Current Students and Scholars

Qichen Wang

Qichen graduated with his PhD in May of 2022 and is conducting research on algal growth on anaerobic digestates and use of the resulting biomass in fish feed.

Wellington Arthur

Wellington joined the lab in January of 2022 as a PhD student. He is developing a treatment traing for "poultryponics" which is the use of poultry processing wastewater in hydroponic plant irrigation. Among the challenges he is working on include promotion of nitrification, elimination of pathogens, and overcoming the effects of antimicrobial agents in the wastewater.

Shima Rezaei

Shima joined the lab in January of 2022 as a PhD student. She is conducting experiments on how design decisions in aquaponics affect system performance and usability. Specifically, she is investigating the effects of integrating algae into the biofloc and coupled vs. decoupled systems.

Elizabeth Childree

Elizabeth joined the lab in the summer of 2020 as an undergraduate researcher and is now doing her masters degree. She is creating a process model and life cycle assessment for a system that upcycles nutrients from anaerobic digestate into fish feed.

Alireza Fallahi

Alireza joined the lab in January of 2022. He is styding methods of growing algae on anaerobic digestion. Specifically, he is investigating potential chemicals in digestate that inhibit algae as well as reactor configurations to maximize algal growth and nutrient removal.

Edward Drabold

Ed joined the lab in August of 2022. He is studying valorization of poultry processing waste solids using hydrothermal treatment followed by cultivation of microorganisms for nutraceutical production. He is also studying strategies to reduce odor upon land application of poultry processing solid wastes.

Justus Smith

Justus joined the lab in the summer of 2021. He studying interactions between algae and nitrifying bacteria during the treatment of poultry processing wastewater. Better understanding of this relationship will improve our ability to treat wastewater and use it for beneficial irrigation of hydroponic crops.