Team
Associate Professor Kevin M. McPeak
Prof. McPeak received his B.S. from Northwestern University, Ph.D. from Drexel University with Jason B. Baxter, and postdoc at ETH Zurich with David J. Norris. He is a recent recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award and the LSU Rising Early Career Researcher.
Ph.D. Students
Luis Manuel
Hometown: Cabinda, Cabinda, Angola
Project: Nanoparticles for Bioimaging
Bio: Originally from Angola in Central Africa, Luis had the opportunity to graduate from the University of Houston with a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering. After completing his bachelor's, Luis wanted to obtain a Ph.D. in the same discipline to better aid people from underprivileged backgrounds in obtaining higher education. Luis chose LSU primarily due to his desire to stay in the South, motivated by the local climate and cuisine. Luis synthesizes plasmonic and chiral nanoparticles for medical applications using bottom-up fabrication techniques in the McPeak lab.
MaCayla Caso
Hometown: Albuquerque, NM
Project: Chiral Nanoparticles
Bio: MaCayla Caso has been passionate about science since she was very young. During her time in high school, she visited LSU and was able to sit in on a chemical engineering lecture. This solidified what major she wanted as she went into her undergraduate degree and helped guide her to what she wanted in a career. She hopes to become a research professor and encourage other women engineers to pursue their dream.
Mary Worbington
Hometown: Greenville, MS
Project: Photocatalytic Water Disinfection
Bio:
Stephania Imbachi-Ordonez
Hometown:
Project: Machine Learning Algorithms for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Characterization of Sugar Cane (Collaboration with Audubon Sugar Institute)
Bio:
Lina Rojas
Hometown: Cali, Columbia
Project: Emergent properties of noble-transition metal alloys
Bio:
Undergraduate Researchers
Ella Sheets
Hometown: Lafayette, LA
Project: Photocatalytic Water Disinfection
Bio:
Liz Diaz
Hometown: Houma, LA
Project: Photocatalytic Water Disinfection
Bio:
Hamood Qureshi
Hometown: Lafayette, LA
Project: Photocatalytic Water Disinfection
Bio:
Cameron Bachar
Hometown: Baton Rouge, LA
Project: Hot-Carrier Materials for Infrared Photodetection
Bio:
Eryn Kennedy
Hometown: Baton Rouge, LA
Project: Photocatalytic Water Disinfection
Bio:
Alumni
Dr. Tiago Ramos Leite (LSU Ph.D. '22 - Qorvo), Sarah Glass (LSU BS '22 - Rice University Ph.D. Student), Dr. Daniel Willis (LSU Ph.D. '21 - Silver Bullet Water Treatment Company), Henry Kantrow (LSU BS '21 - GA Tech ChE Ph.D. Student), Noah Smith (LSU BS '21 - Ph.D. Student U. Colorado Boulder), Henry Cain (LSU BS '21 - Dupont), Scott Wicker (REU Student '21), Dr. Sara Stofela (LSU Ph.D. '20), Gloria Alvarado (LSU BS '20 - ExxonMobil), Garret Lambert (LSU BS '16 - ExxonMobil), Jon Wilson (LSU BS '16 - U Del ChE Ph.D. Student)
Collaborators
Sven Burger & Lin Zschiedrich (JCMwave), Ayash Sahu (NYU), Phil Sprunger (LSU Physics), William Shelton (LSU Physics), Omar Magana-Loaiza (LSU Physics), Jason Baxter (Drexel University), Ben Diroll (Argonne National Laboratory), Martin Villiger (Harvard University)