Nanomaterials Group

Nov 07, 2023: Dr. Dishari has been elected as Area 8A (Polymers) Chair of Materials Engineering & Science Division (MESD) of AIChE! 

Nov 5-10, 2023: Team Dishari gave 4 talks at the 2023 AIChE Annual Meeting. Congrats Tega, Rajesh and Karen!

Oct 19, 2023: Dr. Dishari gave an invited talk at the 2023 ACS Midwest and Great Lakes Meeting!

Sept 12, 2023: Team Dishari won the first place and best paper award at the ASEE Midwest Conference (Lincoln, NE). Congrats the whole team!

Aug 16, 2023: Dr. Dishari received an ACS-PMSE Early Investigator Award, which was celebrated with a symposium at the 2023 Fall ACS Meeting (San Francisco, CA). 

Aug 04, 2023: Dr. Dishari was named Ross McCollum Associate Professor! Thanks to UNL College of Engineering for the recognition.

July 07, 2023: Dr. Dishari received a new grant from NSF-CBET (Electrochemical Systems) to design and engineer lignin-based electrode interfaces. Congrats!

July 03, 2023: Dr. Dishari was selected as 1 of 15 faculty for the 2023-2024 cohort of UNL ORED's Research Leaders' Program.

July 03, 2023: Our paper on Lignin-based efficient, low-cost, green antimicrobial materials was accepted and featured as supplemental cover story at ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.3c01414

April 28, 2023: Dr. Dishari gave an invited talk at Oregon State University!

March 28, 2023: Dr. Dishari received the Holling Family Master Teacher Award & UNL Distinguished Teaching Award. The Holling Family Master Teacher Award was given by the UNL College of Engineering. The UNL Distinguished Teaching Award was given by the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor to faculty nominated by the colleges across UNL. 

March 23, 2023: Oghenetega Allen Obewhere from Team Dishari was selected as a Grad Brag Honoree at the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) 49 Annual Convention. This nation-wide awrad was given to 3 students across the U.S. for upholding NSBE's mission in increasing the number of culturally responsible black engineers who excel academically, and positively impact the community. Congratulations, Tega!

March 03,2023: Dr. Dishari has been selected as a 2023 ACS PMSE Early Investigator Honoree, which will be celebrated with a symposium at the 2023 Fall ACS Meeting (San Francisco, CA). The symposium will include invited presentations from the talented awardees and keynote talks from senior scientists in the field. 

Feb 08, 2023: Our paper on advancing ionomer design principle by incorporating macrocycles within ionomer structure to address ion and mass transport limitations of fuel cell electrodes has been accepted at Cell Reports Physical Science.

Link: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(23)00041-3

Nov 17, 2022: Dr. Dishari has been elected as Area 8A (Polymers) Vice-Chair of Materials Engineering & Science Division (MESD) of AIChE! 

Nov 17, 2022: Dr. Dishari organized and chaired the Area 8A plenary session of the 2022 AIChE Annual Meeting!

Sept 24, 2022: Dr. Dishari gave an invited talk at UNL BSE Colloquium!

Sept 01, 2022: Dr. Dishari won the WEPAN Accelerator Program CORE CONCEPT Award, honoring an entrepreneur who makes a compelling case for their business' viability. WEPAN supports women in engineering ventures by creating inclusive and socially equitable entrepreneurship ecosystems, recognizes participants for their achievements in innovation!

Link: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6983146827558576128/

July 31-Aug 05, 2022: Dr. Dishari attended 2022 Gordon Conference: Membrane Materials and Processes (NH) as a discussion leader.

August 26, 2022: Rajesh Keloth successfully passed the Ph.D. qualifying exam.

July 15, 2022: Karen Acurio Cerda successfully passed the Ph.D. qualifying exam.

July 14, 2022: Ehsan Zamani successfully defended his Ph.D. Thesis. Ehsan is the 2nd Ph.D. graduate from Dishari Lab. Congrats Dr. Ehsan Zamani! 

