Morgan Wiese ’23

Major

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Project Title

Modeling Organic Contaminants at the Air-Water Interface

Presentation Link

View Morgan's Presentation

Certificate(s): Sustainable Energy, Urban Studies

The goal of my internship was to model a variety of organic contaminants in order to determine the adsorption of these contaminants at the air-water interface. My group and I did this by writing input files to create different compounds in a molecular visualization program, which could then be inserted into simulations of the compounds’ behavior at the interface. My colleagues and I added to a library of organic contaminants that can be used in the molecular simulation program, allowing for future research into the different properties of these compounds in various environments. Along with the knowledge I gained about these contaminants and their environmental impact, I also gained valuable insight into environmental research and what a research career could look like. The work I did confirmed my interest in environmental materials and motivated me to concentrate my studies in sustainability.

* This internship is connected to the HMEI Water and the Environment Challenge project, “Microphysics of Water in Secondary Organic Aerosol.”



Internship Year

2021

Project Category

Water and the Environment

Organization(s)

Interfacial Water Group, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University

Mentor(s)

Ian Bourg, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the High Meadows Environmental Institute; Jennifer Willemsen, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Civil and Environmental Engineering