Year: 2016

Senior Zach McGill was selected as a winner of the Donald F. & Mildred Topp Othmer Scholarship Award by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) for his outstanding academic achievement and involvement in student chapter activities. He received his award at the AIChE conference in San Francisco in November. Only fifteen AIChE student members are chosen to receive this award each year.

Christine Duval was awarded the AIChE Separations Division Graduate Student Research Award. The award was presented to Christine alongside her advisor Dr. Scott Husson at the AIChE Annual Meeting. The Separations Divison Award honors outstanding graduate students who are the primary authors of a research paper that has contributed to separations.

Christine’s research has focused on the development of uranium-selective polymers for use in portable radiation detection devices. Thus far she has contributed to 5 publications (3 in print, 2 under review) and has given more than 20 conference presentations. Christine has won multiple poster competitions locally at Clemson and on the national level. Throughout graduate school, Christine has been active in outreach activities with the Girl Scouts of America as well as teaching undergraduate courses. In 2015, she received the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant award for both Chemical Engineering and the College of Engineering and Science.

Dr. Douglas Hirt has been named associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences. Dr. Hirt has served in an interim capacity since February of this year. With his experience as a faculty member, researcher and administrator, Dr. Hirt is well positioned to advance the research enterprise of the college. He has been a member of the faculty in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering for more than 25 years and has served as department chair from 2009 until he assumed the interim associate dean’s role earlier this year. He was also director of the Clemson-based NSF Engineering Research Center for Advanced Engineering Fibers and Films.

Dr. Hirt’s research focuses on the surface modification of polymer films and fibers. He is a fellow of the Society of Plastics Engineers. As associate dean Dr. Hirt’s two primary areas responsibility are supporting faculty as they seek and receive extramural funding and supporting the work of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.

Dr. Amod Ogale received the plaque for Graffin Lecturer Award at the 2016 World Carbon Conference. The award was presented to Dr. Ogale by Dr. Rodney Taylor, Chairman of the American Carbon Society.

Each year the American Carbon Society selects a lecturer who has made distinguished contributions to carbon science and engineering. The lecture is available to North American colleges, universities, and industry by arrangement with the lecturer. The award is named after George D. Graffin, a former employee of Asbury Graphite Mills, Inc., who had an excellent understanding of carbon and graphite technology and therefore a profound influence on the industry.

The W. David Smith, Jr. Graduate Publication Award was given to Professor Joseph Scott. This award is given by the AIChE Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division to recognize a PhD publication that has had a lasting impact on the field.

The award is typically given to people less than five years after receiving their  PhD. It recognizes an individual for published work on the application of computing and systems technology to chemical engineering. The work must have been done by the individual while pursuing graduate or undergraduate studies. It was awarded to Dr. Scott for his paper titled “Generalized McCormick Relaxations” in the Journal of Global Optimization. This paper also won the inaugural Best Paper Award for the Journal of Global Optimization in 2012.

This past academic year, the Chemical & Biomolecular Department has been participating in many community activities, reaching out to students from elementary to high school levels. The goal is to expose students, who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity, to math and engineering problems and experiments. This, in turn, may spark an interest at a young age for professions in engineering or science. Along with Assistant Professor, Dr. Eric Davis, many of our graduate and undergraduate students have participated in judging math and science projects at Tamassee-Salem High School, help run the First Lego League (FLL) robot qualifying competition at Tri-County Technical College with kids age 9-14, as well as running science experiments with many girls scouts during WISE (Women in Science & Engineering) Girl Scout Day. In addition, Dr. Scott Husson visited Stone Academy earlier this year and helped the 5th grade class create water filtration systems on their Science Fun Day. Most recently, our department took part in the 2016 Navy STEAM Camp program on June 24th. The program gives high school students with parents serving in the Navy the opportunity to spend a week at Clemson University and the surrounding area exploring engineering and biotechnology activities. For our activity, the students were tasked with designing and building a water filtration device using only a plastic bottle and their choice of sand, rice, cotton balls, and activated carbon. They then used the filters to clarify unpurified apple juice. We had four graduate students and two undergraduates who helped with this event.

We were honored to host our Chemical Engineering Class of 1966 for their 50th Class Reunion on June 10th! They were given a chance to visit, reminisce, and tour Earle Hall. Pictured above are Bob Smith, Bill Price, Leonard Boyd, Victor Lopez, and Bud Bell.   Happy 50th – Class of 1966!!

In May we were also honored to host the Class of 1963!     Pictured below are John Cromer, Wade Ponder, Al Tolson, Jerry Richardson, Jim Rushton, and Larry Murdoch.

We hope to see you all again soon!!

The Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department would like to congratulate the Senior Class of 2016. The students were honored at a Senior Reception on April 21st at the Madren Center, and the department hosted an Open House for the graduates and their families on graduation day, May 7th. The faculty and staff of ChBE wish all of our graduates the best of luck in their future endeavors!

PhD graduates this past semester were Dr. Kryssia Diaz-Orellana (advisor Dr. Mark Roberts) and Dr. Meng Zhang (advisor Dr. Amod Ogale).

Erika Arvay, an undergraduate working in Dr. Blenner’s research group, is the recipient of a NASA SC Space Grant Undergraduate Research Fellowship, an ACCIAC Creativity & Innovation Fellowship, and a Calhoun Honors College Award. Undergraduate, Spencer Smith, also won an ACCIAC Fellowship.

Senior Mark Payne received the Western S.C. Section AIChE Scholastic Achievement Award at the College Awards Banquet in April.     Departmental awards this year were given out to David Barton, ChBE Senior of the Year Award; Townsend Reeves, ChBE Junior of the Year Award; and Sean Dix, ChBE Undergraduate Researcher of the Year Award.

Senior Matt McMillan won 2nd Place in the Paper Competition at the AIChE Southern Regional Conference at the University of Alabama. His research was titled “Nanocrystalline Cellulose Device Platforms”

The Creative Inquiry undergrad group “Membrane Separations for Clean Water and Energy” won 2nd Place People’s Choice Award at the Focus on Creative Inquiry Poster Event. Christine Duval and Steven Weinman are the graduate student mentors.

Allison Jansto recently received the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. Her research proposal entitled, “Characterizing Transport and Mechanics of Nanophase-Segregated Polymers for Energy Storage and Delivery Applications”, seeks to deepen our understanding of the role of nanostructure on the transport properties of phase-segregated block copolymers. Allison is a graduate student in Prof. Eric Davis’s Polymer Membranes Group.    Graduate student, Ryan Defever, received a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable Mention.   His advisor is Prof. Sapna Sarupria.

Dr. Husson’s Research Group traveled to the North American Membrane Society annual meeting in Bellevue Washington in May. Juan Wang gave a talk and also received the 2016 NAMS Student Fellowship Award, which is the most prestigious award given by NAMS to graduate students. Nikki Chitpong also won 1st Place for her research poster. ChBE Professional Advisory Board Member, Uwe Beuscher, also attended the conference.

In April, Robert Emmett received both the ChBE and the College’s Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year Award.    Adam Klett received the ChBE Graduate Researcher of the Year Award.   

ChBE graduate students Roque Gochez and Adam Klett tied for 3rd Place in the Graduate School’s Three Minute Thesis Competition. 3MT is a research communication competition that challenges graduate students to present a compelling oration on their research in just 3 minutes. Their advisors are Dr. Kitchens and Dr. Thies.

The People’s Choice Award went to graduate student Meng Zhang at the annual Science as Art competition. She crocheted doilies out of carbon fibers. Her advisor is Dr. Amod Ogale.

In February, ChBE held its annual Graduate Research Symposium at the Madren Center. We were honored to have members of our Professional Advisory Board in attendance. Our graduate students were able to share their research with their peers through poster sessions and oral presentations. Winners this year were (L-R): Jing Jin (1st Place-Poster), Adam Klett (1st Place-Presentation), Allison Yaguchi (Honorable Mention-Poster), Ryan Defever (2nd Place-Poster), Steven Weinman (Honorable Mention-Poster), Kryssia Diaz-Orellana (Student’s Choice-Poster) and Christine Duval (1st Place-Presentation).