Students pursue big ideas in cleaner water, better batteries and diversity

James Fortwengler aims to harness environmentally friendlier and cost-effective techniques to purify community water supplies. Jessica Andrews intends to build better rechargeable batteries to combat global warming and help achieve the goal of carbon neutrality recently announced by President Joe Biden.

Their green aspirations just got a major boost when the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded each of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science chemistry students a Graduate Research Fellowship for 2021.

The GRFP is the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind. It supports outstanding students pursuing Ph.D. or research-based master’s degrees across STEM (science technology, engineering and math) fields and aims to ensure quality and diversity in the scientific and engineering workforce. Since its start in 1952, the program has seen 42 fellows go on to win Nobel Prizes.

Fortwengler and Andrews are among 13 current and incoming USC students to receive the coveted NSF fellowships. Awardees receive an annual stipend of $34,000, plus tuition and funds for traveling to collaborators’ labs and to conferences.

“The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program provides a wonderful opportunity for USC graduate students to be engaged in substantive and meaningful research,” said Meredith Drake Reitan, USC Graduate School associate dean. “The funding provides fellows with a good deal of flexibility, which allows them to carve their own research path from an early stage.”

Greener paths to cleaner water

A first-year Ph.D. student, Fortwengler is exploring a novel approach to reducing nitrates in drinking water. “It’s all about water purification and turning nitrates, which are bad, into a useful product, like ammonia, which can be used for fertilizing crops,” he said.

James Fortwengler hopes to improve inclusivity for LGBTQ scientists working in STEM fields. (Photo: Christina Fortwengler.)

Hazardous at high levels, nitrates increase the risk of thyroid and bladder cancers and blue-baby syndrome, caused by low levels of blood hemoglobin. Cities spend millions of dollars annually filtering nitrates from municipal water supplies, but common methods are expensive and create environmentally hazardous byproducts. Fortwengler is searching for methods that cost less by streamlining how chemical by-products are separated and recovered.

“I started college not knowing exactly what I wanted to do, beyond that I wanted to do good for the world,” he said.

His environmental bent came into focus through his dogged pursuit of undergraduate research experiences. He participated in several NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs within and outside his home state of Georgia. One involved studying a new, more efficient method of crystallizing proteins for pharmaceuticals, which could speed drug development. Another involved working on graphene electrodes to make artificial muscles more efficient for use in the next generation of prosthetics.

“Working on these projects inspired me to tackle bigger problems facing the world, such as water purification, which brought me to USC, where there’s a large focus on sustainability,” said Fortwengler.

Building awareness of LGBTQ scientists

As restrictions on in-person campus activity ease, Fortwengler looks forward to resuming the mentoring and outreach activities that kept him busy as an undergraduate at Georgia College & State University. He tutored extensively at the small, liberal arts institution and helped spearhead efforts to expand tutoring services for diverse student populations.

A successful push to add a tutoring office in a central location that housed the women’s center, LGBTQ center and veterans’ lounge drew in students who previously felt overlooked, he said. “Being able to offer services in a space shared with campus diversity centers expanded tutoring outreach, especially in STEM.”

A self-described queer chemist, Fortwengler is committed to promoting and celebrating diversity in the sciences. Stereotypes that span gender, race and sexual identity can negatively influence people’s aspirations and make them think they don’t belong, he said.

LGBTQ representation in the sciences has traditionally been overlooked. A recent Science article discusses a long-anticipated yet still unrealized attempt to add questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to NSF workforce surveys. These surveys are important in informing policy and program decisions and document which groups are underrepresented in science.

Fortwengler hopes to spread awareness that many LGBTQ scientists work in STEM fields by partnering  with student organizations such as the USC Queer Graduate Alliance and USC Queers in Engineering, Science, and Technology (QuEST).

“On a personal level, I really want to encourage more queer people to be more open about their sexuality in the sciences and not feel that they have to hide it,” he said. “It’s important to show that science is very diverse, and that diversity is in fact necessary for science to succeed.”

A new generation in energy storage

Battery researcher Andrews figured her love of chemistry might lead to her teaching it one day in a high school classroom. That all changed once she discovered laboratory research.

Jessica Andrews aims to improve battery technology. (Photo: Michael Brady.)

Now a second-year Ph.D. student, she is tackling a new frontier in energy storage — more powerful and rechargeable batteries.

Batteries convert chemical energy into electrical energy. Chemists and other scientists seek to improve their cost efficiency, power and versatility.

“Improving our current energy technologies plays a critical role in mitigating carbon emissions because increased energy production from renewable sources, like [solar energy], requires higher capacity energy storage systems,” Andrews said.

As part of her graduate studies, Andrews is collaborating with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to discover new materials in electrochemistry and energy storage and conversion.

Long-life batteries are crucial in projects such as the Mars Perseverance Rover’s search for ancient microbial life. They are also important for reaching President Biden’s goal, announced on Earth Day, of cutting the nation’s carbon emissions in half by 2030.   

One target is finding a replacement for the lithium-ion batteries powering cell phones, laptops and electric vehicles — a technology nearing its functional limits, Andrews said.

“Higher performing alternatives to meet the growing global need for improved rechargeable batteries … will help lay the groundwork for new, advanced energy storage technologies.”

Broad experience leads to a lofty goal

Seeking and finding adventure through chemistry is nothing new for Andrews. Through research undergraduate experiences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, she helped build new compounds with potential to advance solar conversion technologies and increase clean energy production.

Andrews also conducted research at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. Traveling abroad for the first time on her own tested her composure. The laboratory techniques and methods were unfamiliar, and when she asked for directions, people often responded in a language she didn’t understand. But the experience ultimately stretched her to become a more effective and independent researcher.

That spirit guides her toward her goal of becoming a professor at a research university and mentoring diverse groups of students in the classroom and research laboratory. “I hope to actively break down barriers for underrepresented groups in STEM,” she said.