Education

• Ph.D., Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University - Kingsville, 2013
• M.S., Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University - Kingsville, 2007
• M.S., Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University - Kingsville, 2004

 

Academic experience

• Texas A&M   University-Kingsville, Department   of   Chemical   and   Natural   Gas Engineering, Assistant Professor of Practice, September 2022-Present, full time
• Texas A&M   University-Kingsville, Department   of   Chemical   and   Natural   Gas Engineering, Visiting Assistant Professor, September 2014-August 2022, full time
• Texas A&M   University-Kingsville, Department   of   Chemical   and   Natural   Gas   Engineering, Lecturer I, September 2013-August 2014, full time
• Texas A&M  University-Kingsville, Department  of  Environmental  Engineering,  Adjunct Lecturer, September 2012-December 2012, full time
• Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Department of Environmental Engineering, Graduate Assistant Researcher, September 2009-May 2013, full time
• Texas A&M  University-Kingsville,  Department  of  Chemical  Engineering,  Graduate  Assistant Researcher, September 2006-  December 2007, full time

 

Research Specialties

• Sustainable groundwater use
• Groundwater modeling

 

Research Grants (External)

Sr. Personnel, National Science Foundation, “CREST Center for Sustainable Water Use (CREST-SWU)”, 2019 – 2025

 

Thesis Advisor

• Amaya has served as thesis co-advisor (with Dr. Alexander) for 3 Master Thesis students for 2019 - Present

 

Current membership in professional organizations

• Tau Beta Pi
• National Ground Water Association
• Air & Waste Management Association

Honors and awards

• Professor of the Year, College of Engineering, TAMUK, May 2023

 

Service activities

• Session moderator, TAMUK College of Engineering Snr. Design Conference, April 2024
• Session moderator, TAMUK College of Engineering Snr. Design Conference, May 2018
• Aspen Plus Workshop for Rio Grande Valley engineering students, August 2016
• TIES Rio Grande Valley 2016 – demonstrated experiments, February 2016
• Advisor, AiChE ChemE Car, Spring 2015
• Unit Operations lab tours (multiple events), Fall 2014 – Present
• Weslaco Initiative Recruitment, McAllen, Texas, November 2014
• TAMUK Commercial Shoot, September 2014
• Lecturer, Research Experience for Teachers/Undergraduate Research Opportunity (RET-URO) summer program, Summer 2013
• Lecturer and   Adviser,   Research   Experience   for   Teachers/Undergraduate   Research   Opportunity (RET-URO) summer program, Summer 2012

 

Publications and presentations from the past five years

• “Communication Skills Instruction in a Two-semester Capstone Design Course Sequence”, co-authored with J. Amaya, presented at the AIChE National Meeting, Orlando, FL, November 2019
• “Work In Progress: Best Practices in Teaching a Chemical Process Design Two-course Sequence at a Minority Serving University”, M. Alexander and J. Amaya ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings, v 2019.
• Amaya (Invited speaker); Approaches to Evaluate Interactions in Collaborative Groundwater Management. Oral  Presentation  to  the  Society  of  Industrial  and  Applied  Mathematics  Conference on Computational Science and Engineering Conference 2015 , MS 216; Salt Lake City, Utah, March 2015

 

Professional Development Activities

• AIChE Process Safety Workshop, August 2022
• Interactive Learning Spaces Training, August 2019
• ProMax Process Simulator Training Course, January 2016
• Effective Teaching Workshop, August 2015
• Distance Teaching workshop, May 2015