Students
Raz Abbasi
Raz Abbasi is Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering (2021-2025). Her project mainly revolves around CO2-switchable polymers for coating applications which hopefully will be an environmentally friendly replacement for solvent-based coating. She works under the supervision of Professor Philip Jessop.
Athena Adabi
Athena is a dedicated PhD student in Chemical Engineering, embarking on her doctoral journey from 2023 to 2027. Guided by Professor Faical Larachi, her research is at the forefront of advancing gas-liquid systems for CO2 capture on marine vessels.
Nasim Afzali
Nasim Afzali is a Ph.D. Student in Chemistry (2022-2026) under the supervision of Prof. Jesse Greener and Prof. Frédéric-Georges Fontaine. My research revolves around converting CO2 to graphitic materials using spectroelectrochemistry and microfluidic.
Mahdi Asgari
Mahdi Asgari is a Ph.D student in chemical engineering (2021-2024). He works with Maria-Cornélia Iliuta and his research focuses on hybrid materials for consecutive capture and catalytic conversion of CO2.
Mohammed Aziz Ben Rhouma
Mohamed Aziz Ben Rhouma joined Professor Pasquier's team as an intern benefiting from Mitacs' Globalink research internship program for his engineering graduation project. With an engineering background in industrial chemistry, Aziz is currently pursuing a master's degree in earth sciences under the supervision of Professor Pasquier (2023-2025), and his research work focuses on the energy optimization of a process for upgrading serpentine mine tailings.
Océane Cailhol
Océane is a PhD student in chemical engineering at Polytechnique (2024-2028), supervised by Anne-Marie Boulay and Andrew Henderson. Her work focuses on the modeling of prospective impacts in life cycle assessment, applicable to the evaluation of the future environmental footprint of technologies for the capture and use of captured carbon.
Hamza Daoudi
Hamza is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from 2023 to 2026. He collaborates with Prof. Louis-César Pasquier and Prof. Ana C. Tavares on his research endeavors. His primary research area revolves around the synthesis and utilization of magnesium based high-added value materials through the indirect aqueous mineral carbonation of CO2 using mine-tailings.
Alex Desgagnés
Alex is a Ph.D student (2021-2023) in chemical engineering and works with Maria-Cornelia Iliuta. His research will focus on the valorization of industrial residues for the catalytic hydrogenation of CO2.
Oforbuike Egbe
Oforbuike Egbe is a Ph.D. student (2022-2026) in the Chemistry Department at Memorial University of Newfoundland. His research focuses on the development of electrocatalysts for COCO2 reduction into valuable chemicals and fuels via electrochemistry under the supervision of Jane Stockmann and Francesca Kerton.
Meghan McKeeman
Meghan McKeeman is currently a Master's student (2024-2026) at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She has a background in environmental chemistry, and experience in industrial research and development related to sustainable energy. Under the supervision of Dr. Francesca Kerton, Meghan's work will focus on metal-free catalysis for the conversion and reutilization of CO2.
Seyed Farhad Moosakazemi Mohammadi
Farhad is a Ph.D. student (2020-2023) in chemical engineering and is working with Faiçal Larachi on film flotation. His fields of study are mineral processing, flotation, hydrometallurgy, e-waste recycling and CO2 valorization in the mining industry.
Kaven Nguyen
Kaven Nguyen is a Ph.D. student in chemical engineering (2022-2025) and he is working with Maria-Cornelia Iliuta and Louis-Cesar Pasquier. His research focuses on a techno-economic assessment of enzymatic CO2 capture in membrane contactors, followed by its valorization.
Antoine Olivier
Antoine is a PhD candidate in chemical engineering at Université Laval. Since 2020, he studies and acts as a research assistant in Professor Maria-Cornelia Iliuta's group. He is working on the valorisation of CO2 by reduction on a catalyst.
Eric David Piedrahita
Currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at Université Laval (2020-2026), Eric David is completing a research internship under the guidance of Professor Faïçal Larachi during the fall of 2024. He is working on a project focused on developing fuel decarbonization solutions for marine transportation, specifically by investigating the optimal blend of biofuels and stabilizing additives to be blended with lower levels of fossil fuels.
Ali Akbar Sarbanha
Ali is a PhD student specializing in Chemical Engineering (2020- 2024). Under the guidance of Professor Faical Larachi, his research revolves around the pioneering development of advanced gas-solid fluidized beds. His work focuses on ensuring their operability under challenging marine conditions. Ali' research endeavors are dedicated to effectively mitigating ship emissions.
Claire Renault
After an engineering school in materials engineering, Claire Renault continues her studies with a PhD in earth sciences (2023-2026) under the supervision of Louis-César Pasquier. Her project focuses on the revalorization of solid waste from the carbonation of mine tailings.
