Quarterly Crossroads – Winter 2022
Spotlight on…
Research: Dr. Lori Robins and BRIOTECH
Little did she know that attending a single meeting in the fall of 2015 would change the course of her career, but Associate Professor and Acting Chair of the Physical Sciences Division, Lori Robins, says she was “lucky to be in the right place at the right time.” When prior School of STEM Advisory Board member, Jeff Williams, was looking for a chemist, he turned to UW Bothell, and Lori answered. This led to an ongoing partnership with local Woodinville startup BRIOTECH and countless research projects and collaborations. This interactive partnership is the model for the upcoming Center for Biotech Innovation and Training.
Hypoclorous acid (HOCI) is a week acid with oxidizing properties. Robins and her students have researched its effectiveness for odor control, wounds, prions, HPV and inflammation studies. The work has received a $155,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to research how to reduce odors in latrines and provide clean toilets in developing countries. The studies engage students in “real world applications and have the potential to make change in the world” says Robins. It has also led to collaborations with Penn State, NIH Rocky Mountain Labs and UW Seattle among others.
BRIOTECH, founded by School of STEM Advisory Board member, Dan Terry, creates “pure form HOCl solutions that are affordable, scalable, and that provide long shelf life (BRIOTECH website).” It is helmed by a unique group of people including engineers and medical science professionals. The partnership with BRIOTECH has led to funding for student research, hands-on experience, internships and jobs, including a lead chemist position at the company for graduate Joseph McKinley.
As the partnership continues into the future, Robins reflects, “It’s been a really fun ride that made us push our knowledge.” When asked what she thought about the collaboration, she replied, “The students really like it. I love doing it, and I think we ended up going places no one ever expected us to go.”
Faculty: Dr. Shima Abadi
Dr. Shima Abadi, associate professor in the UW Bothell School of STEM and adjunct at UW Seattle, is used to making waves or rather reading the sounds they produce. A mechanical engineer and mathematician, her research centers on acoustical signal processing in ocean sciences. Dr. Abadi was recently awarded three major grants. The Royalty Research Fund Scholar award provides $39,879 for “Exploring the use of Distributed Acoustic Sensing data for Ocean Acoustics”, is a single principal investigator for a $550K grant from the Office of Naval Research to understand the impact of sub-seafloor on sound propagation in the ocean, and is one of 3 principal investigators for a $1.3 million grant from the Department of Energy to perform research and development at the PacWave south test site in Oregon. She has been recently selected as the Department of the Navy Summer Faculty Fellow to broaden the scope of her research interests and foster lasting relationships with the Navy laboratories. Her work has recently been featured in a UW News article “Bubbles of methane rising from seafloor in the Puget Sound.” She is an incredible asset to the School of STEM, and we look forward to what she will achieve next.