July 12, 2022: Oghenetega Allen Obewhere successfully passed the Ph.D. qualifying exam.

June 22, 2022: Team Dishari had a blast at Columbus STEM camp engaging 75 middle schoolers in chemistry and nanoscience activities and teaching how batteries, fuel cells and electrolyzers work. Thanks Nebraska EPSCoR for inviting us.

June 02, 2022: Dr. Dishari gave an invited talk at 241st ECS Meeting (Vancouver, BC, Canada) on novel nature-inspired concepts to design ionomeric materials for energy conversion and storage devices.

May 31, 2022: Dr. Dishari gave an invited seminar at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Bioproducts Institute at Canada on new pathways toward biomass valorization.

May 27, 2022: Our nature-inspired ionomer paper, published at JACS Au, was selected by the journal Cell Report Physical Science for their Friday Journal Club thread!

Link: https://twitter.com/CellRepPhysSci/status/1530196238892679169

April 28, 2022: Our paper on nature-inspired ionomer design has been accepted at JACS Au.

Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacsau.2c00143

April 20, 2022: Dr. Dishari got promoted to Associate Professor with tenure (effective in Fall 2022)!

April 15, 2022: Seefat Farzin successfully defended her Ph.D. Thesis. Seefat is the first Ph.D. graduate from Dishari Lab. Congrats Dr. Seefat Farzin! Seefat will be starting a new position at Brewer Science soon. 

April 12, 2022: Undergraduate students Jackson Goddard and Serena Tenhumberg presented at UNL Research Day Event. Both Jackson and Serena has received job positions at Syngenta.

April 11, 2022: Dr. Dishari and team led the UNL Chemical Engineering at the UNL Women in Science Conference.

March 31, 2022: Dr. Dishari was recognized at the 2022 UNL College of Engineering Teaching Excellence Celebration. 

March 26, 2022: Our Lignin paper has been published as an e-book entitled "Women in Science: Chemistry" by Frontiers in Chemistry (I.F. 5.221). Following the UNESCO’s official celebration of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Frontiers in Chemistry published this book to promote the work of women scientists, across all fields of chemistry.

The pdf of the book can be found here: https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:45ed8c40-58fd-3cca-b1f3-7dc34a05e573

March 22, 2022: Dr. Dishari gave a talk on our new work on lignin-based ionomers for hydrogen fuel cell binders and separators at ACS Spring Meeting

March 20, 2022: Dr. Dishari gave a talk on distributed proton conduction behavior across ionomer thin films at 2022 ACS Spring Meeting.

March 20-23, 2022: Dr. Dishari co-chaired the ENVR session "Advanced Nanomaterials, Membranes and Manufacturing for Water Treatment and Reuse" at 2022 ACS Spring Meeting with Profs. Nirupam Aich, Adeyemi Adeleye and Anwar Sadmani.

Dec 08, 2021: Dr. Dishari gives a talk at 2021 MRS Fall Meeting.

Nov 11, 2021: Dr. Dishari chairs the session "Polymers for Energy Storage and Conversion" at presented their work at 2021 AIChE Annual Meeting.

Nov 7-19, 2021: Seefat Farzin and Ehsan Zamani present their work at 2021 AIChE Annual Meeting.

November 04, 2021: Dr. Dishari gives a talk at 3M NTFA symposium as an awardee of 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award.

October 27, 2021: Dr. Dishari was awarded the 2020-2021 Research Excellence Award by UNL College of Engineering.

October 23, 2021: Dr. Dishari gave a keynote Lecture at the 2021 WoPhys Conference.

September 07, 2021: Ehsan Zamani (Ph.D. student) passed his Comprehensive Exam. Congrats Ehsan!

September 03, 2021: Dr. Dishari gives an invited talk at University of Nevada-Reno.

August 03-05, 2021: Dr. Dishari attends the Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences (DOE-BES) Annual Meeting (Biomolecular Materials) as an awardee of DOE Office of Science Early CAREER Award. 

