Professor
Chemical Engineering
Brigham Young University
350 CB
Provo, UT 84602
phone: (801) 422-4126
email: dean_wheeler@byu.edu
Research area:
Electrochemical Engineering -- modeling and experiments of microstructure and ionic and electronic transport in composite materials, specifically battery electrodes. Optimization of lithium-ion batteries.
Prospective graduate students
If you are interested in coming to BYU and joining my group to earn a Ph.D. or M.S. degree, please read this.
News Feed
- As of March 21, 2018, Prof. Wheeler is active on Instagram! @dean_r_wheeler
- On Sept. 22, 2017, Prof. Wheeler spoke about battery technology with a committee of the Utah Legislature. The associated Powerpoint file is here.
- Prof. Wheeler discussed battery safety on BYU radio in March 2017
- Prof. Wheeler's latest research was featured in June 2015 on BYU Radio
- Prof. Wheeler's research was featured on the BYU homepage in Nov. 2007 and Sept. 2009
Classes Taught
- Ch En 170 - Intro to Chemical Engineering
- Ch En 199R - Academic Internship
- Ch En 263 - Problem Solving Techniques
- Ch En 285 - ChemE Fundamentals Laboratory - Part 1
- Ch En 345 - ChemE Fundamentals Laboratory - Part 2
- Ch En 373 - Thermodynamics
- Ch En 376 - Heat and Mass Transfer
- Ch En 378 - Materials Science for Engineers
- Ch En 391 - Career Skills for Chemical Engineers
- Ch En 498R - ChemE-Car
- Ch En 531 - Thermodynamics of Multicomponent Systems
- Ch En 533 - Transport Phenomena
- Ch En 693R - Electrochemical Engineering
Research Activities
Publications and Presentations
Curriculum Vitae
Graduate Students Advised
- Clint Guymon, Ph.D. 2006 - currently at Safety Management Services
- Indrajeet Thorat, Ph.D. 2009 - currently at an undisclosed large Silicon Valley company
- Elliott Bird, M.S. 2009 - currently at PEO Soldier
- David Stephenson, M.S. 2008 and Ph.D. 2011 - currently at Pacific Northwest National Lab
- Stan Moore, Ph.D. 2012 - currently at Sandia National Lab
- Abhishek Asthana, Ph.D. 2012 - currently at Lam Research
- Dane Hansen, Ph.D. 2012 - currently at Intel
- Yining "Claire" Pan, M.S. 2013 - currently at Intel
- Doug Nevers, M.S. 2013 - currently at Cornell University
- Serena W. Peterson, Ph.D. 2015 - currently at Saft America
- Chien-Wei "Ben" Chao, M.S. 2015 - currently at BD Medical
- Mehdi Forouzan, Ph.D. 2018 - currently at SF Motors
- Fezzeh Pouraghajan, Ph.D. 2020
- Emilee Hunter, M.S. (began 2018)
- Mojdeh Nickpour, Ph.D. (began 2016)
- Baichuan Liu, Ph.D. (began 2017)
- Nathan Clarke, M.S. (began 2018)
- Fei Sun, Ph.D. (began 2018)
- Sina Hamedi, Ph.D. (began 2018)
Resources for students
- Guide to writing scientific papers and other technical writing
- Guide to writing a graduate prospectus for my students
- A summary of how to do confidence intervals
- Corrosion protection principles
- Non-Newtonian fluid math.
- Tank blowdown math.
- Chemical Hazard Assessment Form for students to record chemical safety information for our laboratory procedures
- Writing large scientific documents with Microsoft Word is hazardous to your sanity. Instead use Lyx, which is a graphical interface for a publishing system known as LaTeX. Some helpful LaTeX files for formatting BYU theses and dissertations are here.
- Inkscape is a nice (and free) package for doing line drawings, also known as vector graphics.
- Application for undergraduates to do research in my group
Miscellaneous
- Water rockets
- Classroom demonstrations of engineering principles
- Chemical engineers in movies
- My wife and children (2014 photo)