Robert Stanton, a second-year graduate student in physics has received the 2020 Graduate Student Award from the Division of Environmental Chemistry (ENVR) of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
The award recognizes graduate students who are working in areas related to environmental chemistry and engineering. The award is based on student transcripts and their record of research productivity.
Stanton is a graduate researcher in assistant physics professor Dhara Trivedi’s research group. His research is in the area of host-guest interactions in the metal organic framework (MOF) with applications heavily towards healthy world solutions. One of the collaborative projects with an experimental group in the chemistry department at Clarkson was to design high-capacity sorbents for capture and recovery of Phosphorus (P) from eutrophic waters. It has resulted in a publication in the ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces in 2020.
He is also collaborating with another research group in the chemistry department about the capture of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) mitigation from water using Zirconium-based MOF. This work is extremely important for the removal of PFAS from aqueous solutions and is currently submitted in the Chemistry of Materials as of February 2021.
“Our research efforts aim to understand and tailor the atomistic level description of a system in order to provide better insight into the ongoing cutting-edge experimental research. Robert has shown great zeal and worked hard on multiple projects to achieve insightful results. He wants to tailor his thesis in the field of method development to study such large-scale systems. This award will give him the well-earned motivation to continue on the exciting path of academic research,” Professor Dhara Trivedi said.
Stanton, a Massachusetts native, graduated from Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, MA with a degree in Physics. After finishing his PhD at Clarkson, he hopes to continue on in academia, pursuing a career in research.