June 23, 2021: Dr. Dishari receives the University of Nebraska Collaboration Initiative Grant ($150,000 for 2 years). As a lead PI, Dr. Dishari and her team will find innovative polymer-based innovative solutions to fight against antibiotic resistance through a collaboration with UNMC.

June 08, 2021: Our paper "Unraveling Depth-Specific Ionic Conduction and Stiffness Behavior across Ionomers Thin Films and Bulk Membrane" got accepted in ACS Macro Letters! 

Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsmacrolett.1c00110

June 1-2, 2021: We hosted our first-ever virtual Young Nebraska Scientist (YNS) Summer Camp (funded by Nebraska EPSCoR and NSF) for high school students with a theme "Chemistry and Nanoscience behind Renewable Energy Technologies." This year, we designed all the science kits by ourselves from scratch and shipped those out to the campers. The campers then connected to our lab via Zoom and performed the hands-on activities at their home using those kits.

A  glimpse of the camp activities on Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/KonikaDishari/status/1400225264894844931

https://twitter.com/KonikaDishari/status/1399868660626325505

https://twitter.com/KonikaDishari/status/1397987801510019072

May 04, 2021: Dr. Dishari gives an invited talk at the  Applied and Physical Sciences Department at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

April 23, 2021: Dr. Dishari serves as a panelist of a session "How to Write a Successful NSF CAREER Grant" organized by the group "Bangladeshi Educators in North America."

April 20, 2021: Seefat Farzin (Ph.D. student) passed her Comprehensive Exam. Congrats Seefat!

April 16, 2021: Dr. Dishari gives a talk at the ACS Spring Meeting 2021 at a session named "Lignocellulosic Biorefining: From In-Silico to Products" from CELL Division.

April 09, 2021: Dr. Dishari gives an invited talk at the ACS Spring Meeting 2021 at a session named "Designing Polymers for Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage" from PMSE Division. Thanks, Profs. Jodie Lutkenhaus and Jennifer Schaefer for the invitation.

March 29, 2021: Dr. Dishari receives the College of Engineering Edgerton Innovation Award.  

March 11, 2021: Dr. Dishari receives the Voelte-Keegan Bioengineering Support Grant for the antibiotic resistance project.

March 06, 2021: Dr. Dishari has receives the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. She was nominated by 3M scientists for this award.  

Nov 28, 2020: Dr. Dishari gives an invited talk at the Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series at the Bangladesh University of Engineering at Technology (BUET). 

Nov 18, 2020: Dr. Dishari co-chairs 2 sessions (Polymer Thin Films, Confinement, and Interfaces I & II) at the AIChE

Nov 18, 2020: Dr. Dishari gives an invited talk at the AIChE Annual Meeting 2020 at the session "Charged and Ion-containing Polymers." Thanks, Drs. Chris Arges and Sarah Perry for the invitation! Annual Meeting 2020. 

Nov 16-20, 2020: Team Dishari attends the AIChE Annual Meeting 2020. Seefat Farzin and Ehsan Zamani delivered two talks at the meeting.

November 02, 2020: Dr. Dishari receives the 2020 "Emerging Innovator of the Year Award" by NuTech Venture.

Oct 26, 2020: Dr. Dishari gives an invited talk at Vanderbilt University. Thanks, Dr. Piran Kidambi for the invitation!

Oct 22, 2020: Our paper is published at ACS Applied Materials and Interface on cationic pi-conjugated polyelectrolyte showing antimicrobial activity by causing lipid loss and lowering elastic modulus of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. 

Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsami.0c12038

Oct 16, 2020: Seefat Farzin wins the NanoArt competition of Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience (NCMN) under the "Most WHIMSICAL" category (2 years in a row). Congratulations Seefat! 

Link: https://ncmn.unl.edu/nano-art

Oct 12, 2020: Dr. Dishari gives an invited talk at Missouri University Science & Technology. Thanks Dr. Angela Lueking for the invitation!

