Sustainability Faculty

Tufts faculty conduct sustainability research in three main areas:

• Sustainable Energy
• Water and the Environment
• Sustainable Infrastructure

Sustainable Energy

	Luisa Chiesa Assistant Professor Luisa Chiesa's primary research area is in superconducting materials for energy application. Specifically, Chiesa is interested in magnet systems for fusion machines in order to understand the electro-mechanical behaviors of superconducting materials in both low- and high-temperature superconductors.
	Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos Nano Catalysis and Energy Laboratory Professor Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos' research is in the field of clean energy technologies. Specifically, she investigates novel nanoscale catalysts and sorbents for air pollutant abatement and for the production of clean hydrogen fuel cell use.
	Marc Hodes Associate Professor Hodes' current research interests include reduced power consumption precision temperature using thermoelectric module-variable conductance heat pipe assemblies, energy scavenging from waste heat using thermoelectric power generators, and the theory and applications of superhydrophobic nanostructured surfaces.
	Jeff Hopwood Plasma Engineering Laboratory Professor Jeff Hopwood has worked primarily in the fields of plasma processing and plasma source design. His current research interests include microplasma-based environmental sensors and novel plasma processes for the fabrication of nanoscale devices.
	Valencia Joyner Advanced Integrated Circuits and Systems Laboratory Assistant Professor Valencia Joyner's research interests are in silicon-based analog/mixed-signal integrated circuits with a particular focus on circuits that interface with photonic devices for high-speed communication, sensing, and biomedical imaging.
	Gary Leisk Research Assistant Professor Gary Leisk teaches courses and conducts research in the areas of design, materials characterizations, nondestructive evaluation, manufacturing applications, and signal process using the Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT) method.
	Vincent Manno Professor Manno, who also serves as Associate Provost, teaches courses in thermal-fluid sciences, power generation systems, and computational methods. His primary research areas are modeling of chemical-mechanical planarization processes, energy system analysis, and electronic thermal management of electronics.
	Jerry Meldon Associate Professor Jerry Meldon's research interests include: membrane science and technology, especially transport in polymeric and (of hydrogen in) palladium alloy membranes and catalytic membrane reactors; mass transfer with chemical reaction; and mathematical modeling of transport phenomena, especially coupled to reaction.
	Daniel Ryder Associate Professor Daniel Ryder's research interests include membrane science and technology and process control applications.
	Anil Saigal Professor Anil Saigal's research interests are in the areas of advanced materials and composites, creep, microstructural analysis, finite element modeling, measurement and modeling of residual strains and stresses in metal, intermetallic, and ceramic matrix composites, manufacturing processes, machining of engineering materials, deformation process simulation, Taguchi analysis, non-destructive analysis, processing, physical metallurgy, mechanical behavior, and heat treatment.
	Howard Saltsburg Nano Catalysis and Energy Laboratory Professor Saltsburg's current research in heterogeneous catalysis is driven by problems stemming from the economic need to have the maximum catalyst surface reaction area for a given mass of catalyst. Prof. Saltsburg studies the thermodynamic activity of oxygen and hydrogen on catalytic metal surfaces by following molecular beam studies of surface scattering and using of solid state concentration cells.
	Thomas Vandervelde Assistant Professor Tom Vandervelde is bringing new approaches to the quest for cheaper solar power. One technique uses quantum dots, tiny crystalline structures that enhance the absorption of light. Vandervelde is working with graduate students to fabricate solar panels with quantum dots and with other materials that are sensitive to different wavelengths or colors in sunlight, to test them for efficiency.
	Peter Wong Research Associate Professor Peter Wong's research interests include thermal analysis of materials processing and manufacturing, nano-micro-systems, comparative biomechanics, Microscale rapid prototyping, biomedical devices, and clean energy.
	Hyunmin Yi Assistant Professor Hyunmin Yi's general research interests lie in biochemically driven nanometer scale fabrication (nanobiofabrication) of high throughput biosensors, biophotonic devices and nanocatalysts for biomedical, environmental and energy applications using smart biopolymers and viral nanotemplates.

Water and the Environment

	Dean Linda Abriola Integrated Multiphase Environmental Systems Laboratory Professor Linda Abriola's primary research area is in the mathematical modeling of the transport and fate of organic chemical contaminants in porous media. She developed one of the first mathematical models to describe the interphase mass partitioning and non-aqueous phase migration of organic liquid contaminants in the subsurface. Her recent research involves the use of models and laboratory experiments to examine abiotic and biotic processes influencing the persistence of organics and controlling the effectiveness of aquifer remediation technologies.
	John Durant Associate Professor John Durant's research interests include chemical exchange between surface waters and aquatic sediments, transport and transformation of pollutants in wetland systems, watershed-scale chemical fate and transport processes, and watershed management for parasite control.
	Shafiqul Islam Water and Environmental Research, Education, and Applications Solution Network (WEREASoN) Professor Shafiqul Islam, Associate Dean for Research, emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to understand and model the coupling between land surface and atmospheric processes, with a particular emphasis on scale issues and remote sensing.
	Eric Miller Lab for Imaging Science Research Professor Eric Miller's research focuses on image processing and inverse methods applied to a range of problems associated with environmental and medical sensing. In the environmental space, he is working closely with Profs. Abriola and Ramsburg in the development of processing methods for the characterization of regions of subsurface contamination based on hydrological as well as geophysical data sets. Techniques from the fields of machine learning and shape-based inverse methods are being considered. The work is supported by the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program and the National Science Foundation's Hydrology Program.
	Kurt Pennell Integrated Multiphase Environmental Systems Laboratory Professor Kurt Pennell's current research projects focus on the transport and retention of carbon-based nanoparticles in porous media, the effects of partial mass removal on contaminant distribution and groundwater plume development, chemical and biological reactions during thermal treatment, coupled surfactant flushing and bioremediation for treatment of chlorinated solvent source zones, and the measurement of chlorinated organic compounds and neuroactive steroids in human plasma and tissue in relation to Parkinson's disease and seizure frequency, respectively.
	Andrew Ramsburg Integrated Multiphase Environmental Systems Laboratory Assistant Professor Andrew Ramsburg's research involves innovative aquifer remediation technologies including source-zone flushing, contaminant fate and transport in the subsurface environment with an emphasis on physical-chemical processes affecting microbial degradation.
	Richard Vogel Professor Richard Vogel's primary expertise is in the areas of hydrology and water resource engineering with emphasis on hydrologic, hydraulic and statistical methods for analyzing water resource systems. His current research program focuses upon the areas of watershed modeling and management, water quality, regional hydrology, environmental statistics and the new field of hydromorphology.

Sustainable Infrastructure

Babak Moaveni Assistant Professor Babak Moaveni's research interests include Structural health monitoring, system and damage identification of civil structures, experimental modal analysis, signal processing, finite element analysis and finite element model updating, structural dynamics, earthquake engineering, structural reliability and risk analysis, uncertainty quantification, verification and validation of computational models.

Masoud Sanayei Professor Masoud Sanayei's research interests include finite element analysis and structural dynamics, structural analysis and design, bridge condition assessment and failure detection, floor vibration testing, instrumentation, nondestructive testing and data acquisition, and earthquake engineering.