Department News
Faculty, Staff, and Student News
2024
Fall
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ChE Undergraduate earns Poster Competition Award at the 2024 AIChE conference Congratulations to Gray Podolak for being awarded the 3rd place (topic session) for the 2024 Undergraduate Student Poster Competition held in San Diego, California! Gray is a junior currently working in Dr. Glenn Zeng's lab and has published 2 peer-reviewed papers. Gray would like to thank the AIChE mentor, Dr.Jenifer Gomez-Pastora, as well as travel support from the department chair, Dr. Rajesh Khare. |
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Whitacre College of Engineering Awarded Grant for High-Impact Gas Lift Optimization Research The Edward E. Whitacre College of Engineering at TTU has been awarded a research grant from Estis Compression for a groundbreaking project aimed at revolutionizing gas lift optimization in unconventional wells. The project, titled, "Cradle to Grave Gas Lift", is led by Smith Leggett from the Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum Engineering and Jay Lu from the Department of Chemial Engineering. The initiative promises to enhance the efficiency of gas lift operations, which are crucial for maximizing oil and gas production in rapidly declining unconventional wells. |
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Texas Tech Professor Receives Grant for Printable Semiconductors Research Dr. Minxiang "Glenn" Zeng has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to further his research about printable semiconductors and electronics under extreme environments. The project aims to develop strategies to enhance the thermal stability of metal chalcogenide materials. |
Summer
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TTU Chemical Engineering is Rising in Rank! Texas Tech Graduate School earns high marks from U.S. News and World Report. The Edward E. Whitacre College of Engineering was ranked No. 111, highlighted by seven programs ranked within the top 100. Chemical Engineering ranking No. 67! |
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Dr. Rajesh Khare Appointed as Department Chair for Chemical Engineering Dr. Rajesh Khare has accepted the role of Department Chair for Chemical Engineering within the Whitacre College of Engineering at TTU effective September 1, 2024. Dr. Khare brings a wealth of experience and a deep commitment to excellence in education to this position. |
Spring
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Texas Tech Professor Recieves $2 Million Grant for Produced Water Research TTU's Mahdi Malmali has receied a $2 million grant as part of the U.S. DOE's investment into increasing the domestic supplies of water and critical materials. The project will develop ways to recover minerals from produced water in oil and gas operations. Along with team members, Dr. Chau-Chyun Chen (Horn Distinguised Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering), Amrika Deonarine, Hadis Matinpour and Yuexiao Shen, they intend to develop a system engineering approach to recover valuable resources from oilfield produced waters from unconventional oil and gas wells. |
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Dr. Jay Lu, Professing Excellence 2024 Honoree Congratulations to Jay Lu for being one of the Professing Excellence 2024 Honorees! Dr. Lu has gone above and beyond for his students, ensuring excellence and impacting his students' learning. |
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Texas Tech Awarded $1.6 million for Hydrogen Research Two TTU Engineering professors have been awarded more than $1.6 million for pioneering research aimed at enhancing hydrogen production through innovative chemo-bio-physical stimulations. Danny Reible, the Donovan Maddox Distinguished Engineering Chair and a Horn Distinguished Professor for Chemical Engineering and Civil, and Qingwang Yuan, an assistant professor in the Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum Engineering, are principal investigators for Texas Tech's award, which is part of a $20 million investment from the U.S. DOE exploring geologic hydrogen. |
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The Department of Energy has awarded Texas Tech with a Grand Prize for their project titled, Recycling Wind Turbine Blades to Asphalt The DOE awarded TTU's interdisciplinary team consisting of Dr. Tewodros Ghebrab (CE), Dr. Rajesh Khare (ChE), Dr. Paul Egan (ME), Dr. Samantha Kristufek (Chemistry) and Priya Gill (ChE) the Wind Turbine Recycling, Phase 1 (Initiate!) Prize for their project, titled, Recycling Wind Turbine Blades to Asphalt. The cash prize of $75,000 will cover their efforts towards applying for Phase II (Accelerate!) of the Prize. |
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Dr. Jay Lu Awarded NSF CAREER Award Jay Lu recieves the very prestigious NSFF CAREER Award. This $528,918 award will support a five-year research project titled, "Intelligent Battery Management with Safe, Efficient, Fast Adaptation Reinforcement Learning and Physics-Inspired Machine Learning: From Cells to Packs". |
2023
Fall
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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 |
Spring
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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!! |
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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! |
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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 |
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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!
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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!!
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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! |
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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! |
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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! |
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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! |
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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
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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!  *click to enlarge photo View the Recording of the Spring 2022 Senior Celebration |
March
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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! |
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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.” |
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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. |
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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”. |
January
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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
If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know by emailing Jeff Rammage at jeffrey.rammage@ttu.edu |
2021
November
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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. |
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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. |
August
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
May
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| Congratulations to our Spring 2021 Graduates! |
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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. |
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Dr. Harvinder Gill Recognized in Discover Magazine
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External Advisor Board (EAB) Panel: Featuring and Transition Out of the Pandemic
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! |
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Spring 2021 Senior Celebration Click the image below to see a recording of the virtual Spring 2021 Senior Celebration!
Friday, May 14th, we celebrated the graduation of our Spring 2021 undergraduate class! This event took place virtually via Zoom. |
February
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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
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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
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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. |
2020
December
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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. |
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Vaccine could protect against a variety of Coronavirus strains. |
October
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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
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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. |
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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
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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. |
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Dana Thalman won one of the university's Student Academic Leadership Awards. |
June
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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! |
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Dr. Jasim Uddin awarded an Outstanding Dissertation Award for 2020 in the category of Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering. |
May
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TTU Chemical Engineering First Year Welcome Helpful Links: |
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ChE Graduate Students Aid in West Texas COVID-19 Efforts
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TTU Chemical Engineering Recognized! Raiders Who Rock nominees:
Student Involvement Awards:
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Congratulations to our Spring 2020 Graduates!
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Click the image below to see a recording of the virtual Spring 2020 Senior Celebration!
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March
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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. |
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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
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
Chemical Engineering
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Address
P.O. Box 43121, Lubbock, TX 79409−3121 -
Phone
806.742.3553 -
Email
che@ttu.edu