Dr. Hornbostel presents about carbon capture at Café Sci
December 2023
Café Scientifique Pittsburgh (Café Sci) at the Carnegie Science Center hosts monthly guest speakers to present about some of the latest technological breakthroughs. For December’s lecture, Dr. Hornbostel lead a crash course in carbon capture. Click the link below to watch and learn more.
Austin Lieber passes his PhD proposal
August 2023
Congrats to Austin Lieber for passing his PhD proposal on August 29th! His proposal was on “Multiphysics Investigations of Emerging Direct Air and Ocean Capture Technologies.”
$1.5M awarded by ONR to make new membranes
June 2023
Dr. Hornbostel’s proposal to develop novel desalination/direct ocean capture hybrid membranes was awarded $1.5M by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). This project will be done in collaboration with Dr. Jenny Yang from UC Irvine, Dr. Matthew Green from ASU, and Dr. Abhishek Roy and Dr. Mou Paul at NREL.
Dr. Hornbostel is interviewed by WTEA
May 2023
Dr. Hornbostel was recently interviewed for a WTAE-TV segment on a new carbon capture company partnership with a local steel company. You can watch the segment by clicking on the link below.
Mahpara Habib passes her PhD defense
May 2023
Congrats to Mahpara Habib for passing her PhD defense! Her dissertation title was “Modeling Piezoelectric Wave Energy Harvesters and Novel Carbon Capture Solid Sorbents.”
Dr. Joanna Rivero graduates from Pitt
April 2023
Dr. Joanna Rivero graduated with her PhD in Mechanical Engineering on April 28, 2023. Dr. Rivero successfully defended her PhD thesis on January 27, 2023 and is currently working for AristoSys LLC. She is the first PhD student to graduate from Dr. Hornbostel’s research group, and her thesis involved modeling carbon capture membranes.
Joanna Rivero passes her PhD defense
January 2023
Congrats to Joanna Rivero for passing her PhD dissertation defense! The topic was “Membrane Modeling for Post-Combustion Carbon Capture and Direct Ocean Capture.”
Dr. Hornbostel is interviewed about the Carbon Capture Science and Technology journal
November 2022
Dr. Hornbostel, a member of the Carbon Capture Science and Technology (CCST) journal Editorial Board, took part in a video interview about the CCST journal. In this video, she talks about what the journal aims to accomplish and some of the interesting and important research it features. Click on the link below to watch the video.
Meeting Jennifer Granholm at the GCEAF conference
September 2022
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm stopped by Hornbostel Reseach Group’s booth at the GCEAF conference. Dr. Hornbostel was able to give her a 2-minute elevator pitch about her research group’s FLECCS natural gas/direct air capture hybrid project.
Dr. Hornbostel is interviewed about NETL's plans to build a direct air capture test facility.
September 2022
Dr. Hornbostel was interviewed for a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article about the U.S. Department of Energy NETL’s plans to open a lab for direct air capture in either Pittsburgh or Morgantown. Click the link below to view the article.
Dr. Hornbostel receives Carbon Capture Future Star Award
July 2022
This award is only given to one early-career researcher each year based on achievements in the field of carbon capture research. Click the link to learn more about the award.
Austin & Joanna give oral presentations at NAMS meeting
May 2022
Austin & Joanna gave their first oral presentations at the North American Membrane Society (NAMS) meeting in Tempe, AZ in May 2022. Austin gave a presentation on direct ocean capture using membrane contactors, and Joanna gave a talk on modeling channel height variation inside a membrane.
Austin & Joanna give oral presentations at NAMS meeting
May 2022
Austin & Joanna gave their first oral presentations at the North American Membrane Society (NAMS) meeting in Tempe, AZ in May 2022. Austin gave a presentation on direct ocean capture using membrane contactors, and Joanna gave a talk on modeling channel height variation inside a membrane.
Dr. Hornbostel named a Scialog: Negative Emissions Science Fellow
April 2022
In 2020, Dr. Hornbostel was named a Fellow for Scialog: Negative Emissions Science, an initiative co-sponsored by RCSA and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that brings together early career scientists to take on the challenge of CO2 accumulation in the environment. This news was announced in a University of Pittsburgh press release in August 2020 and honored as a prestigious award at the Faculty Honors Convocation in April 2022.
