Texas Tech University

Department News

Faculty, Staff, and Student News

Click a year to jump to that date:

|2023||2022||2021||2020||2019||2018||2017||2016||2015||2014||2013|
|Archived News

2023

Fall

Chen Article

Dr. Chau-Chyun Chen recent publication in the AIChE Journal

Congratulations to Dr. Chen for his recent publication of his article, Modeling salt adsorption in electrical double layer for capacitive deionization, in the AIChE Journal!

We are excited to see more research from Dr. Chen!

Click the link below to view this article

Article

   

Spring

Priya

Awarded ASEE Engineering for One Planet (EOP) mini-grant

We are proud to congratulate Priya Gill and Paul Egan for being awarded the ASEE Engineering for One Planet (EOP) mini grant! They have been awarded one of the 14 EOP grants to implement their proposal for our institution which is titled Sustainability in Curricula as a Paradigm for Future Engineers. They were chosen out of a pool of 100 applicants due to their inclusion in the EOP Community of practice, showing their well-thought-out plans to magnify sustainability in their programming as well as the feasibility to make an impact at our institution!

Congratulations to Priya Gill and Paul Egan!!

Hu

2022-2023 Whitacre College of Engineering Dr. Charles L. Burford Faculty Award Recipient!

Congratulations to Chijuan Hu for being identified as the 2022-2023 Whitacre College of Engineering Dr. Charles L. Burford Faculty Award recipient! She has been recognized for her dedication to exploring and implementing innovative ways of teaching labratory courses. She is also recognized for her outstanding work to improve teaching skills by providing teaching workshops! Her love of teaching and our students is evident as well as her hard work and dedication to this department!

Congratulations again to Chijuan for this amazing award!

Dr. Reible

Dr. Danny Reible - Professing Excellence Honoree

We are proud to congratulate Dr. Danny Reible for being chosen as one of the Professing Excellence Honorees! Professing Excellence is a formal ceremony in which TTU students nominate faculty members and present awards to those who have demonstrated exceptional education skills. The awards are given to outstanding faculty who go above and beyond, both inside and outside the classroom, to impact their students' learning and academic success.

Professing Excellence 2023
April 5 | 3PM | Matador Room TTU

ttu

Capstone Design Poster Presentations!

Come and check out our senior students' hard work as they present their capstone design posters! This event will be held on Friday April 28th, from 10AM - 1PM in the Livermore lobby. 

We are proud to congratulate all these hard working students as they demonstrate their brilliant ideas!

Capstone Design Poster

TTU

Congratulations to Ferdous for successfully completing the Lyondellbasell Internship!

Our department encourages students to pursue internships to gain practical knowledge in a real-world setting. We are excited to share that Ferdous Ferhan, our student in the M. S. program pursued a co-op with Lyondellbasell. He worked as a process engineer at the Bayport site in Houston, where he was able to provide support on the polypropylene unit. Ferdous said "This was an experience that shaped the way I think about my career and taught me a lot along the way, not just about myself, but about the industry and importance of teamwork in operations. I am grateful to Lyondellbasell, and their team for giving me this wonderful opportunity and experience". Congratulations to Ferdous for completing his internship successfully!!

Ferdous

TTU

Congratulations to Sowrav Barua, Stefano Ciannella, Lukman Tijani, and Jenifer Gomez-Pastora!

We are proud to celebrate Sowrav Barua, Stefano Ciannella, Lukman Tijani, and Jenifer Gomez-Pastora for the recent publish of their article, Iron in blood cells: Function, relation to disease, and potential for magnetic separation. 

Congratulations to these brilliant minds for this amazing accomplishment!

Click the button below to view thier article!

Journal Article

Saif

Saif Recieves American Control Conference Student Travel Grant!

Congratulations to Saif for being awarded the 2023 American Control Conference Student Travel Grant for the 2023 American Control Conference held in San Diego, California, from May 31st-June 2nd, 2023!

Congratulations again to Saif for this great achievement!

Gift

Gift Recieves Preston and Ima Smith Graduate Fellowship!

Congratulations to Gift for being awarded a Preston and Ima Smith Graduate Fellowship. This fellowship was established to support graduate students pursuing research unique to the West Texas area.

Congratulations again to Gift for this amazing achievement!

TTU

Congratulations to Stefano Ciannella, Cristina Gonzalez-Fernandez, and Jenifer Gomez-Pastora!

We are proud to celebrate Stefano Ciannella, Cristina Gonzalez-Fernandez, and Jenifer Gomez-Pastora for their recent published article for the journal Science of the Total Environment! Their article, Recent Progress on wastewater-based epidemology for COVID-19 surveillance: A systematic review of analytical procedures and epidemiological modeling, is available on the journal homepage: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article

Congratulations again to Stefano, Cristina, and Dr. Gomez-Pastora!

Click the button below to view their article!

Journal Article

Sam O

Samuel Olusegun Recieves National Travel Award!

Congratulations to Samuel Olusegun for being awarded a 2023 Kokes Travel Award for the 28th North American Catalysis Society (NACS) meeting. The biennial conference will be held in Povidence, RI June 18-23. The award is sponsored by NACS with support from agencies such as NSF and the DOE. 

Congratulations again to Samuel Olusegun for this amazing achievement!

2022

Spring

Congratulations Spring 2022 Graduates!

We are very proud to celebrate the graduation of 88 Undergraduate students and 11 Graduate students!  Congratulations to each of you!

Class2022

*click to enlarge photo

View the Recording of the Spring 2022 Senior Celebration

March

TTU

Alum Highlight: Lauren Ward Publishes Her First Paper

It should come as no surprise that there are plenty of Texas Tech Chemical Engineering students who have gone on to do remarkable things. And while it would be impossible to highlight every single thing that every alum has accomplished, we're going to try our best! And today, we're highlighting the impressive accomplishments of alum Lauren Ward, who graduated in Spring 2020 — a pretty intense time in the world — to continue her education and even have her first paper published. 

Lauren began graduate school in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Alabama in the Fall of 2020 and had her first paper,  “Effect of Nanopatterning on Concentration Polarization during Nanofiltration,” published in the December 2021 edition of the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Journal. Lauren is an impressive student, and we couldn't be prouder of all that she has already done in this field. 

In regard to her research, Lauren is excited that her paper was able to provide “confirmation of a computational study. Models and real-world science don't always match up so being able to show that it does is pretty important!” Currently, Lauren is focusing on liquid separations, specifically with membranes while in graduate school, and is actually working on a similar project, which looks closely into the fouling properties of patterned membranes.

Lauren is sure to go on to accomplish even more incredible work, but her research being published at such an early stage in her career is worth celebrating. And she thinks so too. “The most exciting thing for me is being able to have my work out there and you can actually kind of see how your work is changing the world,” she said. “That along with just being able to say things like ‘Hey I'm a published author' is pretty exciting.” 

Congrats, Lauren! We can't wait to see what else you do! 

TTU

Current Student, Pankaj Rohilla, Works to Achieve his Doctorate

The Texas Tech Department of Chemical Engineering is constantly in awe of the incredible accomplishments of our staff, students, and alumni. Today, we would like to shine our spotlight on Pankaj Rohilla, a current student at Texas Tech working on his doctoral dissertation and set to graduate in August 2022. 

Pankaj has not only accomplished a great deal while at Texas Tech, but we are also so proud that he has been accepted to work on his post-doctoral degree at Georgia Tech. There, Pankaj will be researching diverse and challenging topics, from organismal biophysics to transdermal drug delivery with prestigious researchers. 

And while we can't wait to see what Pankaj will accomplish at the next step of his education, we're still so impressed with the mark left here at Texas Tech. In addition to working towards a Ph.D., Pankaj also won the poster competition at the AIChE 2021 Annual Meeting. 

“It was one of the best feelings,” Pankaj said of the competition experience. “Chemical engineers around the world present their research at the AICHE Annual meeting and winning an award at such a platform was absolutely exhilarating. It surely boosted my morale.” 

And when it comes to all the hard work associated with earning a doctorate, Pankaj has also realized that “perseverance and staying calm during failures and frustrations,” is key to about anything you want to achieve. 

Fortunately, Texas Tech is the perfect place to do just that. “Texas Tech is one of the best places to conduct research with outstanding facilities and a calm environment,” Pankaj added. 

Pankaj's future is so bright, and we are so proud of all that's to come. But to truly understand just how impressive it all is, you need to look deeper into Pankaj's research. 

