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News from Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at IllinoisNews from Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Illinois

Fall/Winter 2016

Professor Hyunjoon Kong: Pioneering advances in nanobiomaterials

Catching up with Emeritus Professor Richard C. Alkire

Celebrating 15 years of the Graduate Research Symposium

Alumni spotlight: Business leaders Helen Yang (PhD '88) and Michael Lee (PhD '87)

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Happy Holidays from Illinois!

Contents

Campus and Department News

Faculty Achievements and Research Highlights

Undergraduate Education

Graduate Education

Faculty Features

Alumni

Giving

In Memoriam

Remember When

About cover: This image presents a strategy to deliver therapeutic stem cells to the defective vasculature by mimicking leukocyte recruitment process. Cells were coated by a bioactive hyperbranched polyglycerol (HPG) that can noninvasively associate with stem cells and further guide them to inflammatory vascular walls. Image provided by Hyunjoon Kong.

chbe.illinois.edu [email protected] @ChBE_Illinois

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Paul. J. A. Kenis Department Head

Mass Transfer Editor

Christine des Garennes Assistant Director of Communications

Graphic Design

Nivens Design

Dear Alumni and Friends,

This fall semester marks a new start in many ways. At the campus level, Robert Jones joined us as our new chancellor and King Li has been ap-pointed the inaugural dean of the newly-established Carle Illinois College of Medicine. Closer to home, 140 freshmen and 34 transfer students joined our undergraduate program, and we welcomed 30 new PhD students. Our student body has become increasingly diverse thanks to campus and departmental recruiting efforts, such the Sloan Scholars program for underrepresented PhD students and our new Pathways to Success Scholarship for outstanding underrepresented undergraduates. This fall the department also welcomed new lecturer Josh Bennett (PhD '14 Notre Dame with Illinois alumna Joan Brennecke, PhD ’89 with Chuck Eckert). Working closely with fellow lecturer Troy Vogel, he is teaching Unit Operations Lab, Process Design, and other courses. This fall also marks the start of my second term as department head. The past five years saw a rejuvenation of the faculty ranks, adding six new assistant professors, bringing us to 18 faculty, our largest size ever. I thank my colleagues for their confidence in me. I am honored to continue to lead Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Illinois, a department with an illustrious past and even brighter future.

On a sadder note, Professor Thomas Hanratty, who was 89 years old, passed away in August after a brief ill-ness. He joined the faculty in 1953 as an assistant professor and had over 60 years of active engagement with the department. His impact on the department, on the many students he taught and trained, on the field of fluid mechanics, and on engineering practice has been tremendous. The department is exploring ideas for a gather-ing of colleagues, alumni, and friends to celebrate his life.

The department was honored this fall to host a Process Safety Bootcamp organized by AIChE’s Center for Chemical Process Safety. Undergraduates from our program, as well as Purdue and Rose-Hulman, learned about risk-based process safety, asset integrity and reliability, operational readiness, and more. This fall also marked the 15th edition of our annual graduate student research symposium, started in 2001 by Tim Drews (PhD '04, Alkire/Braatz), Eric Choban (PhD '04, Kenis), Neel Varde (PhD '07, Pack), and Josh Ramsey (PhD '06, Pack). Not only does this event allow graduate students to showcase their outstanding research projects, but it also is an opportunity for the department and alumni judges to reconnect. Many thanks to this year’s judges: Cory Berkland (PhD '03, Pack) from the University of Kansas; John Gohndrone (PhD '88, Masel), Dow Chemical; Khushnuma Koita (PhD '12, Rao), Praxair; and Matt Liberatore (PhD '03, McHugh), University of Toledo.

Our faculty continue to shine, such as Ying Diao being named to MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 list, Huimin Zhao receiving the Charles Thom Award from the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotech-nology, and Hyunjoon Kong receiving an Excellence in Research award from the College of Engineering. Turn to page 16 for more about Kong’s pioneering and collaborative research. In this issue we also catch up with Dick Alkire, who retired from the department several years ago, but has continued to be active in a variety of ways and enjoys visiting with former students around the world.

