ChBE School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Think Big. Solve Big. Clearing the Air: New Direct Air Capture Center Leveraging Georgia Tech’s Leadership in Burgeoning Field
Annual Report
Contents 2
Frugal Science Academy
3
NSF Rules of Life Funding
4
Research Features
6
Direct Air Capture Center
8
Faculty News
9
Alumni Features
11
GT-EQUAL Bridge Program
12
Student Features
Giving Opportunities To inquire about making a gift in support of ChBE, contact: Lauren M. Kennedy (Individuals & Foundations) lauren.kennedy@mse.gatech.edu Donna Peyton (Corporate Development) donna.peyton@chbe.gatech.edu
Think Big.Solve Big.
A Message from Christopher W. Jones,
John F. Brock III School Chair Welcome to the 2023 ChBE@ GT Annual Report. Here, we share stories highlighting activities occurring both on campus and off campus, like our outreach to a local high school where we are inspiring the next generation of STEM innovators with research experiences in “frugal science.” Our faculty and students continue to excel, garnering prestigious local and national awards. For instance, five of AIChE’s 35 under 35 are GT faculty or alumni, including our own Assistant Professor Alex Abramson. Similarly, in the NSF’s funding competition under the theme of “rules of life”, ChBE@GT faculty captured 25% of the projects awarded nationally. Research featured in this year’s annual report includes
topical areas of historic strength at Georgia Tech. ChBE@GT has the most vibrant program in the country in chemical separations, and recent advances in organic/water separations as well as carbon dioxide capture are highlighted. Finally, philanthropy continues to play a critical role in facilitating our collective achievements. Scholarships are opening doors for current and aspiring undergraduate students, graduate fellowships are improving the quality of the graduate student experience, and faculty support is enabling new, high-risk lines of research. I hope you enjoy this year’s Annual Report, and we hope to see you next time you are in Atlanta!
About ChBE Established in 1901, the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) is one of eight schools in the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Ranked among the top 5 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.
CONTACTS: 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 Magazine Editor: Brad Dixon Send news to news@chbe.gatech.edu
STRENGTH & BREADTH: ChBE by the Numbers
#2 #5 #4
Best Undergraduate Chemical Engineering Program in the Nation Best Graduate Chemical Engineering Program in the Nation America’s Best Undergraduate Engineering Colleges - U.S. News & World Report
#5
Best Graduate Chemical Engineering Programs - U.S. News & World Report
#6 22
Student Statistics
Best Chemical Engineering Department in the World
~670 undergraduates 263 graduate students - 240 PhD & 23 MS
- Shanghai Ranking Consultancy
Faculty Statistics
National Science Foundation CAREER Award winners on the faculty
42 faculty members (15 women) 2 affiliated faculty 4 academic professionals
13
9
Faculty members Saad Bhamla elected to the National Academy of Engineering (5 emeritus) :
AIChE Fellows serving on the faculty
More than 60% of ChBE undergrads participate in research.
