Faith Isowamwen and the 2021 Simon Karecki award

SRC is proud to honor Osakpolo "Faith" Isowamwen with the 2021 Simon Karecki Award

Described as brilliant, hardworking, and always two steps ahead, Faith Isowamwen earned her bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. Now a Ph.D. student at Clarkson University, Faith is a member of Professor Selma Mededovic Thagard's research group where she focuses on the treatment of long and short-chain poly-and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Fab wastewater using electrical discharge plasma. PFAS are a notoriously toxic group of chemicals found in the water of nearly 200 million Americans. Electrical discharge plasma has been shown to be superior to existing electrically driven destructive techniques and may one day drive the future of water purification.

With her advisor on sabbatical her first year and a global pandemic underway during her second year, Faith has been largely on her own. However, this did not stop her from facing challenging engineering problems head on. Her critical research in degrading compounds has been so successful that it resulted in researchers around the world adopting her process. Her results were presented at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) meeting and the IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science. 

"Faith is a phenomenal student and researcher," says Professor Thagard, "as evidenced by her research productivity and quality of work." Recently, Faith submitted a manuscript to the Chemical Engineering Journal, and plans to pursue a career with a strong environmental focus. 

The Simon Karecki award is given in memory of Dr. Simon Karecki, a former SRC Fellow and student in the Engineering Research Center. Karecki is recognized for his major contributions in novel manufacturing technology to the Center, where his pioneering research resulted in reduction of emissions in semiconductor manufacturing. SRC is proud to bestow this award, now in its 20th year, to Faith in recognition of her contributions.