Dr. Prager is a chemical engineer with several years industry experience in photographic coatings; pulp and paper; and biomedical point-of-care sensors. Her primary research area focuses on the development of sustainable coatings for packaging development.
Research Interests
- Sustainable packaging
- Renewable resources
- Surface and interfacial phenomena
- Supercritical Impregnation methodologies
- Liquid flow over porous media
- Application of learning theories in engineering education
Biography
Dr. Prager has a diverse working history, covering industry, research, and academic environments. She has used this diverse experience to concentrate on fundamental research of surfaces and interfaces that have real, large-scale applications in the packaging industry in helping to address food insecurity issues and food redistribution efforts. She has also applied this knowledge to soil remediation opportunities.
At the University of Mississippi, Dr. Prager has currently supervised eight graduate (Ph.D. and Masters) students, and a significant number of undergraduate researchers, many of whom go on to graduate school or careers within the paper or coatings industries. She has been awarded several NSF and USDA grants to support her research.
Publications
Muojama, O.E., Hutton-Prager, B., Sheehan, J.D. (2025). Supercritical Fluid Impregnation Enables Rapid Sorption of Hydrophobic Additives into Cellulose for Fabricating Sustainable Packaging Substrates. Accepted in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, 2025.
†Ahmed, F. and Hutton-Prager, B. (2024). Role of Xanthan Gum on Surface and Interfacial Properties of Soil, and Use as a Preventative Measure to Minimize Oil Spreading Across Soil-based Matrixes. Applied Research (2024). http://doi.org/10.1002/appl.202400096
Hutton-Prager, B.H., ‡Fallon, J.P., ‡Henke, B., ‡Zhang, R. and †Perera, W. K. R. Using interfacial behavior and adsorption kinetics measurements as a predictor of bulk hydrophobic development of paper supercritically impregnated with food-grade waxes. Cellulose (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-024-06032-2
†Beheshtimaal, A. and Hutton-Prager, B. (2022). The Effect of Alkyl Ketene Dimer (AKD) and Vegetable Wax (VW) Solubility in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (scCO2) on Wax Impregnation into Paper Substrates. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, September 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colsurfa.2022.130134
†Mansourian-Tabaei, M., Asiaee, A., Hutton-Prager, B., Nouranian, S. (2022) Thermal barrier coatings for cellulose substrates: A statistically designed molecular dynamics study of the coating formulation effects on thermal conductivity, Applied Surface Science, 587 (June). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2022.152879
Hutton-Prager, B., Urena-Benavides, E., Parajuli, S., Adenekan, K. (2021) Cellulose Nanocrystals (CNC) and Cellulose Nanofibers (CNF) as Thermal Barrier and Strengthening Agents in Paper Coatings. Journal of Coatings Technology and Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11998-021-00538-1
Education
Ph.D. Engineering, University of Melbourne (1999)