Group Alumni

News & ANNOUNCEMENTS

October 2024: Congratulations to Dr. Walton for obtaining the “Industrial Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Research” awarded on AIChE Annual Meeting 2024

October 2024: Dr. Walton, Jay, Mario, Mengjiao, Mehdi and Faeze will be at AIChE Annual Meeting 2024 in San Diego. Excited to present work in adsorption research

September 2024: Congratulations to Jair for the successful defense of his Master’s Thesis!

June 2024: Congratulations to Surbhi for the successful defense of his PhD Thesis proposal!

June 2024: Congratulations to Mario for the successful defense of his PhD Thesis proposal!

June 2024: Congratulations to Jay for the successful defense of his PhD Thesis proposal!

June 2024: Welcome to our newest group member: Faeze Akbari!

March 2024: Congratulations to Dr. Brandon Bout on his successful PhD defense!

November 2023: Dr. Walton, Jay, Jamie, Lape, Mehdi, Mengjiao, Tania and Mario presented 6 talks and posters at AIChE Annual Meeting at Orlando, Florida.

October 2023: Welcome to our newest group member: Surbhi Kumar!

October 2023: Welcome to our newest group member Dr. Emilia Ganczar who joins as Postdoctoral Fellow.

September 2023: Welcome to our newest group member: Kijeong Nam!

September 2023: Congratulations to Dr. Lukas Bingel on his successful PhD defense!

July 2023: Welcome to our newest group member Dr. Mahdi Niknam Shahrak who joins as a Research Engineer.

July 2023: Congrats to Dr. Chengzhai Wang on his successful PhD defense!

April 2023: Congratulations to PhD #23 from the Walton group: Dr. Eli Carter!

March 2023: Krista presents a seminar in chemical engineering at TAMU-Qatar.

March 2023: Lukas publishes his new adsorption model, the Bingel-Walton isotherm in Langmuir! Check it out: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c00147

November 2022: Lukas, Mengjiao, Jamie, Chengzhai, Brandon, and Lape presented 5 talks and a poster at the AIChE Annual Meeting in Phoenix, AZ.

November 2022: Mengjiao defended her Ph.D. proposal!

October 2022: Congratulations to the new Dr. Rohan Murty! PhD #22 from the Walton Lab!

October 2022: Welcome to our newest group members: Mario and Jay!

July 2022: Congratulations to Dr. Carmen Chen on her successful PhD defense!

June 2022: Jamie defended her Ph.D. proposal!

May 2022: Seven Walton group members attended the 14th International Conference on Fundamentals of Adsorption, co-chaired by Dr. Walton.
Carmen & Lukas presented talks while Brandon, Chengzhai, Jamie, Mengjiao & Tania presented posters.
Congratulations to Jamie for winning 2nd prize for her poster and Dr. Walton for being awarded an International Adsorption Society fellow.

May 2022: Lape defended her PhD proposal!

April 2022: Congratulations to Jamie Salinger on winning a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!

March 2022: Congratulations to the newly minted Dr. Danny Shade! PhD #20 from the Walton Group!

November 2021: The Walton group sends a company of six to the AIChE Annual Meeting in Boston, with Danny, Carmen, Rohan, Tania, Chengzhai, and Lukas sharing their work.

September 2021: Welcome to our newest student, Jair Cowie-Williams!

August 2021: Lukas defended his Ph.D. proposal!

July 2021: Danny presents “Prediction and measurement of gas mixture adsorption in metal-organic frameworks” in the International Adsorption Society Webinar Series.

March 2021: Dr. Walton presents “Revisiting an enduring problem: measurement and prediction of complex mixture adsorption” in the International Adsorption Society Webinar Series.

March 2021: Congratulations to Danny on his 2nd place win at GT ChBE Grad Symposium for his presentation “An Assessment of IAST for Predicting Mixed Gas Adsorption”

January 2021: Congratulations to Dr. Walton for winning the DOE E.O. Lawrence Award for Atomic, Molecular, and Chemical Sciences! Press release: https://www.energy.gov/science/articles/energy-secretary-brouillette-announces-2020-ernest-orlando-lawrence-award-winners

December 2020: Congratulations to Danny on winning the International Adsorption Society’s inaugural twitter poster conference! https://twitter.com/IntAdsSoc/status/1337518019115806720?s=20

September 2020: Welcome to our newest student, Jamie Salinger!

September 2020: Chengzhai defended his Ph.D. proposal!

August 2020: Tania defended her Ph.D. proposal!

June 2020: Congratulations to Dr. Yutao Gong for defending his Ph.D. thesis!