“My research is based on understanding the hydrodynamics of needle-free jet injections and optimizing the performance of these devices for drug delivery,” Pankaj explained. “Under the guidance of Dr. Jeremy Marston (Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering), I was able to obtain nearly 100% delivery of drugs inside the skin from ~40-50% percentage delivery for intradermal injections.” As if that wasn't impressive enough, Pankaj has also “worked on understanding the effect of nearly all the parameters associated with the drug properties, design, and operation of the jet injector device.” 

As for what the future holds, Pankaj hopes to work “on the further development of these needle-free drug delivery devices for the delivery of next-generation DNA vaccines.” 

jp

Dr. Pastora Joins the Faculty in the Department of Chemical Engineering

Just ask any student in the Chemical Engineering department here at Texas Tech who their favorite professor is, and you'll get empathetic answers describing teachers willing to listen, foster a lasting love of learning, and go out of their way to ensure that students' needs are met. We're proud of the faculty we've built in this department, and that pride is extended to one of our newest faculty members, Dr. Jenifer Gomez Pastora. 

Dr. Pastora is certainly a well-accomplished faculty member. Her research has resulted in more than 30 publications during the last 6 years that have received more than 600 citations. For her research accomplishments, she was recognized with several research fellowships and has received 11 awards in national and international competitions. But that's not all that she has to offer or bring to the table here at Texas Tech. 

“My primary goal is to equip the next generation of engineers with tools to find answers to new challenges and to different problems,” she explained. 

Additionally, Dr. Pastora has admirable goals while she is here at Texas Tech as well. 

“I would like to develop technologies that have an impact on society, to make a better world,” she said. 

She added, “I am especially interested to develop fast and cheap COVID-19 sensors and diagnostic tools for anemia detection. The idea behind these projects is to fabricate platforms that could be used at the point of need or in low resource areas.”

Dr. Pastora is an excellent addition to the faculty here at the Chemical Engineering department, and we look forward to her contributing to our culture of innovation, entrepreneurship, and scholarship. 

Dr. Pastora pointed out what makes the department so special. 

“The chemical engineering department at TTU is very diverse, supportive, and powerful,” she explained. “We have researchers working on cutting edge scientific problems and leading their fields, but very dedicate educators and mentors and great colleagues.”

We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Pastora to Texas Tech. She is a brilliant, talented, and industrious researcher and educator. If you see her around campus, make sure you say hello. 

TTU

The Chemical Engineering graduate student's association (ChEGSA) hosted Dr. Howard Stone as part of our ongoing distinguished speaker series.

We invite you to please view his recorded talk titled “Classical fluid mechanics confronts modern research questions: “Problem Choices and Serendipity”, at the link below:

VIDEO LINK

January

TTU

We are happy to announce that CHE Tutoring is now available in the CHE 103 student lounge.  Tutoring is free of charge and available to any Chemical Engineering undergraduate student so come stop by before or after class!

Please see the schedule below for our two tutors, Scott Parker & Yuanman Ma:

CHE Tutoring | Mon-Fri | CHE 103

  Scott Yuanman
Monday 9:00am – 11:00am 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Tuesday 9:00am – 11:00pm 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Wednesday 9:00am – 11:00am
1:00pm – 4:00pm
OFF
Thursday 9:00am – 11:00am 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Friday OFF 1:00pm – 4:00pm

If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know by emailing Jeff Rammage at jeffrey.rammage@ttu.edu

2021

November

TTU

Postdoctoral Associate Amit Thakur Recognized at 2021 Distinguished Staff Awards Banquet

Amit Thakur has single-handedly pioneered some of the most impactful research ongoing in our laboratory, focused on the development of new polymer adsorbent materials and methods for key separations relevant to the environment and industry.

Read More

JH

Postdoctoral Research Associate Gaurav Joshi  Recognized at 2021 Distinguished Staff Awards Banquet

Gaurav Joshi has a whole slew of contributions he has made to Texas Tech, but one that stands above all and has impacted Texas Tech, the Lubbock community, the West Texas community, and the State of Texas is his recent work related to fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Read More

August

JH

3mt

Ph.D. student, Rohan SJ Ingrole, Wins Competitive Graduate School Award

Congratulations to Chemical Engineering Ph.D. student Rohan SJ Ingrole for winning the People's Choice Award at the Virtual 3MT thesis competition! Ingrole's thesis advisor was Dr. Harvinder Gill, associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas Tech University.

TTU

CHE Graduate Orientation – Fall 2021

The Chemical Engineering Department hosted a new Graduate student orientation August, 20th 2021.  If you were unable to attend or would like to review the material covered, please view the recorded presentation and corresponding documents.

Presentation

Safety Presentation

Document

Recording

JH

Dr. Khatib Receives Grant from U.S. Department of Energy

Sheima Khatib received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to create a new conversion process for benzene using shale gas instead of petroleum.

Click here to learn more

May

Grad_Photo
Congratulations to our Spring 2021 Graduates!
ttu

Expanded Partnership Helps Secure University's Place in Energy Industry's Future

American Resources Corporation will operate its sponsored research program in electrolytic cells through the Innovation Hub at Research Park and in collaboration with Gerardine Botte.

Click here to read the full story

Dr. Harvinder Gill Recognized in Discover Magazine

hgill

Click here to read the full article

External Advisor Board (EAB) Panel: Featuring and Transition Out of the Pandemic

EAB

Friday, May 7th 3-4pm

 Preparing for your next step after graduation is always difficult, stressful, and uncertain – much less during a global pandemic.  The TTU Chemical Engineering Department has brought together members of our External Advisory Board (EAB) to help answer your questions and navigate these uncertain times.  The EAB is made up of current & former industry professionals, fellow TTU ChE alumni, and external faculty members who are experts in this industry and can provide unparalleled insight.  This panel will take place virtually via Zoom, so please join us and bring your questions!

Zoom Link Here

Spring 2021 Senior Celebration

Click the image below to see a recording of the virtual Spring 2021 Senior Celebration!

spring 2021

Friday, May 14th, we celebrated the graduation of our Spring 2021 undergraduate class!  This event took place virtually via Zoom, so please feel free to watch the recording and share with friends and family.

February

GB

Chemical Engineering Professor Developing Indoor COVID-19 Detector

Gerardine Botte received a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to work on the project.

Click here to read full story and Watch this news segment

 

 GB

Texas Tech University President's Innovation Award

This award recognizes startups that exemplify innovation and commercialization.

The awards give early-stage startups space and critical access to equipment to become revenue-generating companies.

Click here to read full story

GB

Tech professor prepares to unleash Ultrafast COVID-19 Diagnostic Sensor

When the pandemic started last March, Gerardine "Gerri" Botte, professor and Whitacre department chair of the Chemical Engineering Department at Texas Tech, was working on a project regarding E. Coli in water and began to wonder if there was a way to apply this research to the COVID-19 pandemic. Click to read full story

Click to learn more

SV

Worm Experiment to the ISS

Dr. Siva Vanapalli and his team have been invited to launch their worm experiment to the International Space Station. The launch is scheduled for Feb 20th from the Wallop's facility in Virginia, and the experiment will be taking off on Northrop Grumman's Cygnus space craft.

The purpose of the experiment is to measure muscle strength in C. elegans under microgravity conditions across several generations. More than 100,000 images of worms in microfluidic devices will be collected and analyzed to gain insights into short-term adaptation of muscles to microgravity and radiation, as well as potential trans-generational effects. Dr. Vanapalli and his team have also partnered with a non-profit organization Orion's Quest to develop an educational outreach program based on the collected worm videos and will be disseminated to more than 3000 middle and high school kids.

If you and your family would like stickers with our space-flight logo, they will be available for pick-up in the dept office from Feb 15th-19th.

TTU

Spring 2021 ChE Undergraduate Tutoring

Spring tutoring is now available!

Click here to sign-up for Undergraduate tutoring.

For questions please email: Jeffrey.rammage@ttu.edu

 

January

JH

Joshua Howe receives funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Prof. Josh Howe has received funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as part of a $1.3 M, 5 year collaborative effort with Prof. Yuexiao Shen (TTU, Civil Engineering), Florida State University, and industry focusing on remediation of contaminants from groundwater using highly selective macrocyclic adsorbent molecules. 

Click here to learn more

2020 

December

rapid

Two TTU researchers recognized for developing a rapid, portable COVID-19 test, and a defensive phone charge to protect your data from public charging stations.

Click here to learn more

 

vaccine

Vaccine could protect against a variety of Coronavirus strains. 

Click here to learn more

 

October

ttu

Chemical Engineering: Faculty Search Now Open

Applicants should apply at the TTU online job application web site at http://www.texastech.edu/careers/

use requisition number 22027BR. And then please include the attached flyer.

 

September

ttu Fighting the Pandemic: Making Better Tests

A rapid COVID-19 test being developed could show your results in a matter of seconds, and it all began with an E. coli research project. Getting tested for COVID-19 can be time consuming and expensive, but what if it could be as easy as using saliva and could take less than a minute for results? Hear how Drs. Gerri Botte from Texas Tech University and Sharilyn Almodovar from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, along with graduate student Ashwin Ramanujam, worked on a biosensor that could make virus detection simpler.


Fighting the Pandemic: Making Better Tests from Texas Tech Research on Vimeo.

tech

Fall 2020 ChE Undergraduate Tutoring

Fall tutoring is now available every Sunday – Thursday 4-9PM via Zoom.

Click here to sign-up for Undergraduate tutoring.

For questions please email: jeffrey.rammage@ttu.edu

 

August

tech

Dr. Wei Li received a three-year National Institute of Health R21 grant for $553k to develop hyperuniform (HU) microchips to study the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition of circulating tumor cells in blood and explore parameters for applying HU microchips in clinical settings.

Tech

Dana Thalman won one of the university's Student Academic Leadership Awards.

Click here for full story

June

tech

With a selection of the proposal "20-Fellows'20-0094: "Biomass-Based Polymer Electrolytes for Electrolyzers," Nathan Wilson has been awarded a fully-funded graduate fellowship totaling 225K over 4 years. Wilson, one of Texas Tech's own Chemical Engineering undergraduate students (who graduated May 2020) will be fully funded for his Ph.D. in this exciting project that deals with using in-situ resources from Mars to fabricate advanced electrolytes for CO2 reduction to support deep space exploration and Mars missions. As part of the project, he will be performing research every summer at NASA Glenn. Congratulations, Nathan, from the Whitacre College of Engineering, the Department of Chemical Engineering, and Texas Tech University!

Click here for the Nasa letter. 

 

tech Dr. Jasim Uddin awarded an Outstanding Dissertation Award for 2020 in the category of Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering.

 

May

 

ChE Graduate Students Aid in West Texas COVID-19 Efforts

  • Graduate students from the Chemical Engineering Department at Texas Tech have been working with the West Texas Covid-19 Relief Consortium to produce brims and face shields for distribution to key medical facilities around Lubbock and the region. (See more details)
  • Texas Tech researchers join the race for a vaccine against COVID-19. (Link to full article)

 

TTU Chemical Engineering Recognized!

Raiders Who Rock nominees:

  • Above & Beyond Award - Dr. Gerri Botte
  • Community Service & Leadership Award – Dana Thalman
  • Cooperation & Communication Award – AlChE Community Service Committee
  • Cooperation & Communication Award – American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
  • Unsung Hero Award – Emil Khusnatdinov
  • Unsung Hero Award – Savannah Witte

Student Involvement Awards:

  • Outstanding Contribution to the Greater Community – Whitacre College of Engineering Outreach Raiders
  • Student Organization of the Year – American Institute of Chemical Engineers

 

Student Organizations Award Video

  

Congratulations to our Spring 2020 Graduates! 

2020Grads

 

Click the image below to see a recording of the virtual Spring 2020 Senior Celebration!

 

invite

 

March

TTu

Dana N. Thalman, a Chemical Engineering undergraduate student, has been awarded the NIH Postbac IRTA (Intramural Training & Education award). This program is for recent graduates and provides the opportunity to spend one to two years performing full-time research at the NIH. Dana will be working with Dr. Gustavo Pacheco at the NIH office in Bethesda, Maryland.

KhatibHowe

Dr. Sheima Khatib (PI) and Dr. Josh Howe (Co-PI) received a three-year National Science Foundation grant for $509k to support the project entitled Integrated Experimental and Theoretical Endeavor for Fundamental Understanding of Processes in Methane Dehydroaromatization.

 

February

sion

Dr. Sindee Simon received a four-year National Science Foundation grant for $580k to support the project entitled, Relaxation of Slow Glassy Interphases in Polymeric Systems. Dilatometry and ultrafast scanning calorimetry will be used to study the rigid amorphous fraction in semicrystalline poly(ethylene terephthalate) and the immobile glassy layer at the particle interface in polymer-grafted silica nanoparticles.

1

Dr. Li received a 3-yr $425k grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will be used for a project in collaboration with Dr. Yang Jiao, from Arizona State University, and Dr. Rob Bright from TTUHSC. Together, they will work to understand the fundamental aspects of hyper uniform structured microchips and their application in cancer research.

story

The Chemical Engineering program at Texas Tech University has been ranked #23 on the 2020 Best Colleges list! These rankings are the first to be based on median early-career salary data of over 5 million graduates from the U.S. Department of Education's resource, College Scorecard.

See the full list of rankings here. 

2019 

October

story

Congratulations to Dr. Harvinder Gill. Dr. Gill was featured on Midland News for his talk on universal Flu shots at Midland College. Dr. Gill's research on universal flu vaccines would illuminate the need to get annual flu shots and instead would only require a one-time vaccine.

Click here to read the full story. 

September

grant

Researchers Receive $1.55 Million Grant From the Department of Energy.

Click here to read the full story.

chemicl 

Professor Receives $1.1 Million Grant to Improve Chemical Plant Energy Efficiency.

Click here to read the full story. 

 

 August

cncer

Dr. Siva Vanapalli along with Electrical and Computer Engineering professor, Dr. Hamed Sari-Sarraf and TTUHSC Department of Surgery professor Rakhshanda Rahman received a $657,222 Early Translational Research Award from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) to create an instrument prototype to detect cancer cells in the blood. For more information see, 

Click here to read the full story.

alex

Alex Zapata won the $ 1000 NATAS Student Award, sponsored by Setaram, for best graduate student paper at the annual meeting of the North American Thermal Analysis Society, held in August in Newport, RI. The award is for his work using ultrafast scanning calorimetry to study the glass transition as a function of liquid crystal structure in the pharmaceutical itraconazole.

madhua Madhu Palaka won a Travel Award to present his work on the glass transition of polystyrene nanorods at the annual meeting of the North American Thermal Analysis Society, held in August in Newport, RI.


July

shiema Dr. Sheima Khatib. Dr. Khatib was selected for the 2019 TLPDC Spotlight Award. She is being recognized for going "above and beyond" in teaching and service to improve Texas Tech instruction.
priya Professor Priya has been awarded the Mentor of the Year Award due to her extraordinary contributions as a mentor and entrepreneur. She has exhibited exemplary dedication to Texas Tech startups and volunteered hundreds of hours.

 May

senior hoy

Texas Tech Chemical Engineering Class of 2019. Congratulations Seniors! 
gill

Dr. Harvinder Gill, whose startup Moonlight Therapeutics aims to commercialize the use of microneedles to treat peanut allergies,
has been awarded an STTR Fast-Track grant that totals more than $2 million!


April

kh

Senior Hilario Garza and junior Juan Riemundo were each selected as top 20 finalists for the Poster Commercialization Showcase at the TTU Undergraduate Research Conference. Hilario works under the supervision of Dr. Wei Li and along side Ph.D. student Zhenya Ding, whereas Juan works under the supervision of Dr. Ya-wen Chang.

kh

ChE seniors Anam Mahmood, Justin Davis, and Matthew LeBlanc, presented posters at the TTU Undergraduate Research Fair. Anam works on polybetaines as inhibitors for paraffin crystallization with Dr. Nurxat Nuraje. Justin's research focusses on the hydrodynamics of needle-free injections with Dr. Jeremy Marston. Matthew is investigating the burrowing assay as a genetic screen for C. elegans for neuromuscular disorders with Dr. Siva Vanapalli.

kh

Dr. Sheima Khatib receives the Alumni Association for the New Faculty Award! Dr. Khatib was selected because of her exceptional work with student researchers, outreach and service efforts related to education, and for her innovative teaching.