In the alumni section, you’ll meet Helen Yang (PhD '88, Eckert) and Michael Lee (PhD '87, Hanratty), who met as undergrads at Penn, then came to Illinois as graduate students. Based in Shanghai since 2002, they’ve become international business leaders at Honeywell and DuPont. This issue also features a story about Jim Grant (BS '69), a first generation college student who went on to become a process engineer at Mallinckrodt and later director of its environmental affairs and environmental remediation. He and his wife Pam Grant, also an Illinois graduate, established a new scholarship for chemical engineering undergraduates.

Last but not least, let me thank our corporate partners as well as the many alumni and friends who give back to the department, be it through scholarships, fellowships, and named professorships, or through unrestricted gifts. It is through this support that our department is able to survive and prosper during these financially chal-lenging times.

Happy holidays!

Paul J. A. Kenis William H. and Janet G. Lycan Professor and Department Head

[email protected] (217) 244-9214

From the Department Head’s Desk

Robert Jones begins tenure as new chancellor

The campus officially welcomed Robert Jones as its new chancellor this fall. Dr. Jones comes to Illinois from the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY) where he served as president since 2013. He is the first African-American appointed Urbana chancellor since the office was created in 1967.

His tenure at SUNY follows a 34-year career at the University of Minnesota, a Big Ten land-grant institution. He began there as a faculty agronomist and rose through a series of academic administrative appointments, serving as senior vice president for academic administration at the University of Minnesota System from 2004 to 2013.

The Georgia native earned a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Fort Valley State College, a master’s degree in crop physiology from the University of Georgia and a doctorate in crop physiology from the University of Missouri, Columbia. He began his academic career as a faculty member at Minnesota and became an internationally respected authority on plant physiology. He is a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America.

Former Interim Chancellor and LAS Dean Barbara Wilson has been appointed to a newly restructured leadership role with the U of I System. Wilson is now the executive vice president and vice president for academic affairs, the university's senior operating officer, senior academic officer and second-in-command to the president.

Leader chosen for new College of Medicine on Urbana campus

King Li, renowned researcher, educator, inventor, and clinician in molecular imaging and radiology, was named the inaugural dean and chief academic officer of the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. Li, who holds M.D. and MBA degrees, was senior associate dean for clinical and translational research at Wake Forest University and the deputy

director of that university’s comprehensive cancer center. He moved to Illinois in October.

Li’s experience includes research, clinical, educational, and entrepreneurial roles at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and Stanford University, as well as Wake Forest and Houston Methodist Hospital. He studied physiology and biochemistry at the University of Toronto, earned a medical degree from Toronto and an MBA from San Jose State University.

The Carle Illinois College of Medicine is the first college of medicine in the nation specifically designed at the intersection of engineering and medicine. A partnership between the University of Illinois and Carle Health System, the college will integrate the university’s unparalleled assets in engineering, technology, and supercomputing with Carle’s nationally recognized, comprehensive health care system. The college is expected to accept its first class of students in 2018.

Chem Annex project wraps up

A major renovation and addition to the Chemistry Annex has concluded and students and staff are expected to move in this spring. The project has involved a total renovation of the building’s interior (43,000

square feet), plus a 9,000-square-foot addition on the southeast corner.

Renovations on the 1930 building began in 2014. The Chem Annex now features state-of-the-art student labs, the Chemistry Learning Center, and student collaboration space. The main lecture hall was updated with new seating and audio visual equipment. The $25 million project is being funded by institutional operating funds, gift funds and student fees, specifically the Academic Facilities Maintenance Fund Assessment.

