Professor, Geek and Entrepreneur

Dr. Kandis Leslie Gilliard-AbdulAziz directs the Sustainable Lab, which primarily focuses on developing novel materials for sustainable catalytic processes for low-carbon chemical production. Her primary research focus is novel materials development for CO2 sequestration and utilization using an interdisciplinary toolset from chemistry, material science, chemical, and environmental engineering. Dr. Gilliard-AbdulAziz is an incoming Gabilan Assistant Professor in the Sonny Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering department at the University of Southern California. Before joining USC, she directed the Sustainable Lab at the University of California, Riverside, between 2018 – 2023. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was a Provost postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She worked previously as a Forensic scientist for the Philadelphia police department and as a Refinery chemist at Sunoco Chemicals in Philadelphia.

2024                               Sloan Research Fellow recipient
2023                               DOE Early Career Award recipient
2023                                NPR Science Friday interview on Agricultural Waste for Water Filters
2023                               Early Career Editorial Advisory Board for ChemSusChem and ChemPhysChem
2022                                 Selected as one of Popular Science "Brilliant 10 Scientists"
2022                                 NSF Career Award Recipient (NSF CBET Award No. 2143578)
2022                                 Material Science of Extreme Environments Young  Investigator Awardee (JHU)
2022-                               Editorial Advisory Board Member of ACS Catalysis 
2021                                  Selected for Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, Natl Academy of Engineering
2021                                  Scialog Fellow - Negative Emissions Science
2020                                 Hellman Fellow 
2017 – 2018                     Provost Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Pennsylvania,
                                         Heterogeneous Catalysis, Philadelphia, PA  
2016 - 2018                     Founder and CEO for Nardo Technology, Inc., Urbana, IL
2011 – 2017                      Graduate Research Assistant, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
                                         Defect Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Theoretical Chemistry, Urbana, IL
2009 – 2011                     Forensic Scientist, Philadelphia Police Department,
                                         Drug Chemistry, Philadelphia, PA 
2007 – 2009                    Refinery Chemist, Sunoco Chemicals, Philadelphia Frankford Plant,
                                         Philadelphia, PA