Dr. Kyriakos C. Stylianou

Associate Professor

Bio. Kyriakos is from Larnaca, Cyprus. After serving the Cypriot army for 26 months, he moved to the University of Ioannina in Greece to study Chemistry. He graduated (in 3.5 years) at the top of the class, earning several awards as the best undergraduate student in Chemistry. After his studies in Greece, he moved to Liverpool to study for his Ph.D. studies under the supervision of Matthew J. Rosseinsky. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in materials chemistry at the University of Liverpool, UK. His Ph.D. thesis was based on the rational design of porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for advanced applications. Upon completion of his Ph.D. thesis, he was awarded with the prestigious Marie Curie individual fellowship to work at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, ICN2, in Barcelona, Spain, with Daniel Maspoch. He chose to apply his synthetic background in surface chemistry and investigate the growth of MOFs on surfaces using several methods such as nanolithography and inkjet printing, and study how the miniaturization of MOFs at the nanoscale regime can affect their properties and investigate their potential as drug carriers. In 2015, he moved to EPFL Valais in Sion, Switzerland, as a team leader within LSMO (led by Berend Smit) and started his independent research career. At EPFL, his team developed several impactful projects centered on MOFs for carbon capture, photocatalysis, and sensing applications. In 2019, he joined the Department of Chemistry at Oregon State University as an Assistant Professor. In 2024, he was promoted to an Associate Professor with tenure. He is the head of Materials Discovery Laboratory (MaD Lab), and his group’s interests lie in better understanding, at the molecular level, the interactions between the MOF pore surface and guest organic molecules or ions. This approach allows MaD Lab to use MOFs in a range of applications such as the selective capture of carbon dioxide from flue gas and from ambient air, carbon dioxide conversion to value-added products, and photocatalytic water splitting for the production of hydrogen and oxidation (degradation or synthesis) of organic molecules.
The advice he regularly gives to his students is to think cleverly, investigate new science, dig deep, become comfortable with being uncomfortable in science, and be a leader, not a follower.

Publications. Google Scholar

Awards
2024. Teacher Scholar Award, College of Science, OSU
2024. Disease Mechanism and Prevention Fund Award
2024. Scialog Fellow for Negative Emissions Science
2023. Boomerang’s Carbon Capture Research Donation
2023. Medical Research Foundation, New Investigator Grant
2023. Industrial Partnership Award, OSU
2023. Research Advancement Award, OSU
2022. Loyd F. Carter Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Teaching in Science, Undergraduate, College of Science, OSU
2021. James H Krueger teaching award, Chemistry, OSU
2020. SciRis-ii award, College of Science, OSU
2016. Sponsorship of Ambizione Energy grant (Switzerland)
2012. Award of the Marie Curie Fellowship (Spain)
2007. EPSRC award for Ph.D. studies at the University of Liverpool (United Kingdom)
2005 & 2006. Educational grant for the top undergraduate student of the year (3rd and 4th years of study) (Greece)

Email. kyriakos.stylianou@oregonstate.edu

Hobbies. Shopping, Netflix, Dinner with good friends, Enjoying the sun and swimming in the Mediterranean sea, Listening to pop-cheesy music (Lady Gaga mainly), and Watching Liverpool FC and Barcelona FC soccer matches.

Dr. Andrzej Gładysiak

Bio. Andrzej Gładysiak is from Poznań, Poland. He earned his MSc working with Andrzej Katrusiak at AMU and PhD with Berend Smit at EPFL. Originally an inorganic chemist and a crystallographer, his research interests have expanded over the years, and now also include materials synthesis, carbon dioxide capture and conversion, and hydrogen storage. It is by far not a coincidence he joined the MaD lab since all these research directions can be pursued using MOFs as a platform.

Research Interests. MOFs crystallography: use of X-ray techniques to study MOF transitions and elucidate structure-property relationships.

Achievements.
– 2024 Postdoctoral Research Excellence Award, OSU
– >25 publications in Nature, JACS, Chem. Sci. ACS AMI
– Postdoc at Columbia University with Prof. Alissa Park
– Travel grant from the Swiss Academy of Natural Science to participate in the European Crystallography meeting in 2018
– Award for the best young crystallographer – Crystallography school in 2017

Email. andrzej.gladysiak@oregonstate.edu

Hobbies. Crystallography, hiking, reading books, cooking

Kieran Brunson

Graduate Student, Ph.D. (Sept. 2018 – present)

Bio.

Research Interests. Discovery of novel MOFs based on actinides for waste remediation.

Email. brunsonk@oregonstate.edu

Hobbies. Cooking, surfing, art.

Tara Hurley

Graduate Student, Ph.D. (Sept. 2019 – present)

Bio. Tara Hurley received her Bachelor’s of Science in Biochemistry at Baylor University in 2019. There, she began as an undergraduate research in 2016 in the Dr. Kim research group, analyzing Staphylococcus aureus peptidoglycan fragmentation using HPLC-MS to assess biofilm formation. Tara’s research trajectory shifted in 2018, orienting herself towards analytical chemistry under the Dr. Chambliss research group, where she monitored atrazine levels in local water resources using UPLC. The latter work compelled Tara to continue her academic career within separation science, as initiated in the fall of 2019 at Oregon State University. Tara is primarily supervised by Dr. Vincent Remcho and co-advised by Dr. Kyriakos Stylianou. Tara’s project is based on porous materials as novel sorbents for targeted separations.

Research Interests. Utilization of MOFs for gas and liquid separations.

Email. hurleyta@oregonstate.edu

Hobbies. Hiking, Climbing, Exercising, and Enjoying the small things in life.

