Postdocs
Mengyang Fan, PhD
Mengyang Fan completed her Ph. D (2020) in Energy and Materials Sciences at Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), where she also serves as a postdoctoral fellow for six months. Her research primarily focused on designing and fabricating dendritic metal electrodes for application in catalyzing CO2-to-formate conversion. She was the recipient of the Doctoral Research Award and the Relève Étoile Louis-Berlinguet Award from Fonds de recherche du Québec-Nature et technologies (FRQNT) in 2018 and 2020, respectively.
In 2021, Mengyang joined the SintonLab as a postdoctoral fellow and will be working on CO2 conversion through electrocatalysis.
Sa Xiao
Sa earned a B. Eng Honours (2015) in Electrical Engineering and M. Eng (2018) in Biomedical Engineering from McGill University. His undergraduate research, including his Honour’s thesis, focused on the fabrication and characterization of two-dimensional nanomaterials. His master’s research focused on the development of a miniaturized in vitro gastrointestinal tract (GIT) that could support GIT microbiota from live human fecal samples for the testing of various foods, drugs, or supplements to study the broader role of the GIT microbiota pertaining to human health and disease.
He joined the SintonLab in 2018, with a focus in the fertility field. More specifically, he is developing a microfluidic array platform for the testing of sperm cells in a high throughput and multiplexed manner to study the effects of various drugs or toxicology on sperm for the treatment of infertility, along with providing a platform to study contraceptives and toxicological effects.
Jiheon Kim, PhD
Jiheon Kim received his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Seoul National University under the supervision of Prof. Taeghwan Hyeon. His Ph.D. research was in novel nanomaterials for energy conversion and storage applications. He joined the group in July 2022 as an A3MD postdoctoral fellow, and his current focus is on AI-accelerated catalytic materials discovery with high-throughput experimentation.
Feng Li, PhD
Feng Li received his Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Prof. Anna Klinkova in August 2022, from the Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. His research mainly focused on studying the stability and catalytic mechanism of the metal-based CO2 reduction electrocatalyst by using density functional theory and finite element method. He joined the Sinton lab as a postdoctoral fellow in September 2022 with research interests in computational electrochemistry and CO2 capture.
Maryam Ebrahimiazar, PhD
Maryam completed her B.Sc. (2015) and M.Sc. (2017) in Chemical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology and her Ph.D. (2022) in Mechanical Engineering at University of Toronto. Her doctoral research centered around designing an ultrasonic inhaler to enhance asthma treatment. She used ultrasound waves to generate droplets of the correct size (~5 microns) for an effective asthma treatment and developed fundamental models to predict the behavior of liquids exposed to ultrasonic oscillations.
Maryam joined SintonLab in 2023 as a postdoctoral fellow. Her current research is focused on developing high throughput experimental methods to measure fluid properties for electric vehicle (EV) coolants.
Zahra Azimi Dijvejin, PhD
Zahra (Sonia) successfully completed her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 2023. Her research was centered around the fabrication of coatings and smart surfaces aimed at altering interfacial forces between ice/water and the surfaces. During her doctoral studies, she also delved into the development of hydrophobic/hydrophilic coatings, which effectively reduced friction on various surfaces.
In 2022, Sonia collaborated with Sinton Lab to fabricate a coating tailored for metallic electrocatalysts. She joined the Sinton Lab as a postdoctoral fellow in August 2023, where she now focuses her research on the conversion of CO2.
Yiqing Chen, PhD
Yiqing Chen received her Ph.D. degree in May 2023 under the supervision of Prof. Jun Song, from the Department of Mining and Materials Engineering at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her Ph.D. studies mainly focused on the computational design of two-dimensional materials for catalysis using density functional theory and machine learning. She joined the Sinton lab at the University of Toronto as a postdoctoral fellow in June 2023 with research interests in computational electrochemistry.
Dongha Kim, PhD
Dongha Kim earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT, guided by Prof. Bilge Yildiz. His doctoral work centered on high-temperature catalysts, encompassing solid oxide cells and methane conversions. He joined the group in August 2023 as a postdoctoral fellow, co-advised by Prof. Sinton and Prof. Sargent, following a year of research in Prof. Sargent's lab. His current research focuses on the development of electrocatalysts and electrochemical systems for CO2 reduction.
Jieyuan Liu, PhD
Jieyuan Liu received her Ph.D. (2023) in Materials science and Engineering at Beihang University, China. Her doctoral research centered on the application for hydrogen energy, including electrocatalysis (ORR, CO2RR, HOR etc.), proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) and hydrogen storage. She is skilled at the synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials, PEMFC device fabrication, and DFT simulation using VASP.
Jieyuan joined the Sinton Lab as a postdoctoral fellow in September 2023 and current research is focused on CO2 conversion.
