Principle Investigator
Dr. Thomas P. Senftle
PhD, Chemical Engineering, Penn State University
BS, Chemical Engineering, University of Notre Dame
Graduate Students
Tafadzwa Mutepaire (PhD 2022 – )
Tafadzwa hails from Zimbabwe. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town in 2021. For his undergraduate thesis he worked on microkinetic modeling to compare CO and CO2 hydrogenation over Fe (100), which is when he developed a keen interest to pursue computational catalysis research. Tafadzwa joined the ChBE PhD program at Rice University in Fall 2022 and will work on understanding catalytic mechanisms governing the degradation of per-fluoroalkyl substances (“forever chemicals”) for water treatment. His work is supported by the NSF ERC: Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Center.
Chase Sellers (PhD 2021 – )
Chase earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University in 2021, where he developed a machine learning program for the classification of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) data. Currently, he’s pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His research involves controlling the phase transformations of metal-oxide catalysts to enhance stability and selectivity, with a specific focus on electrochemical water splitting. Through this work, Chase aims to contribute to the advancement of sustainable technologies related to hydrogenation and energy storage. His work is supported by an NSF CAREER award from the CBET division.
Peixuan (Lexie) Jin (PhD 2021 – )
Peixuan (Lexie) obtained her B.S. degree in Chemical and Molecular Engineering from Stony Brook University in 2020. Following her undergraduate studies, she gained valuable experience working in the pharmaceutical industry, where she focused on drug synthesis. In 2021, Peixuan joined the CHBE PhD program at Rice University. Her current research is centered around utilizing statistical learning tools to gain insight into metal/support interactions. Her work is supported by an NSF CAREER award from the CBET division.
Ai-Shi Wang (MS 2021 – 2023; PhD 2023 – )
Ai-Shi received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in 2021. After graduation, she joined Rice University as a master student in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Her current research focuses on simulating PFAS degradation reactions via thermal catalysts with density functional theory (DFT). She completed her MS degree in 2023. She will join Daxin Materials Corp. as a summer intern and then return to Rice as a Ph.D. student in the fall semester.
Yu Chen (PhD 2019 – )
Yu received her B.S. in Chemistry from East China Normal University (ECNU) in 2019 and her previous research focused on molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of G-quadruplex DNA. After graduation, she joined Rice University as a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. degree in the department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Currently, her research interest lies in simulating photo-electrochemical process at semiconductor/electrolyte interfaces. This work combines atomistic modeling and electronic structure theory to understand how solar energy can be used to efficiently to drive multiple chemical reactions. This work is supported by the NSF ERC: Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Center.
Peng Wang (PhD 2018 – )
Peng received his B. S. in Chemical Engineering from Tianjin University (TJU) in 2018 and joined the ChBE PhD program at Rice University the same year. His undergraduate research focused on biomass catalytic conversion. That work won the Grand Prize in the Challenge Cup at Tianjin University. He also finished a graduation project on modeling biomass pyrolysis while at NC State University. He is currently working on iron-based catalysis for propane dehydrogenation (PDH), which is supported by the ACS Petroleum Research Fund.
Ben Walls (BS 2020 – )
Ben matriculated to Rice University as an undergraduate in 2019 and is currently pursuing a B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering along with a B.A. in Philosophy. He is broadly interested in solving problems related to environmental sustainability, particularly with regard to renewable energy. Currently, he is investigating the relationship between the structure of toxic perfluoroalkyl substances and their readiness to degrade in the presence of wide bandgap semiconductors, which has key implications for novel photocatalyst development. This work has been sponsored by a fellowship from the Rice Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry, as well as an education grant from Omnova Solutions.
Group Alumni
Chun-Yen (Mark) Liu (2017 – 2022, PhD in Chemical Engineering)
Chun-Yen (Mark) received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University (NTU) in 2016. His previous research experiences focused on direct ethanol conversion over modified ZSM-5 catalyst in Catalyst Laboratory in National Taiwan University. During his undergraduate research, he developed his interest in catalysis and earned Second Prize in Student English Oral Presentation Competition in the 34th Taiwan Symposium on Catalysis and Reaction Engineering in 2016. His research at Rice focused on understanding metal/oxide interaction in electronic scale which is critical for tuning, designing and predicting the reactivity of catalysts. He earned his PhD in 2022 and currently works at AspenTech, Inc.
Manav Bhati (2017 – 2022, PhD in Chemical Engineering)
Manav received his B. S. in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee in 2014 and worked as a process engineer before joining Rice in 2017, where he is a graduate student currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in the department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He is interested in renewable energy conversion and storage technologies. He has experience of working on the electrochemical modeling of vanadium redox flow batteries. His work at Rice focused on the computational modeling of porous silicon electrodes in Li-ion batteries. He earned his PhD in 2022 and currently works at Schrodinger, Inc.
Prakash Reddy Chintakunta (2017 – 2020, MS in Applied Physics)
Prakash joined Applied Physics program at Rice University in the Fall of 2016. He received his bachelor’s degree in technology majoring in Nanotechnology from the SRM Institute of Science and Technology. His undergraduate research was focused on first principles investigation of carbon dioxide conversion to methanol with copper iodide catalysts. His project employed density functional theory to investigate noble metal catalysts for water purification.
Undergraduate Alumni
- Vania Ding – UG 2020
- Daniel Martinez – UG 2019
- Jonathan Chapman – UG 2019
- Burke Garza – UG 2019