At the end of the Spring 2022 semester, several EEES received some great news: Dr. Sudeep Popat was promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor with tenure, Drs. Alan Coulson and Minory Nammouz were promoted from Senior to Principal Lecturer, and Dr. Mary Kate Fidler was promoted from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer. The title of Principal Lecturer is relatively new to Clemson University and is designed to recognize the sustained contributions of Senior Lecturers.
Dr. Popat’s research group focuses on wastewater treatment technologies, particularly on anaerobic digestion to recover energy and electrochemical technologies to recover nutrients. Ongoing projects in Dr. Popat’s lab include anaerobic co-digestion of wastewater sludge with fats, oils, and grease (FOG), wherein the focus is on the understanding of the conversion of long-chain fatty acids under anaerobic conditions. Dr. Popat’s lab also works on using electrochemical peroxide production and its applications in wastewater treatment. One area of focus is the stabilization of source-separated urine to enable the recovery of nitrogen and phosphorus.
Dr. Coulson primary teaching and research interests are vertebrate paleontology and stable isotope geochemistry relating to paleoenvironmental reconstruction. He teaches large sections of introductory geology (GEOL 1010) and manages the associated lab (GEOL 1030), not to mention many sections of upper level Geology courses.
Dr. Nammouz’s research and teaching interests relate to studying how students learn and applying research-based teaching methodologies to develop introductory science courses for nonscience majors. Dr. Nammouz developed and implemented a series of science classes for nonscience majors that reinforced the interconnection among scientific concepts. Her introductory courses range from physical sciences to environmental science and sustainability. Her main pedagogical goal is to incorporate global learning into college classes through virtual exchange models to assist students in seeing the connections between their studies and the world outside the classroom. Dr. Nammouz served as a Global Learning Institute Faculty Fellow to support the Clemson University International Virtual Exchange -IVE- initiatives. She is also one of a group of EEES faculty who teach Environmental Science and Policy (ENSP 2000).
Dr. Fidler’s primary research interests are in the areas of structural geology, physical volcanology, and igneous petrology. She is interested in the causes of intracrustal volcanism and how the relationship between magmatism and continental extension can be understood by a combination of field, geochronological, and geochemical studies. She draws her scientific inspiration from field-based investigations, generally involving detailed geologic mapping followed by geochronologic and geochemical analyses. Dr. Fidler also teaches the introductory geology course (GEOL 1010) plus several upper level courses.
Congratulations to Sudeep, Alan, Minory, and Mary Kate on these career milestones.
