Innovate Fellow

Riley Yager started at UAB as an engineering major in 2015. In 2017, when she was introduced to the nanofibers lab of Andrei Stanishevsky, Ph.D., she realized she had a passion for physics and decided to pursue a dual bachelor’s in civil engineering and physics. After she graduated with her bachelor’s in 2020, she decided to pursue a Ph.D. in physics at UAB. Under Dr. Stanishevsky’s guidance, she has followed her research interests to technical universities in Lodz, Poland, and Liberec, Czech Republic, gaining hands-on experience in international laboratories and building invaluable connections. She was part of the Fulbright Program during the 2021-2022 academic year, and then received the NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO22) grant, under which she works with dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasmas for the purpose of converting carbon dioxide into oxygen under Martian atmospheres for future goals in terraforming. Her team’s research in this field is unique and has led to a patent, which Riley hopes to use in a future start-up company.