Khashayar Ghandi

Research
Our group's research includes (but is not limited to) both fundamental aspects and applications of physical chemistry and chemical physics in energy, material science and green chemistry. Family antimatters is the name my research students coined for our group since some of our research are based on antimatters at particle accelerators.
We have three general areas of research interests:
- Fundamental aspects of physical chemistry/chemical physics on topics such as novel types of chemical bonds, kinetic isotope effects on reactions of state selected molecules, developing new spectroscopic techniques to study intermediates, chemistry under extreme conditions, and the role of external fields on electronic structure in atoms, molecules and material as well as modeling chemical reactions.
- Material science, energy transformation and green chemistry.
- Applications of physical chemistry tools to “other” disciplines. These studies are in collaboration with colleagues in “other” fields, including biology, medicine, commerce and engineering.
We have been funded by NSERC, CFI and industrial grants for research concerning fundamental science, energy and environment, Green Chemistry, CO2 capture and its use in applications. Our investigations of Generation IV Energy Technologies has led to a successful collaborative research and development grant for years.
Our research is carried out both at a conventional chemistry laboratory which includes computational work such as investigating electronic structures, quantum field theory, Monte Carlo simulations, as well as hands on lab experiments in our department, scientific mechanical design, Spectroscopic studies, synthesis of novel material as well as data analysis. We obtain a large amount of data that need to be analyzed after each beam time (beam time is the time each year that we get to spend at particle accelerator facilities). Some of our research is also carried out at our lab in Guelph. For some of our work we must do experiments at international facilities in Canada, Europe and Japan. Therefore, my group and I travel regularly to TRIUMF national laboratory in Vancouver, ISIS at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, ELYSE in university of Paris / Saclay and JPARC in Japan. In some of particle accelerators we use the beams 24 hours per day which means we need to take shifts (all of us including the supervisor) and work as a team to collect as much data as we can. Therefore, during our beam times, graduate students and I work all together shoulder-to-shoulder in the lab to help each student to do well. We could work on different projects for different students at different times but we all work for that particular student project (the student do most of the experiment design in consultation with the rest of group) at that time. This will give us a sense of team and family that is probably why my students called our group name family antimatters. We use high performance computing clusters for our calculations.
Media
Novel Solid-State Microbial Sensors Based on ZnO Nanorod ArraysCurrent Research Group
Cody Landry: PhD student
Alexander (Alec) Morrison: PhD student
Arash Fattahi: PhD student
Farshad Farshidfar: PhD student
Somia Benchikh: PhD student
Breanna Clark: MSc student
Michael Lapolla: MSc student
Hannah Oreskovic: MSc student
Quaid Hawkins: Undergraduate student
Current Openings
Current Openings for highly qualified and passionate for scientific research Graduate Students (MSc or PhD) starting January 2019
We have a range of both basic science and applied (industrial based) research fields in our group. However, to make sure we can be a good match, you need to understand more about our group research please check our Research section and Publications.
Highly qualified candidates that are passionate for scientific research and interested in summer research, honours thesis, graduate studies and postdoctoral research in our group are welcome to send your CV to kghandi@uoguelph.ca. Candidates applying for graduate studies or postdoctoral positions should include detailed information about their research experience in the CV.
The Guelph-Waterloo Centre for Graduate Work in Chemistry and Biochemistry (GWC2) is a joint graduate program offered by the Departments of Chemistry at the University of Guelph and the University of Waterloo. To apply for the MSc/PhD program, please visit GWC2.
Please see the following links
List of Awards/Scholarships for Graduate Students at the University of Guelph
There are a number of scholarships and awards available at the University of Guelph for Canadian and international graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. For details, please visit Scholarships and Awards Administrative Guidelines.
There are a number of scholarships and awards available via TRIUMF national lab. For details, please visit http://www.triumf.ca/academic-programs/awards-fellowships
We appreciate the interests of all applicants. After sending your information, only candidates selected for interview will be contacted. We may require other information as well before and after an interview.
Alumni
Most recent M.Sc. Student and Thesis Supervision
Name | Research Title | Research and Presentation Award(s) | Present Status |
---|---|---|---|
Chris Alcorn | MSc Thesis: Probing Aqueous Chemistry by Spin Spectroscopy: From Brain Metabolites to the Safety of Nuclear Reactors | Research fellowship, NRC, 2008 - Leadership Mount A. (2011) Nominated for NSERC gold medal for MSc thesis by all examining committee including the two external examiners (2011) | Received PhD, hydrothermal chemistry, University of Guelph |
Philip Cormier | MSc Thesis: Radiation and Green Chemistry in Liquid and Supercritical Fluids | - Nominated for NSERC gold medal for MSc thesis by all the examining committee which included two external examiners (2013) | Laboratory Supervisor, Safety Officer, Mount Allison University |
Shidokht Nazari | MSc Thesis: Green Chemistry: From production of Novel Ionic Liquids to Microwave assisted synthesis | Rice Fellowship award, Mount Allison University, (2010-2011) | PhD candidate, University of Western Ontario |
Yang Tan | MSc Thesis: Synthesis and Characterization of Polypyrrole Composites & Kinetics of Polymerization of Pyrrole | Mount Allison university Travel award (2012) | She got a research position in the R&D of a clean tech industry after graduation |
Paul Shaver | MSc Thesis: Towards Muon microwave studies | Engineering officer at Canadian Army | |
Cody Landry | MSc Thesis: Novel processes in synthesis of nanorads & the impact on their properties | NBIF research fellowship award Mitacs award |
PhD candidate, University of Guelph |
Guangdong Liu | MSc Thesis: Radiation effects in coolant of GenIV SCWR reactors | NBIF research fellowship award | PhD candidate, University of Alberta |
Alexander Morrison Hershfield | MSc Thesis: | NBIF research fellowship award Mitacs award |
PhD candidate, University of Guelph |