CEMS Department News

Congratulations CEMS Class of 2013!

112 students comprised the 2013 graduating class from Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.

Jeff Ting receives MSA-COGS Graduate Student Teaching Award

Second-year Chemical Engineering graduate student, Jeff Ting, received the first annual Minnesota Student Association - Council of Graduate Students (MSA-COGS) Graduate Student Teaching Award. Undergraduate students from across all disciplines at the university nominated teaching assistants that helped them succeed in and out of the classroom and deepened their interest in the course material. Jeff received the most entries in the competition and was nominated by his students in the Fall 2012 Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics course, taught by Associate Professor David Morse and Professor Alon McCormick. Jeff received a $50 cash award and was recognized at the annual COGS Award Ceremony on May 2, 2013.

Materials Science graduate student receives Rickover Fellowship in Nuclear Engineering

Claire Teresi, a first-year graduate student, will participate in the prestigious Rickover Fellowship Program in Nuclear Engineering (RFP). The program is designed to meet the needs of the Naval Reactors Division of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and prepares students for careers in naval nuclear propulsion. Teresi will support the broader objective of advancing fission energy development through her fellowship research efforts at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratories in New York. The three-year fellowship also provides for two years of employment at that laboratory after graduate school. Teresi works under the direction of Professor Bill Gerberich and Assistant Professor Andre Mkhoyan.

Related: http://scuref.org/rfp-overview

Wentzcovitch elected to prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Professor Renata Wentzcovitch has been elected a 2013 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies. Wentzcovitch is one of 198 newly elected members who will be inducted into the Academy on Oct. 12, 2013 at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. She is a renowned researcher devoted to quantum mechanical studies of materials. Her research group’s major effort is working to understand the thermo-chemical state of the Earth’s mantle, traditionally divided into upper mantle, transition zone and lower mantle. Her group also investigates the magnetic state of materials. Members of the 2013 class also include winners of the Nobel Prize; National Medal of Science; the Lasker Award; the Pulitzer and the Shaw prizes; the Fields Medal; MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships; the Kennedy Center Honors; and Grammy, Emmy, Academy, and Tony awards.

Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholar-patriots, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences elects members who are the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation. Its roster has included such influential figures as George Washington, Ben Franklin, Daniel Webster, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein, and Winston Churchill. The current membership includes more than 170 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners.

Materials Science graduate students receive Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research Awards

Alyssa McKenna and Karl Schliep, both first-year graduate students, received Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research Awards (GIAR). The program has been providing undergraduate and graduate students with valuable educational experiences for more than 80 years and provides grants of up to $1,000 to students from all areas of science and engineering. Alyssa received the award to support her work on energy transport in disordered, low-dimensional materials, and Karl will use the award to support his work on ultrafast magnetism dynamics. Both students work under the direction of Assistant Professor David Flannigan.

MRSEC staff member receives President's Award for Outstanding Service

Sharon Emde, Administrative Director for the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC), has been named a recipient of the President's Award for Outstanding Service. The annual award recognizes exceptional service to the University, its schools, colleges, departments, and service units by any active or retired faculty or staff member. Recipients of this award have gone well beyond their regular duties and have demonstrated a strong commitment to the University community. Sharon is one of twelve award recipients this year and will receive a stipend, engraved crystal award piece, service pin, and certificate at a recognition event at the President's residence, Eastcliff, on June 4, 2013. Congratulations Sharon, on a very well deserved award!

CEMS alumnus elected to National Academy of Engineering

Curtis W. Frank (BChE, '67) was one of 69 members and 11 foreign associates recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Frank is a Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Academic Affairs, Professor of Chemical Engineering, and W.M. Keck Senior Professor in Engineering at Stanford University. He is recognized for elucidation of molecular organization in polymers and other soft materials. Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.