September 08, 2020: Dr. Dishari invited Professor Nitash Balsara (University of California-Berkeley) to give a talk for the Fall 2020 Seminar Series of the Department of Chemical Engineering at UNL. 

September 04, 2020: Dr. Dishari gives an invited talk at Louisiana State University. Thanks Dr. Christopher Arges for the invitation!

August 26, 2020: Our first paper on lignin-based ionomer design is published at Frontiers in Chemistry. The article is featured in a special collection Women in Science: Chemistry of the journal.

Link: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2020.00690/full

July 28, 2020: Tyler Johnson successfully defends his MS thesis. Congratulations!

May 20-21, 2020: Dr. Dishari chairs the sessions "Membranes for Electrochemical Applications: I, II, III" at the North American Membrane Science (NAMS) 2020 Conference.

May 20, 2020: Dr. Dishari presents at the North American Membrane Science (NAMS) 2020 Conference at the session "Bioinspired and Biomimetic Materials". 

May 08, 2020: Ph.D. student Ehsan Zamani is awarded a Milton E. Mohr Fellowship by the College of Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the academic year 2020-21. 

April 21, 2020: Dr. Dishari is selected as a 2020 recipient of the College of Engineering Henry Y. Kleinkauf Family Distinguished New Faculty Teaching Award!

Link: https://engineering.unl.edu/facultystaff-awards-faculty-awards-list/#02

March 18, 2020: Congratulations to Jackson Goddard for being selected as one of the four recipients of the Darrell J. Nelson Summer Undergraduate Internship in Energy Sciences Research for the summer of 2020. Mr. Darrell J. Nelson is the one who proposed a partnership between Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the purpose of engaging in energy sciences research in 2005.  The following year, the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research (NCESR) was created with NPPD’s support. With this internship, Jackson will continue his research on the viscoelastic behavior of ionomer thin films under the supervision of Dr. Dishari. 

Dec 06, 2019: Dr. Dishari gets funded by Nebraska Center for Energy Science Research (NCESR) Competitive Grant for the lignin-based energy materials design project (Total: $170,000 for 2 years)

Dec 06, 2019: Our first paper on mechanistic understanding of the interaction between antibiotic-resistant bacteria and light-harvesting conjugated molecules is accepted at the Nature Scientific Reports.

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-56946-2

Dec 02, 2019: Our paper on fluorocarbon-based ionomers with single and multi-acidic side chains under thin-film confinement is accepted in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C. The paper is also selected as a supplementary cover.

Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jpcc.9b10015

Nov 10-15, 2019: Team Dishari attends the AIChE Annual Meeting 2019. Dr. Dishari chairs two sessions (Nanoscale Structures in Polymers, Biopolymers). Seefat Farzin and Ehsan Zamani deliver three talks at the meeting.

Nov 02, 2019: Dr. Dishari receives recognition for excellence in research for the second consecutive year from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Engineering.

Sept 30, 2019: Seefat Farzin wins the NanoArt competition of Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience (NCMN) under the "Most WHIMSICAL" category. Congratulations Seefat! Link: https://ncmn.unl.edu/nano-art?fbclid=IwAR0FgmFlY_7opl6SScr_3jduFjFWBZQKbUb2GxjRDGCZIN-1iUMTP4KfxTI

Aug 21, 2019: Dr. Dishari invites Professor Timothy P. Lodge (University of Minnesota) to give a talk for the Fall 2019 Seminar Series of Department of Chemical Engineering at UNL. Professor Lodge has also been the Editor-in-Chief of the American Chemical Society journal Macromolecules (2001–2017) and the founding editor of ACS Macro Letters (2011–2018). 

Aug 21, 2019: Dr. Dishari is invited by the Office of Executive Vice Chancellor's Office at UNL to give a talk at New Faculty Orientation for the Session "Getting Your Start from a Star."

