2015 Annual Report

This cover image, created by Dr. Li-Chiang Lin, was published in Angewandte Chemie as an inside back cover in 2013.
This cover image, created by Dr. Li-Chiang Lin, was published in Angewandte Chemie as an inside back cover in 2013.

William G. Lowrie 

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING

2015 ANNUAL REPORT

 

Welcome from the Chair

Andre F. Palmer, Professor and Chair
Andre F. Palmer, Professor and Chair

Welcome to the 2015 Annual Report of the William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. 

It's been another hallmark year in which we have celebrated numerous accomplishments. 

To facilitate news-sharing, we've created this web-site version of our Annual Report. Below is a condensed Overview. To see more detailed information, either click on any of the blue links or on the 2015 drop-down menu items at the top left side of this page. 

A PDF version of the 2015 Annual Report is available here.

I hope you find the following pages both interesting and informative, and wish you all the best for 2016. 

 

2015 CBE ANNUAL REPORT:  OVERVIEW

 

1.  NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

ALUMNUS GAVE $14M:

  • Ed Claugus ('81) endowed a chair for CBE and created scholarships for CBE and the College of Engineering. Story

NEW KOFFOLT LABORATORIES CAMPAIGN EXCEEDED $17.5M GOAL:

  • Raised over $17.5M; building opened January, 2015.

CHAIR INDUCTED AS AIMBE FELLOW:

67th AIChE INSTITUTE LECTURER:

3 NEW FACULTY FOR AUTUMN:

  • Li-Chiang Lin (PhD University of CA-Berkley), a research scientist at MIT; was hired as an assistant professor focusing on energy;
  • Biomedical engineering professor Katelyn Swindle-Reilly (PhD Washington University-St .Louis) will assume a 25% teaching appointment;
  • Ilham El-Monier was hired as clinical assistant professor in the petroleum engineering track. 

SIGMA XI PRESIDENT-ELECT:

NSF CAREER AWARD:

ES&T BEST PAPER OF 2015:

  • Bhavik Bakshi and group's paper placed in Environmental Science and Technology's (ES&T) "Best Papers of 2015." ES&T is a publication of the American Chemical Society.

DARPA FUNDING RENEWED:

  • David Wood's DARPA funding for his ground-breaking protein purification method to develop a "pharmacy in a briefcase" was renewed.

CHEMCON DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER AWARD:

  • W.S. Winston Ho received the 2015 Professor G.S. Laddha Medal from the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers. Professor Ho was received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan.

​GOLDWATER SCHOLARSHIP:

  • Undergraduate Lagnajit Pattanaik. Story

NSF GRADUATE RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP:

  • Undergraduate Angela Chen. Story 

NATIONAL LIFE SCIENCES AWARD: ROCHE/ARCS SCHOLAR:

  • Alumnus Kunal Parikh ('12), now a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Story

[Jump to expanded News section]

 

2.  FACULTY AND RESEARCH

2015 FACULTY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

  • 15 PhD graduates (.7 per faculty)
  • 6 National-Level Awards and Honors (AIChE, AIMBE, NSF, ACS, etc.)
  • 17 Invited Lectures
  • 8 Patents Issued (21 pending)
  • 172 Publications (8.1 per faculty)  [Click here for a complete summary of  individual faculty members' publications, patents, and funding.]
  • $302,192 in research expenditures/faculty ($6M total)

Cumulative Faculty Profile:

21 tenure-track plus 2 Emeritus, 3 Clinical, 1 Research Professor:

  • 3 NAE members
  • 7 endowed chairs
  • 1 endowed professorship
  • 14 AIChE Awards
  • 11 National Science Foundation CAREER Awards
  • 2 Fulbrights
  • 2 R&D 100 Awards

2015 RESEARCH PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

  • 31 research awards for a total of $9,185,414 
  • $6,043,850 in state and federal research expenditures
  • $1,782,648 in indirect costs
  • $866,403 in industry funding

Research Highlights for 2015:

  • ARAVIND ASTHAGIRI:  Co-published two articles in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, a leading journal in chemistry, and another article on 2 electroreduction in ACS Catalysis, a leading journal in catalysis. 
  • BHAVIK BAKSHI:  Developed a novel "process-to-planet" framework toward sustainable process design by integrating models of chemical processes, life cycles, and the economy.
  • NICHOLAS BRUNELLI:  Developed cutting-edge hollow fiber catalyst for flow reactions.
  • JEFFREY CHALMERS:  Developing technology for separation of cancer cells and cancer stem cells; developing technology to separate and analyze exosomes; characterizing the intrinsic magnetization of cells.
  • STUART COOPER:  Published co-edited book, Advances in Polyurethane Biomaterials, Woodhead Press, an imprint of Elsevier.
  • L.-S. (LIANG-SHIH) FAN:  Groundbreaking high-pressure pilot plant run for gaseous fuel combustion in chemical looping system.
  • MARTIN FEINBERG:  Pioneering research on chemical reaction network theory (ongoing).
  • LISA HALL:  Established a more efficient method to initialize simulations of microphase separated polymers. 
  • ISAMU KUSAKA:  Published Statistical Mechanics for Engineers (Springer, 2016), which simplifies equilibrium statistical mechanics for engineers wishing to expand their skills.  
  • L. JAMES LEE:  Developed novel nanoparticles-based biochips capable of capturing and identifying circulating RNA and membrane protein biomarkers in blood for cancer liquid biopsy; Developed a unique nanochannel electroporation (NEP) patch device capable of on-tissue gene transfection for regenerative medicine such as skin angiogenesis for wound healing.
  • UMIT OZKAN:  Bridging heterogeneous catalysis and electrocatalysis. Recent focus on catalytic treatment of water contaminated by chlorinated hydrocarbons.
  • ANDRE PALMER:  Demonstrated that islet grafts co-transplanted with a hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier reduced beta cell hypoxia and improved beta cell function in intramuscular grafts and named an AIMBE Fellow.
  • JESSICA WINTER:  In her role as chair of the AIChE Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum, is co-editing a book on Nanomanufacturing to be published through the AIChE.
  • DAVID WOOD:  Key contributor to the downstream processing strategy for the DARPA-funded BioMOD "biopharmaceutical factory in a briefcase."
  • BARBARA WYSLOUZIL:  Exploring phase transitions in aerosol nanodroplets.
  • SHANG-TIAN YANG:  Developing bioprocesses using engineered microorganisms for production of biofuels and biobased chemicals from biomass and CO2.
  • JACK ZAKIN:  Developing low energy input techniques for heat transfer enhancement to/from inherently poor heat transfer fluids.

Cumulative Research Achievements:

  • World leader in chemical looping processes that conserve resources and reduce emissions
  • Groundbreaking self-cleaving affinity tagging for protein purification
  • Leaders in nanobiotech and the development of magnetic quantum dots for diagnostics
  • Innovative membranes for gas separations
  • Immunomagnetic cell separation, cancer diagnostics and cell migration
  • Tissue engineering and biomaterials for transfusion medicine
  • Cutting-edge research in catalysis
  • Polymer-based nanoengineering leading to new materials and devices benefitting manufacutring processes and medical diagnostics
  • Innovations in sustainable engineering.

Facilities:

  • New 225,000 square-foot building with modular labs and lab neighborhoods
  • 36,696 square feet of research laboratory space.
 
[Jump to expanded Research section.]
 

3.  GRADUATE PROGRAM

CURRENT RANKING:

  • #26, US News & World Report (2017)

2015 STUDENT AWARDS AND HONORS (National):

  • 6 awards: NSF, AIChE, NAMS, and more

NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIPS (last ten years):

  • 17 National Science Foundation Research Fellowships
  • 5 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships
  • 2 Fulbrights
  • 1 Morris K. Udall. 

2015 DEGREES AND ENROLLMENT:

  • 17 PhD's awarded (average of .8 per faculty)
  • 16 MS degrees awarded
  • Fall 2015 enrollment: 31 MS, 74 Doctoral

GUEST SEMINAR SPEAKERS:

  • 22 seminars featuring world-class scientists and leaders
  • 2015 Lowrie Lectureship Awardee:  Enrique Iglesia

DOW GRADUATE RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM:

  • Keynote Speaker: Mike Triplett, CEO of Lattice Biotech.

[Jump to expanded Graduate Program section]

 

4.  UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM

DEGREES AND ENROLLMENT:

  • 1,045 students enrolled (as of Fall 2015)
  • 203 BS degrees awarded.

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS:

  • 30.1 - Average composite ACT Score for incoming freshmen
  • 3.36 - Average GPA
  • 37% are in the honors program, with a 91.7% retention rate.

[Jump to expanded Undergraduate Program section]

 

5.  ALUMNI NEWS / PHILANTHROPY

ALUMNI NEWS:

  • Tom Claugus ('73) and Bhavesh (Bob) Patel ('88) won Alumni Awards 
  • CBE Advisory Board re-vamping with Richard Schwarz ('73) at the helm.

General Alumni Profile:

  • 4,314 alumni worldwide
  • Graduates are recruited by Dow, DuPont, Exxon, Intel, Shell, General Mills, Procter & Gamble and many more
  • Graduates have entered academia at Princeton, Georgia Tech, University of Wisconsin, Carnegie Mellon, and Northwestern
  • Three alumni are now chemical engineering department chairs.

[Jump to expanded Alumni / Philanthropy section]

PHILANTHROPY:

  • A complete list of donors, including donors by class year, is available here.
  • 155 students were supported by scholarships in 2015-16.

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