Jafarinejad has been awarded UNCF’s Henry C. McBay Faculty Research Fellowship

Dr. Shahryar Jafarinejad, an assistant professor in Tuskegee University’s Chemical Engineering Department, has been awarded a Henry C. McBay Faculty Research Fellowship from UNCF. The fellowship provides doctorate-level UNCF faculty support to conduct research critical to their disciplines and their own professional development.

The grant will allow Jafarinejad to develop and propose a novel, cost-effective and efficient design for nutrient removal in full-scale municipal wastewater treatment plants using simulation. Jafarinejad said nutrients discharging from wastewater into the environment can contaminate surface water and cause eutrophication — when a body of water becomes overly enriched with nutrients. This in turn risks an excessive growth of algae as well as other environmental challenges, and along with it can cause oxygen depletion in the water body.

“Strict rules have been established in many countries to protect aquatic ecosystems and human health. Also, due to economic and energy considerations, there is an increasing interest to recover nutrients from waste streams,” he explained.

In addition, the fellowship will also support undergraduate chemical engineering student Aleya Fitzgerald, who in collaboration with Jafarinejad will expand her knowledge of simulation on nutrient removal processes and gain research experience. Completion of the project will prepare Fitzgerald to launch a career or pursue graduate studies in chemical and/or environmental engineering.

Jafarinejad joined the Tuskegeefaculty in 2018 and has worked on research in environmental nanotechnology, process design and simulation, and separation processes. He holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Tehran, and completed a postdoctoral research in engineering at the University of California Irvine.

Courtesy of  Tuskegee University website