Emmanuel Abdul | Photo by Patric Simon
Emmanuel Abdul is a PhD student from Nigeria. Portland’s many trees and lack of very cold weather helped draw him to PSU five years ago — along with his interest in green chemistry.
For his thesis work, Abdul is working with Dr. Shankar Rananavare to develop inexpensive nanomaterials to electrochemically reduce carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere to formic acid. Formic acid can be used to make a variety of products, including as a potential source of hydrogen for fuel cells, and as a building block for polymers that can be used in easily degradable plastics.
When the pandemic hit, Abdul had to stop conducting experiments for several months. Now he’s back in the lab. This fall he’s hoping to finally be trained to use a specialized piece of scientific equipment that he received funding to be trained on last June via the Chen fellowship in Science and Math Entrepreneurship.
He’s also looking forward to more in-person social interactions. “Going to the Park blocks and just sitting down with people to talk, I have really, really missed that,” he says. Having more students on campus will also help him in his role as an international student peer mentor who helps students acclimate to the culture of the United States and PSU.
Abdul’s experiences with the pandemic have changed how he looks at his teaching and research.
“If there's one lesson I learned it’s that a lot of things are possible but until you get yourself into that situation, you might not really know,” he says. For example, Abdul along with other graduate students in the Chemistry department were able to make videos of chemistry experiments so students could see what it would be like if they were actually in the lab. As for research, Abdul has learned to process his data right after conducting experiments instead of waiting to analyze a bunch of data at a later date. This allows him to identify experiments that need to be repeated or tweaked. “It makes me much more effective,” he says.
Abdul is wrapping up his dissertation and is looking for a job either in industry or academia where he can use the technical skills he’s acquired at PSU. “I’m open-minded,” he says, adding that he’s exploring positions across the country.