Scott Fogler, a professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, was our third ChE GSA-selected seminar speaker on March 3, 2016. Many chemical engineering graduate students likely know Dr. Fogler as the author of the textbook “Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering”. Dr. Fogler’s group has published over 230 research articles in many different fields. His list of honors and named lectureships is also quite extensive.

A.N. Sreeram, the current Corporate Vice President of Research & Development for The Dow Chemical Company, was the second ChE GSA-selected seminar speaker on April 16, 2015. Dr. Sreeram presented about the many innovative products being researched and developed by Dow’s chemical engineers. We also had the opportunity to have lunch with Dr. Sreeram and other Dow executives, getting further details about the research opportunities at Dow. We thank Dr. Sreeram and his team from visiting our department and our university.

In the inaugural year of this event, Dr. James Pawelczyk, an Astronaut and Professor of Physiology and Kinesiology at Penn State Univesity, came to our department to talk with us about his experience in space and his career progression in a seminar entitled “Human Limits to Exploring the Red Planet”. Dr. Pawelczyk demonstrated how Chemical Engineers have helped to make many aspects of long term space travel a reality while enlightening us on the impact of sustained micro-gravity on human physiology. Further, Dr. Pawelczyk provided a motivational insight into life, career and the future of space travel. We thank Dr. Pawelczyk kickstarting our graduate student selected seminar speaker series