Zunmin Guo, PhD
Zunmin Guo obtain his Ph.D. (2022) in Advanced Functional Materials and Analytical Science from the University of Manchester, UK, supervised by Prof. Stuart Holmes. His Ph.D. studies mainly focused on membrane electrode assembly development in high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells. After his Ph.D., Zunmin worked in Prof. Hyunjoo Lee's lab (KAIST) as a postdoctoral researcher to develop high-temperature CO2 reduction system. He joined the Sinton lab in September 2023 as a postdoctoral fellow focusing on CO2 capture and conversion.
Maral Vafaie, PhD
Maral obtained her master's degree in Material Science and Engineering from Sharif University of Technology. Following this, she completed her PhD studies in Electrical Engineering (class of 2022) at the University of Toronto under the guidance of Professor Ted Sargent. Her research revolved around the design and synthesis of advanced solution-processed materials, with a primary emphasis on their utilization in state-of-the-art solar cells and photodetectors.
In 2023, she joined the Sinton Lab as a cross-appointed postdoctoral fellow with Chemspacelab (led by Professor Anatole Von Lilienfeld). In her dual role, her primary focus is on accelerating the discovery of novel catalytic materials through the utilization of quantum machine learning algorithms and data-driven experimentations.
Yong Wang, PhD
Yong Wang received his Ph.D. degree in Energy and Materials Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Dongling Ma in 2023 from the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS). His research focused on low-cost and stable plasmonic nanomaterials and their photothermal properties. He was the recipient of the Doctoral Research Award from Fonds de recherche du Québec-Nature et technologies (FRQNT) in 2019-2022. He is also experienced in heterogeneous catalysis (photocatalysis and CO oxidation). He joined the Sinton Lab as a postdoctoral fellow in November 2023 and focuses on the development of efficient electrocatalysts and technologies for carbon capture and storage.
Tanushree Ghosh
Tanushree Ghosh received her PhD degree in 2023 from the Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India from the department of Physics under the supervision of Professor Rajesh Kumar. During her PhD she worked on Electrochromic materials and devices, largely studying and researching on their multi-functional applications. She has joined the group in November 2023 and will be working with the eDAC subgroup.
Hyeon Seok Lee
Hyeon Seok Lee completed his Ph.D. at Seoul National University under the supervision of Prof. Taeghwan Hyeon, focusing on the development of efficient catalysts for electrocatalytic hydrogen production and utilization. In January 2024, he joined the A3MD group as a postdoctoral fellow. His current research focuses on exploring AI-accelerated materials discovery, with a primary emphasis on discovering novel electrocatalysts for reactions, including CO2/CO reduction and oxygen evolution reactions.
Hyun Sik Moon
Hyun Sik received his Ph.D. under the guidance of Prof. Kijung Yong in August 2023 at POSTECH, South Korea. His prior research focused on developing novel photocatalysts for fuel production applications and studying charge transfer dynamics. He joined the group in Mar. 2024 as a postdoctoral fellow, co-supervised by Prof. Sinton and Prof. Sargent. His current research focuses on the design of electrocatalysts and electrochemical systems for CO2 reduction.
Hafiz Ghulam Abbas
Dr. Abbas obtained his Ph.D. in computational physics from Jeonbuk National University in the Republic of South Korea, under the guidance of Professor Jae-Ryang Hahn. Subsequently, he undertook postdoctoral research at DGIST and Korea University's Seoul campus, under the supervision of Professor Stefan Ringe. His research endeavors focus on pioneering computational design methodologies tailored for sustainable energy conversion. Specifically, he specializes in the precise prediction of novel materials using cutting-edge machine learning potentials. Furthermore, his work delves into the intricate realms of electronic structure and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) modeling using Density Functional Theory (DFT). Additionally, he is deeply intrigued by investigating phase transitions in metallic glasses, employing advanced machine learning potentials.
Prasad Valiyamadom Sudhakara Sarma
Prasad Sarma completed his Ph.D. (2019) at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Thiruvananthapuram. He was working on 2-Dimensional materials for electrocatalytic water splitting applications. Later, Prasad joined as a lecturer in a community college for one year then moved back to the same group (IISER) as a postdoc for another year. In 2021, Prasad Sarma moved to the University of Oregon (UO) with the Fulbright Nehru postdoctoral fellowship till November 2023. At UO, he worked on the bipolar membrane (BPM) based electrolyzers for water splitting and hydrogen production. His research interest was to develop novel metal oxide-based water dissociation catalysts that go into the BPM junction. Prasad joined the SintonLab in 2024 as a postdoctoral scholar and is currently working on electrocatalytic CO2 capture (or direct air capture: eDAC) systems.
Nasim Barati, PhD
Dr. Barati earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Calgary in 2022. Her research has primarily focused on membrane treatment for selective separation. Her expertise spans from the study of flow in porous media to surface modification using nanotechnology, and designing membrane systems for water treatment.
In 2023, Dr. Barati joined the SintonLab as a postdoctoral fellow. In her new role, she will be spearheading research on the electrocatalytic reduction of flue gas to produce value-added products.