Rate My Professor Oishi Sanyal

Oishi Sanyal is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at West Virginia University, where she has served since June 2020 as the Wayne and Kathy Richards Faculty Fellow. She earned her PhD in Chemical Engineering from Michigan State University in 2016, with research on surface-modified membranes for water treatment, and her B.E. in Chemical Engineering from Manipal University, India, in 2011. Before joining WVU, Sanyal was a postdoctoral researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology, focusing on the fundamentals of carbon molecular sieve membranes for gas separation. Originally from Calcutta, India, she leads a research group dedicated to advancing membrane technologies.

Sanyal's research specializes in developing advanced membranes for water treatment and gas separation applications, including hypersaline produced water desalination, natural gas upgrading, and flue gas purification. Her NSF CAREER Award in 2024 supports work on membranes that selectively recover fertilizer ingredients from wastewater, tackling the food-water-energy nexus, reducing fertilizer production's carbon footprint, and extracting nutrients from sources like poultry litter. She collaborates with WVU colleagues on sustainable processes and engages rural high school students, STEM teachers, and first-generation college students, while providing entrepreneurship training via LaunchLab. Sanyal was appointed Dean’s Fellow for Research for 2025-2026 to promote interdisciplinary collaborations and mentor new faculty. She participated in the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Symposium in 2021 and received the ASME Rising Stars of Mechanical Engineering Award in 2024. Key publications include “Hyperselective carbon membranes for precise high-temperature gas separations” (Science Advances, 2025), “Process Operability Analysis of Membrane-Based Direct Air Capture” (ACS Engineering Au, 2023), “Expanding the toolbox for development of metal-based dual-function membranes” (AIChE Journal, 2023), “Sustainable additive manufacturing of polysulfone membranes” (Sustainable Materials and Technologies, 2024), and “Design Strategies for Forward Osmosis Membrane Substrates” (Membranes, 2023). Her scholarship has earned over 980 citations, influencing membrane science for sustainable separations. She has presented seminars, including at the University of Maryland.