Principal Investigator

Dr. Stuart Linley

Assistant Professor

Stuart is a chemical and materials engineer from southern Ontario who has been researching functional materials for environmental applications for over a decade. He graduated from the University of Waterloo with a BASc in Nanotechnology Engineering in 2014 and a PhD in Chemical Engineering - Nanotechnology in 2019 under the supervision of Frank Gu. During his PhD, he co-founded water treatment start-up company H2nanO to scale functional materials for sustainable water treatment. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Neil Thomson at the University of Waterloo from 2019-2020. From 2020-2023, he held an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge's Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, working with Erwin Reisner

Stuart's specific research pursuits have included reusable photocatalyst composites for wastewater treatment and solar reforming, nanoparticles with functional polymer coatings for targeted delivery to subsurface and groundwater contaminants, and synthesis techniques for inorganic nano- and microscale colloids. A list of Stuart's publications can be found here.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Dr. Kora Rakhsha

PhD - Chemical Engineering (McMaster, 2025)

Kora joined the Linley Lab in February 2026 and is focused on developing photoelectrodes and photoelectrochemical devices for the green production of fuels and chemicals from waste materials. During his PhD, he worked extensively on electrochemical CO₂ conversion, tackling challenges in catalyst synthesis, electrode engineering, cell design for in situ/operando characterization, and membrane electrode assembly development (Nano Energy, 2025; Nat. Comm., 2024). He's always happy to nerd out about science, so feel free to reach out (rakhsha@mcmaster.ca).

Outside of work, he spends most of his time hanging out with his partner, cooking (and eating), rock climbing, or working on his 2011 Toyota RAV4.

Graduate Students

Alibek Kurbanov

PhD - Chemical Engineering

Alibek Kurbanov is from Turkmenistan and completed his BEng in Chemical Engineering at Tianjin University in China under a fully funded CSC scholarship. He has a background in photocatalysis with two co-authored publications on developing catalytic materials for hydrogen evolution from ammonia-borane (IJHE, 2023; JCIS, 2023).

Alibek is currently pursuing his PhD in Chemical Engineering at McMaster University. His research focuses on developing floating carbon nitride-based photocatalysts for solar-driven hydrogen production and wastewater treatment. Outside the lab, Alibek is a table tennis player and regularly competes in local tournaments across Ontario. Alibek can be reached at kurbanoa@mcmaster.ca

Emma Brakhwah

PhD - Chemical Engineering

Emma Kwarteng Brakwah is a clean-energy researcher with experience spanning catalysis, carbon capture, and materials utilization. She holds a BSc in Petrochemical Engineering from KNUST, Ghana (2020) and an MASc in Process Systems Engineering from the University of Regina (2023). Prior to her PhD, she worked at TerraFixing Inc. as a Junior Structured Adsorbent Analyst, carrying out laboratory testing to evaluate and optimize structured adsorbent beds for direct air capture in cold climates.

She is currently a PhD student in Chemical Engineering where her research focuses on improving the efficiency of solar reforming for green hydrogen production. She is developing cost-effective, mild-temperature hydrothermal pretreatment methods to enhance biomass and plastic conversion and maximize hydrogen yields. Her work bridges materials engineering, catalysis, and reactor design, with the goal of scaling sustainable hydrogen technologies that are compatible with real-world waste streams.

Tomal Saha

PhD - Chemical Engineering

Tomal Saha is from Bangladesh and completed his BSc in Materials and Metallurgical Engineering at BUET with Honors. His background includes work on photocatalysis and synthesis of functional oxide materials such as Gd-doped TiO₂ nanoparticles for environmental remediation and Er-substituted LaFeO₃ perovskite nanoparticles for pseudocapacitive energy storage, exploring defect engineering and charge transport in functional materials.

He is currently pursuing his PhD in Chemical Engineering with research interests focused on photocatalysis and electrochemical systems for sustainable energy and environmental applications, particularly in designing materials for solar-driven processes and efficient utilization of waste-derived resources.

Undergraduate Students

Jasper Hopkins

BEng - Chemical and Biomedical Engineering

Jasper is a third-year co-op student studying Chemical and Integrated Biomedical Engineering at McMaster University. Currently researching floating photocatalysts for sustainable solar reforming of wastewater products into usable hydrogen. His interest in research is in hydrogen production and storage, electrochemistry, nanotechnology, environmental sustainability, and biopharmaceutical processing/drug development. In his free time, he enjoys rock climbing, reading, biking, and hockey.

Alexander Sikman

BEng - Chemical and Biomedical Engineering

Past Members

Julie Liu

BEng - Chemical and Biomedical Engineering

Julie worked with us from 2025-2026 and held an NSERC USRA, working on testing floating photocatalytic composites for sustainable solar reforming of wastewater products into usable hydrogen. Her research interests lie in anything chemistry-related, particularly topics associated with process systems, materials science, environmental sustainability, biotechnology and drug development. In her free time, she enjoys folding origami, figure skating, and reading. In 2026, she has joined the Frank Gu Lab at the University of Toronto.