17 ChBE faculty members hold major editorial positions with top technical journals
CHBE.GATECH.EDU 1
Frugal Science Brings Research Opportunities to High Schoolers medal in the 2018 iGEM competition. Their work was eventually published in the journal PLOS Biology in 2019, giving the high schoolers their first scholarly citation before they had even graduated. “It’s inspirational for students to see other teenagers getting to be first authors from an intense research experience,” said Standeven. Bioengineering PhD sudent Elio Challita has been mentoring Lambert students in the lab for the past four years, helping them refine their research questions, manage projects, and present findings for publication. The reason he got involved was much more personal, though. Growing up in Lebanon, Challita faced similar struggles as some of these high school students. “I thought that frugal science “We’re trying to create the next would democratize science for generation of scientists, and we’re people who have the talent and going to cultivate their ideas into products, and students into inventors drive, but who face the burden of not having money,” he said. “So, I and authors.” - Saad Bhamla (named wanted to be more involved because a 2023 Newsweek “Great Disrupter” it would also allow me to give back for his Frugal Science work) to the community.” Graduate assistant Rajas intended for college students, her Poorna had a similar experience high school students wanted to growing up in India and joined NIH Grant Awarded compete in the synthetic biology the Bhamla Lab to help, but also competition and reached out to Now, with a new five-year believes frugal science makes him a Bhamla to use his open-source grant from the National Institutes stronger researcher. centrifuge to separate liquids using of Health (NIH), Bhamla and “As moved as I am by the centrifugal force. Standeven will pave the way to humanitarian aspect of this, what bring frugal science to high schools excites the physicist in me is that across Georgia. Standeven is now Students Publish Research enforcing ‘frugal constraints’ actuthe program director of ChBE’s Using a 3D printer, the team ally makes it easier to find elegant, Frugal Science Academy. created a centrifuge for molecular simple mechanisms that solve the Bhamla and Standeven first biology research and won a gold problem, regardless of cost,” he said. 2 SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH In 2017, Gaurav Byagathvalli, a Lambert High School junior, reached out to ChBE Assistant Professor Saad Bhamla. They had worked together as part of Lambert’s synthetic biology program led by teacher Janet Standeven. Byagathvalli wanted to transform E. coli with engineered plasmids for an experiment and needed to use electroporation. Rather than purchase a $10,000 electroporator, the team brainstormed ideas to build a frugal version. With some ingenuity, a barbecue lighter became an electroporator and cost less than a dollar, enabling frugal cell transformations. More innovations like this exist in Bhamla’s lab: an automated tracking microscope for STEM, a 3D-printed centrifuge, and an inexpensive cell lysis device for molecular biology. These inventions aren’t just fun challenges — they’re also part of frugal science research between Georgia Tech and Lambert High School. Creating accessible, affordable equipment to democratize research is the foundation of frugal science.
started working together six years ago through her leadership of Lambert’s International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) team. Although typically
Georgia Tech Researchers Win NSF Rules of Life Funding to Address Societal Challenges
Three of 12 projects that received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Using the Rules of Life to Address Societal Challenges are led by researchers in ChBE@GT. The 12 projects received a total of $27 million in investment, supporting the use of knowledge learned from studying the Rules of Life — the complex interactions within and between a broad array of living systems across biological scales, and time and space — to tackle pressing societal challenges, including clean water, planet sustainability, carbon capture, biosecurity, and antimicrobial resistance to antibiotics. The ChBE-related projects received a total of $7.7 million. “The enormous opportunity to apply biological principles to solving the biggest problems of today is one we cannot take lightly. These projects will use life to improve life, including for many underprivileged communities and groups.” - Susan Marqusee, NSF assistant director for Biological Sciences.
The ChBE-led projects include: w Co-Producing Knowledge, Biotechnologies and Practices to Enhance Biological Nitrogen Fixation for Sustainable Agriculture, $2.67 million The project’s principal investigator is Assistant Professor Lily Cheung. Her research team will address food security through low-cost technology based on biological principles to increase nitrogen content in soils and improve crop production on marginal lands. w Next-Generation Biological Security and BioHackathon, $2.81 million The project’s principal investigator is Professor Corey Wilson, and the co-principal investigators include Professor Matthew Realff. The researchers will create programmable, biological combination lock methods — “on and off” states — for using synthetic biology safely, containing potentially dangerous organisms and protecting valuable ones.
w Synthetic Protocell Communities to Address Critical Sensing Challenges, $2.23 million The project’s principal investigator is Professor Mark Styczynski, and the co-principal investigators are Shuichi Takayama, professor of biomedical engineering; Brian Hammer, associate professor of biological sciences, and Neha Garg, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry. The researchers will create synthetic “protocells” enabling the development of a highly sensitive, field-deployable analysis system that could be used for many applications such as measuring micronutrient deficiencies in undernourished populations.
CHBE.GATECH.EDU 3
RESEARCH @ChBE Study Sheds Light on Toxicity of Atmospheric Particulate Pollution Each year, exposure to airborne particulate matter known as PM2.5 (particles with a diameter smaller than 2.5 micrometers) leads to millions of premature deaths worldwide. Organic aerosols are the dominant constituents of PM2.5 in many locations around the world. Historically, the chemical complexity of organic aerosols has made it difficult to gauge their toxicity level. But a study led by researchers at Georgia Tech has advanced understanding of both the chemical composition of PM2.5 and the reaction of alveolar cells of the lungs exposed to this pollution, highlighting the growing threat posed to human health. Published in Environmental Science and Technology, the study shows that oxidized organic aerosols (OOA) are the most toxic type of organic aerosols in PM2.5.
“Oxidized organic aerosols are the most abundant type of organic aerosols worldwide,” said Professor Nga Lee “Sally” Ng. “For example, when wildfire smoke reacts in the atmosphere, it generates OOA.” As the researchers used advanced techniques such as mass spectrometry to analyze the chemical composition of PM2.5 in Atlanta, Georgia, they simultaneously measured the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in alveolar cells resulting from pollution exposure. ROS are molecules that can cause oxidative stress and damage to our cells, potentially leading to various health problems, including cardiopulmonary diseases. To understand the mechanisms behind PM2.5-induced oxidative stress, the researchers employed
Aerosol chemical measurements and sample collections were conducted at the SEARCH network site at Jefferson Street in Atlanta, Georgia. cellular assays, which allowed them to measure both chemically and biologically generated ROS. The study revealed that highly unsaturated species containing carbon-oxygen double bonds and aromatic rings within OOA are major drivers of cellular ROS production, advancing understanding of the chemical features of ambient organic aerosols that make them toxic.
Researchers Provide Insight into Evolving Drug-Delivery Systems Technology Imagine having a tiny device inside your body that can continuously monitor your health and deliver the right treatment when needed. That’s what closed-loop drug delivery systems (CLDDs) can provide, automatically monitoring, adjusting, and administering medication in response to specific signals within the body. For example, CLDDs can be used to manage chronic medical conditions, such as diabetes, where maintaining precise control over medication dosage is critical. While they hold immense promise for improving patient outcomes and treatment adherence, CLDDs have only recently entered
interfaces (HMIs). ChBE researchers (including Assistant Professor Alex Abramson) have published an article in Device that provides a comprehensive overview of advancements, strengths, and challenges associated with CLDD approaches. Examples of devices already in use include insulin pumps, implantable pain pumps, and epilepsy neurostimulators.
clinical use due to the difficulty in integrating the sensing and actuating components of human-machine
“Active closed-loop, drug-delivery systems are poised to usher in a new generation of remote, personalized healthcare driven by humanmachine interfaces.” - Alex Abramson
4 SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
Super-fast Insect Urination Powered by the Physics of Superpropulsion “Little is known about the fluid dynamics of excretion, despite its impact on the morphology, energetics, and behavior of
sharpshooters – tiny pests notorious for spreading disease in crops – excrete the way they do. By using computational fluid dynamics and biophysical experiments, the researchers studied the fluidic, energetic, and biomechanical principles of Assistant Professor Saad Bhamla animals,” he said. excretion, revealing how an insect was in his backyard when he noticed smaller than the tip of a pinky something he had never seen finger performs a feat of physics and before: an insect urinating. bioengineering – superpropulsion. Although nearly impossible to Their research, published in see, the insect formed an almost Nature Communications, is the first perfectly round droplet on its observation and explanation of this tail and then launched it away so phenomenon in a biological system. quickly that it seemed to disappear. Studying how sharpshooters The tiny insect relieved itself use superpropulsion can also “We wanted to see if this tiny repeatedly for hours. provide insights into how to design insect had come up with any clever It’s generally taken for granted engineering or physics innovations in systems that overcome adhesion that what goes in must come out, order to pee this way.” - Saad Bhamla and viscosity with lower energy. so when it comes to fluid dynamics One example is low-power water(left, with Elio Chalita) in animals, the research is largely ejection wearable electronics, such focused on feeding rather than as a smart watch that uses speaker excretion. He and Bioengineering PhD vibrations to repel water from the But Bhamla had a hunch that student Elio Chalita investigated device. what he saw wasn’t trivial. how and why glassy-winged
Georgia Tech Engineers Develop Carbon Membranes Enabling Efficient Removal and Concentration of Organic Molecules from Water The need to remove organic contaminants from surface waters continues to grow due to an increasing influx from industrial, municipal, and agricultural sources. But these contaminants are challenging to remove outside of thermally driven separation processes, such as distilling or drying, which consume significant amounts of energy. However, researchers in ChBE@ GT have developed rigid, carbon membranes that effectively remove and concentrate small organic molecules (such as solvents) from water, based on the affinity between the organic species and carbon membrane. Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this
Traditionally, most membranes are designed to selectively permeate clean water while creating a highly concentrated organic waste stream that requires additional treatment. However, the unique behavior of these carbon membranes derived from a polymer of intrinsic microporosity developed by the Georgia Tech team has the unexpected ability to aldiscovery challenges conventional low the enhanced passage of organic molecules relative to that of water understanding, said Professor Ryan Lively. That’s because the new carbon molecules. membranes enable the permeation, rather than rejection, of organic mol- “This observation was unexpected ecules from aqueous mixtures, lead- and puzzling for several months, and ing to their higher concentration in we were highly skeptical of these the membrane permeate compared findings.” - lead author Haley White to the membrane feed. (ChBE PhD 2022). CHBE.GATECH.EDU 5
Scrubbing Carbon Directly from the Air: New Direct Air Capture Center Leveraging Georgia Tech’s Leadership in Burgeoning Field In 2015, nearly 200 countries agreed: they would reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to limit warming of the earth’s atmosphere to well below 2 degrees Celsius. The Paris Agreement actually aims for 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels to avoid potential catastrophic changes to our climate. But it’s become increasingly clear to climate scientists and policymakers that just reducing emissions is not enough. “We now know that we probably should have stopped putting massive amounts of CO₂ in the air 10, 20, 30 years ago to prevent the climate from getting above 2 degrees C,” said Professor Chris Jones. “Now we’ve waited so long to reduce our emissions that we need to develop technologies that are referred to as negative emissions technologies that remove CO₂ from the atmosphere.” Jones was one of a handful of scientists who co-authored a landmark National Academies report in 2018 that outlined a variety of approaches to negative emissions. Agricultural practices and forest management are options — essentially using nature’s ability to grab carbon dioxide out of the air and lock it away in plants and soil. But Jones said we’ll need quicker and more direct approaches. “We could plant billions of trees to do this, but there’s not enough available land. And the trees don’t grow fast enough for us to do this quickly enough to slow global warming at the rate required.” - Chris Jones That’s where direct air capture comes in: It’s a chemical engineering way of designing a process that takes CO₂ out of the air. Direct air capture is a bit like a massive household air purifier — but
Postdoctoral fellow Poorandokht Kashkouli, seated, discusses test data from their direct air capture rig with Ryan Lively, left, and Chris Jones. The system pulls air across filter materials to remove carbon dioxide.
for the globe. Systems would pull air across specially designed filter materials with molecules that grab CO₂. When the filters are saturated, they’re cleaned, and the carbon dioxide is pumped underground for storage in the very places we’ve extracted oil and natural gas over the decades. It’s a technology proposed only in 1999, with companies launched in 2008, and it’s now quickly becoming a reality, according to Professor Matthew Realff. “It’s definitely a technology that is moving past the lab; it’s in the pilot scale/deployment phase as an initial technology. By 2030, we should see deployment of what I would call the first commercial-scale facilities in different places in the United States — systems that can remove a million tons of CO₂ a year.” “If you’re going to make a difference, to be honest, it really needs to be at about 1,000 times that scale, a gigaton scale of direct air capture,” Realff continued. “Some people would argue that we might need even more than that two to three decades from now, depending on how our
emissions reduction efforts go.” Realff and Jones are working at different ends of the direct air capture spectrum — the systems and molecular levels — to develop the technology. In between is ChBE Professor Ryan Lively, who works on materials, devices, and processes. Now they’re recruiting more of their Georgia Tech colleagues to the cause with a newly established Direct Air Capture Center (DirACC) within Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute. Leveraging Longstanding Leadership “As an institution, Georgia Tech has essentially been involved since the direct air capture field’s infancy,” Jones said. Jones has led collaborations since 2008 with one of the original startup companies in the field, Global Thermostat. Lively leads an Energy Frontier Research Center that’s working on how materials for cleanenergy technology evolve and degrade. One of the focus areas is direct air capture. Alongside the 2018 National Academies report, Congress intro-
6 SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
duced a federal tax credit for removing carbon dioxide from the air. Lawmakers more than tripled those incentives to $180 per ton in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Jones said that got people’s attention. “Since 2018, we’ve had billions of dollars of legislation for direct air capture technology research and development. That trend is why we are launching the Direct Air Capture Center now: We really want to communicate to the outside that we are a hub in this space.” - Chris Jones Lively said DirACC will fill a need nationally to act as a convener of researchers, industry, funders, and other stakeholders. It is one of a few centers in the nation focused on direct air capture and the first such effort to encompass the complete supply chain of capture and sequestration of CO₂ from the air. Location Matters Jones works at the first step of the carbon-capture process: the molecules that link with CO₂ to pull it out of the air. One of the areas he’s become most interested in is customizing different materials for different locations and climates. “A molecule or a material that we studied five years ago maybe failed operating at 80 degrees Fahrenheit. That would not work in Atlanta or in Florida, but maybe it works really well if we go to 50 degrees F or 20 degrees F, and we can deploy it in Montana,” Jones said. “We’re starting to think more about whether we might have advantaged materials or advantaged processes in particular locations.” In a future where direct air capture is widely deployed — say, 20 years from now — Jones said there could be a dozen different solutions customized to different locations around the globe. Another frontier is engineering carbon capture materials that will
The center’s researchers developed coated carbon fibers housed in a canister, a design inspired by Ryan Lively’s encounter with an old pneumatic tube in a bank drive-through. Using ambient wind flow to draw air across the fibers, the system captures carbon dioxide with sufficient purity for underground sequestration and eliminates many of the substantial upfront costs of building a typical DAC system.
last long enough to be economically practical, Lively said. When Jones creates molecules that grab carbon dioxide out of the air, Lively incorporates them into fibers that can be bundled together or even woven into fabric. Those fibers seem to be durable, but the question is whether the delicate chemistry of the molecules repeatedly capturing and then releasing the CO₂ can hold up. The DOE-funded center Lively leads is working in part to better understand how these materials evolve and degrade. “One of the key cost drivers is, how long can you make these things last?” Lively said.
Creating fibers for use in a canister, filter, or other device has become a fairly mature technology, Lively said, so the team is working now to move some of their materials into the commercial market. He’s also experimenting with 3D printing approaches that can create more complex structures with the materials. Another emerging idea would pair direct air capture systems with natural gas combined-cycle power plants. These plants use gas to turn a turbine and generate electricity. The waste heat from that process is then used to create steam that turns another turbine and generates more power. Realff, Jones, and Lively have partnered with ChBE’s Fani Boukouvala and Joe Scott on a project to instead use that steam to do conventional post-combustion carbon capture and to power a direct air capture system. “With the combination of those two systems, we can get natural gas combined-cycle plants that can operate and be net negative in their carbon dioxide,” Realff said. In fact, he said, the reduction in carbon from such a system would be enough to wipe out the carbon emissions of another power plant operating at full capacity. No Time to Waste Those kinds of advances will be critical to making direct air capture economical enough to have impact, the researchers said. Jones called it a generational challenge akin to NASA’s failure-isnot-an-option mantra during the 1960s moon missions. “The level of funding and interest is pretty enormous, but the challenge, unfortunately, might be even more enormous than the interest. The longer we wait, the bigger the challenge.” - Ryan Lively
CHBE.GATECH.EDU 7
Faculty News Alex Abramson was named one of the 35 Under 35 by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) for 2023 for his research on drug delivery and bioelectronic therapeutics.
Mark Prausnitz was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. His research focuses on developing microneedle devices for minimally invasive drug and vaccine administration.
Christopher Jones won the 2023 Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology. Also, the ACS ENFL Division selected him for the 2023 Distinguished Researcher Award.
Carsten Sievers was named an American Chemical Society (ACS) Fellow. His contributions include establishing the technical program of the Catalysis Science and Technology Division as its first program chair.
Ravi Kane is leading a multiuniversity team that has received a five-year, $4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a more resilient flu vaccine — one that provides lasting protection from season to season.
Natalie Stingelin was elected to the European Academy of Sciences. The honor is bestowed upon the most distinguished European scholars and engineers for their research and contributing to the development of advanced technologies.
Carson Meredith was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). His research has made significant contributions to the field of sustainable materials for packaging and plastic alternatives.
Krista Walton was chosen as Georgia Tech’s associate vice president for Research Operations and Infrastructure.
Nge Lee (Sally) Ng was the 2023 AGU Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award Recipient. She is also the editor of the new ACS ES&T Air journal.
Micah Ziegler is joining ChBE as an assistant professor in January 2024 after completing his posdtoc at MIT. Holding a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, he researches sustainable energy and chemical technologies.
8 SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
CoE Alumni Awards Four graduates of ChBE were honored at the Georgia Tech College of Engineering Awards in April 2023 for their achievements and contributions to the profession. "Our honorees are the epitome of Georgia Tech, and I’m humbled to stand among them as members of our alumni community," said College of Engineering Dean Raheem A. Beyah. This year’s inductees from ChBE are: w Decie Burnett Autin Coleman (Engineering Hall of Fame), BS ChE 1980, Vice President of Project Management, Global Projects Company (retired), ExxonMobil
w Michelle Mason (Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni), BS ChE 1986, Senior Market Developer, ExxonMobil w Amit Chandrasekhar (Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni), BS ChBE 2011, MS ChBE 2012, Associate Director of Pharmaceutical Development, Cassava Sciences Inc. w Vedant Pradeep (Dean’s Impact Award), BS ChBE 2019, BS CmpE 2019, CEO, Glucobit Inc.
Decie Burnett Autin Coleman (center with CoE Dean Raheem A. Beyah and co-host Sandra (Sandy) Magnus)
Michelle Mason (center)
Amit Chandrasekhar (center)
Vedant Pradeep (center) with business partner Ziyi Gao (BS IE 2017, right)
Alumni Spotlight The Gift That Keeps on Giving:
Tech Alum Bill Todd Names a ChBE Scholarship as Birthday Present When pondering the perfect gift for a milestone birthday of his significant other, GT alum Bill Todd initially felt stymied, thinking of the cliché about what to buy the “woman who has everything.” He decided that jewelry or other expensive gifts wouldn’t be as meaningful for either of them as starting a scholarship in her name for undergraduates in ChBE@GT. So, in early 2022, his gift created the Cheryl Johnson Weldon Scholarship Fund. Weldon graduated with a chemical engineering degree from Georgia Tech in 1985, while Todd earned an industrial management degree in 1971. “We’re both beneficiaries of a Georgia Tech education and share a desire to pay it forward, so I created a need-based scholarship,” Todd said. “We want to find those bright, motivated people who deserve to be here, but might not be without some help.” Of the birthday gift, Weldon said she knew Todd “had something up his sleeve,” before he presented her with the scholarship documentation at her birthday dinner. “I was so pleasantly surprised,” she said. Todd said he is happy that some of his alumni friends are emulating this giving model of naming gifts honoring loved ones. First Scholarship Recipient Hannah Clay, a Georgia Tech cheerleader who is considering a career in renewable energy, said
Novoste in 2001 after marriage, then enterered the world of fashion a few years later. Earlier this year, she launched a new business with Cabi, an innovative boutique fashion brand. Weldon, who served on the ChBE External Advisory Board for many years, was inducted into the College of Engineering’s Council of Outstanding Young Alumni in 2002. She first met Todd around 2009 while the two served as board members of the Alumni Association. They began dating nine years ago. Todd, a member of the College of Engineering’s Academy of Distinguished “I absolutely love Georgia Tech, and I Alumni, began his career at Emory would love to give back to the school University hospitals, where he rose one day too.” - Weldon Scholarship to the executive level during his two recipient Hannah Clay decades there. His 40-year career in health she was shocked when she got the care included eight years as presicall from the Office of Scholarships dent and CEO of the Georgia Cancer and Financial Aid informing her of Coalition prior to joining Scheller the scholarship, which she hadn’t College of Business as a professor of known existed. the practice in 2011. She has received $5,000 of In 1990, he became the foundsupport from the scholarship for ing president of the Georgia Reher sophomore and junior years. search Alliance, which fosters Having the Weldon scholarship advances in medicine. He also helped ease the burden of living founded Encina Technology Venexpenses and loans, she said. tures in 2000. Since joining Scheller College, Professional Journeys Todd has taught the Management in the Healthcare Sector seminar every After graduating from Tech, semester, winning teaching awards Weldon earned an MBA from the from both the College and Institute. Kellogg School at Northwestern “What I’m doing as a professor University in 1989. She was part of the founding management team of of the practice is giving my students very practical exposure to rich, rea medical device company, Nowarding careers,” Todd said. voste Corporation. But she stepped away from
10 SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
GT-EQUAL Helps Underrepresented Students Pursue Graduate Studies As the primary caregiver for his toddler-aged daughter, Andre Berry already had his hands full as he embarked on his graduate studies at ChBE@GT in fall 2022. While he said the first year was definitely challenging (including initially traveling an hour each way to reach the daycare of Amara, now 3), he found support almost everywhere he turned as a student in the GT EQUAL (Graduate Training for Equality in Underrepresented Academic Leadership) program. Established in 2019, the GTEQUAL Program is one of two sites at Georgia Tech for the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Bridge Program, which aims to increase the number of PhDs in the chemical sciences that are awarded to students from underrepresented groups. The GT-EQUAL Bridge Site enrolls two Bridge Fellows annually who will earn a thesis MS in chemical engineering while receiving full funding, tailored support, mentoring, and training to prepare for success in a PhD program. While the ACS funded the GTEQUAL during the first three years of its existence, ChBE@GT is now looking for additional means of support so the program can continue helping students like Berry succeed. “So far, it’s been an amazing, outstanding experience,” he said. Crossing the Bridge Berry, who’d earned a BS in chemistry and a BS in chemical sciences at Kennesaw State University, finishing in 2021, found not having much of an engineering background was a significant bridge to cross during his first year. “Most people understand the situation I’m in, and there has always been someone to help if I need something, especially academically,
“These people have all been really integral to my success so far, as I get better and better at fulfilling my roles here while still being both a good parent and student.” - Andre Berry from tutors to other Bridge students to the faculty,” Berry said. Berry became interested in ChBE@GT when he learned of the research of Professor Corey Wilson, whose lab engineers
his application for the PhD program was rejected. However, Wilson advocated for him, and Berry was soon contacted by Professor Martha Grover, associate chair of graduate students and director of GT-EQUAL, as a strong candidate for the Bridge program. “We are a leader in educating students from underrepresented groups,” said Grover. “Nationally the numbers are too small, and we are committed to doing more. But we’re very pleased to see many of our Bridge students progressing from the MS to the PhD program. That’s why we’re seeking more financial support to keep the program going and growing. We’ve been really grateful for help from 3M Corporation.” Approaching the Finish Line Alexa Dobbs, a member of the first cohort of Bridge students in 2019, is getting closer to reaching her goal of earning a PhD. She first heard about the Bridge Program through a professor who
Associate Professor Blair Brettmann (left) and PhD student Alexa Dobbs (photo: Garry McLeod, LLNL)
novel synthetic biological systems. He traveled to campus to meet with Wilson, and the two hit it off, he said. But Berry, who aims to work in counter bioterrorism for the nation’s defense after earning his doctorate, was disappointed when
mentored her during her undergraduate studies as a chemistry major at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. “She knew I was Native American. We’re from the same tribe and had been in touch throughout the years. Continued on Page 13
CHBE.GATECH.EDU 11
Student Spotlight Henry Freer (BS ChBE 2023) First PhD Student on Tech Football Team Henry Freer, a PhD student in ChBE@GT, is doing something thought to be unprecedented in the history of Georgia Tech football and academics. He’s believed to be the first football student-athlete ever enrolled in a PhD program at Tech while still an active player. He’s in his second year as a Yellow Jackets’ starting long snapper after graduating with his BS from ChBE in May. “It’s definitely an honor. It’s exactly what we do here at Tech. We do things people haven’t done before.” “His level of intelligence is off the charts,” said coach Brent Key. Freer first took up longsnapping as a high school sophomore at Woodward Academy. A member of its back-to-back region championship teams, he was recruited to play football by several schools, including Carnegie Mellon and MIT.
But he decided to hang up his cleats to dive into his undergraduate studies at Tech. In May of his senior year of high school, though, Georgia Tech’s coaches reached out to Freer about joining the team as a walk on. “I never yell at him because he might be my boss one day,” said special teams coach Ricky Brumfield.
Maeve Janecka Wins Prestigious Goldwater Scholarship In spring 2023, undergraduate Maeve Janecka earned the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for her work in science and engineering. From a pool of thousands, 413 scholarships were awarded, with funding of $7,500 per year. “It’s a great honor to be recognized because there were so many talented applicants in both the campus round and the
national Goldwater competition,” Janecka said. “I’m hoping to use the scholarship funding to study abroad in 2024.” After graduation in August 2024, Janecka plans to pursue an MD/PhD and study endometriosis. “My career goal is to work in an academic medical center and be principal investigator of a women’s
health research lab,” she said. Janecka is currently a Petit Scholar in Professor Julie Champion’s lab, where she researches the drug delivery properties of a novel orthopedic implant material. “Our project has shown promising results thus far, and I’m excited to continue working on it throughout the next year,” she said. Janecka said she is grateful to the ChBE community for its dedication to its students. “All of my ChBE professors are amazing educators, and they make this challenging major worthwhile.”
12 SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
2023 NSF Fellowships
Seven students of Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering won 2023 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships. GT-ChBE grad student winners: Emily Heckard, KC Jacobson, Henry Kantrow, Felicia Oentoro, David Pando (pictured above left to right) Former undergrads: Chris Allen (BS, 2023) and Max Kazman (BS, 2022)
Ziegler Award - Best Paper
Ziegler Award - Best PhD Proposal
Rahul Venkatesh won ChBE’s 2023 Ziegler Award for Best Paper for “Toward Gene-Correlated Spatially Resolved Metabolomics with Fingerprint Coherent Raman Imaging”
GT-EQUAL Feature Continued From Page 11
In my senior year, she urged me to explore bridge programs as she believed it would be a good fit for me.” While transitioning from a small mining town to the large city of Atlanta was an adjustment she learned to enjoy, adapting to the rigors of the PhD program without an engineering background could be a tough road at times – especially as the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted some of her research.
But she said the excellent support system of GT-EQUAL made a huge difference. Her professional development mentor, Associate Professor Blair Brettmann, was especially helpful in navigating challenges, Dobbs said. So much so that she joined Brettman’s lab for her PhD studies after completing her MS. Together Brettmann and Dobbs spent summer 2023 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), collaborating with the Lab’s materials science experts. “It was great to expand my understanding of the entire manufac-
Victor Brandão won ChBE’s 2023 Award for Best PhD Proposal for “Microenvironment Engineering for the CO2 Reduction Reaction Over Copper Electrocatalysts”
turing process and learn about key challenges in the field from experts at the lab,” said Dobbs, who is now considering national lab positions after she finishes her PhD in 2026. Dobb’s accomplishments to date include winning a 2022 best poster award at the ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium, three co-authored papers, and a first-author publication that is in the pipeline. “I would not be in this position now if it were not for tbe ACS Bridge Program.”
CHBE.GATECH.EDU 13
Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Georgia Tech Atlanta, GA Permit No. 8087
Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering 311 Ferst Drive NW Atlanta, GA 30332-0100 404-894-1328 (phone) 404-894-2866 (fax) chbe.gatech.edu
Think Big. Solve Big.
Visit us online at chbe.gatech.edu
©2023 Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