Leon Torres de Oliviera
Leon Torres de Oliveira currently is a Ph.D student (2021-2024) in chemistry at Université Laval. He obtained both his Bachelor Science and his Master’s Science in chemical engineering at Universidade Federal do Ceara (Brazil) in 2018 and 2020, both under the supervision of Prof. Sebastiao M. P. de Lucena. In 2020, he worked under supervision of Prof. Jesse Greener and co-supervision of Prof. Frédéric-Georges Fontaine as a research intern, and in 2021, joined Université Laval as a Ph.D Student still under the same supervision.
Mikhailey Wheeler
Mikhailey is supervised by Francesca Kerton for her master's degree (2020-2022) in chemistry. Her work focuses on the homogeneous catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide with bimetallic complexes.
Emily Wiseman
Emily is a Master’s student (2024-2026) in chemistry, supervised by Dr. Francesca Kerton and and Dr. Michael Katz at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her research focuses on the synthesis of porous carbon materials from food waste biomass for CO2 capture and utilization.
Maede Yahyanezhad Gele
Maede is a Ph.D. student (2021-2024) in chemical engineering. She works under the supervision of Maria-Cornélia Iliuta and Frédéric-Georges Fontaine, and her research focuses on the electrochemical valorization of CO2 as a green and sustainable approach to produce value-added compounds.
Naeem Zolfaghari
Former students
Abolfazl Alizadeh Sahraei, Ph.D.
Abolfazl was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Chemical Engineering of Université Laval. He joined Prof. Larachi’s research group on December 2019. His expertise lies in computational approaches, i.e. molecular modeling and artificial intelligence. He worked on a project entitled “high-throughput multiscale computational screening of new DAC sorbents using molecular modeling and machine learning” in collaboration with NRCan. He currently working with NRCan.
Morgane Beillard
Morgane Beillard is a chemistry and catalysis student at ENSICAEN engineering school (France) (2021-2024). She was an intern under the supervision of Afshin Enferadikerenan and Frédéric-Georges Fontaine during the summer of 2023. She was working on the synthesis and analysis of homogeneous catalysts in the formation of cyclic carbonates for CO2 upgrading.
Martin Gomez
Martin Gomez was a Ph.D. student in chemical engineering. He worked under the supervision of Anne-Marie Boulay and his field of study is life cycle impact models for the assessment of carbon capture use alternatives.
Wynnry Kinden
Wynnry was a master’s student (2021-2023) working with Francesca Kerton on carbon dioxide as a building block for polymers.
Andrew Kinsman
Andrew Kinsman is an undergraduate chemistry student (2020-2024). He did a summer research at Memorial University of Newfoundland with Professor Francesca Kerton. His work focuses on borane catalyzed polymerization of cyclic anhydrides
Marc-Olivier Landry
During his master study in collaboration with Agnico Eagle Mines, Marc-Olivier (2021-2023) evaluated the potential of capturing and valorizing the CO2 produced on site. The technical-economic analysis directed by Faïçal Larachi and Patrick González will served the high direction of the gold producer to make future decision.
Marie-Soleil Lebrun
Marie-Soleil was a master's student (2020-2021) in chemistry working under the supervision of Professor Philip Jessop. Her research focused on the development of CO2 responsive bio-based polymers for binding applications.
Étienne Mercier
Étienne is a bachelor’s student in chemical engineering at Laval University(2020-2024). He is a trainee under the supervision of Maria-Cornelia Iliuta. His work will be related to the capture and the recovery of CO2 produced during the steam reforming of glycerol, for the purpose of producing hydrogen.
Seyedeh Molood Masoom Nataj
Molood was a Ph.D. student (2019-2022) in chemical engineering with Frédéric-Georges Fontaine and Serge Kaliaguine. She worked on organometallic-based catalysts. She focused on the chemical fixation of CO2 with epoxides leading to cyclic organic carbonates.
Florence Mercier
As a bachelor’s student in chemistry (2020-2023), Florence did an internship under the supervision of Seyedeh Molood Masoom Nataj and Frédéric-Georges Fontaine. She was working on synthesizing metal organic frameworks (MOFs) as a catalyst in the CO2 fixation reaction.
Charles Poulin
Charles is a bachelor's student in chemical engineering at Université Laval (2022-2026). He was an intern under the supervision of Maria-Cornelia Iliuta in the summer of 2024. His work focuses on the production of CO2-based dimethyl ether and the recovery of fusel oil.
Stefan Vogel
Stefan Vogel was an undergraduate internship student in Chemical Process Engineering working under the supervision of Prof. F. Larachi and Prof. Taghavi. His project focused on the reduction of CO2 emission in the maritime industry based on a novel fluidized bed reactor technology.
Shannon Whitty
Shannon Whitty is currently an undergraduate student (2018-2022) in chemistry and is working as a lab assistant under the supervision of Professor Philip Jessop. Her research focuses on generating bio-derived CO2 responsive polymers. Afterwards, she hopes to pursue a master's degree in chemistry.