People

Yasheen grew up near campus in the Wilmette area. As an undergraduate, he received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a B.A. in Economics with honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). While at UIUC, he conducted research on homogeneous catalysis and involved himself in community outreach programs. His graduate studies at Michigan State University (MSU) began in Fall 2017, where he continued participating in community outreach programs. His research interests during his Ph.D. included biocatalysis, fermentation science, genetic recombineering, life cycle assessment (LCA), and techno-economic analysis (TEA). He is happy to have returned to the North Shore, where his main focus with Dr. Dunn is on LCA/TEA of polyurethanes from biomass, among other smaller side-projects they have going on. His hobbies include brewing beer, studying chess, and playing soccer

Lamis is a post-doctoral scholar at Dunn Systems Analysis Lab in Northwestern University. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Miami. As an Operations Research scientist, she passionately applies her quantitative modeling skills to climate change adaptation and mitigation decision-making. Her doctoral research focused on assessing the resilience of on-site wastewater systems to sea-level rise risks and developing adaptation decision models to inform policy making. As a member of Dunn Group, Lamis studies the environmental and economic effectiveness of recovering byproducts from municipal wastewater. Beyond her academic pursuits, Lamis is a devoted mother to her six-year-old, ‘Bibo.’ She finds joy in playing tennis, traveling, and spending quality time outdoors with her family.

Miaohan Tang is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. In this role, she is part of the NSF’s Center for Sustainable Polymers (CSP). She holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree in Management Science and Engineering from Chongqing University, China. During her Ph.D., she was a visiting research fellow at University of Gronigen, Netherlands. Her research focuses on sustainable analysis of polymers. Her specialty includes life cycle assessment, systematic assessment of environmental impacts, and energy flow analysis.

        Guangcan is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Malaya, Malaysia and completed his undergraduate studies in Nanjing Tech University. His research primarily explores the life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis of innovative direct air capture and CO₂ conversion technologies. Beyond his academic pursuits, he is passionate about music and sports, particularly playing the guitar and basketball.

Jenna Trost is a doctoral student in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University, and a member of Jennifer Dunn’s group. She focuses on the analysis of the environmental and social sustainability of mining of minerals for decarbonization technologies. She will be the technical lead for the conventional E and S-LCAs.

Maddie received her BS in Molecular Engineering from the University of Chicago. As a PhD student in Chemical Engineering at Northwestern, she is coadvised between the Dunn and Tullman-Ercek groups. She is working on developing a framework to assess the environmental impacts of synthetic biology in agricultural use cases.

Ally received her BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Connecticut. She is continuing her interest in sustainability by focusing on the impacts of mining operations on their surroundings. Outside of the lab, she is an avid sailor and enjoys crocheting and knitting.

Yilun Zhou is a doctoral student in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. She received her B.S in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University in 2022. Yilun is interested in applying life cycle analysis (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) to mining and electric vehicles and also lead LCA on bio-graphene sensors. Outside of research, Yilun really loves spending time with her two cats, Da Pang and Da Fu, and she also enjoys cooking and baking.

Chayse Lavallais is a PhD candidate in Jennifer Dunn’s lab working on the life cycle and techno-economic assessment of transforming waste nitrogen into chemical products as part of the ECO-CBET project. He is also evaluating the impacts of improving nitrogen recovery on the nitrogen circular economy. He received his B.S in Chemical Engineering from Prairie View A&M University in 2019. Outside of research, Chayse enjoys playing basketball and cooking.

Jenesis received her BS in Chemical and Biomolecular engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. She’s coadvised with Justin Notestein and her project will focus on liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs). Outside of research, she likes to play volleyball, read, and thrift at local stores in Evanston and Chicago.

Argonne National Lab

Loyola University