2023 Research, Innovation and Knowledge Celebratory Reception

College of Arts and Sciences
School of Earth Sciences

Tom Darrah and his team are focused on three primary areas of research: determining the geological processes that control the migration of fluids (e.g., water, natural gas, oil, carbon dioxide, helium) in the Earth's crust and mantle; developing geochemical techniques that constrain and improve unconventional energy exploration and extraction; and applying traditional isotope geochemistry to evaluate the potential impacts of energy extraction on the environment and human health. Darrah has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, the Petroleum Research Fund and the National Children's Study. At Ohio State, he is establishing the Water, Energy and Life Laboratory (WELL) in the School of Earth Sciences. This facility includes a state-of-the-art noble gas isotope ratio mass spectrometer, gas chromatographs and cryogenic laser ablation ICP-MS instrumentation.

College of Engineering
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

W.S. Winston Hois a Distinguished Professor of Engineering in the William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Ohio State. Before teaching, he had 28 years of industrial R&D experience in membranes and separation processes, working for Allied Chemical, Xerox and Exxon, and serving as Senior Vice-President of Technology at Commodore Separation Technologies.  He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, USA in 2002 in recognition of his distinguished contributions to engineering.  A New Jersey Inventor of the Year (1991), Ho holds more than 60 US patents, generally with foreign counterparts, in membranes and separation processes. He received the 2006 Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), and he was the 2007 recipient of Clarence G. Gerhold Award, one of the highest honors bestowed to those working on separations. He received the 2012 Lawrence B. Evans Award in Chemical Engineering Practice from AIChE.  In 2014, he was elected to Academia Sinica, the highest form of academic recognition in the Republic of China in Taiwan. He earned his bachelor’s degree from National Taiwan University and his master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in Chemical Engineering.     

College of Medicine
Department of Radiation Oncology

Naduparambil K. Jacob is an associate professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and a member of the Translational Therapeutics program at Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. The Jacob Laboratory studies radiation biology and biodosimetry and develops strategies to enhance therapeutic gain by early detection and mitigation of normal tissue toxicities in lung cancer patients receiving radiation therapy. Jacob is the lead inventor of four licensed US patents that have become the basis of two start-up companies, including Capture Collective, Inc., that focuses on transitioning the biodosimetry products to the clinic and the market. Currently, Jacob serves as Principal Investigator of $10M federal grants or agreements from Department of Defense (DoD), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). The blood microRNA biomarker-based radiation biodosimetry technology he originally developed has recently been selected by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate for developing advanced end-to-end diagnostic devices to detect radiation sickness in astronauts on long space missions. Jacob is the senior author of recent publications appearing in leading medical journals such as International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics and Science Translational Medicine. Jacob received his doctorate in Cell Biology from University of Tuebingen, Germany.

College of Engineering
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Integrated Systems Engineering

Alan Luo is professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Integrated Systems Engineering. He leads theLightweight Materials and Manufacturing Research Laboratory (LMMRL) and is Director of the Advanced Casting Research Center (ACRC) at Ohio State.He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a fellow of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS), Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE), andAmerican Society of Metals (ASM). Prior to joining Ohio State in 2013, Luo was a technical fellow at General Motors Global Research and Development Center with 20 years of industrial experience. An internationally recognized expert in lightweight materials and manufacturing, Luo has served as a technical leader in two National Network for Manufacturing Innovation institutes, The REMADE (Reducing EMbodied-Energy And Decreasing Emissions) Institute and LIFT (Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow) Institute. Luo has 21 patents and more than 340 technical publications on advanced materials and manufacturing. He has received many awards including TMS Bruce Chalmers Award, Light Metals Technology Award and Research to Industrial Practice Award, ACRC Merton Flemings Award for Scientific Achievements, General Motors John Campbell Awards and Charles McCuen Awards, as well as several best paper awards and application awards from TMS, SAE, CALPHAD journal, American Foundry Society (AFS), International Magnesium Association (IMA),and North American Die Casting Association (NADCA). 

College of Medicine
Department of Physiology and Cell Biology

Shyam Bansal is a cardiovascular immunologist who is trained in pharmacology and toxicology. He is interested in identifying the role of immune cells, specifically CD4+ T-cells, in mediating left-ventricular dilatation and disease progression during heart failure (HF). Approximately 64 million people worldwide are afflicted with this deadly disease. Because there are no treatments to stop disease progression, around half of these patients die within the first five years.Using preclinical studies, Bansal has shown that T-cells are pathologically activated during heart failure and these errant cells are one of the key players that promote cardiac remodeling and HF progression. In subsequent studies, he characterized molecular pathways that are responsible for this pathological behavior and identified a drug moleculethat can selectively target these errant T-cells, inhibit their activation and stop HF progression – the first drug to be able to do so. Importance of Dr. Bansal’s research is also reflected from the fact that his work was recently featured in Time magazine’s The Future of Medicine and this drug was included as one of the promising therapies for the heart diseases. Bansal was selected as a finalist for the prestigious Melvin L Marcus Young Investigator award from the American Heart Association (AHA) in 2017 and the Outstanding Early Career Investigator award from AHA’s Council of Basic Cardiovascular Sciences in 2020.Bansal was also selected as the President of the Ohio Chapter of the American Physiological Society in 2022 and named to the Editorial Board of Circulation Research as an early-career member. While at Ohio State, Bansal has published several high-impact papers in highly reputed cardiovascular journals, has submitted two patents and have garnered funding from local as and national sources. In addition to several pilot grants, his laboratory is funded through several grants from the National Institutes of Health. 

