and the Poster session first prize! April 2015: NSF awards a GOALI project to our collaborative team with Prof. William Phillip at Notre Dame. See details here. April 2015: Kevin's Moringa paper is online in Langmuir. See details here. This paper describes the molecular mechanism of membrane damage caused by the cationic protein from Moringa seeds. Also see news coverage here.
November 2014: Yuexiao wins the AICHE Separations Division Graduate Student Award. See PSU news story here.
September 2014: Patrick wins the EPA STAR Fellowship! Congratulations. See PSU news story here. August 2014: Undergraduate student Stanley Chan receives the NASA Space Grant Scholarship. Details here. August 2014: Our Advanced Materials paper on 2D crystal based Photosystem I solar conversion devices is online. This is a collaboration with the Golbeck, Mallouk and the Bazan groups. July 2014: The Penn State DOE EFRC Center, Center for Lignocellulosic Structure and Function is renewed. Manish is a PI on the renewal and will collaborate closely with Dr. Tracy Nixon on structure determination of plant cellulose synthases. May 2014: Yuexiao is selected to present as one of the 8 graduate students nationwide at the Council for Chemical Research (CCR) meeting. |
March 2017: Megan wins the NSF Graduate Fellowship! Also, Kumar group undergraduate researcher, Kevin Shebek who is now at Northwestern, receives honorable mention.
March 2017: Our paper on the permeability of the eye lens aquaporin, AQP0, and mutations for increasing its permeability 40x is online on the Biophysical Journal website. Check it out here. It was also featured in a "slider" on Biophysical Journal's home page! It will be available here for a few weeks. February 2017 (updated!): Our paper on polymer exchange in detergent micelles studied using Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS), relevant to incorporation of membrane proteins in block copolymers, was accepted for publication in Macromolecules after a year of repeat experiments and revisions. Congratulations Ben and Patrick and thank you to collaborators Kyle Bishop (Columbia) and Paul Butler (NIST). Here is a link to the paper. February 2017: Manish had a wonderful visit to Taiwan with the Industrial Technology Research Institute and National Taiwan University. Thank you to Daniel Tai (ITRI) for hosting me, it was a wonderful experience. Also thank you to Allan Tung for hosting me at NTU and arranging for the seminar. It was great to see so many bright students. We look forward to collaborations in the near future. February 2017: Hasin attended the Biophysical Society Meeting in New Orleans. She was a finalist for the SRAA poster presentation prize for her work on rhodopsins. Congratulations Hasin February 2017: Two undergraduate education related papers based on our collaborative work were accepted. They are listed below. Watch this space for links. 1. Follmer DJ, Zappe SE, Gomez E. & Kumar M. (2017). Student outcomes from undergraduate research programs: Comparing research experiences for undergraduates (REU) models. Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly (accepted). 2. Follmer DJ, Zappe SE, Gomez E. & Kumar M. (2017). Results and Implications of a Three-Year Evaluation of a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program in Chemical Engineering. Chemical Engineering Education (accepted). January 2017: Chao Lang joins our group as a postdoc. Chao is an expert in synthetic channel synthesis and completed his PhD at Jilin University. Welcome Chao!. Check out Chao's impressive profile on our People page. April 2017: Both Cory and Megan win the Pennsylvania Space Grant Graduate Scholarship! April 2017: Tingwei wins multiple accolades. She recently received the Air Products Graduate Fellowship which includes a summer internship at Air Products and a full year of funding! This is a highly sought after opportunity in our department. Tingwei also placed first in the College of Engineering Research Symposium poster competition! April 2017: Kumar group undergraduate researcher John Brezovec has won a DAAD RISE scholarship to conduct research in Germany for 3 months this summer. He will be working at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam. He will be working on Giant Unilamellar Vesicles. March 2017: Megan wins the NSF Graduate Fellowship! Also, Kumar group undergraduate researcher, Kevin Shebek who is now at Northwestern, receives honorable mention.
