FDPC members:
Dr. Oladiran Fasina, P.E.
Dept. Biosystems Engineering
Expertise: Biomass Logistics
Dr. Sushil Adhikari, P.E.
Dept. Biosystems Engineering
Expertise: Bioenergy
Dr. Tim McDonald
Dept. Biosystems Engineering
Expertise: Biomass Sensors
Dr. Tom Gallagher, SWFS
Dept. Biosystems Engineering
Expertise: Timber Harvesting & Analysis
Dr. Mathew Smidt, SWFS
Dept. Biosystems Engineering
Expertise: Forest Operations & Harvesting
Dr. Edmon Perkins
Mechanical Engineering
Expertise: Non-destructive Assessment of Materials
Dr. Brian Via
School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences
Expertise: Forest Products, Adhesives, Composites, Chemometrics
brianvia[at]auburn.edu
more
Dr. María Soledad Peresin
School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences
Expertise: Biopolymers, Nanotechnology, Surface Chemistry, Packaging
soledad.peresin[at]auburn.edu
Dr. Ilari Filpponen
Chemical Engineering & School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences
Expertise: Packaging, Wood Chemistry
Dr. María Auad
Center for Polymer and Advanced Composites
Expertise: Polymers and Adhesives, Packaging
more
Dr. George Cheng
School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences
Expertise: Cellulose Nanomaterials, Forest Products, Forest Operations & Harvesting
qzc0007[at]auburn.edu
Dr. Zhihua Jiang
Chemical Engineering
Expertise: Pulp and paper, Packaging
more
Dr. Daowei Zhang, SWFS
Expertise: Economics
Dr. Yaoqi Zhang , SWFS
Expertise: Economics, Managment and Marketing
Dr. Adam Maggard, SWFS
Expertise: Forest Systems Managment
Dr. Jeffrey Fergus, P.E.
Materials Engineering
Expertise: Sustainable Materials
Dr. Magdalena Garmaz
College of Arquitecture and Design
Expertise: Design and Sustainability
Post-Docs
Yusuf Celikbag, Postdoc
Dr. Celikbag has a M.Sc. in Polymer and Fiber Engineering and Ph.D. in Sustainable Biomaterials both from Auburn University. His research interests include synthesis and development of bio-based thermosetting polymers (epoxy, polyurethane and PF resin), and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of lignocellulosic biomass. He is currently working on the development of hydrophobic self-curing epoxy resins for the commodity strand board products. For the list of publications, please visit his google scholar page here.
Osei Asafu-Adjaye
PhD. Student
Osei Asibe Asafu-Adjaye, is a Graduate Research Assistant and a PhD student at the Forest Products Development Center in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University. He holds MPhil in Wood Science and Technology, and BSc in Natural Resources Management with a major in Wood Science from the University of Science and Technology, Ghana. His research has focused on sustainable development of lesser utilized timber species and non-timber forest products. He is currently researching on developing formaldehyde free sustainable bio-based self-curing adhesives with broader applications in wood composite manufacturing.
Alejandro Cardozo
M.Sc. Student
Alejandro A. Cardozo is a Chemical Engineering from Argentina. He earned his Bachelors Degree in 2016.While home in Argentina, Alejandro worked in the packaging industry. Also, in 2015-2016 he worked as a researcher for the UNaM (Universidad Nacional de Misiones). Now at Auburn University, he is pursuing a MSc at the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences. Alejandro´s research will be focused on the development of wood composites adhesives based on renewable bio-based materials.
His primary goal is to apply what he learned during college, and while using his background expertise, he hopes to enhance his learning experience while at Auburn University.
Dr. Charles Essien
PostDoc
Charles Essien is a PhD student in the Forest Products Development Center (FPDC) – School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, USA. He is from Twifo Hemang, Central Region of Ghana. His research interested are rapid characterization and statistical modeling of Biomaterial properties from nanoscale to macro-level, bio-composite production, bio-deterioration, preservation of biomaterials, and multivariate statistical modeling. Currently, he is working on the “modeling wood quality properties of loblolly pine using acoustic, NIR and FTIR techniques”. more
Diego Gómez Maldonado
PhD. Student
Diego Gómez Maldonado is a Graduate Research Assistant and PhD student, he holds an MS in Materials’ Design and Engineering and a BSc in Biological Engineering, both by Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) in Mexico, during this time he also worked in Universidad de Guadalajara (UDG) in Mexico and in Aalto University in Finland as part of his master’s thesis.
His research has focused in characterization and identification of interactions of biopolymers like cellulose, alginate, chitosan, and nanoparticles using different techniques such as FTIR, DLS, DRX, AFM, SEM, SPR and QCM-D.
He started his PhD studies on Fall 2017 and the aim of his research is on the modification of nanocellulose for obtaining value-added products with environmental remediation focus.
Marina Natalia Hornus
M.Sc. Student
Marina Hornus is from Argentina and earned a Bachelor Degree in Chemical Engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Misiones (UNAM) in 2012, she has done the specialization in pulp and paper. She worked in technical school in Argentina.
She was fascinated in forest product development during her visit to Auburn University, under the visit scholar program and accepted the invitation to start as a Master student on fall 2017. The aim of her research is focused on using flour soy in wood composites, in order to reduce the use of not healthy adhesives.
María Celeste Iglesias
M.Sc. Student
María Celeste is from Argentina and earned a Bachelor Degree in Material Engineering from the Universidad Nacional del Litoral (UNL) in 2016. She worked for VTT (Technical Research Center of Finland) in 2015 for two months as part of her thesis degree based on the production and characterization of nanocellulose. María Celeste started as a Master student on spring 2017, and the aim of her project is to establish a predictive model that correlates intrinsic properties of different extracted wood cell wall fractions (lignin, (nano) celluloses and hemicelluloses) with the thermo-mechanical performance of bio-composites made thereof. She got an internship for two months to work for the University of Maribor (UM) in Slovenia in an EPNOE mobility program as part of her research. She is also working on different projects as the application of nanocellulose in drilling fluids, and the economic analysis of cellulose nanofibrils production.
Simón Sanchez Díaz
M.Sc. Student
Simon Sanchez Diaz from Colombia, has a Bachelor degree in chemical engineering from the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. He has worked on nanocomposites materials since 2014, has done cooperative work with the center of bioengineering and has worked for the researching group of new materials development, both at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. Through all this time, he has obtained a wide variety of backgrounds in the development of nano materials, specifically in electrospinning, using natural resources and biodegradable compounds, like wood base materials.
Currently, he is doing his MSc in Forestry at Auburn University (started on fall 2017) and working as a research assistant at the Forestry Products Development Laboratory. The aim of his research is the production of silk fibroin/cellulose nanocrystals biocomposites to be used in biomedicine, packing and drug delivery devices among other.
Lingyan Tao
PhD Student
(Visiting scholar)
Lingyan Tao is a visiting scholar in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University. She is a Ph.D. student in Zhejiang University, China, majoring in herbal medicines analysis based on Near-infrared spectroscopy, Mid-infrared spectroscopy, and other process analysis techniques. Lingyan Tao is from Hangzhou, China and she is interested in quality control, real-time monitoring, and chemometrics applied in the field of analysis and prediction model of herbal medicines.
Last modified: April 25, 2020