Nikitha Garlapati

Experience

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  Aqua-Tots Swim School

  May 2019 - Sept 2019

  Certified Water Safety Instructor
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  University of Texas at Austin HSRA

  May 2021 - Aug 2021

  Engineering Summer Research

  Conducted research assessing human-induced effects on natural ecosystems within urban environments. Collected data on water chemistry (pH, conductivity, nitrates, phosphates), air and water contaminants, and plant biology.

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  Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin

  Jul 2023 - now

  Drug diffusion research in the Nanoscale Design and Manufacturing Laboratory (NDML). Developing delayed-release non-biodegradable drug delivery implants composed of nanoporous polymers.

  • Summer Fellow for Dr. Michael Cullinan

    May 2024 - now

  • Student Researcher at NDML

    Jul 2023 - now
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  J. J. Pickle PSTC Pilot Plant

  May 2024 - Aug 2024

  Student Researcher

  Worked on an oilfield water purification system designed to efficiently separate oilfield waste streams into oil, water, and solids, enabling reuse of oil and water and reducing environmental impacts by minimizing waste disposal to only the solid components. - Operation of a ceramic membrane & selective oil permeation membrane filtration system for removal of suspended solids from water and oil. Setting process conditions (flowrate, transmembrane pressure), managing backwash procedure, and sampling feed and permeate streams. - Tested feed and permeate samples through solids filtration to assess performance of the system at varying operating conditions.- Contributed to writing standard operating procedure for system. Worked on a second project with plastics recycling distillation - distilling landfill plastics into reusable monomers. Monitoring/troubleshooting a distillation column for changes in temperature and pressure and testing different process conditions to obtain most effective performance. Show less

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  Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at Austin

  May 2024 - now

  Student Researcher at ZAP Research Group

  Development of a chemical cartridge for ion capture from used batteries, composed of polymers containing tunable receptors and functioning based on polymerization-induced phase separation. Reducing secondary waste and environmental impacts from extraction/refinery of critical materials used in electronics.