January 2020: Dr. Walton gave an invited talk and Carmen and Danny presented posters at the Gordon Research Conference in Chemical Separations in Galveston, TX.

December 2019: Nick (PhD 2016) and Ian published their work on water stability in DMOF in Nature Chemistry!

November 2019: Welcome to our newest group member, Mengjiao Wu!

November 2019: Eli and Danny traveled to Orlando, where they presented their work at AIChE 2019!

November 2019: Dr. Walton is named Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the College of Engineering!

October 2019: Rohan defended his Ph.D. proposal!

October 2019: Welcome to our new group members: Lape and Lukas!

August 2019: Carmen defended her Ph.D. proposal!

July 2019: Danny defended his Ph.D. proposal!

May 2019: Congratulations to Drs. Jay Joshi and Jacob Deneff for successfully defending their Ph.D theses!

April 2019: Congratulations to Dr. Julian Hungerford for successfully defending his Ph.D thesis!

March 2019: Jay received the 2019 UNCAGE-ME EFRC Best Paper Award for his co-authored manuscript ‘Structured Growth of Metal–Organic Framework MIL-53(Al) from Solid Aluminum Carbide Precursor’—DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b04369

February 2019: Jay won second place for his oral presentation “Facile Integration of Porous Nanomaterials on and from Support Media” at the 2019 Georgia Tech CHBE Graduate Research Symposium.

December 2018: Jay presented at the 6th International Conference on Metal-Organic Frameworks & Open Framework Compounds “MOF2018” in Auckland, New Zealand

November 2018: Congratulations to Dr. Colton Moran for successfully defending his Ph.D!

October 2018: Welcome to our newest group members: Chengzhai and Tania!

October 2018: Jake, Jay, Julian, Xiao, and Yutao presented at the AIChE National Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA

August 2018: Jay and Jake gave oral presentations at the 256th ACS National Meeting & Exposition in Boston, MA

Jay was selected as a participant and presenter at the 2018 BASF North American Research Forum in Iselin, NJ

July 2018: Colton gave a presentation at the Carbon 2018 Conference in Madrid, Spain

May 2018: Congratulations to Eli for successfully defending his Ph.D. proposal!

Colton traveled to Tampa, FL to brief the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) on the Future of Chemical Warfare and implementing in-situ adsorption defense mechanisms

April 2018: Julian attended the Small Molecule X-ray Crystallography Workshop held at the University of South Florida. 

March 2018: Congratulations to Dr. Lalit Darunte for successfully defending his Ph.D.!

Colton traveled to Washington, DC to meet with legislators on Capitol Hill as an ambassador for integrating technical backgrounds into policy making

February 2018: Congratulations to Yutao for successfully defending his Ph.D. proposal!

Jay won first place for his oral presentation at the ChBE Annual Research Symposium

November 2017: Welcome to our newest group member: postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Bartosz Marszalek!

Jay, Julian, and Jake presented their work at the AIChE Fall Annual Meeting

October 2017: Welcome to our newest group members: Brandon, Carmen, Danny, and Rohan!

Jay was a Finalist and winner of the People's Choice Award in the university-wide Three-Minute Thesis competition

September 2017: Colton was selected to become a fellow of the Sam Nunn Security Program

August 2017: Ian, Jacob, and Jay presented posters at the Gordon Research Conference on Nanoporous Materials and Their Applications in Andover, NH

August 2017: Colton, Jacob, and Jay spent a week at Argonne National Lab performing experiments on acid gas stability of porous solids

August 2017: Dr. Walton presented a workshop with Dr. David Sholl on "Doing Research with Industry" for junior faculty at the ASEE summer school in Raleigh, NC

August 2017: The Walton Group welcomes new postdoctoral fellows, Dr. Xiao Jiang and Dr. Ross Verplough

July 2017: Congratulations to the Walton Group's newest PhD graduates! Dr. Michael Dutzer and Dr. Yang Jiao both successfully defended their PhDs and will be starting their careers at Intel later this fall

July 2017: Colton presented our work on aluminum carbide-derived carbons at the Carbon 2017 Conference in Melbourne, Australia

July 2017: Ian and Julian spent half a week at Argonne National Lab performing MOF stability studies on an APS beamline

June 2017: Julian represented the Walton Group and GT ChBE at the ExxonMobil PALS Safety Workshop in Baytown, TX

May 2017: Dr. Walton presented a research talk at the 11th International Symposium on the Characterization of Porous Solids (COPS-XI) in Avignon, France

March 2017: Dr. Walton gave an invited talk at the ECI Conference on Separations Technologies in Albufeira, Portugal

Fall 2016: Congratulations to Dr. William P. Mounfield, III on successfully defending his Ph.D.!

