Student Summer Adventures
Curious about how our undergraduate ChBE students spend their summers? Read about (clockwise from top left) Jenni Moon optimizing a reverse electrodialysis cell in South Korea; Amy Resman interning for Shell in Alaska; Madison Gallipo studying in Vietnam and working at New Sky Energy; Rami Meharzi simulating water heaters on a “smart” grid in Paris; Parker Nash competing in the World University Games in South Korea; and Nathan Edwards developing a portable digital polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machine in Arizona.
New Faculty Bring Bioeng, Catalysis, Simulation Expertise
With expertise ranging from synthetic biology to catalysis to molecular simulation, our four new ChBE faculty members are strengthening the department in a myriad of fields.
Associate Professor Hendrik Heinz (nanosimulations) and Assistant Professor Adam Holewinski (catalysis) joined the department this fall. While setting up their research programs this semester, they have been teaching graduate-level Thermodynamics and Kinetics, respectively.
This coming spring, Dr. Michael Shirts (biosimulations) and Dr. Jerome Fox (synthetic biology) will join the department at the associate and assistant professor levels, respectively. While Shirts will teach graduate-level Numerical Methods in Chemical Engineering, Fox will instruct the undergraduate students in Biokinetics.
Reengineering How We Teach
“OMG, that’s the LearnChemE school! I wouldn’t have passed Heat Transfer without your screencasts. You’re so lucky you get to take classes where the professors making the screencasts actually teach.”
This comment was recounted to Professor John Falconer by a junior CU chemical engineering student participating in a summer research experience for undegraduates (REU) program. When the student had told her fellow REU participants she was from CU-Boulder, they began relating how CU’s screencasts had helped them.
Falconer is no stranger to these types of stories. The impetus behind CU’s screencast efforts, he, Janet deGrazia, and Will Medlin have spent years promoting active learning techniques and creating thousands of screencasts (short video clips) and ConcepTests (conceptual in-class clicker questions). His educational work has earned Falconer national honors such as the 2015 Lewis Award for Chemical Engineering Education, the 2015 AIChE Himmelblau Award and a feature in Chemical Engineering Education.
It is his own classroom experiences that have driven Falconer’s educational efforts.
>>Find out how Falconer’s teaching differs from traditional lectures
Circling Back to Boulder
From biofuels in the Bay Area to biomedical devices in Boulder, alumna Kristen (Potter) Bradley (ChemBioEngr ’10) has come full circle.
Bradley currently works at Medtronic’s (formerly Covidien) Tissue Research Lab in Boulder as a development engineer.
“We make vessel sealing devices for electrosurgical applications,” she explains. “There are a variety of vessel sealing LigaSure devices for both open and laparoscopic procedures; these LigaSure devices use a combination of pressure and radio frequency (Rf) energy to create tissue fusion. I design and run studies to test the sealing capabilities of new devices during their development. This involves ex-vivo tissue work as well as in-vivo studies.”
As a student at CU, Bradley worked in the biomedical field. However, it took several years and career paths before she returned to her roots.
>>Read about Bradley’s journey
Fond Farewell to Ellen Romig
“We did not have computers when I started at CU; everything was done using typewriters!” says Administrative Assistant Ellen Romig about her start at CU’s Department of Chemical Engineering in August of 1979. Romig was honored at this year’s Staff Council Years of Service banquet, an annual tribute to long-serving members of the Boulder campus staff. After 36 years of service to CU, Romig is retiring at the end of October.
>>Read about Ellen’s time at CU
Class Notes
Let us know what you’ve been up to! Send us a class note or update your contact information using our easy online form.
Danielle Benoit (PhD ChemEngr’06; Advisor: Anseth) was chosen by the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Journal as a 2015 Young Innovator.
Alex Aimetti (PhD ChemEngr ’10; Advisor: Anseth) was promoted to Senior Director of Medical Education and Scientific Support at InVivo Therapeutics.
Jia Wei Chew (PhD ChemEngr ’11; Advisor: Hrenya) received Singapore’s highest accolade for youth, the 2015 Singapore Youth Award.
Alex von Allmen (ChemEngr ’12) launched a startup, iFresh, which uses smartphones to control environmentally friendly air fresheners that connect to HVAC systems.
Joshua Mabry (PhD ChemEngr ’15; Advisor: Schwartz) was selected as one of four finalists for EMD Millipore’s 2015 Life Science Award in Bioseparations.
Honors & Awards (Faculty, Staff, Students)
Distinguished Professor Kristi Anseth was named a 2016 ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar.
Professor Jennifer Cha received a 2015 Provost’s Faculty Achievement Award.
Professor John Falconer won the 2015 Lewis Award for Chemical Engineering Education.
Professor Will Medlin received the 2015 Dean’s Outstanding Research Award.
Professor Jeff Stansbury was awarded a patent titled, “Nanogel materials and methods of use thereof.”
Professor Alan Weimer was named the 2015 AIChE NSEF Forum Award Winner.
Postdoctoral Research Associate Brady Worrell won an Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows Award.
Undergraduate Andrew Weidner received an Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Award.
Letter from Chair Dan Schwartz
I hope you will forgive me if I use this space to do a little quantitative bragging about some recent successes in ChBE.
In spite of persistent concerns across the country about the shrinking funding pool for science and engineering research, ChBE continues its successful trajectory due to the creativity and hard work of our faculty and students. In fact, the final data from fiscal year 2015 show that our faculty raised approximately $19 million in new research grants – nearly $1 million per faculty member! This is a huge all-time record for our department and a full 15 percent higher than our best previous year. Moreover, new research funding to ChBE was the most of any department on campus, and was approximately 20 percent higher than the second-place department, Chemistry & Biochemistry, which has nearly twice as many faculty members. Notably, this was not simply a result of any single enormous research grant or contract, but because of tremendous success across the board.
We were also recognized by the U.S. Department of Education with two new training grants to support Graduate Assistantships in Areas of National Need (GAANN). These two GAANN grants will provide $1.75 million over three years to support PhD student training in the areas of Biomaterials and Catalysis.
Turning to 2015-16 student enrollment, as expected ChBE is now home to more than 800 undergraduate students. At the graduate level, we welcomed 34 new students this fall with truly impressive credentials (average GPA=3.81).
Finally, our 1904 Society is now one year old and I am delighted to report that we have grown to more than 60 members, of all ages, from all over the country. These generous gifts are supporting programs that bring the ChBE community together and improve the success of our students and faculty (see the Annual Report for details). Our sincere thanks to those of you who have joined and to all who help out the department in any myriad of ways!
Alumni Adventures
Alums Andrew Maier (ChemBioEngr ’10), Jared Young (ChemBioEngr ’10) and Aaron Young (AeroEngr BS/MS ’12) climb Mount Rainier.