March 2017: Our paper on the permeability of the eye lens aquaporin, AQP0, and mutations for increasing its permeability 40x is online on the Biophysical Journal website. Check it out here. It was also featured in a "slider" on Biophysical Journal's home page! It will be available here for a few weeks. February 2017 (updated!): Our paper on polymer exchange in detergent micelles studied using Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS), relevant to incorporation of membrane proteins in block copolymers, was accepted for publication in Macromolecules after a year of repeat experiments and revisions. Congratulations Ben and Patrick and thank you to collaborators Kyle Bishop (Columbia) and Paul Butler (NIST). Here is a link to the paper. February 2017: Manish had a wonderful visit to Taiwan with the Industrial Technology Research Institute and National Taiwan University. Thank you to Daniel Tai (ITRI) for hosting me, it was a wonderful experience. Also thank you to Allan Tung for hosting me at NTU and arranging for the seminar. It was great to see so many bright students. We look forward to collaborations in the near future. February 2017: Hasin attended the Biophysical Society Meeting in New Orleans. She was a finalist for the SRAA poster presentation prize for her work on rhodopsins. Congratulations Hasin February 2017: Two undergraduate education related papers based on our collaborative work were accepted. They are listed below. Watch this space for links. 1. Follmer DJ, Zappe SE, Gomez E. & Kumar M. (2017). Student outcomes from undergraduate research programs: Comparing research experiences for undergraduates (REU) models. Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly (accepted). 2. Follmer DJ, Zappe SE, Gomez E. & Kumar M. (2017). Results and Implications of a Three-Year Evaluation of a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program in Chemical Engineering. Chemical Engineering Education (accepted). January 2017: Chao Lang joins our group as a postdoc. Chao is an expert in synthetic channel synthesis and completed his PhD at Jilin University. Welcome Chao!. Check out Chao's impressive profile on our People page. April 2017: Both Cory and Megan win the Pennsylvania Space Grant Graduate Scholarship! April 2017: Tingwei wins multiple accolades. She recently received the Air Products Graduate Fellowship which includes a summer internship at Air Products and a full year of funding! This is a highly sought after opportunity in our department. Tingwei also placed first in the College of Engineering Research Symposium poster competition! April 2017: Kumar group undergraduate researcher John Brezovec has won a DAAD RISE scholarship to conduct research in Germany for 3 months this summer. He will be working at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam. He will be working on Giant Unilamellar Vesicles. June 2016: Yuexiao successfully defends his PhD. Congratulations!
May 2016: Our paper on the EM structure of Gluconacetobacter hansenii (formerly acetobacter) cellulose synthase (AcsAB) is online. Read it here. May 2016: Our diffusiophoresis review with the Velegol group is published in Soft Matter. Raj and Manish are coauthors. Read it here. April 2016: Boya's paper on microfiltration of frack flowback water is published in Water Research. Check it out here. April 2016: Hasin wins first prize at the College of Engineering Research Symposium. Congratulations Hasin! April 2016: Our paper on using engineered self-controlled biofilms to fight biofouling on reverse osmosis (RO) membranes was accepted to PNAS. Raj is co-first author, Li and Mike Geitner are co-authors. Details of project here. Paper is available for download here. April 2016: Our collaborative paper with the Mihail Barboiu group at CNRS, Montpellier, France on I-quartet water channels was accepted to JACS! Yuexiao is co-first author. Check it out here. April 2016: Yuexiao receives the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad! See announcement here. Also here is a picture of Yuexiao being interviewed by news media. March 2016: Megan receives an Honorable mention for her application the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Congratulations Megan! March 2016: Undergraduate researcher Emelia Conte from our lab receives the prestigious Larry Duda Undergraduate Research Award! Congratulations Emelia. March 2016: The group has received a new grant from the Army on studying I-quartets as water channels in block copolymer membranes. March 2016: Manish receives the NSF CAREER award. Read PSU announcement here. This work will focus on developing pillar[n]arene channel-based membranes for water treatment. March 2016: Hasin's paper has been accepted to Biotechnology and Bioengineering. This paper describes how membrane proteins can be concentrated without concentrating detergents. Read the ASAP version here! March 2016: Harrison’s paper is online. This paper is in collaboration with Prof. Mike Hickner’s group (Penn State) on ion exchange membranes and was published in the Journal of Membrane Science. Read it here. January 2016: Our first paper of the year is online. This paper is in collaboration with Prof. Meagan Mauter’s group at Carnegie Mellon and was published in JACS. Patrick is co-first author. Read it here. January 2016: Kumar group high school researcher Gianmarco Terrones wins recognition as a semifinalist in the Intel Science Competition and is a National Merit Finalist. See news story here. He has also been accepted to Caltech! May 2015: Welcome Summer Research Students!
Eduardo Barbieri (Brazil Scientific Mobility Program) Bon Ikwuagwu (CHE REU, UPitt) Craig Vandervelden (CHE REU, Kansas) Fabiola Agramonte (CHE REU, University of Puerto Rico, Magayez, Chemical Engineering) Daniel Tsai (CHE Biofellowship, Penn State Sophomore) Lazaro Pacheco (MRSEC REU, Rutgers MatSE) Jeevan Prabhakar (CERI, PSU CHE) Ben Farina (CCRINGS Project, PSU CHE) Jan - Mar 2015: A number of our papers went online
May 2014: Manish is co-directing the new REU program (Integration of Biology and Materials) with Dr. Esther Gomez. We start this month.
March 2014: Our group receives a couple of NSF grants. The definition of a good week!
Jan 2014: A number of our papers went online in Jan
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November 2017: We have had three new papers accepted/in press in the last few weeks.
1. Boya's paper on making sustainable filters with moringa seed extract was published in ES&T Letters and can be read here. It provides design guidance for these filters. It took a record 3 weeks from submission to being online! 2. Boya's paper on chemical transformation on polyacrylamide used for hydraulic fracturing was finally accepted after a very long period of review (~ 11 months) in ES&T. It is here. 3. Ben and collaborator Margaret Kowalik's paper was finally accepted into RSC Advances and can be read here. This paper has been 5-6 years in the making. October 2017: Three new graduate students join the group. Welcome Mike Geitner, Yu-Ming Tu, and Charan Samineni! Watch for their profile on the people page (coming soon). October 2017: Manish receives an "Excellence in Review" award from ES&T Letters. Reviewing is not always a thankless activity! See announcement here. September 2017: Our group is included in the "2017 Class of Influential Researchers" by I&EC Research. Hasin's artwork graces the cover of this issue! Check out the announcement here. August 2017: Manish receives the Della and Rustom Roy Award in Materials Research from the Materials Research Institute. This award is very meaningful for Manish as it is named after Professor Rustom Roy, a giant in the field of materials and co-founder of the Materials Research Society (MRS), and a native of Manish’s home state of Bihar in India. July 2017: Manish receives tenure in the department of Chemical Engineering at Penn State. June 2017: The Kumar group had a good AEESP (American Association of Environmental Engineering Professors) Conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Manish won one of the two non-student best presentation awards based on our work on probiotic biofilms to prevent membrane fouling! Boya and Yuexiao attended the conference as well. June 2017: Tingwei's first paper is online in the new journal from Wiley, Advanced Biosystems. This is a paper our group has been working on for years and deals with defining compatibility between polymers and membrane proteins. Check it out here. June 2017: Raj Guha and Ben Schantz defend their PhD theses. They are the fourth and fifth PhD students graduating from our group. Congratulations! May 2017: Our group receives two new NSF grants. See details here and here. May 2017: Boya is featured in a video produced by the CEE Department at Penn State. Check this video out here. April 2017: Kumar group undergraduate researcher and Schreyer Honors Scholar Elsa Koninckx is student marshall for Chemical Engineering. See news item here. We are very proud of her! 2016December 2016: A paper that Manish, Tyler, and Yuexiao wrote as a part of Manish’s invited presentation at the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Conference (2016) was selected for publication. This article was published in the winter edition of NAE’s quarterly “The Bridge”. It can be downloaded at this link and is titled "Water Desalination: History, Advances, and Challenges". This is indeed an honor for our young group!
November 2016: Penn State Materials Research Institute recently published their quarterly magazine "Focus on Materials" with the theme “Water”. Several of our collaborations including those with Andrew Zydney, Stephanie Velegol, and Chris Gorksi were highlighted. Our lab was featured as well. Check it out here. November 2016: Our review paper on biomimetic approaches for linking redox proteins to electrodes was accepted by Energy and Environmental Science and is online. Great job Patrick, Emelia and Megan! I still cannot believe you guys put this very detailed paper together in 2-3 months. You can check out the accepted manuscript here. October 2016: Our proposal to host a Faraday Discussions conference on Artificial Channels has been accepted. These discussions are important gatherings of experts in a research subspecialty and shows the growing influence of a particular research area. See more details in this cool video here. Collaborator Mihail Barboiu will be the chair and Manish will be the Deputy Chair. October 2016: Four new graduate students join our group. Welcome Cory, Derrick, Rebeca, and Woochul! Read about them on the People page. September 2016: Our collaborative paper with the Zimmer, Nixon and Bulone groups showing that a single isoform of plant (poplar) cellulose synthase is sufficient for cellulose microfibril formation was published in PNAS! Read it here. September 2016: Patrick's paper on PSI in block copolymers and on block copolymer conductive interfaces linked to electrodes is published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A (after a long journey). Read it here. July 2016: Several members of our lab visited the exciting Gordon Research Conference on Membranes: Materials and Processes.
July 2016: Our collaborative paper with Prof, Na Wei's group (Notre Dame) on surface display of laccases for environmental remediation is online. It was published in Environmental Science and Technology. Read it here.
November 2015: Akhila, Megan and Tyler join the group as graduate students. Check out their profiles on the People page. August 2015: Yuexiao's artificial channel paper is online. This paper is on testing an artificial water channel that has permeabilities approaching those of aquaporins and was published in PNAS. Check it out here. July 2015: Undergrad Stanley Chan wins the Astronaut Scholarship. Check out the news story here. June 2015: Yuexiao wins the NAMS graduate student fellowship and the Poster session first prize! April 2015: NSF awards a GOALI project to our collaborative team with Prof. William Phillip at Notre Dame. See details here. April 2015: Kevin's Moringa paper is online in Langmuir. See details here. This paper describes the molecular mechanism of membrane damage caused by the cationic protein from Moringa seeds. Also see news coverage here.
November 2014: Yuexiao wins the AICHE Separations Division Graduate Student Award. See PSU news story here.
September 2014: Patrick wins the EPA STAR Fellowship! Congratulations. See PSU news story here. August 2014: Undergraduate student Stanley Chan receives the NASA Space Grant Scholarship. Details here. August 2014: Our Advanced Materials paper on 2D crystal based Photosystem I solar conversion devices is online. This is a collaboration with the Golbeck, Mallouk and the Bazan groups. July 2014: The Penn State DOE EFRC Center, Center for Lignocellulosic Structure and Function is renewed. Manish is a PI on the renewal and will collaborate closely with Dr. Tracy Nixon on structure determination of plant cellulose synthases. May 2014: Yuexiao is selected to present as one of the 8 graduate students nationwide at the Council for Chemical Research (CCR) meeting. |
March 2017: Megan wins the NSF Graduate Fellowship! Also, Kumar group undergraduate researcher, Kevin Shebek who is now at Northwestern, receives honorable mention.
March 2017: Our paper on the permeability of the eye lens aquaporin, AQP0, and mutations for increasing its permeability 40x is online on the Biophysical Journal website. Check it out here. It was also featured in a "slider" on Biophysical Journal's home page! It will be available here for a few weeks. February 2017 (updated!): Our paper on polymer exchange in detergent micelles studied using Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS), relevant to incorporation of membrane proteins in block copolymers, was accepted for publication in Macromolecules after a year of repeat experiments and revisions. Congratulations Ben and Patrick and thank you to collaborators Kyle Bishop (Columbia) and Paul Butler (NIST). Here is a link to the paper. February 2017: Manish had a wonderful visit to Taiwan with the Industrial Technology Research Institute and National Taiwan University. Thank you to Daniel Tai (ITRI) for hosting me, it was a wonderful experience. Also thank you to Allan Tung for hosting me at NTU and arranging for the seminar. It was great to see so many bright students. We look forward to collaborations in the near future. February 2017: Hasin attended the Biophysical Society Meeting in New Orleans. She was a finalist for the SRAA poster presentation prize for her work on rhodopsins. Congratulations Hasin February 2017: Two undergraduate education related papers based on our collaborative work were accepted. They are listed below. Watch this space for links. 1. Follmer DJ, Zappe SE, Gomez E. & Kumar M. (2017). Student outcomes from undergraduate research programs: Comparing research experiences for undergraduates (REU) models. Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly (accepted). 2. Follmer DJ, Zappe SE, Gomez E. & Kumar M. (2017). Results and Implications of a Three-Year Evaluation of a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program in Chemical Engineering. Chemical Engineering Education (accepted). January 2017: Chao Lang joins our group as a postdoc. Chao is an expert in synthetic channel synthesis and completed his PhD at Jilin University. Welcome Chao!. Check out Chao's impressive profile on our People page. April 2017: Both Cory and Megan win the Pennsylvania Space Grant Graduate Scholarship! April 2017: Tingwei wins multiple accolades. She recently received the Air Products Graduate Fellowship which includes a summer internship at Air Products and a full year of funding! This is a highly sought after opportunity in our department. Tingwei also placed first in the College of Engineering Research Symposium poster competition! April 2017: Kumar group undergraduate researcher John Brezovec has won a DAAD RISE scholarship to conduct research in Germany for 3 months this summer. He will be working at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam. He will be working on Giant Unilamellar Vesicles. June 2016: Yuexiao successfully defends his PhD. Congratulations!
