Shaina Kelly

Shaina Kelly is assistant professor of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia Engineering. Kelly’s research group investigates “submicron to subsurface” transport phenomena in geologic and engineered porous media for sustainable energy and environmental applications, including subsurface carbon storage and mineralization.

Kelly’s research focuses on characterizing and optimizing the interplay between multiphase flow and fluid-mineral interactions in a spectrum of energy-related sedimentary and igneous/metamorphic rocks, as well as in soils and engineered materials such as membranes and cements. The Kelly Lab specializes in characterizing flow in nanopores and films to quantify how interfacial interactions influence fluid and solute transport in complex and low-permeability porous media. The lab integrates pore-to-core-scale sample analyses and measurement techniques, microscopy, micro/nanofluidics, and computational fluid dynamics methods (CFD) to identify emergent pore-scale phenomena. Kelly Lab’s experimental and numerical pore-scale findings are upscaled in terms of engineering variables such as effective viscosity, diffusivity, capillary pressure, wettability indices, and relative permeability for continuum modeling of rock energy production, alteration, and storage scenarios.

Kelly has six-plus years of related industry experience and specializes in the study of how interfacial interactions influence fluid and solute transport in complex, low-permeability porous media, beginning with the characterization of capillary imbibition in varied nanochannels and extending to the characterization of wettability and migration pathways in nanoporous rocks. Kelly received her PhD from the University of Texas, Austin, in 2015 and her BS from the University of Florida in 2011.