People

Post-Doctoral Researchers

Naomi Deneke
Education:
Purdue University
Ph.D. in Materials Engineering - 2022
Prairie View A&M University
B.S. in Chemical Engineering - 2017

Bio:
As an undergraduate, Naomi studied the release behavior of protein-doped hydrogels for therapeutic ocular treatments. After obtaining her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Prairie View A&M University in 2017, she joined the Prof. Chelsea Davis’s lab at Purdue University as a graduate student, receiving her Ph.D. in 2022. Naomi’s graduate school research focused on developing novel adhesive materials for pick-and-place material handling and understanding the interfacial properties of highly deformed silicone elastomers. Naomi is currently a postdoctoral research scientist within the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Georgia Tech where her work focuses on developing sustainable adhesives for packaging materials.

Contact: ndeneke3 AT gatech.edu

Graduate Students

Alexandra Marnot
Education:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
B.S. in Chemical Engineering - 2019
Minor: Biomedical Engineering

Bio:
While at Virginia Tech, Alex worked in both the DREAMS Lab, and the Polymers and Composite Materials Lab, doing research on stereolithography and fused filament fabrication additive manufacturing. She also interned with the Technology Commercialization Office at Virginia Tech, reviewing and making recommendations for technology licensing. Alex spent a summer abroad at the Technical University of Denmark for a course in Unit Operations. Alex is currently a Ph.D. student in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. Her research focus in the Brettmann lab is on 3D printing for construction in space environments. Alex is a recipient of the GAANN fellowship, the NSTGRO fellowship and a student in the TI:GER program in Georgia Tech's Scheller School of Business.

 Contact: amarnot3 AT gatech.edu

Jaehyun Cho
Education:
University of Iowa
B.S. in Chemical Engineering - 2012
Seoul National University
M.S. in Chemical Engineering - 2015

Bio:
During his Master’s degree at SNU, he was supervised by Dr. Jae Young Jho and studied the relationship between polymer structure and properties. He dealt with many different kinds of thermoplastics, which are mechanically superior engineering plastics. After his M.S. degree, he joined the Korea Institute of Science Technology, where he spent several years developing carbon fiber-based composite materials and worked on manipulating the interfaces of the polymer matrix and carbon fibers. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Chemical Engineering department at Georgia Tech, focusing on developing new types of polymers that are mechanically resilient, and recyclable or depolymerizable under the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) project.

Contact: jcho361 AT gatech.edu

Mona Amrihesari
Education:
Baha'i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE)
BS in Applied Chemistry - 2016

Bio:
Mona graduated from BIHE despite all the limitations that she faced as a Baha'i student in Iran. As an undergraduate, Mona spent her internship working with an analytical lab in the industry. She did her bachelor thesis on the study of marine corrosion, advised by Dr. Shiva Farabi. She joined the Recyclable or Depolymerizable Study with the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) project, focusing on polymer solubility measurements.

Contact: mona.amrihesari AT gatech.edu

Haley Carroll
Education:
The University of Southern Mississippi
B.S. in Polymer Science and Engineering – 2021
Minor: Chemistry

Bio:
During her time at Southern Miss, Haley spent all four years in Dr. Yoan Simon’s research lab covering a range of projects including mechanochemistry for self-healing applications, to hydrogel synthesis for targeting monothiols in cancer cells. The largest project, and topic of her Honors College thesis was, “Utilizing polyisobutylene oxygen barrier properties to enhance triplet-triplet annihilation based upconversion in thermoplastic elastomers.” Haley is currently a Ph.D. student in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and a GAANN fellow. Her research for Dr. Brettmann consists of electrospinning, a processing method that produces ultrafine polymer fibers and how rheology of the electrospun solutions can predict the quality of the subsequent fibers.

Contact: hcarroll30 AT gatech.edu

Alexa Dobbs
Education:
Fort Lewis College
B.S. Chemistry - 2019
Minor: Mathematics
Georgia Institute of Technology
M.S. Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering - 2021

Bio:
Alexa joined the Brettmann lab in 2021 to research the relationships between formulation factors and material properties in high solids suspensions, such as propellants. Previously, she had completed a thesis-based M.S. with Professor Kohl at Georgia Tech, which focused on developing catalyst slurry formulations for improved durability in anion exchange electrolyzers. She is traditionally trained as an analytical chemist and completed 3 years of chemistry research at Fort Lewis College with Dr. Cole as an undergrad.

