VT SuN Faculty
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Michael F. Hochella, Jr.
VTSuN Co-Director
University Distinguished Professor Geosciences
Research Interests: Elucidating the role that nanoscience and mineral surface geochemistry/ biogeochemistry plays in major aspects of the earth sciences, including especially environmental issues and biogeochemical cycling of the elements.

Peter Vikesland
VTSuN Co-Director
VTSuN IGEP Director
Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research interests:
Nanomaterials in the environment, Improved sensors for drinking water treatment.

Johan Foster
Associate Professor
Materials Science and Engineering
Research Interests: Johan’s main interests focus on design, synthesis, processing and investigation of functional nanocomposites, biomaterials, supramolecular materials and polymers: materials which exploit both covalent and non-covalent interactions.

Tijana Grove
Assistant Professor
Chemistry
Research Interests: Nanobiotechnology; Plasmonic biocomposites for sensing and catalysis.

Matthew Hull
Business Development Manager
ICTAS
Research Interests: Risks of emerging nanotechnologies; Biological fate and partitioning of metallic nanostructures; Multifunctional metallic nanoparticles; Sustainable nanomanufacturing; Nano-bio interactions; Nanoinformatics.

Guoliang (Greg) Liu
Assistant Professor
Chemistry
Research Interests: Design, synthesis, and integration of polymers and plasmonic nanoparticles to create engineered nanocomposites and nanostructures for addressing challenges in the areas of energy, catalysis, and environmental science and engineering.

Linsey Marr
Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Transformation and fate of pollutants in the atmosphere; environmental impacts of engineered nanoparticles; airborne transmission of infectious disease.

F. Marc Michel
Assistant Professor
Geosciences
Research Interests: Understanding how the atomic structure of nanosized and nanostructured materials, both natural and synthetic, relate to their physicochemical properties, reactivity, stability, and transformations and how these factors influence their roles in environmental systems.

Mitsuhiro Murayama
Professor
Materials Science and Engineering
Research Interests: Nanoscale materials characterization using analytical transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) techniques.

Sean McGinnis
Director, VT Green Engineering Program
Associate Research Professor
Materials Science and Engineering
Research Interests: Green engineering, life cycle assessment, sustainable manufacturing processes, design for environment, carbon footprint analysis, renewable energy, interdisciplinary education.

Amy Pruden
W. Thomas Rice Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Applied environmental microbiology, antibiotic resistance genes as emerging contaminants, opportunistic pathogens in premise plumbing, environmental implications of nanotechnology, biomolecular tools, sustainable water infrastructure, microbiome of the built environment.

Maren Roman
Associate Professor
Sustainable Biomaterials
Research interests: Research program is centered around the properties and applications of cellulose nanocrystals. The program spans both fundamental and applied projects in wood and materials science.

Liqing Zhang
Associate Professor
Computer Science
Research interests: Develop computational and statistical tools for processing/analyzing big bio-data, e.g., genomic/metagenomic data, nanopore sequence data, environmental microbiome and virome data, deep learning for antibiotic resistance gene recognition.
VTSuN Researchers

Weinan Leng
Laboratory Manager, VTSuN Lab
Research Scientist
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research interests: Nanoparticle-based sensors for environmental applications. Laser-based techniques (Raman and surface enhanced Raman scattering) for nanoparticle tracking.
External collaborators
Deborah M. Aruguete, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science, Penn State Erie, the Behrend College
Ali Boehm, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University
Matthew Eckelman, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University
Duncan Graham, Professor, Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Strathclyde, UK
Amara Holder, Combustion Engineer, US EPA
Tamar Kohn, Associate Professor, Environmental Science and Engineering Section, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Todd Kuiken, Senior Program Associate, Science and Technology Innovation Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Catherine Murphy, Peter C. and Gretchen Miller Markunas Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois
Scott Renneckar, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia
Navid Saleh, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of South Carolina
Nicolle Tulve, Research Physical Scientist, US EPA
Jason Unrine, Assistant Professor, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Kentucky
Marina Vance, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado
Krista Wigginton, Borchardt and Glysson Water Treatment Faculty Scholar, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan
Jie "Gail" Xu, Assistant Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso
Yi Yang, Professor, East China Normal University