Kyle Smith

Graduate Student, Ph.D. (Sept. 2020 – present)

Bio. received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Saint Martin’s University in 2020. Prior to graduation, he spent a summer working in the Notre Dame University Biochemistry department and a summer interning at the Washington State Crime Patrol Lab. His undergraduate thesis focused on inorganic catalysis, but his current research is focused on the application of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) to forensic disciplines.

Research Interests. Investigation of sensing mechanisms using MOF heterostructures.

Email. kyletsmith2013@gmail.com

Hobbies. An avid reader, An avid writer

Emmanuel Musa Nyela

Graduate Student (Jan. 2021 – present)

Bio. Emmanuel grew up in Nigeria, and completed his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the Kaduna State University Nigeria, in 2017. His undergraduate research was focused on heavy metal analysis of soil around mine sites as an environmental concern. His current research is focused on understanding and synthesizing metal oxides through metal organic frameworks mediated pathway for photo catalysis.

Research Interests. Synthesis of metal oxides through mediated metal organic frameworks for photocatalysis.

Email. musae@oregonstate.edu

Hobbies. Playing soccer, singing, dancing

Ankit K. Yadav

Graduate Student (Sept. 2021 – present)

Bio. Ankit grew up in North India. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, in 2021 with a BS-MS dual degree. He joined the Advance Porous Material (APM) Lab in his third year of college, where he was supervised by Professor Ramanathan Vaidyanathan. It was there that he learned about the awesome Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs). He worked on two projects for his master’s thesis: “Bimetallic (Mn/Co) oxide nanoparticles supported over a Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs) for oxygen evolution reaction” and “Design and synthesis of organic phosphor using Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs) for white light emission under UV light.” He was accepted to Oregon State University in 2021 to pursue a Ph.D. He joined the MaD lab and carried on working with MOFs under Dr. Kyriakos Stylianou’s supervision.

Research Interests. As a ‘synthetic genius‘ – this is how my Ph.D. advisor calls me, I am interested in growing MOF and MOP crystals and learning how these materials are assembled. Once I control their growth, I am interested in studying their potential for carbon capture.

Email. yadavan@oregonstate.edu

Hobbies. Cooking Indian food, cinema, dancing, growing crystals

Jacob Lessard

Graduate Student (Sept. 2023 – present)

Bio. Jacob is originally from Grants Pass, OR, and he earned his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from OSU in March 2023. Jacob worked in the MaD Lab as an undergraduate, and the ability to continue his research was a major factor in his choice to pursue graduate studies at OSU.

Research Interests. Photocatalyzed hydrogen-deuterium exchange in molecules confined in metal-organic frameworks

Email. lessardj@oregonstate.edu

Hobbies. Basketball, fast cars, playing pool, hiking

Pakhin Pawornwitoon

Graduate Student (June 2024 – present)

Bio.

Research Interests.

Email. pawornwp@oregonstate.edu

Hobbies. Cooking Thai food, gym, hiking, social media

Jeff Bowen

Major in BioHealth Sciences

MaD Lab project. Development of pharamaceuticals using MOF catalysts

Mimi Frechette

Major in Chemistry

MaD Lab project. MOF@polymer composites for carbon capture

Elliot Hansen

Major in Chemical Engineering

MaD Lab project. Synthesis of U-MOFs for waste remediation

Mitchell Kenny

Major in Chemistry

MaD Lab project. Discovery of novel MOFs for photocatalytic degradation of herbicides

Matthew Nguyễn

Major in Chemistry

MaD Lab project. Synthesis of ultramicroporous MOFs for carbon capture

Andrew Loescher

Major in Chemistry

MaD Lab project. Defect engineering in MOFs for catalysis

Dylan Pyle

Major in Biochemistry and Biophysics

MaD Lab project. Discovery of new MOFs as theranostic agents

Alden Dupras

Major in Chemistry

MaD Lab project. Photoactive MOFs for the degradation of organic pollutants

Roman Nadorov

Major in Chemical Engineering

MaD Lab project. Defected MOFs for carbon capture

Dr. Kimia Kiaei

Graduate Student within MaD Lab (Sept. 2019 – Dec. 2023)

Achievements.
– Two (2) first author publications
– Graduate teaching assistant award in the winter term 2023
– Poster presentation at IUCCP, OSU

Dr. Nan-Chieh Chiu

Graduate Student within MaD Lab (Sept. 2020 – July 2024)

Achievements:
– Seventeen (17) publications incl. six (6) first author publications
– Poster presentation at the International MOF Conference in Dresden, Germany
– Graduate teaching assistant award in F2022
– Renewable Energy Award, 2023
– Poster presentation at the European MOF Conference in Granada, Spain, 2023

Ryan P. Loughran, MS

Tanner Rookard, MS

David Le – Graduate school: Delaware University,

Ian Harreschou – Graduate school: University if Minnesota,

Samuel Wolff – Graduate school: University of Washington,

Chloe Ramsperger – Graduate school: USC,

Noah Tufts – Graduate school: The Ohio State University,

Karlie Wiese – Graduate school: Oregon State University,

Michael Brodeur – Graduate school: University of Pennsylvania,

James Ho – Graduate school: Northwestern University

Isabelle Brooks,

Thao Mi Anthony,

Christopher Flood – HP in Corvallis,

Carson St Denis,

Christina Groening,

Benjamin Skanes,  

Jared Stafford,  

Ava Thomas,

Lewis Shotton,

Mark Merrem – Merck,

Timothy Walz,

Delaney Radke,

Noah Hopkins,

Maddy Beck,