Where are they now? Updates on EENS 2025 Graduates

Updates on Spring 2025 EENS Graduates

Arji Parsad

At Virginia Tech, Arji has been investigating the extraction of rare earth elements and critical minerals from unconventional sources, including acid mine drainage, mine tailings, coal fly ash leachate, and produced water. His work uses methods such as leaching, solvent extraction, and ion exchange. The goal of this research is not only to demonstrate that these unconventional sources are viable for domestic production, but also to scale proven methods from the benchtop to the pilot scale. A further emphasis of the work is environmental remediation.

Kayla Willis

After graduating from Tulane, Kayla went on to pursue a PhD in the Department of Earth Sciences at The Ohio State University. She especially enjoyed the GIS and remote sensing courses she completed as an undergraduate, which led her to take courses in geodetic science and to incorporate remotely sensed data into her research. Currently, she is using remotely sensed data to train a machine learning model that predicts deviations from the hydrostatic assumption in ice sheet thickness. In essence, she is investigating which factors help explain where estimates of ice sheet thickness are inaccurate, beginning with the Getz Ice Shelf in Antarctica. She will present this research for the first time at the International Glaciological Society Symposium on AI in Glaciology this summer, and possibly again at AGU in December.

Emma Knight

After graduating last year, Emma has been studying and looking forward to returning to school. She will be applying for graduate school when the application process begins in October.

Phillip Burke

Phillip is a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps and will serve as an Intelligence Officer with the III Marine Expeditionary Force.

Juliet Wall

Juliet has been accepted into the Master’s program in Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She will begin graduate school in the fall.

Charlie Vratimos

Charlie has joined Dr. Yanxu Zhang’s research group in EES. His work addresses an emerging anthropogenic emission to the upper atmosphere: aluminum aerosols generated by the ablation of reentering satellite megaconstellations. Previous research has relied on highly idealized emission scenarios that focus largely on the total mass flux of reentering aluminum oxides. In contrast, his work seeks to address key knowledge gaps, including the microphysical properties of aluminum oxides that control aerosol coagulation, deposition, and transport through the upper atmosphere. To meet these goals, he is developing an inventory of aluminum aerosol emissions that quantifies the vertical distribution of aluminum injection, as well as the particles’ microphysical composition and reentry physics. The project will also incorporate experimental laboratory results from burning aluminum materials, providing direct data on aerosol properties. Ultimately, this inventory will be coupled with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) to simulate the global injection, transport, and deposition of these aluminum aerosols.