UVM Assistant Professor Jihong Ma on her DOE EPSCoR Award

 

 
The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently made $21 million of funding available to 29 new projects through DOE EPSCoR Lab Partnerships. Vermont researchers Jihong Ma, PhD and Ben Cotts, PhD received some of this funding, which will benefit their ongoing research. Each recipient took a moment to speak on the significance of this funding; today we speak with Dr. Jihong Ma, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Vermont.
 
Please describe your lab and what you do.
 
Our lab focuses on understanding the physical properties of materials with complex structures at multiple scales (from nano- to macro- scales) via a combination of theoretical analysis, numerical simulations, and experimental characterizations. We are interested in a variety of materials and properties. The goal is to uncover or enhance material performance characteristics for industrial, medical, and aerospace applications.
 
What do you hope to accomplish with your project?
 
In this project, we aim to achieve a higher carbon dioxide (CO2) removal efficiency by using a new category of high-performance self-healing polymer membranes. A multi-scale study involving atomistic simulations, polymer synthesis and characterization, and neutron scattering experiments will help us obtain a fundamental understanding of gas transport in polymer membranes. Our goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, leading to improved national energy infrastructure, human lives, and the overall health of the environment via climate change mitigation.
 
How does this project build on your research goals and career interests?
 
As a researcher, I am passionate to understand the fundamental principles of material behaviors via a variety of computational and experimental techniques and apply those principles to uncover new or enhanced material properties for engineering applications. In this project, I will be able to expand my computational and experimental expertise by investigating a new category of materials.
 
As an educator, I am also interested in mentoring next-generation researchers by converging science and engineering research disciplines to accelerate the advancement of the two. This project provides a great venue for us to explore fundamental principles via scientific studies and develop engineering applications of high-performance polymer membranes for CO2 capture. Students working on this project will be able to view the problem from both perspectives, invoking solutions with both rigorousness and practicality.
 
How does the DOE award help you achieve your goals?
 
This award will help me and my students expand our expertise and knowledge in materials studies and extend our collaboration with the DOE national laboratory. We will also be able to acquire a variety of computational and experimental resources at the DOE user facilities via user proposal submissions in collaboration with our DOE national laboratory partners. All these resources will be very helpful in achieving both my research and educational goals.
 
For more information about Dr. Ma's Laboratory for Advanced Materials, please click here.
 
Please join us next week when we speak to Ben Cotts of Middlebury College, another recipient of this funding.