Dr. Walton receives the AIChE FRI/John G. Kunesh Award for Excellence in Separations Research

Congrats to Dr. Walton on being promoted to Full Professor!

Summer 2016:

Welcome to Dr. Ian Walton! Ian is joining the group as a postdoctoral fellow.

Congratulations to Dr. Nicholas C. Burtch on successfully defending his Ph.D.!

Congratulations to Dr. Karen Tulig on successfully defending her Ph.D.!

Congratulations to Jay Joshi on successfully defending his M.S. Thesis and winning the department award for Most Outstanding M.S. Thesis!

Spring 2016:

Congratulations William Mounfield for being awarded 1st Place for his 28th Graduate Symposium Poster Presentation!

Prof. Walton recently presented a seminar at Arizona State University’s School for Engineering of Matter, Transport, and Energy.

Fall 2015:

Prof. Walton, along with other UNCAGE-ME PI's, students and post docs, attended the Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) Principal Investigator (PI) meeting in Washington, DC, presenting talks and posters on their work in the Center.

Welcome to our new group members, Eli Carter and Yutao Gong!

Congratulations Prof. Walton on receiving the University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Alumni of Achievement Award!

Prof. Walton gave a plenary lecture at the Pacific Basin Adsorption Science and Technology Conference in Xiamen, China. 

Congratulations Prof. Walton on being recognized as the College of Engineering’s Georgia Power Professor of Excellence at the Georgia Tech vs Tulane football game!

Summer 2015:

The Walton Group's 2012 article, “Effect of Water Adsorption on Retention of Structure and Surface Area of Metal–Organic Frameworks,” was recognized by I&EC Research as one of the Top 10 Most-Cited Contemporary Favorites. See the full list here.

Prof. Walton published an article entitled "Inorganic chemistry: Movies of a growth mechanism" in Nature. 

Congratulations to Dr. Michael Mangarella on successfully defending his Ph.D.!

Congratulations to Lalit Darunte on successfully defending his Ph.D. Proposal!

Prof. Walton gave an invited talk titled "Post-synthetic metal insertion in metal-organic frameworks for enhanced ammonia adsorption from air" at the Telluride Scientific Research Conference on MOFs in Telluride, Colorado on June 18.

Welcome to our new group member, M.S. student Jayraj Joshi!

Congratulations to Erika Garcia-Gutierrez on successfully defending her M.S. Thesis!

Spring 2015:

Center for Understanding and Control of Acid Gas-Induced Evolution of Materials for Energy (UNCAGE-ME) featured in Georgia Tech Research Horizons.

Prof. Walton delivered a distinguished speaker seminar titled “Engineering Next-Generation Materials for Environmental and Energy Applications” at her alma mater, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, on Jan. 30. The university published a feature on Walton, including quotes from a former professor, on its website Jan. 16.

Fall 2014:

Congratulations Prof. Walton on receiving a 2015 Rising Star Award from the Women Chemists Committee of the American Chemical Society! The awards recognize exceptional women scientists approaching midlevel careers across all sectors (academic, industrial, government and nonprofit) who have demonstrated outstanding promise for contributions to their respective fields.

Welcome to our new group members, Ph.D. students Jacob Deneff, Julian Hungerford, and Colton Moran!

Summer 2014:

Welcome to our new group member, Postdoc Dr. Christopher Murdock!

Congratulations Dr. Greg Cmarik on successfully defending his Ph.D.!

Dr. Walton awarded $11.2 Million grant from DOE to fund Center for Understanding and Control of Acid Gas-Induced Evolution of Materials for Energy (UNCAGE-ME)! For more information, click here.

Congratulations to Michael Dutzer for successfully defending his Ph.D. Proposal!

Congratulations to Dr. Himanshu Jasuja on successfully defending his Ph.D.!

Spring 2014:

Congratulations to Dr. Katrina Stults on successfully defending her Ph.D.!

Welcome to our new group member, Postdoc Dr. Tim Duerinck!

Fall 2013:

Prof. Walton awarded the Class of 1940 Course Survey Teaching Effectiveness Award by the GT Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning!

Congratulations to Ken Onubogu on successfully defending his M.S. Thesis!

Congratulations to Michael Mangarella for being awarded 2nd place for his 4th Year Colloquium presentation!

Welcome to our new group members, Ph.D. students Erika Garcia-Gutierrez and Lalit Darunte!

Summer 2013:

Congratulations to Dr. Yang Cai on successfully defending her Ph.D.!

Congratulations to Karen Tulig for successfully defending her Ph.D. Proposal!

Dr. Walton receives the inaugural International Adsorption Society Award for Excellence in Publications by a Young Member of the Society.

