Ph.D. candidate, Mustafa Celebi, started his program in Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah Fall semester of 2011. He is originally from Turkey, and received his BS in Chemical Engineering at the Middle East Technical University. Following a pivotal assessment test taken in high school, his future was decided: engineering. He did his research, talked with professors and professional engineers, and decided to pursue Chemical Engineering. He was particularly drawn to the broad applications of the discipline- from bench scale to commercial scale. He noticed that chemical engineers are often found at the heart of the production process, regardless of the industry. He found his way to the University of Utah after several faculty members at METU recommended the department because of the innovative and world-renowned coal research being done here. He then had the opportunity to meet Dr. Kevin Whitty, Director of Graduate Studies and ChemE professor, at the Pittsburg Coal Conference in 2010; another fateful moment in Mustafa’s life. Dr. Whitty is now Mustafa’s faculty advisor. Mustafa is conducting research, under the guidance of Dr. Whitty, on the characterization of ash particles generated under gasification atmosphere. The objective is to understand the fate of metal species in ash particles in gasification that often leads to downtime of the gasification power plants. In the future, Mustafa would like to work in the oil and gas sector or power industry to contribute to the development of novel fuels processing, mitigating the carbon footprint of the energy sector. Mustafa is also the chair of the Graduate Student Advisory Committee, and is responsible for planning and organizing events.