Professor Chris Leighton receives CSE Taylor Award

Professor Chris Leighton was named the 2013 recipient of the George W. Taylor Distinguished Research Award in the College of Science and Engineering (CSE). Named in honor of George W. Taylor, a 1934 graduate of the department of Mechanical Engineering, the annual competition honors one recipient in each category of teaching, research, and service. The award citation is on permanent display outside the Taylor Undergraduate Center in Lind Hall. Chris also receives an honorarium to support professional development in teaching and research and will be recognized at the CSE pre-commencement celebration on May 10, 2013. Previous recipients of this award include: Michael Tsapatsis, Timothy Lodge, and Frank Bates.

CEMS students receive NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced award recipients in the 2013 competition for Graduate Research Fellowships. Congratulations to the following CEMS recipients: Lucas Caretta, BMatS, '13; Paul Carlson, BChE, '13; Patrick Duffy, BMatS, '11; Katerina Georgiou, BChE, '12; Ross Kerner, BMatS, '13; Alyssa McKenna, first-year graduate student, MatS; Scott White, first-year graduate student, ChE; Honorable Mentions were awarded to: Maria McClintock, first-year graduate student, ChE; Nancy Trejo, first-year graduate student, ChE.

The National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. For the 2013 competition, NSF received over 13,000 applications and made 2,000 award offers. Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $30,000 along with a $10,500 cost-of-education allowance for tuition and fees, opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.

Hauwiller awarded Barry M. Goldwater Scholar honorable mention

Matthew Hauwiller, a junior undergraduate student majoring in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, received an honorable mention as a 2013 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar. Three other University of Minnesota undergraduates were named as scholars in this year’s competition. The prestigious Goldwater Scholarship is awarded annually to outstanding sophomores and juniors who intend to pursue research-oriented careers in mathematics, natural sciences, and engineering. The scholarships provide up to $7,500 per year for up to two years of undergraduate study.

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Sen. Barry Goldwater, who served his country for 56 years as a soldier and statesman, including 30 years of service in the U.S. Senate. This year, less than 300 scholars were selected nationwide from a field of more than 1,100 students who were nominated by their colleges and universities. Each institution many nominate up to four students. A total of 54 University of Minnesota, Twin Cities undergraduates have been Goldwater Scholars since the program’s inception in 1986.

Related: http://www.act.org/goldwater/

Regents Professor Lanny Schmidt awarded prestigious Neal Amundson Reaction Engineering Award

Regents Professor Lanny Schmidt was awarded the Neal R. Amundson Award for Excellence in Chemical Reaction Engineering at the NASCRE-3 symposium in Houston, TX on March 19, 2013. This prestigious award in the field of chemical reaction engineering has only been awarded seven times. Three of the seven winners are from the University of Minnesota Chemical Engineering and Materials Science department; Neal Amundson, Rutherford Aris, and Lanny Schmidt. Kurt VandenBussche, President of the International Society for Chemical Reaction Engineering (ISCRE) is shown presenting the Neal Amundson Award to Lanny Schmidt at the awards banquet.

Startup using U of M technology to manufacture key industrial chemicals from renewable sources

Startup Ascenix BioTechnologies will perfect and commercialize production methods to synthesize chemicals from renewable feedstocks. These chemicals, which are used to manufacture everyday items, are typically made from petroleum and often use harmful add-ins like hydrogen cyanide. The startup predicts this new bio-based process, developed by University of Minnesota researchers, will be more economical and environmentally friendly. The core technology is poised to revolutionize production of certain chemicals, as it would require little modification to existing downstream manufacturing processes to enact. Invented by Kechun Zhang, a chemical engineering and materials science assistant professor in the U’s College of Science and Engineering, the process yields chemicals comparable in performance to those created using petroleum-based materials. "This technology is especially attractive because Dr. Zhang has done a tremendous amount of development in the lab," says Ascenix co-founder William Faulkner. "It’s advanced to the point where we’re already preparing for scale-up of the technology."

Although the process could be applied to the production of biofuels and myriad chemicals, the startup’s initial focus is on methylmethacrylate (MMA), a chemical used to make acrylic glass, paints and coatings, automotive parts, and electronics. Global production of the chemical is more than 6 billion pounds per year. "We take renewable feedstock as an input, ferment it, chemically modify it, and the output is the same chemical produced through a petrochemical process," says Faulkner. "If you were at a hockey arena and looked at a piece of glass made from petroleum, and compared it to one made through our process, it would appear the same. Plus, we’re able to do it much more economically than the incumbent petroleum processes." Because the process uses renewable feedstocks -- sugars derived from corn, sugarcane, cellulosic materials, etc. -- manufacturing is more environmentally friendly and the industry would no longer be subjected to the more significant price fluctuations of petroleum (as compared to the relative fluctuations of sugar inputs). Additionally, the new process bypasses the need for hazardous chemicals, like hydrogen cyanide. "There are two problems with synthesizing MMA from petroleum: Manufacturers in the U.S. need hydrogen cyanide, which is difficult to purchase and can be dangerous to handle. This new process cuts out the cyanide completely," says Zhang. "The other issue is feedstock reliability – the petroleum byproducts the incumbent processes uses as feedstock can also be more difficult to source, depending on the macro dynamics in the petroleum industry." Zhang’s research was funded by the U of M Department of Chemical Engineering. The technology was co-invented by Mingyong Xiong. The technology behind Ascenix was exclusively licensed to the St. Paul, Minn.-based startup by the university’s Office for Technology Commercialization. Contacts: John Merritt, Office of the VP for Research, jmerritt@umn.edu; Matt Hodson, University News Service, mjhodson@umn.edu

President Eric Kaler honored by National Academy of Inventors

University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler is among the 101 top scientists, innovators and leaders from the academic world named as a Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). The honor recognizes exceptional achievements "in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society." Kaler and other Charter Fellows are currently in Tampa, Fla. for the annual NAI conference. Kaler will be a panelist for a session titled "Would Thomas Edison Receive Tenure?" He will comment on the recent transformation of the U’s Office for Technology Commercialization and discuss the institution’s proud history of innovation and discovery. The panel will be moderated by an administrator from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and feature representatives from the California Institute of Technology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Delaware and Purdue University. A holder of 10 patents who received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1982, Kaler is one of the nation’s foremost experts on "complex fluids," which have many applications in drug delivery, food processing, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing. Kaler currently is a tenured faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science within the university's College of Science and Engineering. Contacts: Matt Hodson, University News Service, mjhodson@umn.edu, (612) 625-0552

About the National Academy of Inventors The National Academy of Inventors is a non-profit member organization comprised of more than 45 U.S. and international universities and non-profit research institutes, with currently more than 2,000 individual academic inventor members. It was founded in 2010 to recognize and encourage inventors with a patent issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate and mentor innovative students and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society.

Zhang Receives 3M Nontenured Faculty Award

Assistant Professor Kechun Zhang has received a 3M Nontenured Faculty Award to support his research on developing innovative fermentation approach to biomimetic superglues for applications ranging from underwater adhesives to tissue engineering. Award recipients of this highly competitive award are nominated by 3M researchers to recognize outstanding new faculty members for the quality and pertinence of their research. The grant provides an unrestricted gift of $15,000 per year for three years.

Flannigan Receives 3M Nontenured Faculty Award

Assistant Professor David Flannigan has received a 3M Nontenured Faculty Award to support his research into the ultrafast (femtosecond) atomic-scale visualization of energy transport and conversion in nanostructured materials. One of the specific aims of this research is to determine the effects that discrete and highly quantifiable structural features have on ultrafast energy transport over nanoscale regions and what role such features play in the emergent bulk properties. "The 3M Nontenured Faculty Award was created over twenty-five years ago by 3M’s Technical Community in partnership with 3M’s Community Giving Program to invest in individuals who will lead university teaching and research programs in the future. The intent is to provide unrestricted financial support to help promising faculty receive tenure and contribute to their academic field."

Research Associate Sangwoo Lee receives coveted international Quadrant Award

Dr. Sangwoo Lee was one of four winners in the international competition for a coveted Quadrant Award. Quadrant, a global leader in the manufacturing of high-performance thermoplastics and composites, sponsored the award to highlight graduates who had written a doctoral thesis in the field of "materials and processes related to engineering and high-performance plastics and composites." Dr. Lee was honored for his doctoral thesis entitled, "Structure and Dynamics of Block Copolymer Based Soft Materials" for "the discovery of sigma phases of block co-polymers, which combine features of crystallinity and glass-like behavior, and characterizing these novel phases exhaustively." Dr. Lee received a monetary award of $6,700 and a plaque for his achievements in Zurich, Switzerland on January 25, 2013. He works in the department under the supervision of Regents Professor and Department Head, Frank Bates.

Assistant Professor Kechun Zhang receives National Scientist Development Grant from the American Heart Association

Assistant Professor Kechun Zhang has been awarded a National Scientist Development Grant from the American Heart Association. The purpose of this award is to support highly promising beginning scientists by funding research projects that can bridge the gap between completion of research training and readiness for successful competition as an independent investigator. The grant provides $77,000 per year for four years. Dr. Zhang's proposed project is to engineer microbial platforms for biosynthesis of complex natural products with cardiovascular benefits. The results of this project may lead to new chemical entities for low-cost, safe and improved treatment towards various heart diseases.

A worthy tribute: inaugural Amundson Lecture in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science a success

Professor Nicholas L. Abbott from the Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was the featured guest speaker for the inaugural Amundson Lecture in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Professor Abbott's presentation on "Colloidal and Interfacial Phenomena in Liquid Crystalline Systems" focused on new approaches in which the isotropic solvent is replaced by a nematic liquid crystal (LC) and alters the behavior of LC-colloidal systems. Professor Abbott was honored with a plaque in recognition of his selection for the inaugural Amundson Lecture. The "Amundson Lecture" will be an annual department event that will feature a guest speaker who embodies the tenets of Professor Neal R. Amundson in collaborative research and innovation in the fields of chemical engineering and materials science. Amundson was a true visionary and leader in the department, so it is only fitting to honor him with this named lecture series. Featured in the photo (from left to right) are Nicholas Abbott and Frank Bates, Department Head

Cambridge University Press publishes research monograph co-authored by Professor Prodromos Daoutidis and former CEMS graduate Michael Baldea

Cambridge University Press recently published a research monograph co-authored by Professor Prodromos Daoutidis and Michael Baldea, a former CEMS graduate and current Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. The book titled, Dynamics and Nonlinear Control of Integrated Process Systems, analyzes the impact of tight integration in the dynamics of complex process systems and describes a model reduction and hierarchical controller design framework for such systems.

Andy Ylitalo is a Semifinalist for Intel Science Talent Search; research supervised by Assistant Professor Andre Mkhoyan

Andy Ylitalo, a senior student from Stillwater High School, has been selected as one of 300 semifinalists in the nation for the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS). Andy is being recognized as a top science talent for his research, "Functionalization of Hexagonal Boron Nitride Monolayers and Analysis with Transmission Electron Microscopy" conducted in Assistant Professor Andre Mkhoyan's lab. Andy is one of four high school students in Minnesota to be featured as a semifinalist in the competition. The Intel STS is the nation's most prestigious pre-college science competition, with a top award of $100,000.

