The Ellis Lab
Welcome to the Ellis Lab!
The Ellis Lab seeks to develop heterogeneous catalysts and sorbents to help foster a more environmentally sustainable society, especially as it pertains to a more circular economy. Our group mainly utilizes experimental tools, like custom liquid and vapor-phase reactors, temperature programmed systems, and characterization tools like chemisorption, BET, ICP, XPS, and modeling, to help elucidate the structure-property relations of our materials.
Currently much of our research focuses on developing new catalyst systems and reaction engineering concepts to help monetize the reclamation of waste plastics.
Ellis Group - Winter 2025
Left to Right: Kahlil Holavarri, Andreas Palmateer, Coleman Jennewein, Samantha Hoffmann, Dimitri Gatzios, Lucas Ellis, Mia Chang, Andrew Tran, Stephen Stockton, Joseph (Yoshi) Funk, Tyler Emerson, and Ella Farrel
Lab Announcements
August 2024 - Stephen and Samantha wrapped up their Johnson Fellowships. Check out Samantha's accomplishments in developing new educational toys in catalysis on our 3D Printing page.
May 2024 - Stephen, Andrew, Samantha, and Ellie presented posters at the Celebrating Undergraduate Excellence (CUE) Symposium.
Ellie @ CUE
Andrew Tran @ CUE
Stephen Stockton @ CUE
March 2024 - Selena & Dimitri will be presenting (oral presentations) their work at ACS in New Orleans. See you there!
February 2024 - Selena Moore successfully defends her M.S. Thesis. Congratulations Selena!!
January 2024 - Hannah Frankovic was accepted into multiple Chemical Engineering Ph.D. programs. Congratulations Hannah!
November 2023 - Lucas, Henry, Andrew, Hannah, and Jose organized Make Your Own Biodiesel (CBEE & You) an educational event with a 15 minute lecture by Lucas Ellis, part of CBEE & You. (~30 students in attendance)
Henry Seely & Jose Naranjo Mendez showing first year engineering students how to make biodiesel from vegetable oil. (Not pictured: Hannah Frankovic, Andrew Tran, Lucas Ellis, and Skip Rochefort)
October 2023 - Lucas won the Doctoral New Investigator Grant from American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund!
October 2023 - Lucas participated in Engineering Day, organized by Critian Reyes, a full day of activities for underrepresented and underserved high school students (75 in total). Lucas organized two 1-hour, hands-on activities, titled, "What do Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineers actually do?"
High school students (Engineering Day) working in teams to develop a prototype to separate a mixture for the cheapest price.
September 2023 - Lucas participated in LSAMP Bridge Day, organized by Sahid Rosado Lausell, a full day of activities for underrepresented high school students transitioning to university. Lucas organized two 1-hour, hands-on activities, titled, "What do Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineers actually do?"
High school students transitioning to university (LSAMP Bridge Program) working in teams to develop a prototype to separate a mixture for the cheapest price.
July 2023 - Ameila Prins & Jessica Finnie had a 1-week project in the Ellis Lab through the Summer Experience in Science & Engineering for Youth (SESEY) program. Primary Mentors: Andreas Palmateer & Jose Naranjo-Mendez.
Left to Right: Jose Naranjo-Mendez, Jessica Finnie, Amelia Prins, & Andreas Palmateer
June 2023 - Selena is off to Owens-Corning for a Summer Internship, which is part of her GEM fellowship. She will be missed!
May 2023 - Hannah, Jose, and Andrew present their posters at Celebrating Undergraduate Excellence (CUE) Symposium. Awesome work Jose, Andrew, & Hannah!
Hannah Frankovic @ CUE
Andrew Tran @ CUE
Jose Naranjo Mendez @ CUE
April 2023 - Flexo is officially commissioned.
March 2023 - KIF is commissioned & fully operational.
March 2023 - Lucas arranged for a donation of an Agilent Cary 660 FTIR from Oregon OSHA.
February 2023 - Lucas gave an invited seminar to the Academy of Life-Long Learning at Oregon State University.
January 2023 - Dimitri passed his qualifying exam! Congratulations Dimitri!
January 2023 - Andreas presented his poster at the Johnson Symposium.
December 2022 - Lucas was interviewed by Geekwire. Check out the article here.
December 2022 - Lucas was interviewed by CNET. Check out the article here.
November 2022 - Lucas presented a poster & served as co-chair of several sessions at the AiChE annual meeting.
October 2022 - Lucas co-first authored a paper in Science! It was a pleasure to work with such a talented & interdisciplinary team at NREL, UW, MIT, and ORNL. Check out the publication here, TOC image below.
October 2022 - Lucas was interviewed by Inverse. Check out the article here.
October 2022 - Andreas presented his poster at the ACS Regional Meeting. Congrats Andreas!
July 2022 - Lucas presented a poster at the ASEE/AiChE Chemical Engineering Summer School.
June 2022 - Lucas presented a poster at the Gordon Research Conference.
June 2022 - Andreas received the Johnson Fellowship. Congrats Andreas!
April 2022 - Dimitri & Selena officially join the Ellis Lab! Welcome!
March 2022 - Professor Farnsworth is officially commissioned.
March 2022 - Bender is officially commissioned.