His first job was as an Applications Development Engineer at KLA-Tencor Corp. in Milpitas, CA, working on instrumentation for detecting particles on unpatterned silicon wafers. He left to study thermodynamics and statistical mechanics under the patient guidance of Prof. Randy Snurr at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, eventually receiving his PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2007 for clarifying the thermodynamics of mixed gas adsorption (ideal adsorbed solution theory, IAST) and developing atomistic simulations to predict the structures of MOFs in solution.
He was briefly seduced by the bright lights and spent some time developing mathematical models for trading and risk management at a proprietary trading firm in Chicago. In 2010 he left finance to seek more socially useful applications for his engineering skills and began working on volunteer engineering projects in Latin America and India to develop low-cost, low-tech solutions for water purification and distribution, human waste management (dry toilets, please!), and hybrid (solar PV/solar thermal/wind/water/storage) renewable energy systems. In 2015 he received a Fulbright fellowship to model Stirling engines at the Federal University of Itajuba (UNIFEI) in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
After enjoying the pandemic on the beach in Costa Rica, he returned to the US to work for Microtrac, Inc., in Newtown, PA, as an applications scientist supporting the BELSORP product line of volumetric adsorption instruments and the BELCAT catalyst analyzer as well as other instrumentation related to sorbent and catalyst characterization. He left in 2023 to head research at Remora, a startup attempting to capture CO2 from truck exhaust, and began collaborating with Augie Venero and L&C Science and Technology in this capacity.
In November 2023 he joined L&C Science and Technology’s full-time staff as chief scientist, and has been happy ever since. For consultation or custom instrumentation for gas separations and adsorption research, please get in touch using the contact form above, or give us a call!