May 2016: Our paper on the EM structure of Gluconacetobacter hansenii (formerly acetobacter) cellulose synthase (AcsAB) is online. Read it here. May 2016: Our diffusiophoresis review with the Velegol group is published in Soft Matter. Raj and Manish are coauthors. Read it here. April 2016: Boya's paper on microfiltration of frack flowback water is published in Water Research. Check it out here. April 2016: Hasin wins first prize at the College of Engineering Research Symposium. Congratulations Hasin! April 2016: Our paper on using engineered self-controlled biofilms to fight biofouling on reverse osmosis (RO) membranes was accepted to PNAS. Raj is co-first author, Li and Mike Geitner are co-authors. Details of project here. Paper is available for download here. April 2016: Our collaborative paper with the Mihail Barboiu group at CNRS, Montpellier, France on I-quartet water channels was accepted to JACS! Yuexiao is co-first author. Check it out here. April 2016: Yuexiao receives the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad! See announcement here. Also here is a picture of Yuexiao being interviewed by news media. March 2016: Megan receives an Honorable mention for her application the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Congratulations Megan! March 2016: Undergraduate researcher Emelia Conte from our lab receives the prestigious Larry Duda Undergraduate Research Award! Congratulations Emelia. March 2016: The group has received a new grant from the Army on studying I-quartets as water channels in block copolymer membranes. March 2016: Manish receives the NSF CAREER award. Read PSU announcement here. This work will focus on developing pillar[n]arene channel-based membranes for water treatment. March 2016: Hasin's paper has been accepted to Biotechnology and Bioengineering. This paper describes how membrane proteins can be concentrated without concentrating detergents. Read the ASAP version here! March 2016: Harrison’s paper is online. This paper is in collaboration with Prof. Mike Hickner’s group (Penn State) on ion exchange membranes and was published in the Journal of Membrane Science. Read it here. January 2016: Our first paper of the year is online. This paper is in collaboration with Prof. Meagan Mauter’s group at Carnegie Mellon and was published in JACS. Patrick is co-first author. Read it here. January 2016: Kumar group high school researcher Gianmarco Terrones wins recognition as a semifinalist in the Intel Science Competition and is a National Merit Finalist. See news story here. He has also been accepted to Caltech! May 2015: Welcome Summer Research Students!
Eduardo Barbieri (Brazil Scientific Mobility Program) Bon Ikwuagwu (CHE REU, UPitt) Craig Vandervelden (CHE REU, Kansas) Fabiola Agramonte (CHE REU, University of Puerto Rico, Magayez, Chemical Engineering) Daniel Tsai (CHE Biofellowship, Penn State Sophomore) Lazaro Pacheco (MRSEC REU, Rutgers MatSE) Jeevan Prabhakar (CERI, PSU CHE) Ben Farina (CCRINGS Project, PSU CHE) Jan - Mar 2015: A number of our papers went online
May 2014: Manish is co-directing the new REU program (Integration of Biology and Materials) with Dr. Esther Gomez. We start this month.
March 2014: Our group receives a couple of NSF grants. The definition of a good week!
Jan 2014: A number of our papers went online in Jan
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November 2017: We have had three new papers accepted/in press in the last few weeks.