March

38

The TTU AIChE student chapter hosted regionals with nearly 200 attendees from eight schools. The TTU ChemE Car Team "Tortilla Power" placed first in the Car Team Competition and third in the poster competition. Junior Matthew Parker placed second in the Research Poster Competition, and the TTU Jeopardy Team placed second in the Jeopardy Competition.

38

Ph.D. student, Nishat Anjum took second place in the Engineering category at the TTU 18th Annual Graduate School Poster Competition. Her work on phase transfer catalyst-functionalized nanosheets for emulsion stabilization is supervised by Dr. Ya-Wen Chang.

38

The Society of Plastics Engineers student chapter taught visitors to the Science Spectrum about plastics and molding operations. Graduate students involved included Satish Mangalara, Dongjie Chen, Rajasi Shukre, Qi Li, Qian Tian, Evelyn Lopez, Nishat Anjum, Xiao Zhao, and Naz Sakib.

ch

Ph.D. student Mahdu Palaka and senior Raymundo Roig attended the SPE ANTEC Meeting with travel grants from TTU SGA-Core Values.

38

TTU Chemical Engineering is ranked 38th of public graduate ChE programs by US News and World Report and 56th overall!

simon

Dr. Sindee Simon receives the International Award from the Society of Plastics Engineers. Dr. Simon is the first woman to win the award, which is the highest award of the society.

February

simon

Ph.D. student Qi Li received a scholarship from SPE Thermoplastic & Foam Division, presented at the SPE Polyolefins Conference in Houston. Qi, who does research with Dr. Gregory McKenna, also received an SPE Travel Award to attend the SPE ANTEC in Detroit in March.

simon

Sixue Cheng, a Ph.D. student supervised by Greg McKenna, received second place in the SPE Polyolefine poster competition in February. Her poster focused on how polymer additived influence the properties of lubricating oil.

January

awardees

Bosong Lin is named Best Teaching Assistant for his work in ChE 4353 Process Control in Fall 2018. In addition to his plaque, Bosong will receive a $ 500 award sponsored by the External Advisory Board.

awardees

Sina Hassanjani is identified by Andrew Paluch (Miami University) as "Best Presentation" of the Thermodynamics and Transport Properties (Area 1A) Division poster session at the 2018 AIChE Annual Fall Meeting in Pittsburgh.

2018

December

awardees

The Morrow Energy Pilot Plant was installed! The $1.2 M distillation facility was built and donated by Morrow Energy, which is led by President Paul Morrow, principal Luke Morrow, and father and consultant David Morrow. All three are TTU alums, Paul with BSChE and MBA degrees, Luke with BSME and MBA, and David with BS and MS in ME. The plant will provide ChE students with an unmatched hands-on experience. For more information, see https://today.ttu.edu/posts/2018/12/Stories/distillation-plant

November

awardees

Dr. Chau-Chyun Chen is elected to Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. Chen's election recognizes him as a world leader in the development of thermodynamic models for mixtures, including electrolytes. Read more at https://today.ttu.edu/posts/2018/11/Stories/aaas-fellows

awardees

Dr. Wei Li and research team had their work highlighted on the inside cover of Biomaterials Science. The was aimed at reducing blood cell adhesion in microfluidic chip devises. More details can be found at http://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/discoveries/posts/fall-2018/cancer.php

awardees

Ph.D. student Taslim Anupom won first place at the graduate student poster competition at the 34th American Society of Gravitational and Space Research meeting in Washington DC in early November. Taslim's dissertation is supervised by Dr. Siva Vanapalli.

October

awardees

The work of recent Ph.D., Ali Mir and dissertation supervisor Dr. Carla Lacerda was featured on the front cover of Tissue and Cell. In the work, Ali found that activated valvular cells in low-confluence cultures are rhomboidal whereas quiescent cells are spindle-shaped. The methodology reported is the first non-destructive approach to detect valvular cell transformation.

awardees

Ph.D. student Ziye (Jesse) Dong. Ziye won the first place in Graduate Student Award in Biomaterials Session (8B) at the AIChE annual conference. His research, which is supervised by Dr. Wei Li, focusses on isolation of circulating tumor cells from blood using nanostructured hollow glass microspheres.

awardees

The The Department hosted a well-attended reception at the national AIChE meeting in a Pittsburgh. It was great to see young and old alumni and many friends of the department. Thanks to all for a great evening!

September

hewitt

Congratulations to Jennifer Hewitt who has recieved the Fulbright Scholar Award to study nine months at the Max Plack Institute on BIolog of Aging. Jen is performing her dissertation under the guidance of Dr. Vanapalli using worms as a model system to determine the effects of exercise and nutrition on muscle mass and aging.

awardees

Kudos to our Academic Excellence in Chemical Engineering Awardees. These twelve juniors and seniors are our best and brightest, demonstrating extraordinary competence in ChE, a committment to being a well-rounded scholar, and high integrity and stature. The award, sponsored by the department's External Advisory Board, consists of a certificate and $ 1000.

August

awardees

Ph.D. student Nazam Sakib won the NATAS Student Award and presented his work on nanocomposite work at the annual meeting of the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS), held in Philadelphia in August. Ph.D. students Madhusudhan Pallaka and Qian Tian, also supervised by Dr. Simon, received Travel Awards to attend the same meeting.

June

chemcat

Ph.D. students Apoorva Sridhar and Mustafizur Rahman, along with Prof. Sheima J. Khatib, made the cover of ChemCatChem. Their article demonstrates how methane from natural gas can be upgraded directly into benzene and hydrogen. Read More

che

Congratulations to Ph.D. students Pedro Gonzalez-Cruz and Md Jasim Uddin and their supervisor, Prof. Harvinder Gill.  The three, along with Drs. Shashwati Atwe and Noureddine Abidi recently published an article in ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering about cleaning pollen grains to use as vehicles for drugs and vaccines.

sheima

Congratulations to Prof. Sheima Khatib who received an Outstanding Poster Presentation Award at the Catalysis Gordon Research Conference, held in New London, NH, June 24-29, 2018.

vanapalli

Dr. Siva Vanapalli and Dr. Mizanur Rahman won an Innovation Award at the Tech Connect Conference in Anaheim, CA, for their microfluidic technology used to conduct aging investigations in nematodes.

May

siva

siva

Congratulations to our largest graduation class to date, with 85 seniors graduating and ChE Hattie Schunk leading the way as the College flagbearer.

siva

Dr. Siva Vanapalli was awarded a President's Excellence in Research Professorship. Dr. Vanapalli is the first cohort of faculty winning this award which carries a minimum of $5000 in discretionary research funding for three years.

best tas

Congratulations to the Best TAs for Spring 2018: Uriel Garza Rubalcava and Chunhao Zhai! Both received certificates and a $500 award sponsored by the departmental External Advisory Board.

winners

Congratulations to the winners of the Chemical Engineering Graduate Research Fair Competition: First place went to Ashwin Ravichandran, second place to Jennifer Hewett, and third place to Md Jasim Uddin.

gill

Dr. Harvinder Gill was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors for his patents related to microneedles and pollen grains for drug and vaccine delivery.

April

wright

Junior Caleb D. Wright took third place at AIChE Regionals in the research poster competition. Caleb presented a poster on his undergraduate research which he performs in Prof. Jeremy Marston's laboratory.

jeopardy

The TTU Chemical Engineering Jeopardy Team took second at Regionals in Corpus Christi. The team consisted of senior Charles Alvin Elliott, junior Nicolas Rodriguez, and sophomores Matthew Parker, and Katlyn Porter.

March

car team

The Texas Tech ChemE Car Team swept Regionals at Corpus Christi, winning first place in all categories - poster, safety, and performance.

g

Congratulations to Ph.D. candidate Md Jasim Uddin for his selection for the 2018 Horn Professors Graduate Achievement Award! Jasim performs research in Dr. Harvinder Singh Gill's laboratory on allergen-free pollen shellas a novel microcapsule to deliver oral vaccines.

February

siva

Congratulations to Siva Vanapalli, who will be promoted to Professor, effective September 1, 2018.

g

The Department's mentoring program was kicked off with over 60 matches made between alumni and students.

January

siva

Congratulations to Srinivasan Raman and Bosong Lin for winning Best TA  Awards for their work as teaching assistants in Fall 2017. Srinivas was  commended for his masterful knowledge, tireless work, and genuine care  for the students in ChE 3322 ChE Thermodynamics 2, whereas Bosong Lin  was commended for his knowledge, patience, and outstanding effort in ChE 4353 Process Control. Both students received a certificate and a $ 500 award sponsored by the External Advisory Board.

g

Welcome to Dr. Mahdi Malmali who joins the faculty as a tenure-track  faculty  member. Dr. Malmali comes to us after a postdoc at the University of  Minnesota. His research area is process intensification.

2017

December

g

Dr. Wei Li won the WCOE Whitacre Research Award for research growth. Read  More

g

Dr. Sheima Khatib won the George T. and Gladys Abell-Hanger Faculty Award for teaching.

g

Dr. Jeremy Marston won the Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Award.              

November

g

Dr. Gregory McKenna is named Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his research on phase transitions at the nanoscale and nonlinear mechanics of polymers.

g

Dr. Sindee Simon was elected co-chair of AIChE's Division 8a (Polymers) at the annual meeting.

g

Dr. Sheima Khatib has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Fuels and Petrochemicals Division of the AIChE.

g

Chemical Engineering alumni dinners were held in Houston on Nov. 6 and in San Antonio on Nov. 7. At the Houston dinner, Dean Al Sacco and Chair Sindee Simon gave updates on the state of the department and the vision, and Dale Harper let alums know how they could get more involved.
g
The ChE Car Team was awarded Most Creative Drive System at the 2017 National AIChE Meeting. Five team members participated at Nationals: (from left to right) Ethan Thomas, Blake Hanford, Cassandra Alvarez, Joshua Holtz (President), and Tyler Chiriboga.

September

g

Dr. Carla Lacerda is commended for her advocacy of diversity and equity. She has been selected as Fellow for the 2017/18 Texas Tech Institute for Inclusive Excellence.

g

Dr. Sheima Khatib won the George T. and Gladys Abell-Hanger Faculty Award for teaching.

g

Tianyu Chen, Nishat Anjum, and Alex Zapata, all second-year Ph.D. students, were honored to receive the Best TA award for their performance as TAs in the Spring 2016 term. Each received a plaque and a $ 500 check sponsored by the Chemical Engineering External Advisory Board's Fund for Excellence. Tianyu was commended for his knowledge, approachability, and patience in teaching students in ChE 3232 Chemical Engineering Transport Laboratory. Nishat was commended for her patience and ability to explain challenging concepts as discussion leader for ChE 3330 Materials Science. Alex was commended for his his ability to make learning fun and to inspire students in the freshman course ChE 1305 Engineering Analysis.

August

g

Valero has donated $ 1 M to build the Experiential Learning Laboratory for the Department of Chemical Engineering. This new teaching laboratory will significantly impact student learning. Read more here

g

Dr. Gregory McKenna was elected as Fellow in the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS).

g

Ph.D. student Raul Dominguez was awarded a scholarship from the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which is given to graduate students based on merit. Raul Dominquez's research focuses on allergy immunotherapy. Raul Dominguez is supervised by Dr. Harvinder Gill.

g

Ph.D. student Ziye Dong will receive the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Graduate Student Design and Research Award for his work in biodegradable nanofilms for isolating and recovery of cancer cells at the National BMES meeting in October where he will deliver an oral presentation during the “Cancer Technologies” session. Ziye Dong is supervised by Dr. Wei Li.

June

g

Supporting faculty, Priya Gill, received a 2017 Texas Tech Alumni Association Excellence Grant for "Program for Initial Market Research and Prototype Development for a New Venture.

g

Ph.D. student Qian Tian recieved a travel grant to present her work on nanoconfined equilibrium polymerization at the annual meeting of the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS), to be held at the University of Delaware in August 2017. Qian is supervised by Dr. Sindee L. Simon.

April

g

Dr. Ronald Hedden was awarded the President's Excellence in Teaching Award for exceptional teaching, mentoring, and advising

g

Michael Doerfert, a junior in Chemical Engineering, received a Goldwater Honorable Mention.

g

The Department of Chemical Engineering was awarded the first inaugural Provost's Institutional Effectivness Excellence Award for assessment of student outcomes and programs.

Jordan

Vega

Wigham

Three chemical engineering juniors, Matthew Jordan, Miguel Vega, and Caleb Wigham, were selected as participants in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program at the National Institue of Standards and Technology (NIST). Each will spend eleven weeks at NIST performing research this summer.

March

g

The Society of Plastics Engineers South Texas Section awarded a $500 scholarship to Ph.D. Student, Heedong Yoon, at their 2017 Polyolefins Conference, held in Houston, TX from Feb. 26-March 1, 2017. The scholarship was awarded through the Thermoplastic Materials and Foams Division (TMFD), which is chaired by Donna S. Davis.

g

Dr. Nurxat Nuraje was awarded a 2017 US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) Summer Faculty Fellowship. During the coming summer, he will perform collaborative research at theWright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for 8 -12 weeks

g

Ph.D. student Md Jasim Uddin won first place in the 16th Annual Graduate Student Research Poster Competition (Engineering V category) for his poster entitled, "Oral vaccine delivery using ragweed pollen grains." Jasim is supervised by Dr. Harvinder Gill and the work is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

g

Chemical engineering undergraduates, Michael Doerfert, a junior, and Zack Buford, a senior, tied for first place in the physical sciences division of the 9th Annual TTU Undergraduate Research Conference. Their poster outlined their research in applying polymer science fundamentals to the study of membranes designed for separating ethanol-water mixtures. The students are supervised by Dr. Ronald Hedden.

g

Senior Matthew Jordan tied for first place in the physical sciences division of the 9th Annual TTU Undergraduate Research Conference. Jordan's poster covered his research on understanding the various mechanisms affecting nanoscale particle reactivity. He was supervised by Dr. Theodore Wiesner.

g

Two Texas Tech ChE Car Teams competed at Regionals. The "Midnight Matador" team, captained by Aaron Lambert, won first place in the Poster Presentation. The "Tower of Power" team, captained by Blake Hanford, won second place in Car Performance, earning them a spot in the national competition in the Fall 2017.

February

g

Dr. Sheima Khatib application to the DOE Visiting Faculty Program is awarded for the second year in a row. She and her students plan to perform synchrotron-based experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory this coming summer, with the aim of understanding metal-carbon and metal-oxygen interactions in zeolite catalysts for methane aromatization.

g

Hattie Schunk received the Dr. Gerald Lage Academic Achievement Award this year, the highest academic honor offered by the Big 12 Conference. Hattie, a chemical engineering senior from Albuquerque,NM, runs cross country for Texas Tech Women's Cross Country. Read more

January

 jan
Michael Sees, Hla Tun, and Mir Ali received plaques and $500 checks sponsored by the ChE EAB Fund for Excellence. Michael was commended for his exceptional teaching skills and readiness to go above and beyond in ChE 3322 Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics 2; Hla Tun for his dedication to excellence and commitment to the students in ChE 5321 Graduate Thermodynamics; and Mir Ali for his willingness to help the students and his excellent job teaching discussions in ChE 2410 Introduction to Chemical Processes

2016

December

g

Dr. Harvinder S. Gill is awarded the 2016 Chancellor's Council Distinguished Research Award

October

g

g

Mizanur Rahman was awarded the 3rd Annual Student Investigator Space Flight Award and Jennifer Hewitt won second place in the graduate student poster competition, both at the 2016 meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research, held in Cleveland, OH. The students are studying muscle strength and aging in C. elegans under the supervision of Dr. Siva Vanapalli.

g

g

Brandon Palomo and Aric Denton were members of the iGEM team that won a silver medal at the 2016 competition. Brandon, an undergraduate in ChE, served as President and Team Leader. Aric, an MS student in ChE, served as Dry Lab Manager. Their project, "Enhanced Wound Healing Using a Protein-Infused Collagen Scaffold,” was supervised by Dr. Annette Sobel, Associate Professor of Medical Education. Dr. Wei Li supported the project by helping the students develop the protein-infused collagen scaffold in his laboratory. For more information, click here

g

Dean Al Sacco, Jr., was elected to the AIChE Board of Directors.                                       

September

g

Twelve undergraduate students were honored by receiving a 2016 Award for Academic Excellence in Chemical Engineering. These students represent our finest students, each with GPA over 3.9, a ranking in the top 10 % of their class, and an integrity and personal stature that is inspirational. A hearty congratulations to all! See more

g

g

g

Graduate students Sriramvignesh Mani, Fardin Khabaz, and Rutvik V. Godbole were awarded the 2016 Raider Red Award for Outstanding Peer-Reviewed Journal Paper for their work "Structure and Hydrogen Bonding of Water in Polyacrylate Gels: Effects of Polymer Hydrophilicity and Water Concentration," that was co-authored with Chemical Engineering faculty members Ronald C. Hedden and Rajesh Khare. The award of $500 was shared by the three students who also received a Certificate of Award for their efforts.

August

g

Qian Tian won first place in the Student Poster Competition at the International Conference for Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry (ICTAC), held in Orlando, FL. Her research deals with equilibrium polymerization of butyl methacrylate in bulk and in nanopore confinement. Qian is supervised by Dr. Sindee L. Simon.

g

Ph.D. student Md Islam attended the 2016 International Conference on Properties and Phase Equilibria for Product and Process Design (PPEPPD)in Porto, Portugal, with travel support provided by the conference. Md Islam is supported by Dr. Chau-Chyun Chen.

June

g

Postdoctoral researcher Caroline Ahrens was honored to receive a Red Raider Safety Award from the Whitacre College of Engineering for her leadership in safety in the laboratories of Drs. Wei Li and Siva Vanapalli. Caroline effectively practices "Safety is Everyone's Responsibility" and she encourages all of her lab mates to do the same.

May

g

g

Rohan S. Ingrole and Xinmei Wang were honored to receive the Best TA award for their performance in the Spring 2016 term. Each received a plaque and a $ 500 check sponsored by the Chemical Engineering External Advisory Board's Fund for Excellence. Ingrole was commended for his professionalism and excellent preparation for discussions in ChE 2410 Thermodynamics I. Wang was commended for her dedication to teaching and her clear, organized presentations for ChE 3323 Reaction Engineering.

g

Dr. Gregory McKenna has been awarded the DFG Mercator Fellowship, which facilitates long-term project-based cooperation with German researchers. Dr. McKenna will be performing soft matter research with collaborators at the Universities of Freiburg and Strasbourg

April

g

Undergraduate researcher, Trinh Lam, won second place in Top Oral Presenter at TTU Undergraduate Research Conference 2016. She also attended at NEMB Conference in Houston in February 2016 with a CALUE Undergraduate Scholar Travel Funding Award. Her research focuses on paper-based microfluidic device for point of care diagnostics, and she is supervised by Dr. Jungkyu Kim in ME

g

In the departmental graduate research fair, Mizanur Rahman received first place for his poster, "Nemaflex: A Microfluidic Tool for Phenotyping Neuromuscular Strength in C. Elegans." Evelyn Lopez received second place for "Relationship between Fragility and Tg Changes on Confinement for Three Cyanurates," and Md Jasim Uddin received third place for "A Mechanistic Insight into Pollen Grains as an Oral Vaccine Delivery System." Rahman is supervise by Dr. Vanapalli, Lopez by Dr. Simon, and Uddin by Dr. Gill.

g

Outstanding Service Awards were presented to the 2015/16 Officers of the AIChE Student Chapter for their extraordinary work: Josh Castilaw (President), Brian Wang (Vice-President), John Svab (Treasurer), Heather Dorrance (Secretary), and Cameron Riley (SORC Representative). Outstanding Service Awards were also presented to the 2015/2016 ChemE Car Team President Taylor Farley, Treasurer Dallas Drane, and Team Captain Sergio Vega.
 che
Congratulations are in order for undergraduates attending the AIChE Regional Meeting, April 8-10, 2016, University of Houston. The Car Team won first place in the poster competition and second place in the car competition. Taylor Farley was the President and she worked with team members, Sergio Vega, Pablo Chavez, Cassandra Alvarez, Asmaul (Nain) Indah, and Dallas Drane. The Jeopardy Team, which consisted of Kosi Anazia, Joe Carrera, Sarah Crawford, Heather Dorrance, and Nestor Rodriguez, received second place.

g

Dr. Ronald Hedden is awarded the Spencer A. Wells Creativity in Teaching Award from the Texas Tech Parent's Association.

g

Dr. Carla Lacerda is named winner of the Texas Tech Alumni Association's 2016 New Faculty Award for her exceptional work mentoring student researchers, performing outreach and service related to education, and for her outstanding teaching.

March

Six images were selected as winners in the first biannual departmental Art in Science competition. The images, which will be displayed in the hall outside the main office, are from the research groups of Marston, Gill, VanapalliWeeksLacerda, and McKenna.

gill

Gill

Lacerda

Lacerda

Marston

Marston

Weeks

Weeks

Mckenna

Mckenna

Vanapalli

Vanapalli

g

Dr. Sheima Khatib application to the DOE Visiting Faculty Program is awarded and will allow her and her students to perform experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory this coming summer

g

Hattie Schunk a junior in ChE from Albuquerque,NM, has been named a 2016 Barry Goldwater Scholar, a highly competitive and prestigious award given to the top 200 students across the United State. Hattie has performed undergraduate research with Dr. Casadonte in the Chemistry Department, and she worked as an intern for Sandia National Laboratories. She is also on the Texas Tech Women's Cross Country and Track team. Hattie also received a 2015 Award for Academic Excellence in Chemical Engineering from the Department. She plans to pursue her Ph.D. in bioengineering after her undergraduate studies. Read more

January

g

Three graduate students received the Best TA award for their performance during Fall 2015. Each received a plaque and a $ 500 check sponsored by the Chemical Engineering External Advisory Board's Fund for Excellence. Md Moniruddin was commended for his commitment and hard work to ensure experiments ran smoothly in ChE 3232 Transport Laboratory; Michael Sees for his dedication to teaching, patience with students, and clear explanations in ChE 3232 Transport Laboratory; and Xiaofei Zhao for his professionalism and clear and well-organized presentations in ChE 3326 Heat Transfer.

g

"Aggregation Thermodynamics for Asphaltene Precipitation" was recently accepted by the AIChE Journal. It has been designated a "Top Tier" contribution and will be noted as an "Editor's Choice."The work is authored by Dr. Chau-Chyun Chen with students Meng Wang, Yifan Hao, and Md Islam.

2015

November

g

g

Drs. Chau-Chyun Chen and Sindee L. Simon were elected as Fellows of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).

g

Michael Wurmstein, an undergraduate student working in Dr. Khare's research group, won the second place award in the undergraduate research poster competition at the national AIChE meeting in the Computing and Process Control Category. Michael's work focuses on tuning polymer chemistry to design an energy efficient pervaporation membrane for separation of an alcohol-water biofuel mixture.

Michael Doerfert

Michael Doerfert, a junior in Chemical Engineering, has been selected as one of fifteen Texas Tech students to serve as Congressional Interns in Washington, D.C. in spring 2016. The internship program offers students a unique opportunity to experience the federal government first-hand and to learn how government works.

September

Dr. Ronald C. Hedden

Dr. Siva Vanapalli

Dr. Siva Vanapalli is named Ed and Linda Whitacre Faculty Fellow.                                

Dr. Jing Zhao

Dr. Jing Zhao, now a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has been awarded the 2015 Raider Red Award for Outstanding Peer-Reviewed Journal Paper for "Using 20-million-year-old amber to test the super-Arrhenius behavior of glass-forming systems," published by Zhao, Simon and McKenna, in Nature Communications, 4, 1783/1-6 (2013). The award, which comes with an honorarium of $ 500 and a certificate, is endowed at Texas Tech University. Selection was made from eight papers submitted for consideration to the Texas Tech Chapter of the Society of Plastics Engineers

Dr. Jing Zhao

Twelve undergraduates have been honored with the 2015 Award for Academic Excellence in Chemical Engineering. These students represent the top students in our department, both in terms of their scholarship and their integrity.

August

Dr. Harvinder Gill

Dr. Harvinder Gill has been appointed as the Whitacre Endowed Chair in Science and Technology.

Dr. Siva Vanapalli

Dr. Siva Vanapalli has been has been awarded the Bill Sanderson Faculty Fellowship.

July

Dr. Amit Jain

Dr. Amit Jain,a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Prof. Harvinder Gill was awarded a 2015 BME Innovation and Career Development Award. The award from the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) provides travel to attend the BMES Annual Meeting.

June

che
Ph.D. students Evelyn Lopez, Madhu Palaka, Rozana Bari, and Heedong Yoon have received NATAS Student Travel Awards to attend the 2015 annual meeting of the North American Thermal Analysis Society, which will be held in August in Montreal! Evelyn, Madhu, and Rozana are supervised by Dr. Sindee Simon; Heedong is supervised by Dr. Gregory B. McKenna.

