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CEMS NewsWei-Shou Hu Honored at AIChE Meetings Eray Aydil Receives the Plasma Prize Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) Award Dorfman wins DARPA Young Faculty Award Yiannis Kaznessis Receives 2009 CAST Outstanding Young Researcher Award CEMS Publishes Back-To-Back Articles in Science Institute of Technology (IT) Students Honor Efie Kokkoli with an IT Professor Award Younggang Yu, Chemical Physics Program, Wins Award New collaboration between CEMS and the Petroleum Institute of Abu Dhabi Efie Kokkoli Wins NSF CAREER Award H. Ted Davis Inducted into Minnesota Science and Technology Hall of Fame Derby elected as President of American Association for Crystal Growth Yiannis Kaznessis Receives NSF CAREER Award Renata Wentzcovitch Awarded Fellowship for Research in Japan Renata Wentzcovitch Receives Humboldt Research Award Chemical Engineering senior wins $10,000 scholarship Wei-Shou Hu Honored at AIChE Meetings
Wei-Shou Hu received two very prestigious awards at the recent American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN. He was chosen for the Food, Pharmaceutical, and Bioengineering Division Award for his groundbreaking contributions in cell-culture engineering, genomics, liver-tissue engineering, and metabolic engineering. He was also presented with the Society for Biological Engineering Award for Excellence and Service for his work in founding the Consortium of CHO Cell Genomics. Eray Aydil Receives the Plasma Prize
Eray Aydil was awarded the 2009 Plasma Prize of the AVS Plasma Science and Technology Division (PSTD) at the 56th International Symposium of the AVS in San Jose this week. The Plasma Prize is given each year to a researcher who has conducted outstanding research in science and technology of gas plasmas. It is the highest honour of the PSTD. Eray shared the award with Frank Chen, Professor Emeritus at the University of California Los Angeles. This was the first time, in the award’s history, that two researchers were selected to receive the plasma prize. Eray said that “sharing the award with Frank, whose seminal papers and books I read when I was a graduate student, makes it even more special.” Eray received the award for “pioneering work on the characterization of plasma species and their energy distributions in plasma assisted deposition and etching of materials.” CEMS Remembers H. Ted Davis
The Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science said a final Good Bye to H. Ted Davis on October 17. The memorial function included an afternoon of talks and remembrances, and an evening dinner. Ted, who was the Head of CEMS for 15 years and the Dean of the Institute of Technology for 10 years, died of heart failure on May 17. The memorial was attended by family, friends, and former students. Those who talked about Ted were:
The evening dinner included additional remembrances from Steven Crouch, the current Dean of the Institute of Technology, and from Ted's son, Bill Davis. Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) Award
The Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) of NSF announced the award of 20 grants in FY 2009, including eight on the topic of Hydrocarbons from Biomass (HyBi). One of the 8 HyBi awards was given to a team of 3 CEMS faculty (Bhan, Schmidt and Tsapatsis) and collaborators from Princeton (Floudas) and the University of Delaware (Vlachos). The NSF announcement (http://www.nsf.gov/eng/efri/fy09awards_HyBi.jsp) states: "Cooking up hydrocarbons in a unique “pot” The project “Conversion of Biomass to Fuels using Molecular Sieve Catalysts and Millisecond Contact Time Reactors” (0937706) will be led by Michael Tsapatsis of the University of Minnesota. He will collaborate with Aditya Bhan and Lanny Schmidt of the University of Minnesota, Christodoulos Floudas of Princeton University, and Dionisios Vlachos of the University of Delaware. The team’s daring research objective is to develop a fast, continuous, and scalable process for the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fuels in only one “pot” — a stratified reactor. They will engineer both the biomass vaporization reaction and the catalytic reactions for removal of oxygen and for building larger, desired hydrocarbons to take place in the same reactor. The researchers believe that their recent advances in controlling thin-film catalysts and modeling reactions and reactor designs will enable them to produce hydrocarbons in this economically attractive way." Dorfman wins DARPA Young Faculty Award
Assistant Professor Kevin Dorfman was selected as one of the recipients of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award for 2009. The goal of this program is to "identify and engage rising research stars in junior faculty positions in academia" and "provide high-impact funding to these rising stars early in their careers in order to develop their research ideas in the context of Department of Defense (DoD) needs." The award provides two years of funding to support Dorfman's research on nanofluidic methods for manipulating and analyzing DNA. Yiannis Kaznessis Receives 2009 CAST Outstanding Young Researcher Award
The Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) chose Professor Yiannis Kaznessis as the 2009 Outstanding Young Researcher. This award recognizes an individual under the age of 40 for outstanding contributions to the literature of chemical engineering computing and systems technology. The award will be presented to Professor Kaznessis at the AIChE fall meeting in Nashville, TN. CEMS Publishes Back-To-Back Articles in Science
The July 31 issue of Science contains back-to-back articles from CEMS researchers. In the first article, the Tsapatsis group reports a method to eliminate defects from porous zeolite membranes that have applications in the filtration and separation of small molecules [1]. In the second article, the Norris group, in collaboration with the Oh group from Electrical and Computer Engineering, describes a simple technique to create ultrasmooth patterned metals for applications in plasmonics and metamaterials [2].
Institute of Technology (IT) Students Honor Efie Kokkoli with an IT Professor Award
During IT Week - Awards and Recognition Banquet, a special event that recognizes outstanding Institute of Technology faculty and teaching assistants as well as student organizations and their advisors, Efie Kokkoli was honored as the keynote speaker for this year’s banquet, and with an IT Professor Award in the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Department.
Younggang Yu, Chemical Physics Program, Wins Award
Dr. Yonggang Yu, a student from the 2008 class of the Chemical Physics Program, won the 2009 Graduate Researach Award of the Rock and Mineral Physics Focus Group of the American Geophysical Union. Professor Renata Wentzcovitch served as his advisor. His work involved first principles calculations of thermodynamic phase boundaries in Earth-forming minerals that produce seismic velocity discontinuities in the Earth's mantle. These predictive calculations helped to shed light on the origins of such seismic discontinuities and to pin down temperatures at depths where such discontinuities occur. He is currently a post-doc in the Department of Geosciences at Virginia Tech. He will receive this award in the AGU'09 Fall Meeting in December in San Francisco. New collaboration between CEMS and the Petroleum Institute of Abu Dhabi
The University of Minnesota Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science has entered into a partnership with the Petroleum Institute, located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to establish the Abu Dhabi-Minnesota Institute for Research Excellence (ADMIRE). This $6.1 million grant over the next three years will promote joint research projects between the two institutions and foster the continued development of academic programs of the Petroleum Institute, specifically their programs in chemical engineering and materials science and engineering. A primary goal of the partnership is to establish thriving research projects with an emphasis on energy-related topics. Inter-institutional research groups have been established in the areas of hydrocarbon processing, modeling and simulation, polymer processing, and materials science. Recognizing that petroleum resources will play a vital role in the world's energy portfolio over the next decades, ADMIRE will be at the forefront of making the best use of these limited and increasingly precious resources, while also pursuing innovative projects in the search for energy alternatives of the future. Through these research projects, faculty and student exchange programs will be established, so that both institutions may benefit from in-residence visits of graduate students, post-doctoral associates, and faculty. About 15 to 20 faculty and a comparable number of graduate students and post-docs from each institution will be involved in the research. Another significant goal of the partnership is to broaden the interaction between the two programs in undergraduate and graduate education, curriculum development, faculty development, and accreditation activities. The Petroleum Institute was created in 2001 with the goal of establishing itself as a world-class institution in engineering education and research in areas of significance to the oil and gas and the broader energy industries. Other university partners include the University of Maryland, Colorado School of Mines, Johannes Kepler Universitat Linz in Austria, and Montanuniversitat Loeben in Austria. The Petroleum Institute�s sponsors and affiliates include Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and four major international oil companies, including Shell and BP. The campus has modern instructional laboratories and classroom facilities and is now in the planning phase of three major research centers on its campus in Sas Al Nakhl, Abu Dhabi. Prof. Jeffrey Derby will serve as the Director of ADMIRE. Connie Galt will serve as Assistant to the Director, and Prof. Ed Cussler will serve as Chair of the Academic Advisory Board. The points of contact in Abu Dhabi are Prof. Saleh Al Hashimi of the Chemical Engineering Program and Dr. Michael Ohadi, Provost and Acting President, of the Petroleum Institute. Efie Kokkoli Wins NSF CAREER Award
Efie Kokkoli has been awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER award for her work on "Design and Characterization of Aptamer-Amphiphiles for Selective Binding". The CAREER is the National Science Foundation's most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research. Efie proposes the design and characterization of a novel tool, "aptamer-amphiphiles", based on the expectation that by changing their structural segments one can control their morphology, surface chemistry, and function. A comprehensive characterization of secondary structure, amphiphilic and self-assembly properties, and the link between these properties and the engineering of targeted delivery vehicles is proposed by Efie for the first time. By choosing aptamers that bind to fractalkine as the model system, Efie�s work outlines a logical approach that can be applied to the future design of aptamer-amphiphiles that can functionalize nanoparticles and increase the particle�s specificity and affinity for fractalkine, thus having great therapeutic potential and significantly benefiting society. H. Ted Davis Inducted into Minnesota Science and Technology Hall of Fame
Professor H. Ted Davis is one of ten individuals included in the first class to be inducted into the Minnesota Science and Technology Hall of Fame. Minnesota Science and Technology Hall of Fame honors Minnesotans whose achievements in science and technology have made a lasting impact not only to the state of Minnesota, but globally as well. The MST Hall of Fame is the result of a collaboration between the Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) and the Science Museum of Minnesota. Dr. Davis is a former Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science (1980 - 1995), former Dean of the Institute of Technology (1995 - 2005), and is currently Regents Professor in CEMS as well as is serving as the Director of the Biotechnology Institute. Among his many honors is membership in the National Academy of Sciences Derby elected as President of American Association for Crystal Growth
Jeffrey J. Derby has been elected as President of the American Association for Crystal Growth for a three-year period from 2008 to 2011. The American Association for Crystal Growth (AACG) is a national, non-profit organization that is affiliated with the International Organization for Crystal Growth (IOCG). The purpose of AACG is to organize and support activities that serve the technical and professional interests of its approximately 600 members and the crystal growth community. The activities are designed to advance the theory and practice of crystal growth and epitaxy, crystal characterization, and applications by enhancing both the exchange of technical information and the professional stature of those engaged in crystal and epitaxial thin film growth research, development, and production.
Yiannis Kaznessis Receives NSF CAREER Award
The National Science Foundation recently awarded CEMS faculty member Yiannis Kaznessis the NSF CAREER Award, one of its most prestigious awards for new faculty members. The CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. Yiannis will receive $400,000 in research funds over the next 5 years. The topic for Yiannis' proposal was "Mathematics for Biological Engineering". The current rapid expansion of biological knowledge offers a great opportunity to rationally engineer biological systems that respond to external signals. Indeed, the ambitious idea of engineering biological cells that function as miniature factories has given rise to a new, exciting field of research, synthetic biology. The inherent complexity of living organisms warrants a quantitative perspective for rationalizing the construction of synthetic biosystems. Professor Kaznessis and his group focus on the development of statistical mechanical theories and accurate mathematical models of biomolecular events that provide insight into the dynamic behavior of biological systems. They also work on designing and experimenting with synthetic biological systems, such as protein devices, inducible gene networks and bio-logical AND gates, with applications in biofuels, biosensors and gene therapies. Renata Wentzcovitch Awarded Fellowship for Research in Japan
Renata M. Wentzcovitch won “The Invitation Fellowship for Research in Japan (short term)” from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. She will be associated primarily with the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Department of Physics at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, from October to December 2008. Funded by a subsidy from the Japanese government, this fellowship program is to promote international cooperation and mutual understanding through scientific research. The program allows researchers employed at designated Japanese research institutions and laboratories to invite fellow researchers from other countries to Japan to participate in cooperative activities. Renata Wentzcovitch Receives Humboldt Research Award
Renata Wentzcovitch has received a prestigious Humboldt Research Award for her interdisciplinary work in materials science, mineral physics, and geophysics. Award winners are invited to spend a period of up to one year cooperating on a long-term research project with specialist colleagues at a research institution in Germany. The Humboldt Foundation grants up to 100 Humboldt Research Awards annually. The Humboldt Research Award is sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation in Germany. The award is granted in recognition of a researcher's entire achievements to date to academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in future. Chemical Engineering senior wins $10,000 scholarship
Chemical Engineering senior Andrew Jones was awarded a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. The foundation was established in 1984 by the Mercury Seven astronauts. Al Worden, the command module pilot for the Apollo 15 moon mission and the chair of the foundation, visited the University of Minnesota to present the check to Andrew. Although Andrew has no plans to become an astronaut, said he was pleased with the selection because they are looking for the few students at the top who are going to make a difference. Andrew is in the first semester of his senior year in Chemical Engineering, and plans to apply the scholarship towards graduate school next year. He is interested biofuels and renewable energy sources, and would like to focus on catalysis. Andrew has worked as an undergraduate researcher for Prof. Lanny Schmidt, and spent last summer at Dow's ETHOCEL plant. In addition, he spent one summer at Leeds University in England working on organic synthesis. |
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