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<div class="externalResources"><a href="index.html" title="About">ABOUT RACHEL</a> </div>

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<h2>Rachel N. Gaines, Ph.D.</h2>

<h3>Electrochemistry, catalysis, and waste valorization for industrial manufacturing</h3>

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<p><span class="highlight"> I design practical processes for complex, non-ideal reaction systems</span>.</p>

<p>My research spans <span class="highlight">all three scales of chemical process engineering</span> (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.</p>

<p>I have <span class="highlight">over a decade of leadership experience</span> 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.</p>

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<h3>Rachel's scientific values:</h3>

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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_integrity"><img src="Icons/Icon-Integrity-100px.png" alt="Integrity"></a> </div>

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<a href="https://hbr.org/2023/09/how-to-find-your-purpose"><img src="Icons/Icon-Purpose-100px.png" alt="Purpose"></a> </div>

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<a href="https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-workplace-fairness-affects-employee-commitment/"><img src="Icons/Icon-Fairness-100px.png" alt="Fairness"></a> </div>

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<a href="https://researchhow2.uc.edu/docs/default-source/default-document-library/rdss_rigor-and-reproducibilityb368dfd293e340c097026927364b383d.pdf?sfvrsn=62d6170_0"><img src="Icons/Icon-Rigor-100px.png" alt="Rigor"></a> </div>

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<h2 class="sectionTitle"><a name="Accomplishments"> Key Accomplishments</a></h2>

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<h2 class="sectionContentTitle"><em>Research Experience</em></h2>

<p class="sectionContent"> <span class="highlight">Established new program of study in research group</span>, including technique development, equipment acquisition, and analysis methodology, resulting in 2+ follow-on grants with collaborators across 4 disciplines, 2+ industry partnerships, &amp; 7+ manuscripts.</p>

<p class="sectionContent"><span class="highlight">Managed lab growth from 4 to 31 researchers over 3 years</span>, including authoring 30+ protocols and procedures, onboarding 25 researchers, and directly mentoring 4 undergraduates and 2 PhD students.</p>

<p class="sectionContent"><span class="highlight">Used a variety of analytical tools, systems, and techniques</span> - flow electrolyzers, membrane electrode assemblies, HPLC, GC, MATLAB, magnetron sputter-coaters, advanced airbrushing systems, &amp; SEM/EDX - to evaluate systems and analyze data.</p>

<p class="sectionContent"><span class="highlight">Wrote multiple successful project proposals</span> to competitive opportunities, including (1) external summer fellowship proposal (&lt;10% funding rate), (2) internal academic proposal (~20% funding rate), (3) named fellowship postdoctoral proposal (&lt;20% conversion rate).</p>

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<h2 class="sectionContentTitle">&nbsp;</h2>

<h2 class="sectionContentTitle"><em>Professional Experience</em></h2>

<p class="sectionContent"><span class="highlight">First non-founding employee at a startup</span> in biotechnology, developing approaches for more equitable clinical trials.</p>

<p class="sectionContent"><span class="highlight">National lab research fellow</span> in earth science, using accelerated experimentation techniques to identify reaction drivers of PFAS degradation.</p>

<p class="sectionContent"><span class="highlight">Tech transfer and patent law intern</span>, evaluating &gt;50 invention disclosures by conducting prior art searches, market assessments, and industry analyses.</p>

<p class="sectionContent"><span class="highlight">Conference deputy director &amp; marketing lead</span> managing advertising and promotional materials and a team of 13 organizers; &gt;100 graduate students attended the conference despite widespread program cancellations.</p>

<p class="sectionContent"><span class="highlight">Former U.S. national team member &amp; NCAA Woman of the Year nominee</span> (highest honor given to a female collegiate athlete in the U.S.) from 2017-2021.</p>

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<h2 class="sectionTitle">Get In Touch</h2>

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<p class="sectionContent"><span><strong>Email:</strong> gainesrn (at) ornl (dot) gov</span></p>

<p class="sectionContent"><span><strong>LinkedIn:</strong></span> https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelngaines/</p>

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