Rachel Gaines

Rachel N. Gaines, Ph.D.

Electrochemistry, catalysis, and waste valorization for industrial manufacturing


I design practical processes for complex, non-ideal reaction systems.

My research spans all three scales of chemical process engineering (catalysts, reactions, and reactors), as well as technoeconomic analysis, to design cost-effective, scalable processes. My Ph.D. thesis work has garnered commercial interest from several multinational corporations and led to a successful academic follow-on grant. My postdoctoral work is being implemented in an operating chemical production system.

I have over a decade of leadership experience from my roles as a research mentor and coach, where I've worked with mentees across wide ranges of age (8-25) and skill. I've served as a project and/or people manager for teams as small as 4 and as large as 31. My mentees have won state and national awards, and secured top Ph.D. program admissions and full-time industry job offers.

Key Accomplishments


Research Experience

Established new program of study in research group, including technique development, equipment acquisition, and analysis methodology, resulting in 2+ follow-on grants with collaborators across 4 disciplines, 2+ industry partnerships, & 7+ manuscripts.

Managed lab growth from 4 to 31 researchers over 3 years, including authoring 30+ protocols and procedures, onboarding 25 researchers, and directly mentoring 4 undergraduates and 2 PhD students.

Used a variety of analytical tools, systems, and techniques - flow electrolyzers, membrane electrode assemblies, HPLC, GC, MATLAB, magnetron sputter-coaters, advanced airbrushing systems, & SEM/EDX - to evaluate systems and analyze data.

Wrote multiple successful project proposals to competitive opportunities, including (1) external summer fellowship proposal (<10% funding rate), (2) internal academic proposal (~20% funding rate), (3) named fellowship postdoctoral proposal (<20% conversion rate).

 

Professional Experience

First non-founding employee at a startup in biotechnology, developing approaches for more equitable clinical trials.

National lab research fellow in earth science, using accelerated experimentation techniques to identify reaction drivers of PFAS degradation.

Tech transfer and patent law intern, evaluating >50 invention disclosures by conducting prior art searches, market assessments, and industry analyses.

Conference deputy director & marketing lead managing advertising and promotional materials and a team of 13 organizers; >100 graduate students attended the conference despite widespread program cancellations.

Former U.S. national team member & NCAA Woman of the Year nominee (highest honor given to a female collegiate athlete in the U.S.) from 2017-2021.

Get In Touch


Email: gainesrn (at) ornl (dot) gov

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelngaines/