He is a faculty adviser at the Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, member of the Center for Solar Energy and Energy Storage, and Faculty Advisor to the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) at Washington University. Professor Agonafer earned his PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan fellowship, Graduate Engineering Minority Fellowship, and NSF Center of Advanced Materials for Purification of Water with Systems (WaterCAMPWS). Prior to joining Washington University, Damena joined Professor Ken Goodson’s Nanoheat lab as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Stanford University.