Renewable Energy Within Reach: Associate Professor Russell Holmes and research team develop new approach to exciton diffusion

In a recent Nature Materials publication entitled: “Tailored exciton diffusion in organic photovoltaic cells for enhanced power conversion efficiency”, Matt Menke, Wade Luhman and Prof. Russell Holmes outline the fundamental mechanisms responsible for exciton diffusion at the nanoscale in organic semiconductors. Organic solar cells are a promising source of inexpensive renewable energy due to their optical tunability and compatibility with large-area processing techniques. To date, the short, characteristic diffusion length of the exciton has been a design bottleneck necessitating the need for complex and often poorly understood film morphologies. In this new work, Menke, Luhman and Holmes lay out a new approach to directly enhance the characteristic exciton diffusion length via dilution of the absorbing active material in a optically transparent host. This new ability to tailor exciton diffusion in organic semiconductors could have broad implications for future active material and device design for the realization of high power conversion efficiency solar cells. Link to Holmes Research Group: http://research.cems.umn.edu/holmes/

Xueyi Zhang wins Silver Graduate Student Award from Materials Research Society

Graduate student Xueyi Zhang was among 24 winners recognized by the Materials Research Society (MRS) for their academic achievements and current materials research which exhibit a high level of excellence and distinction. Zhang was awarded a Silver Graduate Student Award for his discovery of a new method to fabricate hierarchical zeolite catalysts. Award recipients were honored at the 2012 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston, Mass. Zhang's groundbreaking research was previously highlighted by the US Department of Energy and featured in the journal Science. His research was supported by the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation, a DOE Office of Science Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) led by the University of Delaware, in which the U of M is a major partner, the Abu Dhabi-Minnesota Institute for Research Excellence, the National Science Foundation, and the University of Minnesota Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment.

Related: http://www.mrs.org/f12-gsa/

Graduate student Daniel Woldring wins 2012 Dow Outstanding Senior Unit Operations Laboratory TA Award

Chemical Engineering graduate student Daniel Woldring was awarded the 2012 Dow Outstanding Senior Unit Operations Laboratory TA Award for his contributions to teaching. As a recipient of the departmental award, Woldring is honored with a certificate, University of Minnesota bookstore gift card, and lunch with the teaching team of the course.

Professor Renata M.M. Wentzcovitch named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Professor Renata M.M. Wentzcovitch has been awarded the honor of Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which is the world's largest general scientific society. Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. As part of the section on Physics, Renata is recognized for pioneering contributions to theory and simulations of materials at high pressures and temperatures and applications of interdisciplinary impacts on geophysics. New Fellows will be honored at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2013 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston, Mass. on February 16, 2013.

University receives $1.8 million grant to fund revolutionary research of department faculty team

The University of Minnesota has been awarded a $1.8 million grant over three years from the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to develop revolutionary membrane technology that will enable energy-efficient separations in the chemical, petrochemical, water, fossil fuel, and renewable energy industries. When fully implemented, the technology could reduce U.S. energy consumption by as much as 3 percent. Lead researcher, Professor Michael Tsapatsis, published research last year about their discovery of a means for developing free-standing, ultra-thin zeolite nanosheets that as thin films can speed up the filtration process and require less energy. Science magazine named the research as one of the biggest breakthroughs of 2011. The other members of the research team are Professor Chris Macosko and Professor Prodromos Daoutidis. The grant money will allow the team to scale up their research and move it closer to commercial applications.

Chris Leighton Elected as APS Fellow

Professor Chris Leighton was elected this year as a fellow of the American Physical Society. He was cited for his creative contributions to the fundamental understanding of the physics of magnetic materials, including complex oxides, highly spin-polarized ferromagnets, magnetic nanostructures, and interfacial magnetism. His nomination comes through GMAG: The Topical Group for Magnetism and its Applications.

Large Donations Fuel Amundson Hall Addition

Thanks to contributions from Dow Chemical and Robert Gore, the CEMS department has raised more than half the money for the 40,000 square-foot building addition to Amundson Hall. Last year, Dow Chemical donated $5 million to get the project off the ground. Department chair Frank Bates noted that at the time, that money "represented the difference between doing it and not doing it." Then later this year, Robert and Jane Gore donated $10 million, and the dream became a reality. Robert is a CEMS alumnus, receiving his Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1963, and later invented the fabric that came to be known as GORE-TEX.

Construction on the addition, which will be known as the Gore Annex, will begin next spring and be completed mid-2014. The project will also receive money from the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota and from the University Higher Education Asset Preservation and Restoration funds from the state.

Moore's Law for Solar Cells

Professors David Norris (ETH-Zurich) and Eray Aydil outlined the future of solar cell technology in the perspective "Getting Moore from Solar Cells" in the November 2 issue of the journal Science. In particular, they point out a Moore's Law-type growth in the global photovoltaic capacity as a function of time, with the potential to reach the 2010 global electricity production sometime in the next 15 years. The continued growth of solar cell technology will be fueled, in part, by new approaches that combine the advantages of existing solar cells to achieve high efficiencies with low costs.

CEMS Celebrates Historic Milestones

The CEMS department will hold back to back events celebrating two historic milestones. On November 2, 2012 join President Kaler, Dean Crouch, Regents, alumni and friends as CEMS breaks ground on a major building addition. On November 3, 2012, at the Campaign FIRST Finale we will celebrate the successful completion of a $20 million dollar fundraising effort begun in 2006, focused on student support. Join us as we reflect upon the past and celebrate our philanthropic partners. Click here for event details.

Chris Macosko Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

On August 24 in Hangzhou, China, Chris Macosko received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his research in polymer processing at the International Conference on Advanced Molding Technology and Materials Processing. Here Shia Chung Chen of Dean of Engineering at Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan is presenting him the award.

Chris joined the faculty in 1970, the year Chemical Engineering combined with Metallurgy to create the Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science (CEMS). He was the first “polymer glue” between the two disciples. Since then he has advised over 100 PhD and MS students and with them published over 400 papers. In addition to the Lifetime Achievement Award his contributions to polymer processing and rheology has been recognized by election to the National Academy of Engineering.

Selin Tosun and Nicholas Erickson Receive AVS Student Awards

Selin Tosun received the Hysitron Travel Grant awarded to the best student poster presented at the Minnesota AVS Chapter Symposium on Wednesday September 19. Selin's poster was entitled "ZnCdS Thin Films for Chalcopyrite Solar Cells Deposited through Batch and Continuous-Flow Chemical Bath Deposition." Selin is a 4th year PhD student working with Prof. Aydil. She will attend the upcoming AVS meeting to be held in Tampa, Florida from Oct 28 to Nov 2, where she will present her results.

In the same competition Nicholas Erickson was the runner up and received a cash prize of $200. Nicholas' poster was entitled "The Graded-Composition Emissive Layer: A Route to Efficient, Single-Layer Organic Light-Emitting Devices," Nicholas is a graduate student working with Prof. Holmes.

Congratulations to both Selin and Nicholas.

Flannigan Receives Love of Learning Award

Assistant Professor David Flannigan has received a 2012 Love of Learning Award from the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. Founded in 1897 at the University of Maine, Phi Kappa Phi is the nation's oldest, largest, and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines. Its chapters are on more than 300 campuses in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Awards are given annually and can be used to fund any aspect of research or career development.

Joe Zasadzinski Receives the Avanti Award of the Biophysical Society

Joe Zasadzinski was selected as the recipient of the 2013 Avanti Award of the Biophysical Society for his "careful, quantitative application of physical principles of self-assembly, directed assembly and bio-mimicry to create well-controlled lipid structures for biomedical applications." Prof. Zasadzinski will be presented with this prestigious award at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in February. The award is given annually to an investigator for outstanding contributions to our understanding of lipid biophysics.

Aloysius Gunawan received Microscopy Society of America Presidential Student Award for 2012

Mr. Aloysius Gunawan (Materials Science) received the 2012 Presidential Student Award from Microscopy Society of America at the MSA's Microscopy and Microanalysis 2012 meeting in Phoenix, AZ.

He received the award for his paper, "Imaging ‘Invisible’ Dopant Atoms in Semiconductor Nanocrystals." The Presidential Award, which is the most prestigious student award from Microscopy Society of America, is based on the quality of the paper, where the student is the first author. Aloysius is advised by Andre Mkhoyan.

Lucas Caretta will receive 2012 William & Mary Dyrkacz Scholarships

The ASM Materials Education Foundation and the Scholarship Selection Committee announced that Mr. Lucas Caretta (Majoring in Materials Science at UMN) has been selected to receive one of the 2012 William & Mary Dyrkacz Scholarships.

The William & Mary Dyrkacz Scholarship award provides $6,000 towards educational expenses for one academic year. It is awarded to an outstanding undergraduate student at the junior or senior level who demonstrates exemplary academic and personal achievements, interest and potential in metallurgy or materials science and engineering, as well as financial need. The scholarship was established in 2011 by Mr. & Mrs. William Dyrkacz as an expression of their commitment to education and the materials science and engineering community.

David Flannigan joins the CEMS faculty

David Flannigan is the latest addition to the CEMS faculty. He earned his Bachelor's degree in the Chemistry department at the University of Minnesota in 2001, and received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to arriving at Minnesota , he was a postdoctoral scholar in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. His research program will focus on the development and application of ultrafast electron microscopy for real-time visualization and characterization of non-equilibrium processes in soft and hard materials with picosecond temporal and atomic-scale spatial resolutions.

CEMS catalyst synthesis highlighted by the Department of Energy

The discovery of a new method to fabricate hierarchical zeolite catalysts (first made by graduate student Xueyi Zhang), which was recently reported by a CEMS team and collaborators, is highlighted by the US Department of Energy among "Stories of Discovery and Innovation": http://science.energy.gov/stories-of-discovery-and-innovation/127032/ The work, which was reported in the journal Science¸ was supported by the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation, a DOE Office of Science Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) led by the University of Delaware, in which U of M is a major partner, the Abu Dhabi–Minnesota Institute for Research Excellence, the National Science Foundation, and the University of Minnesota Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment.

Zhang, X, et al. "Synthesis of self-pillared zeolite nanosheets by repetitive branching." 2012. Science 336: 1684-1687. DOI: 1-.1126/science.1221111 Other comments for this work can be found at: http://www.efrc.udel.edu/pdfs/highlights/Tsap_Zeolites-LgPoreHighways.pdf http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2012/UR_CONTENT_395514.html

Dorfman to receive Colburn Award from the AIChE

Associate Professor Kevin Dorfman will be the 2012 recipient of the Allan P. Colburn Award for Excellence in Publications by a Young Member of the Institute. The Colburn Award is the highest honor given to a member of AIChE under the age of 36 for "significant contributions to chemical engineering through publications." Professor Dorfman joins a large number of Minnesota faculty and alumni who have been recognized by this award, including Ed Cussler, Skip Scriven and Matt Tirrell.

Holmes Receives Bradley Stoughton Award

Professor Russell Holmes is the 2012 recipient of the Bradley Stoughton Award for Young Teachers. The award was established by ASM International in 1952 to honor Bradley Stoughton, a past President of ASM International, and recognize excellence in the teaching of materials science and engineering by a young teacher under the age of 35. The citation on Prof. Holmes’s award reads: “For inspirational teaching and extraordinary efforts to mentor and instruct students in research”. The award will be presented at the ASM Awards Dinner during the Materials Science & Technology 2012 Conference in October 2012.

Aditya Bhan wins DOE Early Career Award

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science announced that Professor Aditya Bhan is one of 68 scientists from across the nation to be selected for the Early Career Award. This five-year award supports the development of individual research programs of outstanding scientists early in their careers and stimulates research careers in the disciplines supported by the DOE Office of Science. Professor Bhan's proposal titled "One-pot Catalytic Conversion of Biomass and Alkanes: Kinetically Coupling Deoxygenation and Dehydrogenation Pathways" centers on the use of inorganic molecular sieve materials with sub-nanometer sized pores as catalysts for co-processing natural gas and biomass-derived oxygenates for the synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels.

Biomass and natural gas are purported to be two key components of a future portfolio of feedstocks that will supply the planet with energy carriers and other substitutes for petroleum products in the future. As raw materials for liquid fuels, biomass and natural gas lie at opposite ends of the chemical spectrum. Natural gas is inert and its chemical conversion involves the removal of hydrogen while, biomass feedstock contains oxygen, the removal of which limits biomass-to-hydrocarbon-fuel conversion. Professor Bhan's group proposes to develop a one-step catalytic conversion technology that will concurrently process biomass and natural gas for the production of hydrocarbon fuels by kinetically coupling biomass deoxygenation and alkane-dehydrogenation pathways. In essence, alkanes serve as a hydrogen carrier for biomass deoxygenation while biomass-derived oxygenates serve as the oxygen carrier for removing hydrogen from alkanes. Professor Bhan's research group has also been recognized with the NSF CAREER award, the McKnight Land Grant Professorship, and the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award.

Dan Frisbie Named Distinguished McKnight University Professor

CEMS Professor Dan Frisbie has received the University of Minnesota's highest award for mid-career faculty. He is one of only 5 to be awarded the Distinguished McKnight University Professorship for 2012. He leads a very active research group that focuses on the creation of new semiconductor materials and processes that result in flexible electronic circuits. He has received several Outstanding Professor Awards from the CSE Student Board, and has been the Director of Graduate Studies for the Materials Science & Engineering program since 2004.

Dr. Frisbie joined CEMS as an Assistant Professor in 1994, became Associate Professor in 2000, was appointed Professor in 2006, and currently holds a Neal Amundson Professorship in residence. Over that time he has earned an international reputation as a leader in the area of new electronic materials. The Distinguished McKnight University Professorship honors Dan's scholarly work, the quality of his teaching and advising, contributions to the community, and his long association with the University of Minnesota.

CEMS Class of 2012

Our congratulations to the CEMS graduating class of 2012. The combined ChEn and MatSci class was composed of 199 students. The class photo was provided by Ashish Upreti, whose friend took this picture.

MRSEC Outlines Future of Block Polymer Research

In a recent Science paper entitled "Multiblock polymers: Panacea or Pandora's Box?" polymer researchers from the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at the University of Minnesota highlighted the seemingly unlimited potential for new methods in polymer synthesis to create multi block polymers with arbitrary numbers and types of unique sequences, as illustrated in the accompanying figure. While these synthesis strategies offer the potential for highly controllable soft materials, the number of possibilities introduces new engineering challenges to the field. The paper is a collaboration between the UMN MRSEC (Frank Bates, Marc Hillmyer and Tim Lodge), the UCSB MRSEC (Glenn Fredrickson and Kris Delaney) and UT-Austin (Chris Bates). The paper appeared in the April 26th issue of Science.

CEMS Outstanding TA Awards

The department is pleased to announce the winners of the 2012-2013 CEMS Outstanding TA Awards. These students were nominated by instructors for their excellent performance as teaching assistants (TA). The award winners are shown (left to right) with Associate Professor Russ Holmes, Acting Director of Graduate Studies for Materials Science. Winners include: Jeff Ting, Matt Menke, Yunlong Zou, Aruna Ramkrishnan, Victor Lai, Jie Liu, Sam Dalsin, and Andrew Corbett Each winner received a cash award and UMN t-shirt. Their names will be added to the Outstanding TA Awards Plaque displayed in 150 Amundson Hall. Congratulations to each of you!

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