[CCoE Notice] Dissertation defense announcement

[Knudsen, Rachel W]

The Materials Science and Engineering Program

Invites the Cullen College of Engineering

to the

PhD Dissertation Defense



Title: Optical Devices and Magnetic Nanomaterials for Water Quality Control and Biomedical Applications

Student Name: Hoang Nguyen



Date: December 4th, 2019

Location: Engineering building 1, large conference room

Time: 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm



Committee Chair: Dr. Wei-Chuan Shih

Committee Members: Dr. John C. Wolfe

                                        Dr. Xiaonan Shan

                                                Dr. Debora Rodrigues

                                        Dr. Jenifer Siegel



Abstract:

In the age of urbanization and industrialization, environmental pollution and mental stress have become common problems in today’s world, affecting not only the health of the citizens but also the economy due to the loss of productivity and skyrocketing medical costs. There is a constant need for innovative technological solutions to help mitigate the health outcome associated with environmental pollution and mental stress. Widely available and as an integrated part of modern society, smartphones, optical fibers, and nanotechnology have provided such solutions to improve the well-being of mankind. Smartphones are well adopted all over the world, providing low-cost sensor-aggregation platforms to build compact and portable analytical devices for point-of-care applications and mobile health. The unique properties of optical fibers such as electromagnetic interference-free transmission, small size, high mechanical flexibility, biocompatible have made them extremely attractive for biomedical applications. Nanotechnology is increasingly used in all aspects of life science such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and environmental health. In this dissertation, novel water quality control methods and light delivery devices in optogenetics are reported to tackle environmental and mental health problems.

The first water quality control method is a portable analytical sensing platform based on a dark-field smartphone microscope for the detection and quantitation of heavy metal contaminants (Pb2+ and Hg2+) in drinking water. The sensing mechanism is based on imaging chromatic micro- or nanoscale sediments of PbCrO4 and HgI2. The sensing method is rapid, low-cost, and has the potential to enable individual citizens to examine Pb2+/Hg2+content in drinking water on-demand in virtually any environmental setting.

The second method is for biofouling removal using induction heating of a water filter membrane coated with magnetic nanoparticles. This technology allows complete removal of biofouling on a large area, thus maintaining the performance of the membrane to provide high water quality to the general population.

Finally, a new light delivery device for optogenetics based on windowed optical fibers is introduced. This new type of optical fiber enables the control of light output at multi-locations in a three-dimensional configuration along the fiber body, thus provides a versatile tool to study the function of the brain.







<mailto:riward at central.uh.edu>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://Bug.EGR.UH.EDU/pipermail/engi-dist/attachments/20191203/c5059848/attachment.html