1. Boya's paper on making sustainable filters with moringa seed extract was published in ES&T Letters and can be read here. It provides design guidance for these filters. It took a record 3 weeks from submission to being online! 2. Boya's paper on chemical transformation on polyacrylamide used for hydraulic fracturing was finally accepted after a very long period of review (~ 11 months) in ES&T. It is here. 3. Ben and collaborator Margaret Kowalik's paper was finally accepted into RSC Advances and can be read here. This paper has been 5-6 years in the making. October 2017: Three new graduate students join the group. Welcome Mike Geitner, Yu-Ming Tu, and Charan Samineni! Watch for their profile on the people page (coming soon). October 2017: Manish receives an "Excellence in Review" award from ES&T Letters. Reviewing is not always a thankless activity! See announcement here. September 2017: Our group is included in the "2017 Class of Influential Researchers" by I&EC Research. Hasin's artwork graces the cover of this issue! Check out the announcement here. August 2017: Manish receives the Della and Rustom Roy Award in Materials Research from the Materials Research Institute. This award is very meaningful for Manish as it is named after Professor Rustom Roy, a giant in the field of materials and co-founder of the Materials Research Society (MRS), and a native of Manish’s home state of Bihar in India. July 2017: Manish receives tenure in the department of Chemical Engineering at Penn State. June 2017: The Kumar group had a good AEESP (American Association of Environmental Engineering Professors) Conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Manish won one of the two non-student best presentation awards based on our work on probiotic biofilms to prevent membrane fouling! Boya and Yuexiao attended the conference as well. June 2017: Tingwei's first paper is online in the new journal from Wiley, Advanced Biosystems. This is a paper our group has been working on for years and deals with defining compatibility between polymers and membrane proteins. Check it out here. June 2017: Raj Guha and Ben Schantz defend their PhD theses. They are the fourth and fifth PhD students graduating from our group. Congratulations! May 2017: Our group receives two new NSF grants. See details here and here. May 2017: Boya is featured in a video produced by the CEE Department at Penn State. Check this video out here. April 2017: Kumar group undergraduate researcher and Schreyer Honors Scholar Elsa Koninckx is student marshall for Chemical Engineering. See news item here. We are very proud of her! 2016December 2016: A paper that Manish, Tyler, and Yuexiao wrote as a part of Manish’s invited presentation at the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Conference (2016) was selected for publication. This article was published in the winter edition of NAE’s quarterly “The Bridge”. It can be downloaded at this link and is titled "Water Desalination: History, Advances, and Challenges". This is indeed an honor for our young group!
November 2016: Penn State Materials Research Institute recently published their quarterly magazine "Focus on Materials" with the theme “Water”. Several of our collaborations including those with Andrew Zydney, Stephanie Velegol, and Chris Gorksi were highlighted. Our lab was featured as well. Check it out here. November 2016: Our review paper on biomimetic approaches for linking redox proteins to electrodes was accepted by Energy and Environmental Science and is online. Great job Patrick, Emelia and Megan! I still cannot believe you guys put this very detailed paper together in 2-3 months. You can check out the accepted manuscript here. October 2016: Our proposal to host a Faraday Discussions conference on Artificial Channels has been accepted. These discussions are important gatherings of experts in a research subspecialty and shows the growing influence of a particular research area. See more details in this cool video here. Collaborator Mihail Barboiu will be the chair and Manish will be the Deputy Chair. October 2016: Four new graduate students join our group. Welcome Cory, Derrick, Rebeca, and Woochul! Read about them on the People page. September 2016: Our collaborative paper with the Zimmer, Nixon and Bulone groups showing that a single isoform of plant (poplar) cellulose synthase is sufficient for cellulose microfibril formation was published in PNAS! Read it here. September 2016: Patrick's paper on PSI in block copolymers and on block copolymer conductive interfaces linked to electrodes is published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A (after a long journey). Read it here. July 2016: Several members of our lab visited the exciting Gordon Research Conference on Membranes: Materials and Processes.
July 2016: Our collaborative paper with Prof, Na Wei's group (Notre Dame) on surface display of laccases for environmental remediation is online. It was published in Environmental Science and Technology. Read it here.
November 2015: Akhila, Megan and Tyler join the group as graduate students. Check out their profiles on the People page. August 2015: Yuexiao's artificial channel paper is online. This paper is on testing an artificial water channel that has permeabilities approaching those of aquaporins and was published in PNAS. Check it out here. July 2015: Undergrad Stanley Chan wins the Astronaut Scholarship. Check out the news story here. June 2015: Yuexiao wins the NAMS graduate student fellowship and the Poster session first prize! April 2015: NSF awards a GOALI project to our collaborative team with Prof. William Phillip at Notre Dame. See details here. April 2015: Kevin's Moringa paper is online in Langmuir. See details here. This paper describes the molecular mechanism of membrane damage caused by the cationic protein from Moringa seeds. Also see news coverage here.