New Innovation, Leadership, Engineering degree program

The College of Engineering launched a new dual-degree program in Innovation, Leadership and Engineering Entrepreneurship (ILEE). The degree combines the technical expertise from Illinois’ engineering program with a deeper set of innovation and leadership skills. The ILEE degree grew out of courses and programming that have been offered by the college’s Technology Entrepreneur Center since 2000. It also gives formal recognition to work being done by undergraduate students, who as early as their freshmen year are active in entrepreneurship programs such as the Cozad New Venture Competition. The degree program is open to students in the College of Engineering and those majoring in Chemical Engineering in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

ChBE @ Illinois : 3

Campus News

MassTransfer : Fall/Winter 2016

Texas native Dr. Josh Bennett is the newest employee to join the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Dr.

Bennett, previously a lecturer at Rice University, moved to Illinois in July. He holds the rank of lecturer. He and Dr. Troy Vogel are co-teaching Process Design and Unit Operations Laboratory during the fall semester.

He received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Texas A&M University and his doctoral degree from Notre Dame University. At Notre Dame, he worked with Illinois alumna Joan Brennecke (PhD ’89), studying ionic

To make a stable structure and learn about balanced force and equal pull, a group of third graders paired up, connected their

wrists and leaned back, making an inverted triangle.

Instead of passing out worksheets to elementary students, teachers can, with the help of a new book, use creative movement to introduce scientific topics such as cantilevers and compound machines.

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Lecturer Dr. Troy Vogel collaborated with the late University of Illinois teaching artist and Department of Dance lecturer Kate Kuper on Fantastic Forces: Music, Movement, and Science, a book designed for teachers. Kuper was a national workshop presenter with the Kennedy Center’s Partners in Education Program. Vogel earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from

liquids and their ability to absorb acid gases, such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and nitrogen. At Rice, one of his colleagues in the chemical engineering department was Kenneth Cox, another Illinois ChemE grad (PhD ’79).

Bennett grew up in Lake Jackson, Texas, a town about an hour south of Houston that is home to companies like Dow Chemical and BASF. His father is a longtime chemical engineer with Dow and is currently working on chemical plant projects in Saudi Arabia.

In high school, he excelled in math and chemistry, completing four years of chemistry, including one year serving as the lab manager for the high school’s chemistry lab. In graduate

the Ohio State University and joined the department in 2011. He teaches the senior capstone course, process safety, and regularly contributes to the American Society for Engineering Education.

The two connected at a “Writing Across the Curriculum” conference at Illinois a few years ago. Prior to passing away in November, Kuper was a teaching artist, visiting schools and creating dances that related to content the students were learning. As a graduate student, Vogel taught science to third and fourth graders as part of a National Science Foundation GK-12 fellowship, and as a lecturer he is involved in the department's outreach programs.

“We had a lot of fun working together—each learning quite a bit about each other’s expertise,” Vogel said.

Kuper taught the activities outlined in the book in Champaign-Urbana elementary schools in five-day residencies, giving her many opportunities to refine the material’s content and age-appropriateness.

school he realized how much he enjoyed teaching.

“I like understanding how things work,” he said. Bennett developed a talent for teaching people how things work in a way they could understand. When people comprehend the concept or topic and you can see that look on their faces, as if a light bulb switched on, “it’s the best feeling in the world,” he said.

Bennett became a lecturer at Rice after obtaining his Ph.D. from Notre Dame. He taught courses in transport, unit operations, and engineering ethics. But he was eager to return to the Midwest.

In his free time, he enjoys weightlifting, cycling, and writing stories.

Vogel reviewed the scientific material and wrote the “Science Corners,” which provide additional information about topics covered in the book, such as wedges and the three classes of levers.

“The goal for the science corners is so that the teacher has a deeper understanding and a broader platform from which she or he can teach,” Kuper said in an interview earlier this year. “In my experience, many elementary school teachers may have only taken one or two science classes in college. This helps give them just a bit more confidence to address a range of student ability.”

