In October, Ifrah Hammad, a senior in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the UK Pigman College of Engineering, attended the Future Leaders in Chemical Engineering symposium in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Future Leaders in Chemical Engineering is a highly selective research symposium organized by the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State University. The event, held over a day and a half, welcomed the brightest undergraduate researchers from across the nation to present their work and acknowledge their achievements as future leaders in chemical and biomolecular engineering.
Eighteen of the most talented chemical engineering undergraduates in the U.S. were selected to attend the symposium. Of those, a winner for Best Poster and Best Soundbite was selected. Hammad’s presentation, “Agarose-Based Hydrogel Systems as a Candidate for Enterosorptive Removal of PFAS,” was named Best Soundbite for her excellent presentation of her research.
Hammad’s work, completed alongside M. Victoria X. Klaus, graduate student, and Zach Hilt, professor, in the Department of Chemical Engineering, focused on agarose-based hydrogels as a solution for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) accumulation in the human body. The results suggested that agarose-based hydrogel systems are effective in removing “forever chemicals” due to their aqueous sorption behavior. Future research will focus on conducting studies in simulated human conditions.
