The Renewable Energy-Water-Environment Nexus

Dr. Shahryar Jafarinejad is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Tuskegee University (TU), United States, where he also serves as a faculty senate member since 2019. Before joining TU in 2018, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Irvine. He has taught chemical engineering courses at TU, University of Tehran, and the College of Environment, and Technical and Vocational University (Iran), and supervised undergraduate and graduate students. He has published three books, several book chapters, and numerous peer-reviewed journal and conference papers, and has served as an editorial board member and reviewer of engineering journals. His research group focuses on green technologies and sustainable materials, energy and environment, and applying nanotechnology and modeling and simulation tools to solve problems in chemical and environmental engineering. He received the Henry C. McBay Faculty Research Fellowship from UNCF and the Outstanding Faculty Performance Award for Research and Teaching/Learning at TU in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Dr. Bryan S. Beckingham is an associate professor of chemical engineering at Auburn University (AU), United States, and director of the Auburn University’s Center for Polymers and Advanced Composites. At Auburn University, he is also serving as the faculty senate (2017?present) and as a member of the Chemical Engineering Graduate Program Committee, among other roles. Before joining Auburn University in 2016, he received his BS in chemical engineering from Clarkson University in 2007, his PhD in chemical and materials engineering from Princeton University in 2013, and was a materials postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a member of the Material Science Division and the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis from 2013 to 2015. He is a recipient of a US Department of Energy Early Career Award and is among the Industrial Engineering and Chemistry Research’s 2021 Class of Influential Researchers—The Americas. His research group focuses on leveraging synthetic polymer chemistry and materials characteri?zation to inform the design of novel polymer materials for target applications, with particular emphasis on polymer membranes for fuel cells and solar fuels devices, hierarchically structured matter for applications in energy and water, and additive manufacturing polymer functional polymer systems. He is also active in engineer?ing education as a past invited participant of the National Academy of Engineering: Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium and as the chair of the Chemical Engineering Division of the ASEE Southeast Region.