November 2014: Yuexiao wins the AICHE Separations Division Graduate Student Award. See PSU news story here.
September 2014: Patrick wins the EPA STAR Fellowship! Congratulations. See PSU news story here. August 2014: Undergraduate student Stanley Chan receives the NASA Space Grant Scholarship. Details here. August 2014: Our Advanced Materials paper on 2D crystal based Photosystem I solar conversion devices is online. This is a collaboration with the Golbeck, Mallouk and the Bazan groups. July 2014: The Penn State DOE EFRC Center, Center for Lignocellulosic Structure and Function is renewed. Manish is a PI on the renewal and will collaborate closely with Dr. Tracy Nixon on structure determination of plant cellulose synthases. May 2014: Yuexiao is selected to present as one of the 8 graduate students nationwide at the Council for Chemical Research (CCR) meeting. |
March 2017: Megan wins the NSF Graduate Fellowship! Also, Kumar group undergraduate researcher, Kevin Shebek who is now at Northwestern, receives honorable mention.
March 2017: Our paper on the permeability of the eye lens aquaporin, AQP0, and mutations for increasing its permeability 40x is online on the Biophysical Journal website. Check it out here. It was also featured in a "slider" on Biophysical Journal's home page! It will be available here for a few weeks. February 2017 (updated!): Our paper on polymer exchange in detergent micelles studied using Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS), relevant to incorporation of membrane proteins in block copolymers, was accepted for publication in Macromolecules after a year of repeat experiments and revisions. Congratulations Ben and Patrick and thank you to collaborators Kyle Bishop (Columbia) and Paul Butler (NIST). Here is a link to the paper. February 2017: Manish had a wonderful visit to Taiwan with the Industrial Technology Research Institute and National Taiwan University. Thank you to Daniel Tai (ITRI) for hosting me, it was a wonderful experience. Also thank you to Allan Tung for hosting me at NTU and arranging for the seminar. It was great to see so many bright students. We look forward to collaborations in the near future. February 2017: Hasin attended the Biophysical Society Meeting in New Orleans. She was a finalist for the SRAA poster presentation prize for her work on rhodopsins. Congratulations Hasin February 2017: Two undergraduate education related papers based on our collaborative work were accepted. They are listed below. Watch this space for links. 1. Follmer DJ, Zappe SE, Gomez E. & Kumar M. (2017). Student outcomes from undergraduate research programs: Comparing research experiences for undergraduates (REU) models. Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly (accepted). 2. Follmer DJ, Zappe SE, Gomez E. & Kumar M. (2017). Results and Implications of a Three-Year Evaluation of a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program in Chemical Engineering. Chemical Engineering Education (accepted). January 2017: Chao Lang joins our group as a postdoc. Chao is an expert in synthetic channel synthesis and completed his PhD at Jilin University. Welcome Chao!. Check out Chao's impressive profile on our People page. April 2017: Both Cory and Megan win the Pennsylvania Space Grant Graduate Scholarship! April 2017: Tingwei wins multiple accolades. She recently received the Air Products Graduate Fellowship which includes a summer internship at Air Products and a full year of funding! This is a highly sought after opportunity in our department. Tingwei also placed first in the College of Engineering Research Symposium poster competition! April 2017: Kumar group undergraduate researcher John Brezovec has won a DAAD RISE scholarship to conduct research in Germany for 3 months this summer. He will be working at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam. He will be working on Giant Unilamellar Vesicles. June 2016: Yuexiao successfully defends his PhD. Congratulations!
