The Team | Finkeldei Lab

Principal Investigator

Sarah Finkeldei

Sarah received her Diploma in Chemistry from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. She conducted her research on pyrochlore oxides as potential nuclear waste forms within the Nuclear Waste Management Institute at the Forschungszentrum Juelich in Germany under the supervision of professor Dirk Bosbach. She received her PhD from the RWTH Aachen University in 2014. During her time as a postdoctoral researcher in the Forschungszentrum Juelich she was awarded a two-year grant to strengthen the international collaborations of the Forschungszentrum Juelich on spent nuclear fuel research with Professor Rodney Ewing (Stanford University) and Professor Maik Lang (University of Tennessee Knoxville).

In order to gain more experience in the field of nuclear fuel fabrication she joined the Nuclear Fuel Materials Group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher in the summer of 2017. Her work contributed to the Advanced Fuels Campaign of the Department of Energy under the supervision of Kurt Terrani and Andrew Nelson. In July 2019 Sarah joined the Chemistry Department at the University of California, Irvine where she is currently building up a radiochemistry laboratory dedicated to materials chemistry in the nuclear context. Her research interests span from advanced fuel forms to nuclear waste forms.

Sarah has received several awards for her work including the Excellence Award of the Forschungszentrum Juelich and the PhD award of the German Chemical Society, Nuclear Chemistry Division for her PhD thesis.

Graduate Students

Jessica Granger-Jones

B.S. University of California, Berkeley, 2017

Jessica received a B.S. in Chemistry and a minor in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2017. As an undergraduate, she joined a materials chemistry research group under Dr. Ting Xu, working on the development of peptide-polymer conjugate micelles to enhance drug delivery. After graduation, Jessica served in the US Peace Corps in Mozambique as a high school chemistry teacher and as the National Science Fair coordinator. She can often be found playing very intense 7 on 7 soccer with her rec team "Eat My Zots," proposing a mid-afternoon "sneaky decaf" or accidentally messaging her colleagues in Portuguese. Outside of the laboratory, she also enjoys experimenting in the kitchen, as well as hiking and watching Premier League soccer.

Steven Nguyen

B.Sc. University of California, Riverside, 2021

Steven graduated with high honors from the University of California, Riverside in 2021 with a B.Sc in Chemistry. Now in the Finkeldei Group, he studies the redox chemistry of uranium dioxide with stainless steel and Zircaloy-4. Legend has it he also has a drawer full of granola bars, but this has not been confirmed. When not in the lab making the rest of us jealous of his SEM images and flexing his uncanny knowledge as our resident mineralogy expert, Steven spends his time archiving various media, taking up new hobbies like woodworking, learning the piano, chilling in the backseat of our carpools, and being a victim of Audrey's very encouraging belaying at the ARC Climbing Wall. He's most famous for sneaking into the Democratic National Convention after giving a conference presentation in Chicago. His only comment - "I saw food. And I was hungry."

Audrey Miles

B.S. University of Notre Dame, 2023

MPhil. University of Cambridge, 2024

Audrey graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2023 with a B.S. in Chemistry with Computing. At Notre Dame, she performed first-principles quantum chemistry calculations for catalytic systems with Prof. Bill Schneider. She later joined Prof. Amy Hixon's research group, where she studied the chemistry of uranyl peroxide nanoclusters. She then skipped across the pond to the University of Cambridge for a Master's in Nuclear Energy. Audrey now spends her time trying to convince the rest of the group that her atomistic simulations are cool and pretending she'll "get into lab when she finishes her current project," which involves developing machine learning potentials for advanced fuel systems. When she isn't coding at her desk, she's probably crocheting or being a very encouraging belayer for her fellow lab members.

Undergraduate Students

Max Zhang

UCI, Chemical Engineering

Andrew Cho

UCI, Materials Science & Engineering

Audrey Nguyen

UCI, Chemistry

Research Staff

Hasan Jebory

Junior Specialist

B.S. University of California, Los Angeles, 2024

Hasan recently joined both the Finkeldei Lab, and by proxy, Jessica's rec soccer team "Eat My Zots." He has already made waves in both environments, scoring the winning penalty in the playoffs game and gracing the lab with his culinary knowledge. Currently, Hasan is investigating the effects of irradiation on concrete for deep geologic repository infrastructure.

Group Alumni

Anatoliy Turkin

Staff Scientist

Oran Lori

Postdoctoral Scholar

John Proctor

Master's Student

Materials Scientist at Eurofins PSS Insourcing Solutions

Jacqueline Ferrer

Undergraduate Student & Post-Bac

Post-Bac Researcher at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Kaneen Muldrow

Undergraduate Student

Nuclear Engineer at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant

Jack Shire

Undergraduate Student

Nuclear Engineering Graduate Student at Oregon State University

Dídac Gomez i Castellvi

Master's Student

Simulations and Operations Engineer at Westinghouse Nuclear

Colin Brown

Undergraduate Student

Materials, Process, and Physics Engineer at Boeing

Timothy Connor

Master's Student

Staff Environmental Chemist at Brown and Caldwell

Lauren O'Brien

Undergraduate Student

R&D Engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Lucas Opitz

Research Assistant

Nuclear Consultant at Safetec GmbH