News and upcoming events
April 2012
Watch out Evanston science-fans! Omar Farha and I will be hosting Evanton's next Science Cafe at the Firehouse Grill. There will, of course, be a movie about MOFs and we will talk about the role of new sciece & technology in making the United States a greener, cleaner country.
March 2012
In recognition of its innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization potential, NuMat Technologies has won the $100,000 student company grand prize in the 2012 Clean Energy Challenge. We are very excited by this and see a bright future ahead. In June, NuMat Technologies will represent the midwestern United States in a National Clean Energy student business competition.
February 2012
This week I officially incorporated a new start-up company, NuMat Technologies, Inc., together with Omar Farha, Tabrez Ebrahim and Ben Hernandez. In the same week, NuMat Technologies was approved for getting office space in Northwestern's University Incubator. I'm very excited to be able to play a role in commercializing MOF-enabled technologies.
February 2012
Our movie (see Gallery) has won an award in the NSF International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge! It will be featured in the February 2012 issue of Science! Thanks! The movie has now been featured on Wired and MSNBC as well.
February 2012
The February issue of Nature Chemistry features my research on its cover!
January 2012
Finalist in the Clean Energy Trust student business plan competition with my startup company NuMat Technologies. First prize is $100,000 USD, wish me luck!
January 2012
Teaching half of an undergradute course on heat transfer together with Prof. John Torkelson. Excited!
November 2011
New research article online today! Hypothetical generation of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) article is now available online on Nature Chemistry's website. The database of hypothetical MOFs is publicly viewable at: hmofs.northwestern.edu
As always, feedback on either the paper or the online database is welcome!
October 2011
Created and submitted a movie about my research at Northwestern to the NSF International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. I would love to get your feedback! Many thanks to my co-directors Patrick E. Fuller and Omar K. Farha, to Alex Wilmer for composing the great finale music (and general audio wizardry) and to Raina Hersh for her excellent narration.
October 2011
Visited Prof. Tom Woo in the Chemistry Department at the University of Ottawa (I also got to shake hands with Dalton McGuinty, which my non-scientist Canadian friends find more exciting). Great visit!
Sept. 2011
Paper accepted to Nature Chemistry! (link will be posted when the article comes online)
July 2011
Travelling to England on a research trip to visit Flor Siperstein's group at University of Manchester as well as to attend the Materials Chemistry 2011 conference (their 10th anniversary).
June 2011
Got married to Emily Winerock! Wedding details.
April 2011
Presented my research on computational screening of metal-organic frameworks at the Materials Research Society conference in San Francisco.
March 2011
Innovation prize award! Scientists Without Borders, in partnership with InnoCentive and sponsored by Pepsico, created a "Maternal Health & Nutrition Challenge" aimed at reducing infant mortality in developing countries. Innovative proposals to combat this problem were requested from around the world, and out of 346 "solvers" (but only 64 proposals), we were awarded a 3rd prize of $1,000! Many thanks to my coauthors Toan Phan, Simeon Bogdanov, and Eneda Hoxha for their boundless energy, enthusiasm and creativity, and also our senior editor, Princeton trained English major Emily Winerock, for articulating what we meant to say. Details.
February 2011
Winner of the inaugural Perkins Coie Innovative Minds Award! Details. Perkins Coie press release.