Advanced Engineering Department

Continued to expand my managerial, communication, and interpersonal skills while searching for my preferred permanent position.

While working under Prof. Poltavets, I had explored both the synthesis, analysis, and simulation of ceramic battery materials. Although, I have experience in a variety of synthetic methods, my main scope was utilizing Density Functional Theory to understand the functionality of new battery materials. Experimental analyses of proposed battery materials were performed through cyclic voltammetry and other electrochemical methods. Electrochemical investigations had involved the formulation of active slurry to be deposited in a stable constructed electrochemical cell. • Studied independently to gain a large expertise in computational models to test potential battery materials through various tutorials, presentations, and literature sources to discover a potentially new magnesium ion conductor.• Ability to install 2 atomic simulation computational packages and 3 library dependencies for Linux and HPC environments to investigate material properties. Managed the local server for the research group.• Project management and scheduling of 2 undergraduate researchers to identify key vulnerabilities in new battery materials; one was completed under a resident summer research program.• Awarded 5 internal grants based on academic merits and written research reports that amounted to $30,778 in fellowship funding.• Provided training and maintained safe environment for 30+ general chemistry lecture and lab students from a large variety of educational backgrounds. • Structured experiments for a new electrochemical cell to increase the chemical stability of electrochemical coatings for better reproducibility of measurements.• Acquired an assortment of 6 solid state synthetic and 4 identification techniques to analyze new battery and correlated electron materials.• Attended 2 NSF funded workshops to improve research and communication skills through academic merit and references. Each attendant had to present their research related to the workshop topic.

General Chemistry and Basic Organic ChemistryThrough my experience I was able to gain a better understanding to how individuals learn chemical topics through 1 on 1 mentorship. I tutored for a large variety of chemistry concepts from from 8 different classes at Grand Valley State University. I secured the position in the school funded tutoring center based on chemical knowledge, communications skills, and academic merit.

Mapping the Reactivity Surface of Metal-Olefin Reactions Advisor: Dr. Stephan A. Matchett, Dept. of Chemistry, Grand Valley State University Many organometallic and polymer synthetic methods utilize the reaction involving a nucleophilic attack on a metal coordinated olefin to produce new materials and compounds. The bonding between the metal and the olefin can become increasingly asymmetric depending on the functional group of the olefin. Increased asymmetry of the metal-olefin bond can increase its reactivity to a point. However, too much asymmetry will lead to an inactive complex. While the overall goal of this research is to fundamentally understand the nucleophilic attack on a metal-olefin, the scope of my project included synthesizing new metal-olefin complexes to be tested and developing a kinetics method to measure the reaction between the nucleophile and the metal-olefin. The kinetics method involved the use of a stop-flow UV/Vis spectroscopy set-up and a gas chromatography instrument. This worked was continued from independent research courses.• Synthesized and optimized organometallic based chemistry that could be used in polymer synthesis under Stephen A. Matchett, PhD • Gained experience in many air-free synthetic techniques to produce the desired materials. • Developed chemical kinetics measuring techniques using a stopped-flow kinetics add-on for a UV/Vis Spectroscopy instrument to explore compound reactivity.• Used gas chromatography – mass spectrometry to quantify initial amine reactant amount.• Written report of research results submitted to university repository.