Past Spotlights on Chemical and Biological Engineering

Student highlight

Name: Matthew Bliss
Degree: Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering
Faculty lab: Assistant Professor Nav Nidhi Rajput
Hometown: Tewksbury, MA

Why Tufts? 
My advisor and I shared similar interests in my research topic.

Favorite thing about living in the Medford/Somerville and Boston area? 
Although I commute to campus, I've found several good, inexpensive places to get food near Tufts.

Any advice you’d give to prospective students or new graduate students? 
For any prospective students, I would say to keep in mind what you want to do after you graduate, and plan accordingly. It is easy to get lost in day-to-day tasks without sparing any thought to what happens 4 or 5 years from now.

Faculty highlight

Name: Assistant Professor Nav Nidhi Rajput
Research interests: Molecular simulation, theoretical material science, supercomputing, renewable energy applications, and synthesis-structure-property relationships.

About Professor Rajput: 
Nav Nidhi Rajput's graduate research focused on molecular dynamics studies of ionic liquids (ILs) confined inside nanoporous materials for applications in electrochemistry. Following the completion of her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, she worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the Energy Technologies Area Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California. There, she worked on developing infrastructure for high-throughput computations for the joint Center for Energy Storage (JCESR) and Electrolyte Genome, which is a coupled first-principle and classical molecular dynamics code-base for rapid understanding and design of optimal electrolytes.

Note: Professor Rajput now teaches at Stony Brook University.