Katherine Hornbostel selected as fellow for RCSA’s Scialog: Negative Emissions Science

The Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) has named Katherine Hornbostel, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, as a Fellow for Scialog: Negative Emissions Science.

RCSA’s new initiative gathered more than 50 early-career scientists to tackle the issue of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere and oceans. Scialog: Negative Emisions Science will kick off with a virtual conference on Nov. 5-6, 2020.

Hornbostel’s research focuses on carbon capture technology for both the air and the ocean. She recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) Flexible Carbon Capture and Storage (FLECCS) program to design a natural gas/direct air capture hybrid plant that will ideally be carbon negative. Hornbostel also recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory’s (NETL’s) University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research (UCFER) program to investigate novel solid sorbents for direct air capture. She is also pursuing research on direct ocean capture, an alternative to direct air capture that hasn’t been explored much to date.

Hornbostel will be part of an interdisciplinary team from chemistry, engineering, materials science, physics, and other related disciplines. Together, they will explore methods for removing and utilizing or sequestering greenhouse gases in a way that is globally scalable.

“I’m honored to be a part of this cohort of early-career engineers and scientists, and I’m looking forward to getting together to brainstorm potential solutions for climate change with people whose interests resemble my own,” said Hornbostel. “I hope that we will come together and foster ideas that will help to end and reverse carbon emissions.”

Scialog, short for “science + dialog,” is a multi-year initiative with fellows from across the U.S. and Canada. The Scialog: Negative Emissions Science is sponsored by RCSA and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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