May 2016: Our paper on the EM structure of Gluconacetobacter hansenii (formerly acetobacter) cellulose synthase (AcsAB) is online. Read it here. May 2016: Our diffusiophoresis review with the Velegol group is published in Soft Matter. Raj and Manish are coauthors. Read it here. April 2016: Boya's paper on microfiltration of frack flowback water is published in Water Research. Check it out here. April 2016: Hasin wins first prize at the College of Engineering Research Symposium. Congratulations Hasin! April 2016: Our paper on using engineered self-controlled biofilms to fight biofouling on reverse osmosis (RO) membranes was accepted to PNAS. Raj is co-first author, Li and Mike Geitner are co-authors. Details of project here. Paper is available for download here. April 2016: Our collaborative paper with the Mihail Barboiu group at CNRS, Montpellier, France on I-quartet water channels was accepted to JACS! Yuexiao is co-first author. Check it out here. April 2016: Yuexiao receives the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad! See announcement here. Also here is a picture of Yuexiao being interviewed by news media. March 2016: Megan receives an Honorable mention for her application the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Congratulations Megan! March 2016: Undergraduate researcher Emelia Conte from our lab receives the prestigious Larry Duda Undergraduate Research Award! Congratulations Emelia. March 2016: The group has received a new grant from the Army on studying I-quartets as water channels in block copolymer membranes. March 2016: Manish receives the NSF CAREER award. Read PSU announcement here. This work will focus on developing pillar[n]arene channel-based membranes for water treatment. March 2016: Hasin's paper has been accepted to Biotechnology and Bioengineering. This paper describes how membrane proteins can be concentrated without concentrating detergents. Read the ASAP version here! March 2016: Harrison’s paper is online. This paper is in collaboration with Prof. Mike Hickner’s group (Penn State) on ion exchange membranes and was published in the Journal of Membrane Science. Read it here. January 2016: Our first paper of the year is online. This paper is in collaboration with Prof. Meagan Mauter’s group at Carnegie Mellon and was published in JACS. Patrick is co-first author. Read it here. January 2016: Kumar group high school researcher Gianmarco Terrones wins recognition as a semifinalist in the Intel Science Competition and is a National Merit Finalist. See news story here. He has also been accepted to Caltech! May 2015: Welcome Summer Research Students!
Eduardo Barbieri (Brazil Scientific Mobility Program) Bon Ikwuagwu (CHE REU, UPitt) Craig Vandervelden (CHE REU, Kansas) Fabiola Agramonte (CHE REU, University of Puerto Rico, Magayez, Chemical Engineering) Daniel Tsai (CHE Biofellowship, Penn State Sophomore) Lazaro Pacheco (MRSEC REU, Rutgers MatSE) Jeevan Prabhakar (CERI, PSU CHE) Ben Farina (CCRINGS Project, PSU CHE) Jan - Mar 2015: A number of our papers went online
May 2014: Manish is co-directing the new REU program (Integration of Biology and Materials) with Dr. Esther Gomez. We start this month.
March 2014: Our group receives a couple of NSF grants. The definition of a good week!
Jan 2014: A number of our papers went online in Jan
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2013 |
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9th March 2013: Samantha Summers was awarded one of this year's Undergraduate Research Scholarships in the Department of Chemical Engineering (the Biofellowship). Congratulations Sam!
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2012 |
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6th December 2012: Our team (Yuexiao, Patrick, Bryan, Mustafa, and Manuel) are runners up in the Dow Sustainability Innovation Challenge. See more details here. Great job!
5th November 2012: Ashley Edwards from our group wins the Myriant Corporation Scholarship in Bio-Energy and Energy Sustainability. More details here. 22nd October 2012: Hasin Feroz and Ben Schantz join our group. Welcome! More details on their accomplishments on the People page. |
9th April 2012: Yuexiao wins the American Water Works Association’s Larson Aquatic Research Support (LARS) scholarship. the LARS scholarship provides support for doctoral and masters students interested in careers in the fields of corrosion control, treatment and distribution of domestic and industrial water supplies, aquatic chemistry, and/or environmental chemistry.
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2011 |
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7th October 2011: Patrick Saboe and Yuexiao Shen join the Kumar lab. Welcome Patrick and Yuexiao. Read more about them on the People page.
31st August 2011: Manish presented our research on developing flat Aquaporin-rich membranes at the ACS fall conference in Denver in a special session titled “ Polymers for Water Treatment”. There audience was quite receptive and excited about the idea with many questions and a prolonged discussion on strategies to scale such membranes. Abstract on Publications page. |
1st August 2011: Manish Kumar joins PSU and is excited to start his lab. He would like to get two students to join his lab this semester and undergraduates interested in biology and soft materials science. The two projects that I am offering to current graduate students are listed on the Research page.
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