Contact: adobbs8 AT gatech.edu

Shiqi Wei
Education:
Donghua University
B.S. Material Science and Engineering - 2020
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
M.S. Bioengineering - 2021

Bio:
During her undergraduate degree, Shiqi worked on the preparation and modification of nano-silicon as fillers for dental composites. During her time at UIUC, she performed research under Prof. Jianjun Cheng to study the synthesis and characterization of polypeptides as well as the stability of N-carboxyanhydride (NCA) monomers for polypeptides. She is currently a Ph.D. student in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. She spent her first year in Prof. Zhiqun Lin's lab working on the synthesis of cellulose-based nanoreactor via ATRP. Her current research in the Brettmann lab focuses on the influence of particle-polymer interactions on electrospinning ultrafine fibers.

Contact: swei86 AT gatech.edu

Harsh Kumar Verma
Education:
Pandit Deendayal Energy University
B.Tech. in Petroleum Engineering - 2022

Bio:
As an undergraduate student, Harsh studied energy sustainability through the development of natural gas resources such as shale gas and gas hydrates. As an intern at the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), he conducted simulation studies on the application of polymers for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques. Currently, he is co-advised by Dr. Josiah Hester in the School of Interactive Computing and Dr. Blair Brettmann. His research focuses on developing a biodegradable, thin, and flexible acoustic vibration transducer. He is also working on defining sustainability in computational devices and developing a metric for the same, emphasizing the entire device life cycle, from manufacturing to disposal.

Contact: hverma32 AT gatech.edu

Undergraduate Students

Amari Murry
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (2023)

Heejoon Jeon
School of Materials Science and Engineering (2025)

Yvonne Walker

Jami Miliken
School of Aerospace Engineering (2025)

Claire Joo
School of Materials Science and Engineering (2024)

Julia Fleischman
School of Materials Science and Engineering (2026)

Rachel Hobby
School of Materials Science and Engineering (2026)

Former Members

Graduate Students

Jonathan Cotler
2019 - 2022
Masters in ChBE

Dr. Elena Ewaldz
2017 - 2022
Ph.D. in MSE

Dr. Nasreen Khan
2017 - 2022
Ph.D. in MSE

Dr. Manali Banerjee
2016 - 2021
Ph.D. in MSE

Hannah Woods
2017 - 2019
Masters in MSE

Undergraduate students

Grace Willows 2017 - 2019
joined Boston Scientific

Mofolu Popoola 2018 - 2019

Carly Travis 2018 - 2019
University of Washington, MSE Master's program

Riddhi Patel 2017 - 2020

joined Diageo

Sisira Saraswatula 2018 - 2020

joined QGenda

Nadia Zaragoza 2018 - 2020
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MSE PhD program

Anna Williams 2019 - 2020
joined Ethicon

Morgan McLeroy 2020 - 2021
University of Colorado Boulder, MSE PhD program

Eli Winterscheidt 2021

Ellenrae Dixon 2022

Joanna Thomas 2021-2022

Jillian Armstrong 2021-2022

Thomas Thwaite 2022

Tyra Jones 2022

Elizabeth Sinner 2018

Joshua Randrup 2018 - 2019

Juliette Carpet 2019
Solvay

Mitchell Ketcham 2018 - 2019
joined Area-I

Zachary Adams 2018 - 2021
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MSE PhD program

Ian Campbell 2018 - 2020
University of Washington, MSE PhD program

Heather Witherow 2020
joined WestRock

Christina Sun 2020 - 2021

Petra von Grey 2020 - 2021

Madison Miller 2021
Vanderbilt University, MSE PhD program

Samuel West 2021
University of Texas at Austin, ChE PhD program

Lexi Renfroe 2021-2022

Lena Konzelman 2021-2022

Daniel Collins 2022