Dr. Hornbostel receives seed funding for two projects through Scialog: Negative Emissions Science
January 2022
Check out the link below to learn more about the funds awarded to Scialog: Negative Emissions Science Teams.
Joanna Rivero passes her PhD proposal
January 2022
Joanna gave her PhD proposal defense in January 2022 on the topic of “Membrane Modeling for Post-combustion Carbon Capture and Direct Ocean Capture.” Joanna is now a PhD candidate and plans to graduate by the end of 2022.
Austin Lieber passes his PhD qualifying exam
December 2021
Austin wrote his PhD qualifier proposal on the topic of using waste heat from cryptocurrency mining for carbon capture systems. Austin passed his qualifier in December 2021!
Dr. Hornbostel receives award for her work to promote diversity, equity & inclusion
August 2021
Dr. Hornbostel received the Pitt STRIVE Outstanding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Service Award. This award is only given to one faculty member in the Swanson School of Engineering each year to recognize efforts to improve diversity & inclusion among their students and faculty.
Iza Lantgios passes her PhD qualifying exam
April 28, 2021
Congratulations to our graduate student Iza Lantgios for passing the PhD qualifing exam!
Graduating student debt free
March 31, 2021
Congratulations to our graduate student Aaron Esquino for being debt free! He was invited to be a part of the Dave Ramsey Show to share his story – check out the youtube video linked below.
Students and faculty adjusting to Flex@Pitt model
September 11, 2020
To get classrooms ready for the fall term, Pitt IT and the University Center for Teaching and Learning coordinated with the Office of Facilities Management to install hybrid classroom technology in more than 160 learning spaces across campus that are scheduled through the Office of the University Registrar.
Engineering a carbon-negative power plant
July 29, 2020
Katherine Hornbostel and her team received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Flexible Carbon Capture and Storage (FLECCS) program to design a natural gas/direct air capture hybrid plant that will take advantage of idle periods. Click the link below to learn more.
COVID-19 effects on air pollution
July 1, 2020
Dr. Hornbostel was interviewed by Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering about the impact of COVID-19 on air quality and how we can protect our air moving forward. To learn more, read the article linked below.
National Energy Renewable Laboratory
June 26, 2020
Dr. Hornbostel and her grad students, Mahpara Habib and Austin Lieber, discuss their piezoelectric wave energy harvesting buoy research in this video by the National Energy Renewable Laboratory.
Fellowship award goes to Iza Lantgios
April 27, 2020
Congratulations to our grad student Iza Lantgios for receiving the prestigious Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) Fellowship! This fellowship will fully support her for three years to pursue a nuclear energy topic for her PhD thesis in our group.
DOE NETL grant awarded
April 7, 2020
Dr. Hornbostel was awarded a DOE NETL grant through the University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research (UCFER)! The project titled “Core-shell MOFs for Direct Air Capture” is a 2-year project in collaboration with Dr. Chris Wilmer from ChemE at Pitt and Dr. Nathaniel Rosi from Chemistry at Pitt. Together they will work to discover metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that can effectively capture CO2 from air.
PublicSource climate change article
September 25, 2019
Dr. Hornbostel’s research on ocean carbon capture was featured along with several other Pittsburgh climate change researchers in an article by the Pittsburgh based non-profit news organization PublicSource. Click the link below to read it.
Swanson School of Engineering press release
December 12, 2018
Dr. Hornbostel’s postdoc research on carbon capture capsules was featured in the press release by Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering linked below.
Dr. Hornbostel's invention featured in the local news
Summer 2018
Dr. Hornbostel’s breast pump attachment invention, Pump2Baby, was featured in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article and University of Pittsburgh press release. She also discussed her invention in local TV interviews.
Freakonomics Radio Live!
March 9, 2018
Dr. Hornbostel was invited to speak about her postdoc research on Freakonomics Radio Live! She was interviewed by Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth in front of a live audience in New York City, NY. The podcast was played on radio stations nationwide and is now publicly available online. Listen using the link below.