Unlocking full potential

For some students, such as Kim, the journey for his PhD was a rewarding and humbling experience. “I used to be someone who believed I was always right, and doing research showed me that I could be so wrong despite my beliefs,” he said. “You can learn a lot during your PhD, and it may not be all academically related.”

Kim said that he learned how to work with other people who have lived entirely different lives and think in different ways. He also learned patience and persistence through his research because it naturally has a low success rate. His PhD experience at UIC allowed him to make new friends, which made his entire experience much more vibrant and worthwhile.

While pursuing a doctoral degree at UIC, Kim worked in Professor and Department Head Vikas Berry’s laboratory. His area of expertise was studying 2D nanomaterials and their light-electronic interactions (optoelectronics). Kim published 11 papers, including first-author and co-authored papers, and presented his work at eight professional conferences. He received the Award for Graduate Research at UIC in December of 2022 for his contributions to nanomaterials research.

Kim graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea. He was awarded his PhD in December of 2023. He is now pursuing a career in research as a post-doctoral associate at Argonne National Laboratory, researching semiconductor manufacturing technology for microelectronics applications.

“It’s important to do what you like – it greatly increases the chances that you will keep going when you inevitably encounter hurdles and barriers,” Kim said.

Meanwhile, for others, such as Christiansen, his journey to receive his PhD was one of undergraduate and graduate students coming together as a community.

Among some of his favorite memories from his time at UIC, Christiansen shared that his classmates meant so much because UIC is such a diverse community with many international students from many different countries.

“I learned so much from them about the foods they eat, the language they speak, the holidays we would celebrate together, and the opportunity to meet these people and go through school together,” he said.

Christiansen spoke at the opening ceremony for the Engineering Innovation Building, which opened in 2019, about his experiences as a student.

At UIC, he learned about the core parts of becoming a scientist and connected with Chicago’s robust chemical engineering community.

Earning his PhD was an eye-opening experience for Christiansen. “You’re taking purposeful action to set yourself up for a career in whatever field you want,” he said.

“You need to put yourself in the position that when an opportunity comes your way, you’re ready for it and willing and able to take it. I found an internship by sheer luck, but I had the skills they needed, which I had to be purposeful about.”

Currently, Christiansen is a data scientist with Dow Chemical in Houston. Although he considered a career in academia, he enjoyed the challenges and possible impact that a career in industry could provide. Christiansen graduated with his bachelor’s in chemical engineering from Tulane University in New Orleans.

Carvalho Fernandes’ PhD experience gave her opportunities and knowledge to lead her to a successful career.

Unlike Kim and Christiansen, Carvalho Fernandes went into her PhD knowing what direction she wanted her career to go. As president of the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Association (formerly known as GrACE) and the Graduate Society of Women Engineers (GradSWE), she noticed that a lot of her classmates would come to her with issues they were facing.

“I noticed more and more Latino students would come to me, and that was a constant thing happening throughout my time as GrACE president,” she said.

She also noticed a need for more representation in the department, which gave her the passion to become a mentor and advocate in academia.

“I struggled a lot in my first year, and I almost gave up multiple times,” she said. “A lot of people helped me, including Theresa Christenson from the Graduate College, Elsa Soto, who is now the director of the Equity and Inclusion in the Engineering Program, my PhD advisor Vikas Berry, and Sarai Chavez, the ChE office support specialist.”

Carvalho Fernandes is originally from Brazil and received her bachelor’s at UIC prior to her PhD.

She also participated in the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide program, which allowed her to study abroad during her PhD at the University of Bordeaux in France. While there, she worked in the lab of Philippe Aurel, a faculty member at the Institute of Molecular Sciences.

Carvalho Fernandes received the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship and completed her postdoctoral research at Brown University in Providence, where she did two years of postdoctoral research in Rho and is now an assistant professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Some prospective grad students look to expand their perspectives and explore new places, including Pham, who moved to Chicago from Seattle after completing her bachelor’s in chemical engineering at the University of Washington.

Pham moved to the U.S. from Vietnam in 2008. During her undergraduate education, her advisor recommended she investigate the UIC chemical engineering graduate program.

“When I joined the department, it was a smaller program, but I made long-lasting friendships, and the professors have smaller labs, so they gave a lot more guidance,” Pham said.

She added that professors are also trying to publish internal graduate student research and papers for high-impact journals to expand the UIC chemical engineering name and increase the department’s ranking.

Her experiences working in Professor Ying Liu’s lab during her PhD made her a better researcher.

“Dr. Liu wasn’t holding our hands, and we had to learn ourselves to do our experiments,” she said. “She supported us in listening to new ideas and let us try many different things.”

Pham’s research with Liu resulted in a recently published paper in the Science Advances journal titled “Nanoparticlebased inhibition of vascular endothelial growth factor receptors alleviates osteoarthritis pain and cartilage damage.”

Pham currently works as a research scientist at GenScript, where the company makes mRNA and helps support collaborators interested in nucleic acid delivery.

“I want to emphasize that PhD students often struggle with their research, but I look back at the time I spent at UIC in a very happy way with my work there, and I worked hard for what I achieved,” Pham said.