April

che
Ph.D. students Nabiollah Kamyabi, Mehdi Nekouei, Fardin Khabaz and Rutvik Godbole were awarded 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, respectively in the Texas Tech 14th annual Graduate Student Poster Competition. Nabi is supervised by Dr. Siva Vanapalli, Mehdi by Dr. Harvinder Gill, and Fardin and Rutvik are collaborating on a project led by Drs. Rajesh Khare and Ronald Hedden.

March

Dr. Gregory B. McKenna

Dr. Gregory B. McKenna has been named a recipient of the 2014-2015 Barnie E. Rushing Jr. Faculty Distinguished Research Award from the Texas Tech Parents Association

Dr. Brandon Weeks

Dr. Brandon Weeks has been named a recipient of the 2014-2015 Spencer A. Wells Award for Creativity in Teaching from the Texas Tech Parents Association.

Harvinder Gill

Dr. Harvinder Gill is awarded tenure and promotion to associate professor. Promotion is effective September 2015.

January

Harvinder Gill

Silke Paust

Dr. Harvinder Gill and Silke Paust (Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine) were awarded a five-year, $2.8M NIH grant to evaluate the efficacy of a novel oral pollen vaccine to activate Natural Killer cells and to protect from HIV infection.

Rong Xu

Renewable Energy Global Innovations (REGI) has identified an article by Dr. Rong Xu, as a Key Scientific Article. Xu, an August 2014 Ph.D. graduate, whose dissertation was supervised by Dr. Ted Wiesner, published “The Conceptual Design of a Two-Step Solar Hydrogen Thermochemical Cycle with Thermal Storage in a Reaction Intermediate” in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy

2014

December

Dr. Jeremy Marsto

A video submitted by Dr. Jeremy Marston and coauthors from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia won first place in the 2014 Gallery of Fluid Motion Award competition sponsored by the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society. The video, which can be viewed here, was also highlighted in the BBC report, The Weird World of Everyday Liquid

November

Dr. Siva A. Vanapalli

Dr. Siva A. Vanapalli will receive a Rising Star Award from the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Special Interest Group of the Biomedical Engineering Society. Rising Star Awards are given to a select group of young faculty who then give their talks in a special session at the BMES-CMBE meeting.

Michael Wurmstein

Michael Wurmstein, an undergraduate researcher working with Dr. Rajesh Khare, won the first place award in the Computing and Process Control Division at the Undergraduate Research Poster Competition at the AIChE meeting. The title of Michael's poster was "Simulated Annealing Polymerization: A General Algorithm for Preparing Atomistic Model Structures of Amorphous Polymers."

September

Haoyu Zhao

Ph.D. student, Haoyu Zhao, won first place in the Student Poster Competition at the North American Thermal Analysis Society meeting, held in Santa Fe, New Mexico in September 2014. His poster, titled "Methyl Methacrylate Polymerization in Nanoporous Matrix: Reactivity and Resulting Properties," was coauthored by Fatema Begum, Ziniu Yu, Ronald Hedden, and Dr. Sindee L. Simon. Haoyu is supervised by Simon.

Dr. Nurxat Nuraje

Incoming faculty member, Dr. Nurxat Nuraje, has been selected as the winner of the "Joseph Wang Award" by Congizure Publishing Division. The award recognizes outstanding young researchers in the area of nanomaterials and is awarded based on originality of research, impact of research, quality of publications, innovation, and professional standing.
Kovalski
Matt Kovalski won second place in the undergraduate student poster competition of the Fracturing Impacts & Technologies Conference, and M.S. student Nguyen Nguyen won second place in the graduate student poster competition. The conference, held September 4-5, 2014 in Lubbock, was sponsored by Texas Tech University and the Air and Waste Management Association (A&WMA). Both students are supervised by Dr. Chau-Chyun Chen.

August

Tumor Cell Transport

Dr. Siva A. Vanapalli received two grants from the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) as the primary investigator. One of the projects deals with new technology for ultrahigh throughput enumeration of circulating tumor cells; this is a High-Impact/High-Risk Research Award of $200k with co-PI Dr. Jian Sheng, a professor of mechanical engineering, and collaborator Dr. Wei Li. The second project, a $675k award, deals with engineering microfluidic devices for multimodal mechanical phenotyping of tumor cells in flow will be performed with collaborators Dr. Boyd Butler (Department of Biological Sciences) and Evie Cobos (TTUHSC).

July

Yunzhe Ma

Yunzhe Ma, supervised by Dr. Harvinder Gill, received the Texas Tech Outstanding Dissertation Award for 2014. Dr. Ma's thesis was entitled, "Microneedles for Drug Delivery into Oral Cavity." Ma has pioneered the use of microneedles for drug and vaccine delivery to the oral cavity by establishing feasibility of generating mucosal immunity in saliva of rabbits using HIV as antigen; developing a novel approach to coat water insoluble drugs such as lidocaine (a local anesthetic) for delivery to oral tissues; and evaluating an approach using microneedles that can directly deliver drugs to oral cancers. Ma is currently working at Intel in Hillsboro, Oregon.

June

2014

Astrid Torres, Siyang Gao, Ran Tao, Heedong Yoon, and Xin Zhang all received NATAS Student Travel Awards to present their work at the 2014 annual meeting of the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS). The meeting will held in September in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Dr. Sindee L. Simon will receive the 2014 Mettler Toledo Outstanding Achievement Award from the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS). The award, which is the highest award of the society, will be presented at the NATAS annual meeting in September 2014 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Robert Fullerton

Robert Fullerton, an undergraduate student, is the first author on a paper in the prestigious journal Carbon titled, "Graphene non-covalently tethered with magnetic nanoparticles."Robert worked with Dr. Micah Green for three years and spearheaded the research himself. He also had an internship with the Army Research Lab in 2012 where he initiated a collaboration with coauthor Daniel Cole.

May

Amber Helm

Amber Helm, a May 2014 B.S.Ch.E. graduate, was named the recipient of the 2014 McAuley Distinguished Engineering Student Award. She graduated with a 3.93 GPA and Summa Cum Laude with Honors. Helm accepted a full-time position with Anadarko as a production engineer in Kermit.

Yanfei Li

Yanfei Li was invited to participate in the AIChE Excellence in Materials Engineering and Science Division Area 8a (Polymers) Graduate Student Research Award Symposium. He will compete with nine other students for the award at the 2014 AIChE Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.

April

Simon

Dr. Sindee L. Simon received the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) 2014 Research/Engineering Technology Award at the Annual Technical Meeting (ANTEC) for research and technology developments in polymers and polymer composites and for her pioneering contributions in thermal analysis of polymers.

Wenqian Tao

Wenqian Tao, a Ph.D. student supervised by Dr. Harvinder Gill, was awarded a Student Travel Achievement Recognition (STAR) Award for her paper titled "Engineering and Evaluation of a Fully Synthetic Universal Influenza-A Vaccine Based on M2e-Conjugated Gold Nanoparticles," which she presented at the Society For Biomaterials' 2014 Annual Meeting.

March

che
Doctoral students Evelyn Lopez and Astrid Torres were awarded the Carl Storm Underrepresented Minority (CSURM) Fellowship to attend the 2014 Gordon Research Conference on Polymer Physics. Also honored were doctoral students Ran Tao and Astrid Torres who both presented invited talks at the preceding Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on Polymer Physics, and doctoral student Siyang Gao who served as a discussion leader at the GRS. Astrid is supervised by Dr. Greg McKenna; Evelyn, Ran, and Siyang are supervised by Dr. Sindee L. Simon.
Dr. Siva A. Vanapalli was granted tenure and promotion to associate professor. The promotion is effective September 1, 2014.

February

Rong Xu

Rong Xu, supervised by Dr. Ted Wiesner, won first place in Engineering Division I of the 13th Annual Graduate Student Research Poster Competition, hosted by the Texas Tech Graduate School in February 2014. Her research poster entitled, "Reactor Design and Dynamic Model of a Two-step Iron Oxide Solar Thermochemical Cycle," detailed her work on a novel process which can sustain 24/7 hydrogen production from solar energy without fossil fuel backup.

Siyang Gao

Lan Ma

Ziniu Yu

Graduate students in the department had a very strong showing at the International Polyolefins Conference held in Houston on Feb. 23-26, 2014. The conference attracted more than 600 participants and more than 40 poster presentations. Siyang Gao, a fifth-year graduate student in Dr. Sindee L. Simon's research group won second place for her poster titled "The Experimental and Modeling Study of Reaction Kinetics of Cyclopentadiene Dimerization." Lan Ma, a fifth-year graduate student in Dr. Ronald C. Hedden's research group won third place for her poster titled "Shape Memory Effects in Polyethylene/Carbon Black Nanocomposites and Polyethylene/Polypropylene Blends. Ziniu Yu, a fourth-year graduate student also in Dr. Hedden's research group, won honorable mention for "Guest Molecule Behavior in Liquid Crystalline Networks: Comparison of A and ABA Type Plasticizers."

January

Dr. Sindee L. Simon received an NSF Special Creativity Extension to study the glass transition at the nanoscale.

2013

December

Dr. Siva A. Vanapalli has been named a recipient of a Chancellor's Council Distinguished Research Award, part of the 13th annual Chancellor's Council distinguished faculty awards. Recognizing excellence in teaching, research, and commercialization, these awards represent the most prestigious honors granted to faculty members throughout the Texas Tech University System. The Chancellor's Council Distinguished Research Award recognizes outstanding research, scholarship, and creative activity of faculty members in the developmental stages of their careers.

October

Drs. Sindee L. Simon and Greg McKenna have been selected to receive the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Lubbock Chapter Scientists of the Year Award. The award will be presented at the Annual Scientist of the Year (SOY) Dinner. The ARCS Foundation,Inc. is a national volunteer women's organization dedicated to providing financial support to academically outstanding students majoring in the fields of natural science, medicine, and engineering. This academic year the local chapter has awarded thirteen scholarships to students enrolled at Texas Tech, the TTUHSC, and LCU.

September

Dr. Siva A. Vanapalli and his student Deepak Solomon (as senior personnel) received an NSF Innovation Corps award of $50,000 to assess the commercial feasibility of their drop-based microfluidic technology for drug screening. The award will allow Solomon to participate in an entrepreneurship immersion course, receive guidance from a business mentor in Lubbock, and develop a business plan for the technology.
Dr. Greg McKenna has been elected president of the Society of Rheology; his term will start during the annual meeting on October 17, 2013.
Dr. Rajesh Khare has been selected as the chair of AIChE's Area 1a (Thermodynamics and Transport Properties) Programming Committee; his term will begin at the 2013 annual meeting. Khare is currently a member of the Area 1a Programming Committee and handled thermodynamics programming for the 2013 annual meeting.

Dr. Chau-Chyun Chen

The department is pleased to welcome Dr. Chau-Chyun Chen as Professor and Jack Maddox Distinguished Engineering Chair in Sustainable Energy. Chen, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, comes to Texas Tech from AspenTech where he was Vice President for Technology. His research expertise is in molecular thermodynamics, thermophysical properties and fluid phase equilibria, and process modeling.

August

Dr. Ronald C. Hedden

Dr. Rajesh Khare

Dr. Ronald C. Hedden and Dr. Rajesh Khare were awarded a three year, $639,929 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) program. Their funded project is entitled, "DMREF: Combinatorial Methods to Enable Rapid Prototyping of Pervaporation Membranes for Bio-alcohol Recovery."

July

Ketan S. Khare

Ketan S. Khare, a chemical engineering graduate student working in Dr. Rajesh Khare's research group, was awarded the first place in the poster competition at the Polymer Composites and High Performance Materials workshop organized by the Division of Polymer Chemistry, American Chemical Society (ACS) in Santa Rosa, California in July 2013. The poster titled "Effect of the Chemical Functionalization of Carbon Nanotubes on the Thermo-mechanical Properties of Cross-linked Epoxy-Carbon Nanotube Nanocomposites," presents results that elucidate the key role played by matrix-filler interfacial interactions in load transfer between the polymer matrix and the carbon nanotubes in nanocomposites. This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

June

Jeevan Maddala

Jeevan Maddala was awarded an NSF STTR grant to commercialize his doctoral work, which was performed under the supervision of Dr. Raghunathan Rengasamy. The project, titled "Development of a Computational Tool for Modeling, Simulation, and Design of Next Generation Discrete Droplet Microfluidic Systems," is a collaboration with Rengasamy. The aim is to develop novel design concepts for microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices that allow precise control of chemical composition and concentration. Such devices are anticipated to facilitate discovery of materials for various pharmaceutical and biomedical applications, including protein crystallization, stem cell growth, and drug screening.

May

Several chemical engineering faculty and staff members were recognized by the Whitacre College of Engineering. Dr. Rajesh Khare received the George T. and Gladys Abell-Hanger Faculty Award for outstanding graduate teaching, Dr. Micah Green received the Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Award, Dr. Ronald C. Hedden received the Whitacre Research Award for excellence in research, and Dr. Micah Green received the Whitacre Research Award for growth in research. The department's unit coordinator, Mary Beth Abernathy, received the Orval Leroy Lewis Award. At the university level, Dr. Micah Green will also receive the Texas Tech Alumni Association New Faculty Award.

Fossil Amber

Graduate Student Jing Zhao's work on 20 million year old amber published in Nature Communications, was highlighted by National Geographic, the Tikalon blog and by Texas Tech. Zhao made calorimetric and viscoelastic measurements on 20 million year old amber under the guidance of Dr. Sindee L. Simon and Dr. Greg McKenna. The purpose of the work was to test the idea of glass formation through an “ideal” glass transition. The findings challenge this view and alter the current paradigms for the physics of glasses.

March

Naureen Suteria

ChemE Jeopardy Team

The Texas Tech AIChE Student Chapter hosted the 2013 Southwest AIChE Regional Conference in Lubbock. Students from UT, Rice, LSU, UH, TAMU, TAMU-Kingsville, Lamar, and Tecnológico de Monterrey attended. Naureen Suteria, a student under the supervision of Dr. Siva A. Vanapalli, won first place in the Regional Student Paper Competition. The Texas Tech ChemE Jeopardy Team, consisting of Braden Pate, Seth Spear, Amber Helm, and Michael Sees, also took first place. The Texas Tech AIChE Student Chapter officers are Donny Torres, Kim Davis, Erika Yamasaki, and Jimmy Woods.
Dr. Ronald C. Hedden was granted tenure and Dr. Brandon Weeks was promoted to full professor at the recent meeting of the Board of Regents. The promotions are effective September 1, 2013.

February

Siyang Gao

Siyang Gao, a fourth-year graduate student in Dr. Sindee L. Simon's research group won third place at the International Polyolefins Conference for her poster, titled "The Calorimetric Glass Transition of Single Polystyrene Ultrathin Films." The conference, which was held in Houston on February 23-27, 2013, attracted more than 600 participants and more than 40 poster presentations.

Deepak Solomon and Dr. Siva A. Vanapalli

Deepak Solomon, a chemical engineering graduate student working under the supervision of Dr. Siva A. Vanapalli, was awarded fourth place in the graduate student poster competition at the 84th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology in Pasadena, California in February 2013. The poster was titled, "Measurement of hydrodynamic resistance due to purely elastic instabilities in curvilinear microchannels."

January

Dr. Carla Lacerda

The department is pleased to welcome Dr. Carla Lacerda as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Lacerda earned her Ph.D. from Colorado State University in Chemical Engineering with a focus on metal resistance in microbial communities. After completion of her Ph.D., Dr. Lacerda transitioned from environmental to biomedical science. Her current research is aimed at understanding the effects of mechanical stimuli on heart valves.
Texas Tech made a big impression at the first Texas Soft Matter Meeting held at the University of Houston in January 2013. Texas Tech had 24 representatives at the meeting including 19 students, two post-doctoral researchers, and three faculty members. An invited lecture was given by Dr. Sindee L. Simon. The students and other faculty were from the Soft Matter Working Group at Texas Tech. The group focuses on research and education in the blossoming field of Soft Matter and Soft Materials and is represented by faculty from the Departments of Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Dr. Sindee L. Simon was named recipient of the 2013 Lubbock Women of Excellence Award in Science from the Lubbock YWCA
Qiuying Gu, a doctoral student under the supervision of Dr. Karlene Hoo, recently completed a seven-month internship with Halliburton in Carrollton, Texas. Her project involved modeling a cement flow valve and mixing system, designing and testing an appropriate controller strategy, preparing a written report, and orally presenting the results to the Halliburton staff.

Chemical Engineering