Ana
Jemec and Eric Harshfield's Water Purification Design in
"Projects for Peace"
|
The design of a sustainable water-purification system
for Venda, South Africa by 3rd-year CHE students Ana
Jemec and Eric Harshfield has been selected for 2008
funding by the
Davis Projects for Peace. Kathryn Wasserman Davis,
on her 100th birthday in 2007, chose to celebrate
by committing $1 million a year as an invitation to
undergraduates at the American colleges and universities
in the Davis United World College Scholars Program
to design grassroots projects that they implement
during the summer. The projects judged to be the most
promising and do-able are funded at $10,000 each.
The objective is to encourage and support today’s
motivated youth to create and try out their own ideas
for building peace. |
Jack
Hudson Elected to National Academy of Engineering
|
Jack
Hudson, Wills Johnson Professor of Chemical
Engineering, has been elected to the United States
National
Academy of Engineering. This is among the highest
professional distinctions awarded to engineers. It
honors those who have made outstanding contributions
to engineering research, practice or education, and
to the pioneering of new and developing fields, making
major advancements in traditional fields, or developing/implementing
innovative approaches to engineering education. The
citation honoring Jack is "For advances in the
understanding and engineering of complex dynamic chemical-reaction
systems."
|
Matt
Neurock selected for AIChE Wilhelm Award for 2007
|
Matthew
Neurock the Alice M. and Guy A. Wilson
Professor of Chemical Engineering, has been selected
to receive the 2007 R.H.
Wilhelm Award from the American
Institute of Chemical Engineers. The award recognizes
an individual's significant and new contributions
in chemical reaction engineering. The recipient is
to have advanced the frontiers of chemical reaction
engineering through originality, creativity, and novelty
of concept or application. Matt was recognized specifically
for his efforts in pioneering the application and
development of quantum mechanical methods and atomistic
simulations to catalysis and chemical reaction engineering
practice. The Award consists of a plaque and $3,000,
plus up to $500 for travel allowance to the presentation
at the Honors Ceremony of the AIChE
Annual Meeting. |
Matt also received
a large grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Basic
Energy Sciences program to support fundamental science projects
nationwide for advancing hydrogen fuel technology through
understanding catalysis over nanostructured materials via
modeling of electrocatalysis for fuel cells. See UVa
Research News.
Bob
Davis selected for 2007 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental
Catalysis
 |
The
purpose of the Award is to recognize and encourage
individual contributions (under the age of 45) in
the field of catalysis with emphasis on discovery
and understanding of catalytic phenomena, proposal
of catalytic reaction mechanisms and identification
of and description of catalytic sites and species.
The selection
of Bob Davis marks the first
time that faculty from the same university have received
back-to-back awards. Matt Neurock
won the last award in 2005. |
Bob received the
Emmett Award for “his pioneering contributions to the
use of in-situ spectroscopic methods coupled with both steady-state
and transient kinetic methods to elucidate how oxide supports
and basic promoters alter the active catalytic sites for a
variety of reactions, including the selective oxidation of
hydrocarbons, acid/base conversions, and ammonia synthesis."
A distinguishing
characteristic of Davis's research is its integration of multiple
experimental techniques for characterizing heterogeneous catalysts
and the kinetics of reactions occurring on their surfaces.
Davis has employed a comprehensive set of spectroscopic tools
including extended X-ray absorption fine structure, X-ray
absorption near-edge structure, infrared, Raman, nuclear magnetic
and electron spin resonance, adsorption microcalorimetry,
electron microscopy together with steady state as well as
transient kinetic analyses to determine the local electronic
and geometric structure of the active site(s), the influence
local environment, and the reactivity of novel supported catalysts
under working conditions. This wide array of tools has enabled
him to discover the fundamental features that control a wide
range of important catalytic systems.
Bob will give a
plenary lecture and be recognized at the North American Catalysis
Society meeting in Houston in June 2007. See
the write-up at UVa
Research News
John
O'Connell is 2007 Conoco Phillips Lecturer
|
John
O'Connell, the Harry Douglas Forsyth
Professor of Chemical Engineering, was selected for
the
41st ConocoPhillips Lectureship in Chemical Engineering
Education. The Award consists of $1,500 plus travel
for presentations at Oklahoma State University. The
title of John's talk was "Fundamentals: The Wellspring
for Adapting to Technological Change". The principal
lecture has been published in a pamphlet; contact
John directly for a copy. |
Cato
Laurencin's Distinguished Appointments
In addition,
Cato's research program received a $2 million grant from
the National Science Foundation Program on Emerging Frontiers
in Reaserch and Innovation (EFRI) for "Biological,
Chemical, and Mechanical Surface Cues for Cell Migration,
Proliferation, and Differentiation: An Integrated Approach
to Regeneration of New Tissues". This project will
enhance the scientific understanding of the role of nanoscale
cues on cell adhesion and differentiation. Many individuals
suffering from musculoskeletal connective tissue and nerve
injury live painful disabled lives. The design, synthesis,
and evaluation of novel synthetic constructs engineered
to precise specifications through innovative methodologies
represent the next generation of nanoscale tissue engineering.
Of particular focus is the inclusion of underrepresented
minorities in the scope of its impact. Cato's laboratories
have trained over 80 minority students at the high school,
undergraduate, and graduate levels over the past several
years, with attention to minority recruitment, training,
and mentorship.
Ford Receives UVa
Trigon Society Teaching Award
Roseanne
M. Ford, professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering
and associate vice president for research and graduate studies,
received U.Va. Trigon Engineering Society’s third
annual Thomas E. Hutchinson Faculty Award for dedication
and excellence in teaching. The award is named in honor
of the faculty advisor to the Trigon Society for many years.
Trigon was established in the Engineering School in 1924.
The Society involves men and women engineering students
in service projects for both the University and the Charlottesville
community.
David
Green and Steve McIntosh Receive NSF Career Grants
The National
Science Foundation established the Faculty Early Career
Development (CAREER) program in 1994 in recognition of the
critical roles played by faculty members in integrating
research and education, and in fostering the natural connections
between the processes of learning and discovery. The CAREER
program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers NSF’s
most prestigious awards for junior faculty members, and
which embodies NSF’s commitment to encourage faculty
to practice, and academic institutions to value, integration
of research and education. The intent of the program is
to provide stable support at a sufficient level and duration
to enable awardees to develop careers as outstanding teacher-scholars
in the context of the mission of their organization. CAREER
awards have a 5-year duration with a minimum award (including
indirect costs) of $400,000.
David
Green's award is for “ Connecting the
Wetting and Rheological Behaviors of Polymer Grafted Nanoparticles
in Polymer Melts”. Many advanced composite materials
contain silica nanoparticles dispersed in polymers with
polymer “brushes” grafted to their surfaces.
The fabrication conditions, ultimate properties, and gelation
processes of these materials are related to the size, number,
and distribution of the particles, as well as the density
and type of brushes. Selection of optimal components and
conditions for applications is best done with mathematical
models based on theory and experiment. The overall goals
are to provide benchmark data over wide ranges of parameters
by utilizing our unique capabilities to synthesize novel
grafting systems, to develop self-consistent mean field
theories for comparison of predictions with experimental
data on dispersions and rheology, and to expose young people
to the science and engineering of nanotechnology.
Steve
McIntosh's award is for "A Novel Approach
to Catalysis for Next Generation Direct-Hydrocarbon Solid
Oxide Fuel Cells". SOFCs utilize an oxygen anion conducting
electrolyte that could operate on any combustible fuel supplied
to the fuel electrode, the anode. Current SOFC anode materials
work only on hydrogen. To efficiently utilize both traditional
and bio-derived hydrocarbon fuels requires new oxide-based
anodes with catalytic properties that are not well understood.
The overall research goal is to understand the coupled ion
transport and catalytic processes occurring in complex oxides,
relate these to the material structure and composition,
and lead the way to an important alternative source for
electrical power. See the write-up at UVa
Research News
Fernandez Leads Biotech Education
Materials Bank
Erik
Fernandez is co-leader of an effort to provide Chemical
Engineering educational materials on biotechnology. As described
in a feature in Chemical and Engineering News, October 15,
2007, p. 42 (http://pubs.acs.org/cen/education/85/8542education.html),
Erik and Claire Komives of San Jose State University are
creating a Bioengineering Educational Materials Bank (BioEMB)
with funding from NSF. The project collects, creates, and
reviews problems for use in ChE courses. So far, the focus
is on material and energy balances, but problems relevant
to other courses will be added as further funding becomes
available. Browse to www.bioEMB.net
to see what is available. Claire and Erik also organized
a workshop at San Jose State last July to help faculty become
comfortable with biology-related material.
