Anahita Khanlari, PhD, is a research engineer at Nalco Water, a division of Ecolab. She received her PhD in chemical engineering from the Univ. of Kansas (KU) in 2014. At KU, she specialized in hydrogels and water-soluble polymers. After graduation, she joined Nalco Water’s downstream petrochemicals division. During the past six years, she has managed projects in primary olefins, acrylic acid, acrylonitrile, and other reactive monomers. In her current position, she is also responsible for training, sales and marketing support, and leading technical trials. She has authored multiple publications in the area of mechanical tuning of hydrogels and papers for the Ethylene Producers Conference (EPC). Khanlari is also a reviewer for journals in the areas of polymers, biomaterials, and rheology.