People

PRG Summer 2023 – Tour of the Lee Dukes Water Treatment Plant – Blue Planet

PRG Fall 2018 – Great people make great research…

Good luck to the PRG Graduates Fall 2016: Tim Eldred BS Chemistry, Chauncey McNeil BA Chemistry, and Eugene Watson BS Biology.  Set goals high, keep Pounding!

Good luck to the PRG graduates May 2016: Billy Johnson, MS in Chemistry, James Mitchel and Emily Schmidt, BS in Chemistry.  I’m going to miss you guys!

Jordan Poler is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He received his B.S. from the State University of New York at Brockport double majoring in Physics and Chemistry with a minor in Mathematics. He graduated Summa Cum Laude and received the President’s Citation, SUNY Brockport’s highest academic award. He earned his Doctorate in Physical Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while studying materials and surface science. His dissertation is titled “Quantum Oscillations and Electron Interactions in Ultra Thin Insulating Films: A Study of the Si/SiO2 Interface”. At Carolina he held the Semiconducting Research Corporation (SRC) Fellowship. He completed his postdoctoral studies at Princeton University while holding a National Institutes of Health Fellowship.

Poler Research Group April 2011
(Jordan Poler, Shawn Ridlen, Mike Forney, Anjail Ameen, Josh Anderson (mascot), Gaurav Singh (rotation), Jeff Alston)

Jeff Alston is currently a NRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Air Force Research Laboratory.  His previous appointment was as a Senior Materials Researcher at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company Headquarters in Akron Ohio.  He received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of La Verne, in southern California after several years at Cal Poly Pomona where he dabbled in Civil Engineering.  His dissertation topic is “Photoelectrochemical and Physical Interactions of Ruthenium Coordination Complexes and SWCNTs”.  His work with hybrid nanocomposite materials of SWCNTs and Ru complexes for energy generation and catalysis was awarded theNASA sponsored North Carolina Space Grant in 2010.  Jeff has the distinction of being a member of the first class of Nanoscale Science Ph.D. students joining UNC Charlotte in 2007.  He successfully defended his dissertation in Fall 2011.

Mike Forney is currently a research Staff member at Aerospace Corporation after completing his postdoctoral fellowship at Rochester Institute of Technology.  His dissertation topic is “Carbon nanotube growth, dispersion, and use in nanoelectromechanical actuators”.  He received his B.S. in Physics from the University of Missouri-Columbia, with minors in Mathematics and Computer Science.  He graduated Magna Cum Laude and with Departmental Honors.  He was also awarded several academic scholarships and research fellowships.  Mike received an honorable mention for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.  Mike has the distinction of being a member of the first class of Nanoscale Science Ph.D. students joining UNC Charlotte in 2007.  He successfully defended his dissertation summer 2011.

Shawn Ridlen is currently a P.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Arlington.  Shawn received his BS in Chemistry from the University of West Georgia in the spring of 2010 where he was awarded the Hope scholarship through all four years of study.  While at UWG, Shawn worked under the guidance of Dr. Megumi Fujita on an undergraduate thesis entitled: Synthesis of a Preorganized Dinucleating Ligand: An indolo[2,3-a]carbazole Derivative.  Shawn successfully defended his MS thesis “Synthesis and Characterization of Novel Multi-nuclear Charged Ruthenium Complexes” summer 2012.

Poler Research Group July 2009
(Andrea Giordano, Sean Brooks, Mike Forney, Stuart Rosse, Jordan Poler, Jeff Alston, Natalie Herring, Ruba Kachlan, Carmen Kuan)

Natalie Herring has successfully defended her  Ph.D. dissertation in the Department of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) working under the direction of Samy El-Shall developing novel nanocrystals and nanocomposites for catalysts.  Natalie received her B.S. from the College of William and Mary majoring in Chemistry with a minor in Mathematics.  She earned her Master’s of Science in Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2009.  Her thesis “Aggregation of Colloidal Nanoparticles” won the UNCC 2011 Graduate Dean’s Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award and subsequently went on to win the 2011 Conference of Southern Graduate Schools Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Engineering Master’s Thesis Award.  She is supported at VCU through her Altria Summer Fellowship and the Lidia M. Vallarion Scholarship.

Harsh Chaturvedi is currently in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune.  He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 2003 from Visveswaraiah Technological University, in Bangalore India.  He earned his Doctorate in Optical Science and Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  His dissertation research was on “Photon Induced Effects in Molecular Assemblies of Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes”.  He was recently honored with the Ramanujan Fellowship by Deptartment of Science and Technology (DST, India) in 2010.  His current area of research focuses on studying electro-optical as well as intermolecular interactions in nano-materials and applying novel effects for fabricating optical and biological sensors.

Poler Research Group September 2008
(Twann Corry, Brittany Chase, Jeff Alston, Sean Brooks, Fe’Lix Kimes (mascot), Mike Forney, Natalie Herring, Caroline Kennedy (mascot), Jordan Poler

Shiho Kobayashi is currently a candidate for the Ph.D. in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah.  She is originally from Yokohama-city, Japan.  Shiho received her B.S. in Chemistry from the State University of New York at New Paltz.  She earned he Master’s of Science from UNC Charlotte in 2008 her thesis is titled “Synthesis and Characterization of Rigid Supramolecular Coagulants: Modifications of Morphology and Charge State”.  At Utah she is working under the tutelage of Professor Peter Stang and working on coordination driven self-assembly.

Andrea Giordano is currently on the faculty of Chemistry at St. John Fisher College after receiving her Ph.D. in the Department of Chemistry at Penn State University.  She received her B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  She left her horses to join Paul Weiss’ lab at Penn State where she earned her Master’s of Science in Chemistry studying artificial assembly of precise functional nanostructures.

Thomas Younts is currently working towards his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Pablo E. Castillo in the Department of Neuroscience at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.  He received his B.S. in Psychology and Biology from UNC Charlotte in 2007.  Tommy also worked in the PRG and was first author on a paper and co-author on another.  He defended his Honors thesis in both Biology and Chemistry while studying “Ruthenium Coordination Chemistry: Implications for Carbon Nanotubes”.  Tommy received an honorable mention for National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. He hopes to maintain an academic career in the neurosciences through research and teaching.

Poler Research Group April 2008
(Kristina Kesel, Shiho Kobayashi, Jay Shah, Jordan Poler, Harsh Chatervedi, Andrea Giordano, Natalie Herring, Katie Crain)

Ryan Phillips is currently a Research Technician II, at Orthopaedic Biology Research Laboratory, Carolina’s Medical Center and an Administrative Intern at the Carolina Simulation Center, Carolina’s Medical Center.  He received his B.S. in Business Administration, Finance from UNC Charlotte while he did research in the PRG.  Ryan will be heading off to East Carolina Medical School in Fall of 2011.

Poler Research Group April 2007
(Jordan Poler, Andrea Giordano, Harsh Chaturvedi, Laura Roberts, Stuart Rosse, Sarah Subaran, Jay Shah, Shiho Kobayashi, Ryan Philips, Thomas Younts)