Nick Burtch awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship! Congrats Nick!

Congratulations to Nick Burtch for successfully defending his Ph.D. Proposal!

The Walton Group is well represented at the 11th Fundamentals of Adsorption Conference in Baltimore, May 19-24. Presentations were given by Dr. Walton, Yang Cai, Katrina Stults, and Himanshu Jasuja.

Dr. Walton represents US scientists at the general assembly of the Global Young Academy in Halle, Germany, May 15-17.

Spring 2013:

Congratulations to Himanshu Jasuja and Nick Burtch on winning the 2013 Ziegler Best Paper Award!

Nick Burtch receives the 2013 Eastman Fellowship. Congrats Nick!

Himanshu Jasuja selected as the 2013 Air Products Graduate Fellow. As part of the award, Himanshu will intern at Air Products in Allentown, PA, in summer 2013. Congrats Himanshu!

Fall 2012:

Congratulations to Dr. Paul Schoenecker on successfully defending his Ph.D.! Best of luck at MeadWestvaco; we will miss you!

Welcome to our new group members, Ph.D. students Michael Dutzer, Yang Jiao, William Mounfield, and Ken Onubogu!

Prof. Walton appointed to the editorial board of Separation Science and Technology.

Congrats to Greg Cmarik on his recent publication in Langmuir on adsorption in functionalized UiO-66!

Congrats to Himanshu on his recent publication in J. Phys. Chem. C on stability and adsorption properties of a new UiO-66 variant!

Summer 2012:

Members of the Walton Group present research around the world: PBAST meeting in Taiwan, NAS German-American Frontiers of Science in Germany, and the Carbon Conference in Poland.

Prof. Walton promoted to Associate Professor!

Congrats to Christine Flemming on completing her M.S. degree!

Congrats to Paul, Bogna, and Grace on their recent publication in AIChE Journal on MOF scale-up!

Fall 2011:

Prof. Walton elected Vice-Chair of Area 2e Adsorption and Ion Exchange, Separations Division, AIChE.

The Walton Group welcomes Ph.D. students Nicholas Burtch and Karen Tulig!

Prof. Walton presents research seminars at UC Berkeley and the University of Arkansas.

Prof. Walton represents US National Academies in Young Scientists Delegation to the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China, in September.

Summer 2011:

Congratulations to Greg Cmarik, Katrina Stults, Yang Cai, and Paul Schoenecker on passing the Ph.D. Proposal Defense!

Congratulations to the Walton Group's first Ph.D. graduates!

Best of luck to Dr. Bin Mu in his postdoc at MIT and to Dr. Reddy Karra in his position at UTRC. We'll miss you!

The Walton Lab begins new research collaboration with BAE Systems.

Congrats to UG researcher Grace Belancik on her Summer 2011 PURA research fellowship.

Jan/Feb 2011:

The Walton Lab welcomes postdoctoral fellow Dr. Bogna Grabicka! Dr. Grabicka completed her Ph.D. in Chemistry at Kent State University under the direction of Prof. Mitek Jaroniec.

The Walton Lab reports a new chiral, metal-organic nanotube in the Jan 2011 issue of Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed.

Congratulations to Michael Mangarella and Himanshu Jasuja on passing the Ph.D. Qualifying Exam!

Prof. Walton presents research seminars at the University of Washington (Jan 10) and Air Products (Jan 19).

Fall 2010:

The Walton Group seeks outstanding applicants for 2 postdoctoral fellow positions.

Prof. Walton appointed Secretary/Treasurer of the International Adsorption Society.

The Walton Group to collaborate with ChBE faculty on ARPA-E award for carbon dioxide capture from flue gas. press release

Prof. Walton presents research at the MOF 2010 conference in Marseille, France.

Summer 2010:

Prof. Walton to serve on the organizing committee for the 2011 National Academy of Sciences German-American Frontiers of Science Symposium in Irvine, California.

Congratulations to Bin Mu and Dr. Yougui Huang on their recent publication in CrystEngComm (New Talents Themed Issue)!

Congratulations to Reddy Karra on his recent publication in J. Phys. Chem. C!

April/May 2010:

Bin Mu and Prof. Walton to present research at the 10th International Conference on Fundamentals of Adsorption to be held May 23-28, 2010 in Hyogo, Japan.

Paul Schoenecker was selected to attend the Council for Chemical Research Annual Meeting in April 2010.

Prof. Walton has been invited to participate in the National Academy of Sciences German-American Frontiers of Science Symposium in Potsdam, Germany.

Congratulations to Bin Mu and Paul Schoenecker on their recent publication in J. Phys. Chem. C!