Vicky Karanikola

Associate Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Vicky Karanikola

Civil Engineering 306F

520.621.5881
vkaranik@arizona.edu

Prior to her associate professor position with the U of A CHEE Department, Vicky Karanikola was a postdoctoral fellow at the Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department at Yale University. Karanikola has an interdisciplinary engineering background combining a BS in mechanical engineering from the Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Greece, an MSc degree in civil engineering from San Diego State University (SDSU), and both MSc and PhD degrees in environmental engineering from the UA. Her PhD research focused on off-grid water and wastewater treatment through hybrid thermal processes (membrane distillation) and nanofiltration. During her postdoctoral appointment she focused on membrane material synthesis and modification for water and wastewater treatment.

Alongside with her academic career, she is very strongly involved with EWB (Engineers without Borders), an organization that works on engineering projects in developing communities. She served as the mentor of the U of A chapter and is currently involved with the EWB-USA headquarters as the vice president of the EWB Mountain Region Steering Committee. Karanikola's research work with marginalized communities at Tribal Nations was recently recognized with the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice Faculty fellowship.

Degrees

  • PhD Environmental Engineering
    • University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States
    • Membrane Distillation: Parametric Studies and Numerical Simulations for Hollow Fiber and Flat Sheet Membranes
  • MS Environmental Engineering
    • University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States
    • Sweeping gas membrane distillation : Numerical simulation of mass and heat transfer in a hollow fiber membrane module
  • MS Civil Engineering
    • San Diego State University, San Diego, California, United States
    • PLANKTON FILTRATION WITH FLEXIBLE PARTICULATE PACKS
  • BS Mechanical Engineering
    • Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Serres, Greece

Courses

View the full course list in UA Profiles.

Selected Publications

Chapters

  • Yavuz, A. B., Karanikola, V., García-Payo, M., Khayet, M., Hilal, N., Ismail, A. F., Khayet, M., & Johnson, D. (2021). 9 - Osmotic distillation and osmotic membrane distillation for the treatment of different feed solutions. In 9 - Osmotic distillation and osmotic membrane distillation for the treatment of different feed solutions(pp 245-278). Elsevier.

Journals/Publications

  • Durkin, T. J., Barua, B., Holmstrom, J. J., Karanikola, V., & Savagatrup, S. (2023). Functionalized Amphiphilic Block Copolymers and Complex Emulsions for Selective Sensing of Dissolved Metals at Liquid–Liquid Interfaces . Langmuir, 39(36), 12845-12854. doi:10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c01761
  • Jiang, H., Straub, A. P., & Karanikola, V. (2022). Ammonia Recovery with Sweeping Gas Membrane Distillation: Energy and Removal Efficiency Analysis. ACS ES&T Engineering.
  • Borovik, A., Karanikola, V., & Zucker, I. (2020). Platform selection of engineered nanomaterials for water decontamination applications. Environ. Sci.: Nano, 7, 3641-3654.
  • Shaulsky, E., Wang, Z., Deshmukh, A., Karanikola, V., & Elimelech, M. (2020). Membrane distillation assisted by heat pump for improved desalination energy efficiency. Desalination, 496, 114694.
  • Dizge, N., Shaulsky, E., & Karanikola, V. (2019). Electrospun cellulose nanofibers for superhydrophobic and oleophobic membranes. JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE, 590.
  • Karanikola, V., Moore, S. E., Deshmukh, A., Arnold, R. G., Elimelech, M., & Sáez, A. E. (2019). Economic performance of membrane distillation configurations in optimal solar thermal desalination systems. Desalination, 472, 114164.
  • Shaulsky, E., Karanikola, V., Straub, A. P., Deshmukh, A., Zucker, I., & Elimelech, M. (2019). Asymmetric membranes for membrane distillation and thermo-osmotic energy conversion. DESALINATION, 452, 141-148.
  • Deshmukh, A., Boo, C., Karanikola, V., Lin, S., Straub, A. P., Tong, T., Warsinger, D. M., & Elimelech, M. (2018). Membrane distillation at the water-energy nexus: limits, opportunities, and challenges. ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, 11(5), 1177-1196.
  • Karanikola, V., Boo, C., Rolf, J., & Elimelech, M. (2018). Engineered Slippery Surface to Mitigate Gypsum Scaling in Membrane Distillation for Treatment of Hypersaline Industrial Wastewaters. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, 52(24), 14362-14370.
  • Li, M., Karanikola, V., Zhang, X., Wang, L., & Elimelech, M. (2018). A Self-Standing, Support-Free Membrane for Forward Osmosis with No Internal Concentration Polarization. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, 5(5), 266-271.
  • Moore, S. E., Ma, L., Potzler, M., Bish, J., Karanikola, V., Prevatt, J., Arnold, R. G., & Sáez, A. E. (2018). Sustainable Struvite Control Using Carbon Dioxide. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, 144(12).
  • Moore, S. E., Mirchandani, S. D., Karanikola, V., Nenoff, T. M., Arnold, R. G., & Sáez, A. E. (2018). Process modeling for economic optimization of a solar driven sweeping gas membrane distillation desalination system. DESALINATION, 437, 108-120.
  • Moore, S., Mirchandani, S., Karanikola, V., Nenoff, T., Arnold, R., & Sáez, A. (2018). Process modeling and economic optimization of a solar driven membrane distillation system for desalination. ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 255.
  • Snyder, K. A., Corral, A. F., Woods, G. J., Prichard, A., Montgomery, M., & Karanikola, V. (2018). Challenges and lessons learned from a sanitation project in rural Bolivia. Development in Practice, 28(7), 911-921. doi:10.1080/09614524.2018.1481198
  • Karanikola, V., Corral, A. F., Jiang, H., Sáez, A. E., Ela, W. P., & Arnold, R. G. (2017). Effects of membrane structure and operational variables on membrane distillation performance. JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE, 524, 87-96.

Awards

  • Runner-up for the U.S. ASPIRE prize from State Department
    • United States Department of State--BUREAU OF OCEANS AND INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS, Spring 2021
  • Early Career Scholars Award
    • University of Arizona Provost Office, Spring 2020
  • Haury Program-Faculty Fellowship
    • Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice, Spring 2017
  • 2017 Faculty Fellow for Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice
    • Arizona Foundation, Fall 2016
  • WPI STEM Faculty launch fellowship
    • WPI University, Fall 2016