Month: March 2016

Allan Brooks wins NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Allan Brooks (Kyle Bishop) was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for his work on “shape-directed active colloids”. From the NSF website, “the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based Master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.”

The ChE GSA congratulates Allan for winning this prestigious fellowship.

Pingunios draw in first IM soccer match

The ChE GSA IM soccer team, Pinguinos Voladores, played Tropic Thunder to a 0 – 0 draw Tuesday night. Both teams had opportunities to break the stalemate, including a 1 on 1 breakaway for the Pinguinos that was turned aside by Tropic Thunder’s goalie and a shot from Tropic Thunder with about 3 minutes to play that hit the post and ran along the goal line before being saved. The roster for the Pinguinos included Jwala Adhikari, Tonnam Balanhura, Dan Cetnar, Dan Marple, Michael Regula, James Sheehan, and Zach Tischendorf.

The Pinguinos complete IM soccer schedule can be found on the IM sports website.

GPSA schedules 4th ‘Meet the Delegates’ event

The GPSA has scheduled a fourth ‘Meet the Delegates’ event for Wednesday, April 6, 4:50 pm to 5:50 pm in the MBA Commons of the Business Building. Sandwiches will be provided. This is an opportunity for all graduate students to meet their current delegates and to the GPSA and candidates running for an office on GPSA’s executive board. For more information, check out the event on Facebook.

IPAC meeting with graduate students set

The ChE Industrial and Professional Advisory Council (IPAC) will meet with graduate student on Thursday, March 24, 12:30 pm to 1:00 pm in 101 Fenske. Lunch will be provided. This is an opportunity for ChE graduate students to offer feedback to influential representatives about our graduate program.

Fifth faculty candidate seminar announced

The ChE department announced a fifth faculty candidate seminar. Dr. Daniel Betran-Villegas, currently a post-doc at the University of Michigan, will present on Thursday, March 17, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm in 102 Chemistry Building. His seminar is entitled “Dynamic modeling of colloidal assembly”.

The abstract for Dr. Betran-Villegas’s seminar and a brief biography can be found here.

Dr. Zydney wins Perez Memorial Student Advocate Award

Dr. Andrew Zydney has won the 2016 Lawrence J. Perez Memorial Student Advocate Award. The Perez Award “recognizes a College of Engineering faculty member who contributes to the welfare of students and enriches the College by his or her willingness to devote significant time and effort to assist students with academic and/or personal problems.” Dr. Zydney is now the third straight ChE professor to win the Perez Award, following Wayne Curtis last year and Ali Borhan in 2014.

More information about the Perez Award can be found on the College of Engineering website.

Change of location for departmental 5k race

Our department race will be a part of the Bellefonte 10th Annual Faith Centre 5k, rather than the April Fools 5k in State College, since the April Fools 5k is not longer happening.

To register for the race:
1) Fill out the attached form and give to to Josh Litofsky (jhl182@psu.edu or 201 Fenske). If you have already filled out the form for the April Fools 5k, please do it again.
2) Print out the registration here and mail it in to the address provided.

Please contact Josh with any other questions.

Environmental Chemistry and Microbiology Student Symposium announced

The Student Association of Environmental Science and Engineering (SAESE) has set a date for the 19th Annual Environmental Chemistry and Microbiology Student Symposium (ECMSS). The symposium will be held on Friday, April 8 and Saturday, April 9. Abstracts for ECMSS are due on Monday, March 18, submitted through the SAESE website. Chemical engineering graduate students have won cash prizes at ECMSS the past two years.

There will also be three keynote speakers during ECMSS: Dr. Marc Edwards (Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech), Dr. Paula Mouser (Environmental Biotechnology, Ohio State) and Dr. John Kelmelis (Environmental Policy, Penn State).

The complete symposium schedule can be found on the SAESE website. More information can also be found on Facebook.

Sign-up for the ChE Grad Cup team

The GPSA is hosting the 4th annual Grad Cup on Saturday, April 23, 9 am – 4 pm in the IM Fields. Grad Cup is like a field day for graduate students, where departments and graduate organizations compete in events such as an obstacle course, 3-legged race, disc golf, and more.

If you would like to sign-up for the ChE team, fill out this Google form by 10 am on Wednesday, March 16. The cost is $7 per team member, which covers the cost of lunch and a T-shirt. Money will be collected in Fenske this week and next week.

There is more information about Grad Cup on the GPSA website and on Facebook.

A brief recap of the graduate-student-selected seminar by Dr. Scott Fogler

Dr. Scott Fogler, a professor at the University of Michigan who wrote the textbook “Elements of Chemical Reactions Engineering” that is nearly ubiquitous in chemical engineering curricula around the world, was the third ChE GSA selected seminar speaker last Thursday.

Dr. Fogler’s seminar was entitled “How to Get from Here to There and What Happens Along the Way”. The seminar covered a wide variety of topics, including how his teaching career got started (or, more accurately, how it almost did not get started), how Penn State has influenced his career, how his current work on asphaltene deposition was influenced by one of his former graduate students as well as our current department head, Dr. Phil Savage, and how Kepner-Tregoe’s troubleshooting algorithm can be used to solve problems effectively. The seminar had many memorable anecdotes and life lessons weaved into Dr. Fogler’s interesting career path. At the end of the seminar, the ChE GSA presented Dr. Fogler with gift, which can be seen in the photo gallery below.

The ChE GSA thanks Dr. Fogler for coming to Penn State as our 2016 graduate-student-selected seminar speaker.

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