Engineering Professor Receives NSF CAREER Grant, College’s 4th Winner in 5 years
VILLANOVA, Pa. – A faculty member from Villanova University’s College of Engineering has been named a recipient of the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award will allow Kristin Sample-Lord, PhD, assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, to advance research in water security and environmental protection, while preparing future science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals.
Her project, “Coupled Phenomena Resilience and Dynamics in Bentonite Barriers,” has received a five-year, $510,000 grant.
“The research is as important as having safe drinking water and places to live,” said Dr. Sample-Lord. “All across the world we construct facilities to safely contain wastes and hazardous chemicals, but it is inevitable that they still leak to some degree. We’re trying to limit the extent to which that happens.”
Dr. Sample-Lord is the ninth Villanova faculty member to receive an NSF CAREER Award since 2017 and the fourth from the College of Engineering. The CAREER Award is the most prestigious grant supporting career development activities for teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.
Here are the College of Engineering's other recipients:
2017: Dr. Jacob Elmer
Now the Dicciani Endowed Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Dr. Elmer received his CAREER award in 2017 for “Manipulating the Innate Immune Response to Improve Gene Therapy.” The project aimed to support the study of the innate immune response to non-viral gene therapy in non-immune cells (e.g. prostate or breast cancer cells).
“Because host cell DNA is usually confined to the nucleus, cytoplasmic DNA is recognized as a sign of viral or bacterial infection,” he said. “Therefore, even if a new gene is successfully delivered to a cell, the cell’s defense mechanisms can significantly hinder gene therapy.”
2018: Dr. Wenqing Xu
The College of Engineering’s first female recipient of a CAREER grant, Dr. Xu was honored in 2018 for her work “Transforming the Synergistic Interactions between Pyrogenic Carbonaceous Matter (PCM) and Sulfur Species into Solutions for Contaminant Detoxification,” with the research being used to develop engineering solutions that will effectively destroy contaminants.
“This project will allow for the discovery of a novel reaction pathway that can be harnessed to detoxify pollutants,” said Dr. Xu, now an associate professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Moreover, the knowledge generated from this project will enable a new generation of carbon-based materials that can be tailored to achieve simultaneous sorption and destruction of pollutants, ultimately revolutionizing the current practice for contaminant cleanup.”
2020: Dr. Chengyu Li
Dr. Li, an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering, received a CAREER grant in 2020 for his research on “Odor-Guided Flapping Flight: Novel Fluid Dynamic Mechanisms of Insect Navigation.” The project tracks insects’ ability to detect and locate distant targets by tracking odor plumes in complex flow environments.
“Odor-guided flapping flight is key to an insect’s survival,” said Dr. Li. He explained that during odor-guided navigation, flapping wings not only serve as propulsors for generating lift and maneuvering, but also actively draw odor plumes to the antennae via wing-induced flow. This helps enhance olfactory detection, mimicking “sniffing” in mammals. “The flow physics underlying this odor-tracking behavior is still unclear due to insects’ small wing size, fast flapping motion, and the unpredictability of their flying trajectory,” he added.