College of Engineering
Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Jinghua Li is an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, beginning in September 2019. Prior to joining Ohio State, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor John A. Rogers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. Li graduated from Duke University in May 2016 with her doctorate degree in Chemistry. Her two focus areas are: fundamental understandings on synthesis chemistry and interfacial properties of thin-film materials as bio-interfaces and engineering efforts on application of these materials for the next generation wearable/implantable biomedical devices to bridge the gap between rigid machine and soft biology. Her faculty position is funded, in part, by the Discovery Themes Chronic Brain Injury program, which has promoted faculty hires and support of critical materials needs in the areas of imaging, diagnosis and treatment of brain injury. Li supports the Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence, Nanotech West and the Center for Electron Microscopy and Analysis with her expertise in the function of biomaterials.

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Christo Sevov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and moved to the US at the age of four. He spent his formative years in South Bend, IN and received his bachelor’s degree 2009 from the University of Notre Dame. There, Sevov worked with Olaf Wiest on photocatalyzed cycloaddition reactions with selectivities that complement those of traditional Diels-Alder processes. Sevov earned his doctorate in 2014 after beginning his studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with John Hartwig and later moving with the group to the University of California Berkeley. His research involved the development of methods and mechanistic study of metal-catalyzed additions of C–H, N–H, and O–H bonds across alkenes. Following his doctoral studies, Sevov conducted his postdoctoral work with Melanie Sanford at the University of Michigan. Applying an organic chemist’s approach to energy storage, Sevov designed new organic and organometallic compounds that could serve as redox liquids for large-scale flow batteries. Sevov joined Ohio State in 2017 as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry where he is merging his love of catalysis and electrochemistry.

College of Pharmacy
Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy

Oluwatosin (Tosin) Ayinde is a graduate student in the medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy. Her work is focused on the design of novel protein degraders targeting Cyclin Dependent Kinase 9 (CDK9), a key protein in Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), in collaboration with two senior researchers. Although CDK9 has been recognized as an important target for CDK9 therapy, small molecule inhibitors have unfortunately failed in the clinic for various reasons. With this in mind, Ayinde has worked on a complimentary approach to targeting CDK9 using protein degraders to overcome some of the limitations observed with the small molecule drugs. Ayinde has published two papers, with an additional paper under review, and has been an inventor on two provisional patent applications within the past year. Prior to beginning her graduate studies in 2019, she worked as a scientist for Thermo Fisher’s bioanalytical R&D area. Following graduation at Ohio State, she will work on postdoctoral studies at the National Cancer Institute Center for Cancer Research, a division of the National Institutes of Health. Her work has been recognized with graduate student research awards from the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy in both 2021 and 2022. She has also been recognized for her efforts with an OSUCCC Pelotonia pre-doctoral fellowship and an American Society of Hematology Minority fellowship. Ayinde earned her bachelor’s degree from East Caroline University in chemistry, including a biology minor, and her master’s degree in medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy from Ohio State.   

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Anthropology

Tessa Cannon is a graduate student and Presidential Fellow in the Department of Anthropology. A species of West African monkey, the sooty mangabey, is the natural reservoir of SIV that became HIV-2 when it crossed the species gap to humans. Sooty mangabeys carry the virus but do not develop AIDS despite bearing very high viral loads. Cannon’s work focuses on understanding relationship between the natural feeding ecology, gut microbiome and ability of sooty mangabeys to resist AIDS, we are better able to understand the pathogenesis of SIV, HIV and, ultimately, AIDS in humans. Her work is first to integrate eco-behavioral information (including data on viral load) on sooty mangabeys in their natural habitat with similar data on these monkeys under laboratory conditions. It has relevance in the domains of public health, primate behavioral ecology and conservation. In support of her PhD project, Cannon received funding form the President’s Research Excellence program and several awards from the Infectious Diseases Institute. In 2022, she was awarded a Presidential Fellowship, the most prestigious award given by the graduate school. She founded For the Love of Primates, a non-profit sanctuary for retired research primates, which earned her a President’s Buckeye Accelerator award in 2022. Cannon serves as Chair of the Graduate Student in Anthropology Committee, works as a vet tech for the Central Ohio Programs for Animal Welfare and the Humane Society, works as an undergraduate mentor in the Hale Lab, and is an adjunct professor at Columbus State Community College. Cannon earned her bachelor’s degree in zoology from Ohio Wesleyan University, her master’s degree in primate conservation from Oxford Brookes University and is a certified veterinary technician.

College of Engineering
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering 

Rushikesh (Rush) Joshi is a doctoral student in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Joshi’s multi-dimensional research aims to develop next-gen technologies for converting low-grade feedstocks such as biomass, waste plastics, waste gases, biogas, or stranded natural gas into energy carriers such as hydrogen and liquid fuels using chemical looping. This process that can convert these feedstocks into hydrogen and liquid fuels energy-efficient and economically while capturing the CO2 released in the process. Joshi’s work offers more sustainable alternatives for hydrogen production, biomass processing and waste plastics processing using chemical looping technology. Joshi is also working on more effective plastic recycling using the chemical looping platform to design a plastics treatment technology that generates energy carriers such as hydrogen or syngas from waste plastics. This work has been filed as a provisional patent. His research has led to five patent applications and 11 journal publications (6 published, 5 under review), and a conference presentation. Joshi is a teaching assistant for the Advanced Kinetics course and has served as a research mentor for undergraduate students at Tuskegee University and local high school students. He received the Outstanding Graduate Award for Academic Achievement in March for recognition for distinguished research in chemical engineering at Ohio State. Joshi earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, and held internships at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute.