ChBE
2016
 School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Think Big. Solve Big.
Star Quality:
Successful Recruiting Season Yields Five New Faculty Members
A Message from Contents 1
Strength and Breadth: ChBE by the Numbers
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Development News
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New Faculty Members
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In the Lab
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Faculty News
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Alumni Spotlight: Keisha Wilson Tanner
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Alumni Awards/News
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Student News/Honors
Think Big. Solve Big.
DAVID SHOLL, John F. Brock III School Chair Greetings from the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. I hope you enjoy reading this magazine, which includes highlights from many recent activities within the School. The School continues to be widely recognized for its achievements. To give a recent example, in the 2016 Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities, Georgia Tech was ranked as the 10th best chemical engineering program in the world. Elite company indeed! Our students continue to excel in many ways. At the 2016 Georgia Tech Women in Engineering banquet, 286 ChBE women students were honored for their high GPAs. With statistics like this, it is easy to understand why industrial
recruiters continue to beat a path to our door each year. As you will read in the magazine, the School welcomes five new faculty members this year. This accomplished cohort of individuals further strengthens our faculty’s longstanding traditions of research excellence, diversity, and dedication to education. One of my great pleasures during the last year has been meeting many ChBE alumni at a series of events we have held in the Atlanta area, as well as in visits during my travels across the U.S. and around the globe. It is humbling to learn about the accomplishments our alumni have made in many walks of life with their Georgia Tech degrees. I hope I will have a chance to meet many more of you during the coming year.
About ChBE Established in 1901, the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) is one of eight schools in the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Ranked among the top 10 engineering programs in the nation for both its graduate and undergraduate programs by U.S. News & World Report, the School is
one of the oldest and most diverse programs in the country. The mission of ChBE is to provide students with the intellectual basis to be educated citizens, to prepare them for successful careers, and to advance the science and technology that form the basis of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
STRENGTH & BREADTH ChBE by the Numbers
230+
papers published by ChBE faculty in 2015. Recent publications include Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of the American Chemical Society, and many more.
#2 #4 Best Undergraduate ChBE Programs
#7
- U.S. News & World Report, 2017
America’s Best Public Universities - U.S. News & World Report, 2017
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among U.S. Chemical Engineering departments in Taiwan National University’s “Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities.”
#10
among world’s best chemical engineering departments, 2016 Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Students 1041 undergraduates 221 graduate students
#8
• 27 MS and 194 PhD
Best Graduate ChBE Programs
Faculty & Staff
- U.S. News & World Report, 2017
38 core faculty members (9 women) 11 affiliated faculty 3 academic professionals 64 postdoctoral researchers 29 staff members
Georgia Tech is the LARGEST chemical engineering undergraduate program in the Top 10 of the U.S. News & World Report rankings. More than 75% of ChBE undergraduates receive industrial experience before graduation. CHBE.GATECH.EDU
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STRENGTH & BREADTH ChBE by the Numbers
4 strategic research areas: energy & sustainability biotechnology complex systems materials & nanotechnology
12 ChBE faculty members hold major editorial positions with top technical journals
16 National Science Foundation Career Award winners on the faculty
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Georgia Tech is the only institution in the TOP 5 for R&D spending in the U.S. for both chemistry and chemical engineering (#2 and #3, respectively). - NSF data reported in Chemical and Engineering News
7 faculty members hold endowed chairs: Dennis Hess (Thomas C. DeLoach Jr. Chair) Ravi Kane (Gary Betty/V Foundation Chair) Paul Kohl (Hercules Inc./Gossage Chair) William Koros (Roberto C. Goizueta Chair) Mark Prausnitz (Love Family Chair) David Sholl (John F. Brock III School Chair) Younan Xia (Brock Family Chair)
Faculty members elected to the National Academy of Engineering
AIChE Fellows serving on the faculty
More than 60 percent of ChBE undergraduates participate in research.
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SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL & BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
Wangs Establish Flexible Faculty Endowment for ChBE Generally speaking, it is rare for people to become major donors to the universities where they earned graduate degrees. But don’t tell that to David I.J. Wang, MS ME 1953. Wang and his wife, Cecile, have established a flexible faculty endowment in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE). When realized, the fund will be used by the school chair to deploy according to current needs — whether a faculty chair, two professorships, or three earlycareer professorships. The Cecile L. and David I.J. Wang Faculty Endowment Fund will have a profound impact on the School and its ability to recruit,
retain, and develop eminent teacher-scholars in the field for generations to come. According to David Wang, “The challenges and opportunities facing the engineering profession in 2016 are dramatically different from when I attended Georgia Tech a half-century ago, but Tech has continued to evolve, and remains at the forefront as a premier technology problem solver.” “The Wangs’ generous gift will play a key role in enabling the School to recruit and retain worldclass individuals who will continue our tradition of industry-relevant innovation.” - David Sholl, John F. Brock III School Chair
Mellichamps Endow New Lecture Series A gift from Suzanne C. and Duncan A. Mellichamp has established a new lecture series at the School. The first Mellichamp lecture was held on September 28 and featured Michael C. Jewett, an associate professor at Northwestern University. Duncan Mellichamp, who earned his bachelor’s degree at Georgia Tech in 1959 and PhD from Purdue University, became a research engineer for DuPont before being recruited to help create the chemical engineering department at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
Previously the Mellichamps endowed scholarships in Georgia Tech’s Schools of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.
Giving Opportunities To inquire about making a gift in support of the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, contact: Donna Peyton Director of Development 404-894-0987 give@chbe.gatech.edu
School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering John F. Brock III School Chair: David Sholl Main Office: (404) 894-1838 Chair’s Office: (404) 894-2867 Undergraduate Program: (404) 894-2865 ugrad.info@chbe.gatech.edu Graduate Program: (404) 894-2877 grad.info@chbe.gatech.edu Communications: Brad Dixon, magazine editor (404) 385-2299 news@chbe.gatech.edu Communications Committee: Julie Champion, Michael Filler, Dennis Hess, Athanasios Nenes, Donna Peyton, Elsa Reichmanis, Copyright Institute David Sholl,2015 and• Georgia Jacqueline of Technology School of Chemical & Mohalley Snedeker Biomolecular Engineering
Copyright 2016, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Chemical & Copyright 2014Engineering • Georgia Institute Biomolecular of Technology School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
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Star Quality:
Successful Recruiting Season Yields Five New Faculty Members Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering had a banner year for recruiting new faculty. Five new faculty members are joining the School during 2016-2017 (three in the fall, and two in the spring).
Natalie Stingelin
Professor (with joint appointment in Materials Science and Engineering) PhD, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, 2001 A native of Switzerland, Stingelin was previously a Professor of Organic Functional Materials at the Imperial College of London from 2009-2016. She focuses her research on the broad field of organic functional materials, including organic electronics; multifunctional inorganic/organic hybrids; smart, advanced optical systems based on organic matter; and bioelectronics. She is an associate editor of the
“This accomplished cohort of individuals further strengthens our faculty’s long-standing traditions of research excellence, diversity, and dedication to education,” says School Chair David Sholl.
Journal of Materials Chemistry, and she has published more than 145 papers and six issued patents. She is a co-investigator of the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Large Area Electronics, and she leads the EC Marie-Curie Training Network ‘INFORM’ that involves 11 European partners. She was awarded the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining’s Rosenhain Medal and Prize (2014) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI) Award for Visiting Scientists (2015), among other honors.
Corey Wilson
therapeutics, and bioindustrial applications. His group’s projects include the rational design of temperatureadapted enzyme function; Wilson was an associate engineering resistances to professor at Yale University prior to oxidative decay of protein structure joining Georgia Tech. and function; rational design His laboratory takes a of energy transduction protein multidisciplinary approach to systems; engineering higher-order research, focused on establishing biosensors and alternate allosteric an integrated experimental and computational framework to translate communication; and development of next-generation, ultra-selective understanding of the fundamental aquaporin-based membranes for principles of biophysics and water purification. biochemistry into useful processes, Wilson, who has published devices, therapies, and diagnostics more than 25 papers, was a Gordon that will benefit society. These Moore Postdoctoral Fellow at include novel protein systems for CalTech prior to joining Yale in 2008. bioelectronics, synthetic biology, Associate Professor PhD, Rice University, 2005
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Fani Boukouvala
programming and advanced data analytics for the development of novel modeling and optimization tools. Specificially, she looks at applications in energy and Boukouvala, who hails from Athens, Greece, was a postdoctoral pharmaceuticals. Co-author of 12 published researcher at Texas A&M University papers, she studies algorithmic and Princeton University prior to developments in data-driven joining Georgia Tech. modeling and optimization; bigAs the role of computer simulations grows in science, and as data approaches for optimization of energy efficiency; simulation-based advanced instrumentation enables optimization under uncertainty for the collection of large amounts of CO2 sequestration; and process data, Boukouvala is interested in modeling and optimization for drug the interface of traditional process design and manufacturing. systems engineering, mathematical Assistant Professor PhD, Rutgers University, 2016
Nian Liu
Assistant Professor (starting Jan. 2017) PhD, Stanford University, 2014 After obtaining his PhD from Stanford in 2014, Liu continued there as a postdoctoral research fellow. He designs nanomaterials for high-energy batteries and develops light microscopy to visualize battery reactions. Co-author of 60 published papers, Liu won the Young Investigator Award from the American Chemical Society’s
Division of Inorganic Chemistry in 2015 as well as the Electrochemical Society’s Daniel Cubicciotti Award in 2014. He was selected to present at the 2015 Rising Stars in Chemistry Symposium organized by the University of Chicago. Before starting his undergraduate studies in 2005 at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, Liu won a gold medal in the China National Chemistry Olympiad, among 150,000 competitors. In 2014, he won the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad.
Andrew Medford
Assistant Professor (starting Jan. 2017) PhD, Stanford University, 2015 A postdoctoral researcher in Georgia Tech’s MINED (Materials Informatics for Engineering Design) Group, Medford is interested in leveraging materials informatics, statistics, and machine learning to maximize the practical impact of fundamental atomic-scale simulations in the field of surface science and catalysis. His research areas include heterogeneous catalysis, oxide
surface chemistry, density functional theory, kinetic models, uncertainty quantification, and Bayesian optimization and inference. Co-author of more than two dozen published papers, Medford won an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award at Stanford, and held a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Research Fellowship. He recently participated in the grand-prize-winning project of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Materials Science and Engineering Data Challenge.
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in the lab
“Bacterial Litmus Test” Provides Inexpensive Measurement of Micronutrients A bacterium engineered to produce different pigments in response to varying levels of a micronutrient in blood samples could give health officials an inexpensive way to detect nutritional deficiencies in resource-limited areas of the world. This “bacterial litmus test,” which currently measures levels of zinc, would require no electri-
cal equipment and make results visible as simple color changes, according to a paper published in Mechanical Engineering. More than a billion people worldwide may be at risk for inadequate zinc intake, but measuring zinc levels in blood samples currently requires sophisticated testing equipment not available in
New Metamaterial Separation Proposed The unique properties of metamaterials have been used to cloak objects from light, and to hide them from vibration, pressure waves, and heat. Now, researchers want to add another use for metamaterials: creating a new directional separation technique that cloaks one compound while concentrating the other. Though the idea must still be proven experimentally, the researchers (Assistant Professor Martin Maldovan and graduate student Juan Manuel Restrepo-Flórez) believe that manipulating mass transfer using metamaterials could help reduce the energy required for certain chemical and biomolecular processes. The proposed technique, published in Scientific Reports, would use specially patterned polymeric materials to direct the flow of atoms by taking advantage of their specific physical properties.
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many areas. If field tests show the biosensor (based on modified E. coli) can successfully measure zinc levels, Associate Professor Mark Styczynski’s research team hopes to extend the concept to other micronutrients, including vitamins.
Polluted Dust Affects Distant Ocean Life As climatologists closely monitor the impact of human activity on the world’s oceans, Georgia Tech researchers have found yet another worrying trend impacting the health of the Pacific Ocean. A new modeling study, co-authored by Professor Athanasios Nenes and published in Nature Geoscience, shows that for decades, air pollution drifting from East Asia out over the world’s largest ocean has kicked off a chain reaction that has contributed to falling oxygen levels in tropical waters thousands of miles away. In the report, the researchers describe how air pollution from industrial activities has raised levels of iron and nitrogen – key nu-
SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL & BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
trients for marine life – in the ocean off the coast of East Asia. Ocean currents then carried the nutrients to tropical regions, where they were con-
sumed by photosynthesizing phytoplankton. But while the tropical phytoplankton may have released more oxygen into the atmosphere, their consumption of the excess nutrients had a negative effect on the dissolved oxygen levels deeper in the ocean.
Study: Finding the Origins of Life in a Drying Puddle Anyone who’s ever noticed a water puddle drying in the sun has seen an environment that may have driven the type of chemical reactions that might have been critical to the formation of life on the early Earth. A study published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition demonstrates that important molecules of contemporary life, known as polypeptides, can be formed simply by mixing amino and hydroxy acids – which are believed to have existed together on the early Earth – then subjecting
them to cycles of wet and dry conditions. This simple process, which could have taken place in a puddle drying out in the sun and then reforming with the next rain, works because chemical bonds formed by one compound make bonds easier to form with the other. The study, whose authors include ChBE grad student Sheng-Sheng Yu (pictured right) and Professor Martha Grover, supports the theory that life could have begun on dry land, perhaps even in the desert, where cycles
Study Reveals Essential Ingredients for Nanowire Growth Semiconductor nanowires have emerged as indispensable building blocks for next-generation electronic, energy conversion, and photonic devices (e.g. solar panels, lasers). Therefore, better understanding how to direct nanowire growth is vital, according to Georgia Tech researchers. For years, the synthesis of nanowires has been somewhat mysterious, requiring scientists to experiment with reactor settings, modulating temperature and pressure, to see what would work best – a slow, arduous process of trial and error. However, a team working in Associate Professor Michael Filler’s lab has gained unprecedented insight into the nanowire growth process through the use of real-time infrared spectroscopy. In their study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, they found that surface species, specifically hydrogen atoms and methyl groups, decorate the nanowire’s surface and are essential for the stable growth of nanowires made from germanium.
of nighttime cooling and dew formation are followed by daytime heating and evaporation.
Researchers List “Seven Chemical Separations to Change the World” Thermally based industrial chemical separation processes such as distillation now account for 10 to 15 percent of the world’s annual energy use. Satisfying the global thirst for energy could therefore get a substantial boost from improved technologies for producing fuels, plastics, food, and other products with reduced inputs of energy. In a comment article published in Nature, Professor David Sholl and Assistant Professor Ryan Lively suggest seven energy-intensive separation processes they believe should be the top targets for research into low-energy purification technologies. Beyond cutting energy use, improved techniques for separating chemicals from mixtures would also reduce pollution, cut carbon dioxide emissions – and open up new ways to obtain critical resources the world needs. These processes include separating hydrocarbons from crude oil, uranium from sea water, alkenes from alkanes, greenhouse gases from dilute emissions, rare earth metals from ores, benzene derivatives from each other, and trace contaminants from water. CHBE.GATECH.EDU
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faculty news Michael Filler Started a podcast called Nanovation, a forum to address the big questions, challenges, and opportunities of nanotechnology. Nineteen episodes are available online to date.
Mark Prausnitz Selected as one of three recipients of Georgia Bio’s 2016 Innovation Awards.
Cliff Henderson and Sankar Nair Each lead teams that won $1 million research grants from the National Science Foundation in its competitive Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer Our Future program. Dennis Hess Selected as the 79th Honorary Member of the Electrochemical Society for his exceptional contributions to the field. William Koros Elected as one of five Inaugural Fellows of the North American Membrane Society
Ryan Lively Leading two projects that won grants from the Department of Energy for enhancing the operational efficiency of systems that reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Total funding of two projects: $3.6 million.
Hang Lu Won the Georgia Tech Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award for excellence in mentoring doctoral students. Martin Maldovan Won an American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (ACS-PRF) Doctoral New Investigator Award for his proposed research on “Metamaterials for Manipulation of Chemical Mixtures.” Sally Ng Won the 2016 Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award at Georgia Tech.
Pamela Peralta-Yahya Selected as a 2016 Kavli Fellow by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Named the 2016 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Chemical Engineering Division Lectureship Award Winner.
David Sholl
His book Density Functional Theory, A Practical Introduction was published in Chinese translation by Wiley. Jacqueline Mohalley Snedeker Co-authored a college textbook on technical writing, Writing Style and Standards in Undergraduate Reports, 3rd edition. Yonathan Thio Won the AIChE Outstanding Faculty Award for ChBE.
Center for Chemical Evolution Gets Big Boost The National Science Foundation has renewed the Center for Chemical Evolution (CCE) for another 5 years and $20 million in its quest to understand the origins of life on Earth. ChBE faculty members involved in CCE include Andreas Bommarius, Martha Grover, Charles Liotta, Sally Ng, and F. Joseph Schork. The CCE is looking for a missing link between the prebiotic world and the biological world we live in – two worlds that could hardly be more different.
Researchers Win Major Grant for Algal Biofuels Georgia Tech is part of a team that won a $5 million grant from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to advance the state-of-the-art in algal production and biofuel processing with the end goal of a sustainable, economically viable biofuel intermediate. Tech’s partners on the project include team leader Algenol Biotech LLC as well as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Reliance Industries Limited. ChBE faculty who are involved include Matthew Realff and Ronald Chance.
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Major Distinction:
Jones Wins Andreas Acrivos Award Christopher W. Jones, the Love Family Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech, won the 2016 Andreas Acrivos Award for Professional Progress in Chemical Engineering from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Each year, the award recognizes outstanding progress in the field of chemical engineering by one researcher in any area of chemical engineering research who is less than 45 years old at the end of the calendar year in which the award is presented. To win this prestigious award, the awardee must have made a significant contribution to the
science of chemical engineering, such as development of a new process or product in the chemical engineering field or distinguished service rendered to the profession of chemical engineering. Professor Jones is being honored for the development of novel materials for carbon dioxide adsorption and elucidation of reaction pathways using supported molecular catalysts.
Jones has served the chemistry and chemical engineering community through his leadership as the founding editor-in-chief of the journal ACS Catalysis, the preeminent comprehensive catalysis
journal, which was launched by the American Chemical Society in 2010.
Sally Ng Wins Prestigious NSF CAREER Award Assistant Professor Nga Lee (Sally) Ng won a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation. The CAREER Award is the NSF’s most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Ng’s research program focuses on the fundamental understanding of the formation mechanisms, chemical composition, and health effects of atmospheric aerosols. Secondary organic aerosols, produced from atmospheric reactions, make up a dominant fraction of fine particulate matter (PM) in the atmosphere and have substantial impacts on climate and human health. Ng’s award, including $672,186 over five years, will provide support for her research on how nitrogen oxide emissions from cars react with ozone to
transform naturally occurring emissions from trees into organic aerosols. Specifically, she will focus on increasing scientific understanding of the formation, processing, and fate of organic nitrates created by the interaction of biogenic volatile organic compounds emitted from natural sources and nitrate radicals resulting from pollution. Experiments will be conducted in the Georgia Tech Environmental Chamber facility. Ambient measurements will also be conducted in Atlanta, where there are high natural and anthropogenic emissions. “The results of our series of laboratory experiments and ambient measurements will lead to a better understanding of the formation of very small particles in the atmosphere that are relevant to air quality and climate.” - Sally Ng
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alumni spotlight KEISHA WILSON TANNER (BS ChE 1995) Area Team Lead for BP’s Thunder Horse Rises to Challenges Keisha Wilson Tanner has rarely feared moving outside of her comfort zone – from volunteering for unfamiliar career opportunities to living for a year on an oil-and-gas production/drilling platform. Tanner – area team lead for BP’s Thunder Horse facility in the Gulf of Mexico – says, “Your career is not going to be as successful as you’d like if you’re comfortable all the time. You have to embrace change and accept new challenges.” Inducted into the College of Engineering’s Academy of Distinguished Alumni in spring 2016, Tanner says she took on a major personal challenge even enrolling at Georgia Tech. A native of Nicholls, Georgia, she barely knew anything about the Institute before making a last-minute switch from attending Mercer University to accepting a Georgia Tech scholarship after a persistent bid to recruit her. “I thought that if they were going to put this much effort into recruiting me, I was going to give it a shot,” Tanner remembers. COMPETITIVE STREAK However, the academic challenge was initially a shock for her. Soon after she started, a family friend told her mother that she should bring Tanner home because she was surely “in over her head” having come to Tech from a smalltown high school. Tanner then posted the saying “Keisha is in over her head” on her dorm room wall, not as an admission of defeat, but as a challenge that she would emerge from successfully. “It was exactly what I needed to hear. I’m a little competitive, so it was on!,” remembers 10
person, and the experience really helped me understand how an offshore facility runs and learn how to communicate with the operators,” she says. These days, Tanner spends most of her time on dry land in Houston, Texas, as the area team lead for Thunder Horse, BP’s largest facility Tanner, who found time to be a cheerleader for the Atlanta Falcons, (the size of three football fields) in the Gulf of Mexico. She is respondance for the Georgia Tech band, sible for integrating drilling and and serve as Miss Atlanta 1994. completions, operations, and major An internship at an Amoco project activities to inform business chemical plant affirmed her decision to switch her major from chem- strategy and deliver value. She says she prepared herself istry to chemical engineering. When to take on team leader roles by the company recruited her for volunteering to accept duties, such another internship in the offshore as allocations, that weren’t part business unit in New Orleans, she responded, “I don’t know anything of her job descriptions. “Always deliver more than your defined about oil and gas, so sign me up!” responsibilities. Stretching yourself BP acquired Amoco in 1998, so can open up opportunities you Tanner has effectively worked for never knew you were seeking.” the same company for her entire This is the type of career advice career to date. she offers to undergraduate engiOne of Tanner’s favorite posineers as BP’s Georgia Tech Campus tions was the year she spent as an Champion for job recruitment. operations engineer on a tensionleg platform.“I’m a hands-on “My time at Tech taught me that there’s not anything I can’t do. You can drop me in the wilderness, and I’m going to get out. Drop me into an ambiguous situation with no obvious solution, and I’m going to figure it out.”
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2016 CoE Alumni Awards Four graduates of the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering were honored at the Georgia Tech College of Engineering Alumni Awards in April 2016. They are: • Elizabeth B. Moore, BS ChE 1974, Engineering Hall of Fame. She is the retired vice president, project management & engineering – Western North America, WorleyParsons Ltd. • Xavier P. Lefebvre, PhD ChE 1992, Academy of Distinguished Alumni. He is global vice president, clinical operations, Medtronic. • Sylvia B. Little, BS ChE 1988, MS ChE 2002, Academy of Distinguished Alumni. She is global director, material science, Kimberly-Clark Corporation. • Keisha Wilson Tanner, BS ChE 1995, Academy of Distinguished Alumni. See profile on previous page.
Elizabeth B. Moore (above) Sylvia B. Little and Xavier P. Lefebvre (right)
alumni news & updates Akua Asa-Awuku, PhD 2008, joined the faculty at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland - College Park.
Christopher George, BS 2006, became the first athlete ever to represent Trinidad and Tobago at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the sport judo.
Mincheol Chang, PhD 2014, a graduate of the Reichmanis Group, started as an assistant professor in the Department of Polymer and Fiber System Engineering at Chonnam National University in South Korea.
Christine Grant, PhD 1989, published the book Success Strategies from Women in STEM (Academic Press). She visited ChBE in the spring to sign copies and meet with students.
Dalsu Choi, PhD 2015, joined the KIST Carbon Convergence Research Center, KIST-Jeonbuk Branch (Institute of Advanced Composite Materials) as a researcher. Jeffrey Freeman, BS 2002, and Mareesa Frederick, BS 1997, were promoted to partner at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunbar LLP.
Paula Hammond, MS 1988, gave the annual Ashton Cary Lecture at Georgia Tech’s ChBE in spring 2016. She is head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jason Hicks, PhD 2007, was promoted to associate professor with tenure at the University of Notre Dame.
Richard Moore, PhD 2011, received a NASA New Investigator Award from the NASA Office of Earth Science. These highly competitive awards go to scientists and engineers at the early stage of their professional careers. Krista Pallay, MS 2006, has joined Hydrotex as a sales support engineer. Saujan Sivaram, PhD 2015, formerly of the Filler Lab, won a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, joining the Naval Research Lab.
For more alumni news and updates, please visit chbe.gatech.edu/alumni.
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Perfect Run:
Chem-E-Car Team Makes History Georgia Tech's undergraduate Chem-E-Car team, The Ramblin Wreck, won the 2016 AIChE Southern Regional Chem-E-Car competition, held in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Competing against more than 30 schools, the Georgia Tech team made history by completing the first-ever perfect run (in either regional or national races, according to records) by hitting the required distance of travel (63 feet) exactly with its chemically powered vehicle. The victory secured the team a spot in the national race at the annual AIChE meeting in San Francisco in November 2016. Advised by Professor Cliff Henderson, the team includes undergraduates Joshua Bishop, Jordan Harrison, Cindy Liauw, Jonathan Slater, and Jason Wu.
2016 Air Products Symposium Winners
Commitment to Undergrad Advising Excellence Academic Advising Manager Ami WallerIvanecky continues to win recognition for her commitment to the School’s undergraduates. In spring 2016, she won the National Academic Advising Association’s Outstanding Academic Advisor—Primary Role Award. She also won Georgia Tech’s 2016 Outstanding Undergraduate Academic Advisor Award and the College of Engineering’s 2015 Rising Star award (pictured above with Dean Gary May). 12
ChBE undergrads presented their research on April 15 in the 2016 Air Products ChBE Undergraduate Research Symposium. Winners included: • Kelsey Tjen, first place (second from left) • Miraj Desai, second place (second from right) • Jonathan Gaul, third place (pictured far right) • Ruiyang Zhao, honorable mention (far left).
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2016 Graduate Symposium Winners Congratulations to winners of the School’s 28th Annual Graduate Research Symposium, held Feb. 25-26. Oral session: • 1st prize - Daniel Griffin, “Data-Driven Modeling and Dynamic Programming Applied to Batch Cooling Crystallization” • 2nd prize - Pradnya Samant, “Microneedle Patches for Point-of-Care Diagnostics” • 3rd prize - Jared Schwartz, “Low Ceiling Temperature Polymers
for Transient Electronic Applications” Poster session: • 1st prize - William Mounfield, “Role of Defects and Metal Coordination on Adsorption of Acid Gases in MOFs and Metal Oxides” • 2nd prize - Chad Varner, “Controlling Cellular Responses Using Multivalency” • 3rd prize - Shan Tie, “Optimal Operation of Simulated Moving Bed Reactor: Model Correction and Validation.”
Ziegler Award Winners
Students networked with representatives of the 2016 Graduate Symposium’s sponsors: BASF, Chevron, Dow, Evonik, ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell, Milliken, Phillips 66, Praxair, Shell, and Solvay.
Select Graduate Honors ChBE recognized students for their achievements at the 2016 Student Honors Luncheon on April 21. Select graduate honors presented include: • Exemplary Academic Achievement: Nanqi Bao, Eli Carter, Yuan Gao, Matthew McDonald, Zhongzhen Wang, Jizhang Xu, Fengyi Zhang • Outstanding Performance on the Qualifying Exam: Robert Franklin • Outstanding PhD Thesis: Steven Burgess • Outstanding MS Thesis: Erica Garcia-Gutierrez • Outstanding PhD Proposal: Nils Persson (below)
Yi Zhang (pictured above left) won the Ziegler Award for Best Paper for “Bubble meets droplet: Particle-assisted reconfiguration of wetting morphologies in colloidal multiphase systems.” Harrison Rose (right) won the Ziegler Award for Best PhD Proposal for “An Enzymatic Route to 2,5-Furandicarboxylic Acid.” The Waldemar T. Ziegler Awards were established by the family and friends of the late Professsor Waldemar T. Ziegler to honor his lifelong commitment to academic excellence and research. CHBE.GATECH.EDU
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