Abstract: Seismological studies can be carried-out by using multiple approaches, from derivation of fundamental equations governing the seismic wave propagation to applications for natural hazard monitoring, with many flavours in between. In this talk I will present the first results of a seismological experiment performed in northern Tanzania within a natural park where the wild fauna is the protector of the area and even access to clean water and electricity cannot be given for granted. A project in a such remote area poses several challenges from both logistic and scientific perspectives. During the talk, I will show how these challenges have been tackled starting from the planning of the seismological network and the installation of the instruments, moving to the dataset building and processing to infer information on the seismicity levels that insist in the area, and finishing on the preparation for the earth structure imaging. The project includes fieldwork as well as computational efforts that all have been possible thanks to the extraordinary facilities available in KAUST.​

Bio: Laura Parisi is currently a post-doctoral fellow in KAUST and is part of the Computational Earthquake Seismology research group. In her research, Laura uses seismological observations and seismic wavefield simulations to understand the dynamics of the Earth from local to global scale.  She graduated in Geology in 2011 at the University of Palermo (Italy). Before starting her PhD, she worked as at Université de Strasbourg (France). She joined KAUST in 2015 after receiving her PhD in Seismology from the University of East Anglia (UK). Laura served as representative of the Early Career Scientists of the European Geoscience Union from 2016 to 2018.

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• CONTACTKarema S. Alaseef

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• CONTACTKarema S. Alaseef

​Join us for the 1st session of this special series as experts from BESE will discuss how best to prepare for your MS or PhD thesis defense.
This session will be followed by a Q&A discussion.
Students across all divisions are welcome.
A lunch buffet will be provided for those who are registered.
Register via the Student Life Forum by clicking here.

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• CONTACTOffice of Professional Development
• EMAILprofessional.development@kaust.edu.sa

Abstract: Compressibility of a fluid in a porous medium determines the response of the medium to mechanical loads, and acoustic waves propagation in particular. If the pores of the medium are in the nanometer range, many thermodynamic properties of the fluid confined in such pores are altered. In this talk I will show that the fluid compressibility is not an exception.​                                                                                                     I will discuss two different approaches for calculation of compressibility of a fluid in nanopore based on Monte Carlo molecular simulations, illustrating them with an example for argon [1]. The results of the simulations show that the predictions of the two approaches are consistent and agree well with the compressibility of confined argon calculated from ultrasonic experiments on argon-saturated nanoporous glass [2]. Molecular simulations for a range of pore sizes provide a simple relation between the compressibility of the confined fluid and the size of the confining pore.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    [1] Dobrzanski, C.D.; Maximov, M.A. and Gor, G.Y.; J. Chem. Phys., 2018, 148(5), 054503.                                                                                                   [2] Gor, G.Y. and Gurevich, B.; Geophys. Res. Lett, 2018, 45(1), 146-155.

Bio: Gennady Gor received Ph.D. in theoretical physics from St. Petersburg State University, Russia in 2009. He continued his postdoctoral research in the United States, at Rutgers University, Princeton University and Naval Research Laboratory. In 2016 he joined Chemical and Materials Engineering department at NJIT as an assistant professor. Dr. Gor's Computational Laboratory for Porous Materials employs a set of modeling techniques, such as Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations, density functional theory and finite element methods, to study materials ranging from nanoporous adsorbents to macroporous polymers and geological porous media.

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• CONTACTKarema S. Alaseef

​Abstract:

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• CONTACTEmmanuelle Sougrat

​Abstract:

Determination of the nano and microstructures of self assembled block copolymer is normally accomplished by a combination of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS).  With more complex polymer architectures and the addition of more block components (A, B, C…) the types of periodic BCP phases has grown markedly including many new multi continuous tubular network phases (double gyroid, double diamond, O52 and O70).  A relatively new technique, slice and view scanning electron microscopy (SVSEM), is highly suitable for investigation of complex morphologies since it can directly generate a high resolution 3D tomogram of the nanoscale structure.  The particular material studied is a polystyrene (PS) – polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) diblock copolymer that exhibits the cubic double gyroid network morphology with a lattice parameter of ~ 130 nm, with feature sizes on the 20 nm scale, typical of many soft matter assemblies.   By combining thin slices via gallium ion milling with secondary electron imaging using low voltage incident electron beam, the voxel size is approximately 4 nm^3. SVSEM allows analysis of a host of sub-unit cell morphological descriptors and critical comparison to theoretical models of the structure.  For example, the network dihedral angles, the network skeletal graph, the distance distribution between the BCP interface and the skeletal graph and the distance distribution between the BCP interface and the gyroid minimal surface are measured and compared to self consistent field calculations.  

Bio: 

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• CONTACTSijian Hou

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• CONTACTKarema S. Alaseef