Dr. Menezes is an Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. Before joining the University, he worked as an adjunct assistant professor in the Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and post-doctoral research associate in the Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Pittsburgh.
M. Rashed Khan
Khan Lab@UNR aims to study, design, and develop soft materials, unconventional processes, and reconfigurable micro/nanodevices that can be harnessed and optimized further for advanced biochemical, biomedical, and physicochemical applications. The lab is also keen to establish a multidisciplinary smart-manufacturing research group, including researchers from various backgrounds. Through short and long-term active collaboration, Khan Lab@UNR would like to address fundamental challenges associated with soft micro-device fabrication, 3D/4D (bio)printing, and patterning, advanced hybrid sensor manufacturing, biomedical device development – which are still unnoticed and under-explored, and need further investigation.
Additionally, our group also focuses on computational neuroscience and neurobioengineering. Under this research direction, we study human brain, brain functions, brain structure so that the established knowledge can be broadly applicable to general biomecical science and knowledge of the brain and brain-diseases.
Chad Curtis
Dr. Curtis’s research interests lie at the interface of engineering, data science and medicine. He investigates the transport properties of nanoparticle platforms for improved drug delivery. He uses machine learning models combined trained on nanoparticle trajectory datasets to characterize the nanoparticle-tissue microenvironment interface. As a data scientist, Dr. Curtis is also involved in many multidisciplinary projects across campus including thermal modeling of Lake Mead, genome sequencing and bioinformatics, open education resources evaluation, and support for wellness and retention of undergraduate researchers.
Rubab Saher
My research mainly focuses on urban irrigation water management using remote sensing datasets. I am primarily interested in improving the existing physical process for urban landscapes in the hope of saving water in arid cities.
Beiyu Lin
Beiyu Lin is an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She constructs computational models based on ambient sensor data to identify people’s routine behavior patterns and assess their behavior changes; she also develops algorithms to apply these findings to diverse areas. The impact of her multi-disciplinary research collaborations has been reported in multiple publications. Beiyu has received several honors and awards, including the 2021 Best Applied Data Science Paper Award, SIAM International Conference on Data Mining, and 2022 People Choice Award for Young Professional Poster Competition, IEEE Rising Stars. The recipient of several external scholarships, Beiyu has given multiple invited talks and has taught and mentored students from diverse populations.
Ehsan Vahidi
Dr. Ehsan Vahidi is an interdisciplinary researcher who has crossed traditional boundaries between metallurgical engineering and sustainability sciences. His research takes fundamental environmental engineering and translates this into applied settings, primarily in the mining and metallurgical industries. Dr. Vahidi received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Materials and Metallurgical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology and the University of Tehran, respectively. After earning his second master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of South Florida, he obtained his Ph.D. from Purdue University in Environmental & Ecological Engineering. Prior to joining UNR as an Assistant Professor in 2020, Dr. Vahidi was a Postdoctoral Associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Rubaiya Murshed
On 2017 Fall, I have started working as a Research Assistant in department of Mechanical Engineering at UNLV. My research is on fabrication and analysis of highly efficient and stable Lead-free Perovskite photovoltaic material to avoid the toxicity of Lead. My current focus is on Cs2SnI6 Perovskite and I am analyzing the effect of additives such as SnF2, Pyrazine and Guanidinum Thiocyanate on the optical and structural properties of that Perovskite. I am also working on the Perovskite device fabrication and its diode characteristics analysis. In future, I would like to work on another novel Perovskite , which is Cs2GeI6. Both this materials are of A2BX6 structured Perovskite and possess promising photovoltaic properties.
Erica Marti
Dr. Erica Marti’s main research interests are in water and wastewater treatment, especially in the area of transforming wastewater for a beneficial reuse (drinking water, irrigation water, etc.). Past work has included understanding the formation of unregulated disinfection byproducts (DBPs) and investigating different methods to prevent their formation. DBPs are created when water is disinfected with chemical oxidants like different forms of chlorine and ozone. We use the chemicals to inactivate pathogens (bacteria, viruses, etc.) but the chemicals can react with other dissolved organics and inorganics to create unwanted byproducts, some of which are toxic. Therefore, water treatment professionals must work carefully to provide the right amount of oxidant for disinfection while minimizing DBPs.
Future research topics include remediation of polluted groundwater, adsorption of heavy metals from wastewater using biochar made from agricultural waste products, uptake of DBPs in plants grown using treated wastewater, and optimizing toxicity assays for DBPs.
Dr. Marti also conducts research in the area of STEM education and has led several Teacher Professional Development programs for integrated STEM lessons and engineering design.
Hai Pham
I am currently a postdoctoral fellow working in the Division of Hydrologic Sciences (DHS), at the Desert Research Institute (DRI). I obtained my Ph.D. in Hydrology from LSU. Before I joined DRI in 2016, I worked as a postdoc fellow at LSU.
My research aims to reduce uncertainty in groundwater modeling with focus on developing computer programs for prediction of flow and contaminant movement in porous and fractured media, uncertainty assessment of hydrologic parameters, conceptual models, and scenarios, optimization, and experimental designs using high-performance computing systems. At DRI, I am developing computer models to predict flow and radionuclide transport through fractured rock aquifers at the Pahute Mesa of the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS).
I enjoy conducting research and publishing, developing grant proposals as well as teaching university courses and mentoring students.
Yu (Frank) Yang
Dr. Yang’s current research interests and strengths are focused on the organic matter-mineral-bacteria interfacial redox reactions, critical for global cycles of carbon/nitrogen and emergent contaminants.