Aug 01, 2019: Dr. Dishari receives the prestigious DOE Early CAREER Award.

Link: https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-selects-73-scientists-receive-early-career-research-program-funding

July 1-3, 2019: Dr. Dishari lab hosts a 3-day long, Young Nebraska Scientist (YNS) Camp (through Nebraska EPSCoR) for high school students with a theme "Chemistry and Nanoscience behind Renewable Energy Technologies."

Link (camp info): https://yns.nebraska.edu/camps/hs-renewable-energy

Link (photos): https://www.facebook.com/pg/YoungNebraskaScientists/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2352512198174118&__tn__=-UC-R

June 27, 2019: Team Dishari participates at UNL ChME High School Science Teachers' Workshop and introduced chemical engineering principles to high school science teachers from Nebraska.

June 19, 2019: Thivani Senathiraja passes the Ph.D. qualifying exam.

May 15, 2019: Dr. Dishari delivers an invited talk at North American Membrane Science (NAMS) Conference at Pittsburgh, PA

April 15, 2019: Ehsan Zamani and Seefat Farzin receives the "Chemical Engineering Student Support Fund Fellowship."

April 15, 2019: Juliana Rodriguez, an undergraduate student from the Dishari lab, wins the top undergraduate poster prize at Spring Research Fair 2019 for her work on surface interactions of wild-type and antibiotic-resistant E. coli with aliphatic and aromatic silanes. Congratulations Juliana!

March 31-April 4, 2019: Dr. Dishari presents our thin-film work on 3M ionomers at ACS Spring Meeting at Orlando, FL.

March 31-April 4, 2019: Dr. Dishari organizes one-day symposium at ACS Spring Meeting from CELL Division entitled "Biobased Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage Applications."

March 27-28, 2019: Dr. Dishari is invited and attends the 2-day "Big Ten Women's Workshop" at Milwaukee, WI.

March 25, 2019: Dr. Dishari receives Harold and Ester Edgerton Junior Faculty Award. 

The Harold & Esther Edgerton Junior Faculty Award is presented each year to honor an outstanding junior faculty member who has demonstrated creative research, extraordinary teaching abilities, and academic promise.

Link: https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/faculty-and-staff-recognized-by-the-executive-vice-chancellor-s-office/

March 13, 2019: Dr. Dishari is recognized for teaching excellence by UNL College of Engineering for the second consecutive year.

Nov 02, 2019: Dr. Dishari receives the recognition for excellence in research from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Engineering.

October 21, 2018: Nebraska State Museum hosts Dr. Dishari for an exciting event “Sunday with a Scientist.” Kudos to the Dishari group for staging our very own scripted act "Chemistry is Everywhere!"

Sept 07, 2018: Dr. Dishari invites Professor Thomas Epps (University of Delaware) to give a talk for the Fall 2018 Seminar Series of Department of Chemical Engineering at UNL. 

June 25, 2018: Congrats to Seefat Farzin and Ehsan Zamani, the first two graduate students of the Dishari group, on passing the Ph.D. qualifying exam. Way to go!

April 23, 2018: Dr. Dishari is recognized for teaching excellence by UNL College of Engineering.

March 29, 2018: Dr. Dishari receives the Layman Award.

March 12, 2018: Dr. Dishari invites Professor Christopher Arges (Louisiana State University) to give a talk for the Spring 2018 Seminar Series of Department of Chemical Engineering at UNL. 

March 08, 2018: Dr. Dishari receives the NSF CAREER Award.

December 08, 2017: Dr. Dishari invites Professor Jian Qin (Stanford University) to give a talk for the Fall 2017 Seminar Series of Department of Chemical Engineering at UNL. 

April 10, 2017: Dr. Dishari receives the EPSCoR First Award.

December 15, 2016: Dr. Dishari receives the Research Council Faculty Seed Grant.

https://engineering.unl.edu/images/uploads/Nanoart%20competition%20winner.png