Letter from the Chair

Letter from the Chair: Spring 2022

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 18:38:03 +0000

Letter from the Chair: Spring 2022 Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/13/2022 - 12:38

Will Medlin

Student award winners

Silver Medal Award, Academic Engagement Award: Jenna Nielson
Outstanding Undergraduate of the College, Research Award: Cyrus Moezzi Haas
Academic Engagement Award: Taylor Buechel and Braden Carroll
Community Impact Award: Carrie Taylor Bishop and Katelynn Thammavong
Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (JEDI) Award: Jacqueline Rodriguez Mora
Research Award: Julia Bendorf, Isabella Horton and Jackson Peoples

With the spring semester ending soon, I am grateful for our students, faculty and staff who helped make our return to campus this past academic year a success. All throughout the fall and spring, we found success and fellowship in our classrooms and research labs, returning to safe and productive in-person experiences that we will never take for granted again.

Our students’ achievements speak to the strengths of our department community. Our graduating seniors earned several honors from the College of Engineering and Applied Science, including the coveted Silver Medal Award won by Jenna Nielson and the Outstanding Undergraduate of the College recognition going to Cyrus Haas.

We also recognized the invaluable service of our graduate student teaching assistants through the David T. Spalding Graduate Teaching Fund Fellowship, whose contributions during periods of remote learning ensured our undergraduate students’ success.

Speaking of graduate students making an impact, students from the Toney and Shields groups have been bringing science and engineering education outreach to students in public schools in the Boulder and Denver metro areas, serving as advocates and ambassadors for STEM among the next generation.

Assistant Professor Wyatt Shields IV also won two prestigious awards this past year: an NSF CAREER Award and Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award. His achievement reflects the department’s success in hiring top-tier early career researchers and educators.

Professor Will Medlin

Our department marked a significant milestone this semester. Professor Al Weimer’s senior capstone design course is 25 years old — 25 years of industry partnerships, alumni success and our students learning how to solve real-world problems. Congratulations to Professor Weimer and to all our students — and industry alumni — who have made that course into such a success.

It is with great excitement that we are hosting our first in-person graduation ceremony since the pandemic began on Thursday, May 5 from noon to 3 p.m. on the west lawn of the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building here on CU Boulder’s East Campus. We are inviting alumni who graduated in the last two years to walk the stage. I cannot wait to see all the students, alumni, graduates and families coming together to celebrate for the first time in two years.

On behalf of the faculty and staff of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, thank you for being part of our department’s success this academic year. Have a great summer!

Denver Business Challenge Endowed Professor Will Medlin
Chair

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Letter from the Chair: Fall 2021

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 19:22:25 +0000

Letter from the Chair: Fall 2021 Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/15/2021 - 12:22

Professor Will Medlin

We had a good fall semester.

That seems like a simple statement, but it means a lot, considering the events of the past year and a half. It is worth remarking upon as CU Boulder returned to full-time, on-campus operations.

Our students, faculty and staff did the hard work necessary to ensure that we had a safe, smooth and successful transition back to something approaching normalcy. There was strong, positive energy on campus that began as students returned and that continued all the way through to finals.

All of us were glad to return to the important education and research work of the department.

Amidst this transition, our department continued to succeed and grow in meaningful ways. We hired three fantastic new faculty members—Assistant Professor R. Kōnane Bay, Bowman Endowed Professor (and department alumnus) Jason A. Burdick and Teaching Assistant Professor Ehsan Keyvani.

Our veteran faculty continued to win recognition for themselves and the department, from Distinguished Professor Kristi Anseth earning AIChE’s Founders Award, Professor Christine Hrenya’s recognition as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, to Professor Theodore Randolph’s recognition in the National Academy of Inventors.

We also launched major research initiatives, including Professor Seth Marder and Professor Michael Toney’s Center for Integration of Modern Optoelectronic Materials on Demand and a multi-faculty collaboration on a $2M NSF award for post-consumer plastic waste research.

Our students and alumni continued to shine, with our undergraduates performing well at a national Future Leaders in Chemical Engineering symposium, alumnus Tunkie Saunders being named in the Forbes Under 30 Leading the Green Energy Transition, Chern-Hooi Lim’s C&EN Talented 12 recognition and more.

The news stories of this past summer and fall demonstrate the incredible research, education and industry accomplishments of our department community. Take the time to see what your fellow Buffs have been up to.

We should all be proud that we had a good fall semester. I know I am.

Happy holidays to you and yours.

Denver Business Challenge Endowed Professor Will Medlin
Chair

We had a good fall semester.

That seems like a simple statement, but it means a lot, considering the events of the past year and a half. It is worth remarking upon as CU Boulder returned to full-time, on-campus operations.

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Letter from the Chair: Spring 2021

Anonymous — Tue, 11 May 2021 17:42:03 +0000

Letter from the Chair: Spring 2021 Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/11/2021 - 11:42

Will Medlin

Professor Will Medlin, Chair

With the spring semester behind us, it’s with optimism and hope that we look forward to a summer of reconnection and a fall semester that will look increasingly “normal” compared to this previous year.

It is in that spirit that I would like to thank all of the students, faculty and staff of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering for their willingness and ability to adapt to this unprecedented year.

As I reflect on this very unique spring semester at the end of a very difficult time, I realize that our department has not slowed down despite the challenges it has faced. We saw an increase in our department’s overall U.S. News and World Report ranking among graduate chemical engineering schools, with a jump from No. 16 to No. 14. Professor Chris Bowman earned one of the profession’s highest honors with his election to the National Academy of Engineering. Our faculty ranks continued to expand with the hiring of Dr. Kōnane Bay, who is currently a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University and an expert in engineered living materials. Kōnane will join us in 2022. The news stories in the spring newsletter also demonstrate the impactful research our faculty continue to pursue.

Our graduate students, likewise, continued to set the standard for excellence here at CU Boulder, with numerous students receiving the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Award or the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, as well as contributions to critical research in the fight against COVID-19 and other diseases.

Among our undergraduate students, we can boast a national track and field champion in graduating senior Sage Hurta, who won the Women’s Mile at the 2021 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. Our graduating class also features five college-level award winners who were recognized for their academic and social justice accomplishments.

With summer ahead of us, I would encourage you to read all the inspiring news our department has accumulated this past spring. The fall semester is right around the corner. It presents an opportunity for a return to normalcy—as well as new innovation and greater achievements of our chemical and biological engineering Buffs.

Professor Will Medlin
Chair

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