The Tong Lab tackles challenges in the interdisciplinary areas of bioresource engineering and sustainable chemistry. We develop innovative technologies for producing chemicals, materials, energy, and fuels from renewable resources.

Current research interests include:

• Functional biomaterials for high-efficiency circular economy
• Platform chemicals and hydrocarbon fuels from renewable resources
• Sustainable process control and modeling
• Nano-biomaterial synthesis and self-assembling
• Polymer degradation and recycling

Disciplines:

• Materials and Nanotechnology

• Energy and Sustainability

Satish Kumar is currently an Associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. He joined Georgia Tech in 2009 as an Assistant Professor. Prior, he worked at IBM Corporation where he was responsible for the thermal management of electronic devices. Kumar received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and M.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette in 2007. He received his M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge in 2003 and B.Tech. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati in 2001. His research interests are in electro-thermal transport in carbon nanotube, graphene, and 2D materials based electronic devices, AlGaN/GaN transistors, thermal management, and thermo-electric coolers. He is author or co-author of over 70 journal or conference publications. His contributions to his research field have been recognized by Purdue Research Foundation Fellowship in 2005, 1969 Teaching Fellow from Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning Center at Georgia Tech, 2012 Summer Faculty Fellow from Air Force Research Lab, 2014 Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award, and 2014 DARPA Young Faculty Award.

Dr. Akanksha Menon is an Assistant Professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Prior to this, she was a Rosenfeld Postdoctoral Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she performed research on hybrid membrane-thermal desalination processes using solar energy, and she also contributed to the development of thermal energy storage materials. Dr. Menon completed her Ph.D. at Georgia Tech, where she focused on developing semiconducting polymers and new device architectures for thermoelectric energy harvesting. She holds a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M University at Qatar, as well as a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech.

Her research group at Georgia Tech is working on technologies for the water-energy nexus.

Lauren Garten joined the School of Material Science and Engineering as an assistant professor in Fall 2021. Her group focuses on developing new materials for energy and electronic applications, particularly at the nexus between ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism, electronics, and photovoltaics. 

Lauren received her B.S. in ceramic engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology. She then went on to earn a Ph.D. in material science from the Pennsylvania State University for her work on ferroelectric, piezoelectric, and dielectric synthesis and characterization with Prof. Susan Trolier-McKinstry. She then became a post-doc at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory working on metastable materials for energy applications. After a very short stint as a material scientist at Sandia National Laboratory, she won the NRC Research Associateship from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Math which was hosted at the U.S. Naval Research Lab (NRL). She then received the Jerome and Isabella Karle Distinguished Scholar Fellowship from NRL to work on lead-free multiferroic materials and devices.

Scott Sinquefield completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 1998 at Oregon State University. He spent three years working with the Multi-Fuel Combustion Group at the Combustion Research Facility at Sandia National Labs (Livermore); where he performed the experimental portion of his thesis research. He joined the Chemical Recovery group at IPST in 1998 and was lead.engineer in the construction and operation of the Pressurize Entrained Flow Reactor facility. He now leads the research program on black liquor gasification. He has extensive experience in the design and construction of pilot research reactors and control systems. He also has expertise in boiler fire-side fouling and thermodynamic modeling of aqueous electrolyte systems.

Prior to joining MSE in July 2003 Professor Singh was a faculty member in Corrosion and Materials Engineering Group at The Institute of Paper Science and Technology (IPST) since 1996.  While in IPST Singh worked on fundamental as well as applied research projects related to the corrosion problems in the pulp and paper industry. From 1990 to 1996, he was a Senior Research Associate at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, working on various materials and corrosion related research projects, including damage accumulation in metal matrix composites (MMCs), Environmental sensitive fracture of Al-alloys MMCs, and High temperature oxidation of Nb/Nb5Si3 composites. He received the Alcan International's Fellowship in 1988-90 to work on "Effects of Low Melting Point Impurities on Slow Crack Growth in Al Alloys,"  He has published over 50 papers in reputed scientific journals and conference proceedings. He is active member of NACE, TMS, TAPPI and has co-organized a number of international symposiums.

Reliable performance of the materials is very important for any industrial process and especially for the chemical process industry for the manufacture of a high quality product. Material selection is generally based on the required material properties, low initial capital investment, and minimum maintenance. Changes in the process parameters to improve products can often lead to higher corrosion susceptibilities of the plant materials. Moreover, with increase in capital cost, there is pressure to extend the life of existing plant equipment beyond its original design life. Corrosion and Materials Engineers are also playing a key role in selecting, maintaining, and modifying materials for changing needs for every industry. Corrosion Science and Engineering research includes understanding the basic mechanisms involved in material degradation in given environments and using that knowledge to develop a mitigation strategy against environment-induced failures

Meredith is the Executive Director of the Georgia Tech Renewable Bioproducts Institute, and the James Harris Faculty Fellow in ChBE.

Meredith's group researches the surfaces and interfaces of advanced materials. Their work aims to apply fundamentals of polymer, surface and colloid science to find new ways to engineer materials useful to society and industry. In particular, projects emphasize the utilization of renewable components and sustainable processing to achieve circular manufacturing and use of plastics, composites, foams and coatings, among others. Many of these materials are critical for food security, energy efficiency, and are closely connected to greenhouse gas reduction.

Dennis Hess’s research interests are in thin film science and technology, surface and interface modification and characterization, microelectronics processing and electronic materials. His group focuses on the establishment of fundamental structure-property relationships and their connection to chemical process sequences used in the fabrication of novel films, electronic materials, devices, and nanostructures. Control of the surface properties of materials such as dielectrics, semiconductors, metals, and paper or paper board by film deposition or surface modification allows the design of such surfaces for a variety of applications in microelectronics, packaging, sensors, microfluidics, and separation processes.