Mackenzie was one of four graduate students nationally to receive the fellowship. The American Membrane Technology Association (AMTA) and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) joined together to provide funding for fellowships to graduate students conducting research that innovates water treatment in membrane related research and results in the advancement of membrane technologies in the water, wastewater, or water reuse industries.
Anderson is conducting research in the laboratory of Prof. Richard Kaner where she is studying novel chemically tolerant membranes for desalination and industrial water reuse. She will attend the AMTA-AWWA Membrane Technology Conference and Exposition in March 2019 in New Orleans, LA, to present her research and to receive recognition of her fellowship award.
As an undergraduate, Anderson received a 2016 AMTA Affordable Desalination Collaboration Fellowship and as a result had the opportunity to present her research at the February 2017 Membrane Technology conference in Long Beach at which she received the Best Student Poster Award.
After graduating from high school in 2013, Anderson attended community college at Pasadena City College and became involved in the American Chemical Society (ACS) student chapter leading the elementary school outreach program. Interested in a career in research, she pursued an internship at Oak Crest Institute of Science doing field work and analytical chemistry pertaining to environmental metabolomic chemistry. She transferred to UCLA in fall 2015, drawn to the interdisciplinary Chemistry and Materials Science Program and the many labs doing interdisciplinary research. Anderson joined Kaner’s lab in fall of 2015 and began studying anti-fouling surface treatments for reverse osmosis and forward osmosis membranes in winter 2016. She received her B.S. in chemistry in June 2017 and joined the UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry graduate program in the Fall 2017.
To learn more about the Kaner group research, visit their website.