New lecturer

New book uses dance to

JOINS DEPARTMENT

TEACH SCIENCE TO YOUNG STUDENTS

Department News

ChBE @ Illinois : 5

“There is no better, no more open door by which you can enter into the study of science than by considering the

physical phenomena of a candle,” said British chemist Michael Faraday in 1848.

Even now, over 150 years later, one would be hard pressed to find an object of study that would equal the candle, said Bill Hammack and Don DeCoste in their new companion book to the YouTube series on The Chemical History of a Candle. Hammack is “The Engineer Guy,” creator of the popular YouTube channel about the fascinating engineering behind everyday objects. He also is Professor and Donald and Dolores Morris Faculty Scholar in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Don

DeCoste is an award-winning chemistry instructor at Illinois.

Beginning in 1848, Faraday delivered a series of evening lectures on the chemical history of the candle. The lectures are often referred to as the Christmas lectures not because of their content, but because of when they were delivered—in December. The lectures are really an extended illustration of the scientific method, according to Hammack and DeCoste.

Today, Hammack and DeCoste enlighten modern readers by prefacing Faraday’s famous lectures with their own guide to the topics and demonstrations, with key points and helpful diagrams. Charmed by his language, Hammack and DeCoste opted to keep the original language of the lectures, although they updated some text and chemical terms as needed.

The University of Illinois Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering was pleased to welcome Stanford University Professor and Illinois alumnus Curtis Frank as its 2016 Parr Lecturer.

Frank, the W. M. Keck, Sr. Professor in Chemical Engineering, delivered a talk called, “Soft Matter at Interfaces.”

Frank received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Illinois, studying under the late Professor Harry Drickamer. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. His research interests are in soft materials and recent work has included studies of thin films and interfaces, interpenetrating network hydrogels, phospholipid assemblies,

The book is available in a variety of formats (hard cover, paperback, e-book and downloadable pdf). It includes a teaching guide, with several experiments to help people understand the big ideas of chemistry, such as the particulate nature of matter.

The book is available at http://engineerguy.com/faraday

biodegradable polymers and ion transport in fuel cell membranes. In 2013, he was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering for the elucidation of molecular organization in polymers and other soft materials.

The Parr Lecture is named after Samuel W. Parr, the founder of

chemical engineering at Illinois, and is supported by Parr Instrument Company of Moline. Parr developed an alloy called Illium, made of nine different metals, that has powerful corrosion-resisting properties. He also invented the first simplified instrument for measuring the heating value of coal.

Graduate EducationFaculty Achievements

The Chemical History of a Candle: ENGINEER GUY LAUNCHES NEW BOOK AND YOUTUBE SERIES ON FARADAY LECTURES

Two award-winning Illinois scientists have teamed up to re-introduce people to a remarkable 19th century lecture series about the candle.

Parr Lecture: CURTIS FRANK

Pictured above with Department Head Dr. Paul Kenis (left); are Stanford Professor Dr. Curt Frank (PhD '72); Jim Nelson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Parr Instrument Company; and Donna Knouse, Senior Technical Sales, Parr Instrument Company.

Diao named to MIT’s “Innovators Under 35” list

Dr. Ying Diao was highlighted in MIT Technology Review’s annual list of “Innovators Under 35” for her work in nanotechnology and materials. Diao is Assistant Professor and Dow Chemical Company Faculty Scholar in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Diao received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 2012 and joined the Illinois faculty in 2015. Her work has focused on developing fundamental understanding of and innovative methodologies for directed assembly of functional materials and their applications in electronics, renewable energy, and healthcare.

In particular, she has brought key innovations to printing organic semiconductors—a technology in demand for energy-efficient, low-cost manufacturing of plastic electronics and solar cells. Unlike conventional electronics, plastic electronics and solar cells not only require much less energy to fabricate, they can also be made into lightweight, flexible, transparent, and biointegrated forms that were previously unimagined. Her printing innovations address a critical challenge in this area: to direct the assembly of molecules into high-

performance devices during printing. Her innovations integrate concepts from a wide range of disciplines, from the “coffee ring” effect and snowflake growth to microfluidics and DNA stretching.

Previous innovators on the list include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the cofounders of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, the cofounder of Facebook; and Jonathan Ive, the chief designer of Apple.

Teaching Excellence

Congratulations to Dr. Damien Guironnet, who was recently recognized by the School of Chemical Sciences for his teaching excellence in the 2015-16 academic year.

The SCS teaching awards recognize “the entire scope of our educational efforts, from course development to in-class instruction. Excellence in teaching is not only intellectually satisfying, but our instructional efforts immeasurably strengthen our research mission,” said SCS Director Dr. Jonathan Sweedler in the announcement.

Guironnet is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He

joined the faculty in 2014 from BASF Corporation where he worked as a senior research scientist. He received his M.Sc. from Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'enseignement en Chimie in France in 2005 and his Ph.D. from the University of Constance in Germany in 2009. Guironnet develops new catalysts and catalytic processes for the synthesis of new polymers with a focus on sustainability.

Harley selected for NAE symposium

Dr. Brendan Harley, Associate Professor and Robert W. Schaefer Faculty Scholar in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering’s 22nd annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium.

The academy invites engineers ages 30 to 45 who are performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines to attend the event. The participants—from industry, academia, and government—were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations. The 2016 symposium covered cutting-edge developments in four areas: technologies for understanding and

Graduate EducationMassTransfer : Fall/Winter 2016

Faculty Achievements

FACULTY ACHIEVEMENTS

Ying Diao Damien S. Guironnet Mary L. Kraft Brendan A. Harley

Hyunjoon Kong Huimin Zhao Charles M. Schroeder Rohit Bhargava

treating cancer, pixels at scale, water desalination and purification, and extreme engineering.

A Robert W. Schaefer Scholar, Dr. Harley pursues the fabrication, characterization, and testing of scaffold-based systems for in vivo and in vitro tissue engineering. He has been on the faculty of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering since 2008 and also is a theme leader in the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. He received his Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006.

Distinguished Promotion

Congratulations to Dr. Hyunjoon Kong, recipient of a 2016 Campus Distinguished Promotion Award. The award, given by the Campus Committee on Promotion and Tenure, identifies scholars whose contributions and achievements within their respective fields are particularly excellent.

Professor Kong’s research focuses on the synthesis, characterization, and processing of nanobiomaterials for diagnostic imaging and molecular/cell therapies of wounds and vascular diseases. He joined the department in 2007 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Dr. Kong’s promotion to the rank of full professor took effect Aug. 16, 2016.

Kraft director of graduate studies

Dr. Mary Kraft has been named the Director of Graduate Studies for Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Kraft is an Associate Professor and a Robert W. Schaefer Faculty Scholar. She joined the department in 2007. Dr. Kraft received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and her doctoral degree from the University of Illinois.

Schroeder to develop precision polymers

A team of top scientists from several universities, including the University of Illinois, are collaborating to develop a new class of polymers that can be used as advanced materials for batteries, energy storage, and sophisticated lightweight electronics. This work aims to repurpose the biological machinery for protein synthesis to produce precisely defined, non-natural polymeric materials.

The team is comprised of Dr. Charles Schroeder, Associate Professor and Ray and Beverly Mentzer Scholar in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Dr. Jeffrey Moore, Murchison-Mallory Professor of Chemistry at Illinois. The project also includes faculty from Northwestern University, the University of Texas-Austin, and Georgia Institute of Technology. The team is one of 23 advanced science and engineering research projects funded by the Department of Defense’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI) program. The highly competitive award grants $1.25 million a year for five years.

“The ability to make synthetic polymers with perfect sequence control is a holy grail in polymer science,” said Schroeder, co-investigator on the project. “Our approach holds strong promise to enable the synthesis of precision polymeric materials with levels of control that have not yet been achievable,” he said.

Zhao receives Charles Thom Award

The Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology presented Dr. Huimin Zhao with the prestigious Charles Thom Award at the society’s annual meeting in New Orleans this summer.

The Charles Thom Award is given to individuals who have made

outstanding research contributions in industrial microbiology and/or biotechnology. It’s named for Charles Thom, a pioneer in industrial microbiology and mycology.

Dr. Zhao is the Steven L. Miller Chair in Chemical Engineering at Illinois and has been a member of the ChBE faculty since 2000. He harnesses the power of synthetic biology, developing and applying tools to address global challenges in human health and energy, and investigates the fundamental aspects of enzyme catalysis, cell metabolism, and gene regulation. His Ph.D. is from CalTech and his B.S. is from the University of Science & Technology of China.

Founder Professor in Bioengineering

Dr. Rohit Bhargava, affiliate professor in ChBE, was named a Founder Professor in Bioengineering. Bhargava holds additional affiliate appointments in the Departments of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Chemistry.

A cutting-edge researcher, Bhargava has pioneered the development of infrared spectroscopic imaging. Instruments developed in his laboratory have been used to provide new means to characterize and define cancer using chemical imaging that are leading to the emergence of the field of digital molecular pathology. Bhargava also founded and serves as director of the Cancer Community@Illinois, a university-wide effort dedicated to advancing cancer-related research and scholarship. ChBE members of the community include Drs. Brendan Harley, Paul Kenis, and Hyunjoon Kong.

ChBE @ Illinois : 7

For gene-editing proteins to be useful in clinical applications, they need to be able to find the specific site they’re supposed to edit among billions of DNA sequences. Using advanced imaging techniques, Illinois researchers have found that one class of genome-editing proteins rapidly travels along a strand of DNA like a rider on a zip line – a unique behavior among documented DNA-binding proteins.

Illinois chemical and biomolecular engineering professors Charles Schroeder and Huimin Zhao, along with graduate students Luke Cuculis and Zhanar Abil, published their work this summer in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

TALE proteins can be programmed to recognize and bind to specific regions of DNA for applications in synthetic biology or clinical gene therapy. The zipline behavior that the new study uncovered is different from what researchers have seen in any other proteins that bind to and travel along DNA.

“Among the classes of known DNA-binding proteins, TALE proteins appear to behave in a unique way in term of target site search,” Schroeder said. “Understanding the search mechanism is helpful in moving toward clinical applications. A major goal is to design these proteins to find a specific target site with minimal off-target binding.”

Using single-molecule imaging techniques, the Illinois team watched how TALE proteins moved along a DNA template that didn’t contain the proteins’ target sequence, a process known as nonspecific search. They expected that TALEs would bind to the DNA backbone and rotate around the double helix, like a nut on a bolt – as do nearly all documented proteins that move along DNA searching for a target site. Instead, they found that the protein wrapped around the helix and slid back and forth, like a rider on a zip line.

“We uncovered a new search process for DNA-binding proteins that doesn’t fit into previous binding classifications,” said Cuculis, now a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. “We performed several experiments to test these theories, and the results were unexpected based on current thinking about how proteins move along DNA in search of a target site or gene.”

The unusual mechanism could hold advantages for researchers looking to develop TALE proteins for new biomedical applications, Cuculis said. For example, it could be used as a delivery mechanism, like a passenger riding a zip line to a destination, with the TALE protein acting as the hook.

“It opens up more avenues for this protein to be used,” he said. “Because of how well TALEs hook onto the DNA, there’s a potential to attach larger payloads to the proteins. Right now it’s mainly used for gene editing, but based on this work, there may be potential to attach something much larger to deliver to a target site.”

Now that they have detailed how TALE proteins work in vitro, the researchers are beginning to study them at work in live cells.

“It’s providing more fundamental insight into the mechanism behind gene editing,” Schroeder said. “Research is always more interesting when nature behaves in ways we don’t expect, because it enables us to look at things from a new perspective. The hope for this work is ultimately to develop new and optimized systems for genome engineering.”

The Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the U. of I. and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation supported this work. Schroeder and Zhao also are affiliated with the Department of Chemistry, the Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology, and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the U. of I.

Illinois researchers found that one class of gene-editing proteins searches for its target by sliding along DNA like a zipline. From Nature Chemical Biology: (a) Schematic of single-molecule assay for studying TALE search dynamics along DNA templates. (b) Representative images of single DNA templates (top) and individual TALE proteins bound to DNA (bottom). Scale bar, 2 μm. (c) Structure of the naturally occurring TALE protein PthXo1. (d) Schematic of a 21.5-repeat TALE construct used in this study, including the genetically encoded aldehyde (Ald) tag and the hexahistidine (His6) tag. Predicted DNA binding sequence is shown in orange. (e) Kymograph showing an individual TALE scanning over 1 million base pairs in ~32 s.

By Liz Ahlberg Touchstone,

University of Illinois News Bureau

Genome-editing proteins RIDE A DNA ZIP LINE


Graduate EducationResearch Highlights

A University of Illinois research team has invented a highly-efficient method for producing precision catalysts that can be used for the cathode reaction in hydrogen fuel cells for automobiles. The technique promises to increase the efficiency of producing shape-controlled catalysts that could have benefits beyond the automobile industry.

Countless chemical and petrochemical processes involve the use of a catalyst. One of the current challenges in developing hydrogen fuel cells is to produce the high performance, low-cost catalyst at scale.

“The geometric shape of the catalyst is crucial to the highest possible conversion rate of fuel molecules in a hydrogen fuel cell,” said Hong Yang, Richard C. Alkire Professor in Chemical Engineering. “The atomic arrangement determines how close the molecules can get together to react. The challenge is finding the right distribution of surface atoms so that they have the molecule at the right strength. If it is too strong, the molecule won’t leave the surface. If it’s too weak, it won’t adsorb.”

In 2007, researchers proved that platinum combined with another metal (in this case nickel) could enhance the electrocatalyst performance about tenfold simply by improving the geometry.

Typically researchers produce the catalyst by converting molecule precursors in liquid into nanoparticle catalysts. A shape of a solid-state catalyst is more predictable and consistent if they produced in well controlled liquid media. That “batch system” can be quite precise to create those geometric shapes, that result in high performance. The Yang group previously used this method and worked with the automobile industry, namely General Motors, to improve the efficiency of catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells, which converts chemical energy stored in hydrogen fuel into electricity and pure water.

The batch system however is inefficient in production, as it takes more time and multiple processing steps to produce. A current problem has been producing such precise catalysts at scale.

Yang and his graduate student, Kai-Chieh Tsao, have come up a solution aimed to solve this problem. This work was published in Small, a journal of nano and micro technology.

The technique the group has developed involves a novel conveyor belt system, which produces solid-state platinum (Pt) nanocubes and its nickel alloy

(Pt3Ni) nanooctahedra by using an aerosol-assisted airbrush to disperse precursors together with carbon particles as the catalyst support on a substrate and finely controlling the reaction conditions while the substance is transported through a tube with carbon monoxide as a reactive carrier gas. The powders are heated and passed through the tubular reactor, producing the solid-state catalysts. The method thus allows for a continuous production, which is scalable for large-scale production purpose.

“Carbon monoxide can interact predictably with a range of platinum group metals,” Yang said. “Those metals are very active, both in fuel cells and in other chemical industry processes. The conveyor belt transport technique mimics the existing technology for handling the fluid phase. For example, when pumping gasoline, the raw material (crude oil) is pumped continuously at one end, producing gasoline on the other. We want to translate that principle by using a conveyor belt or solid supported catalyst synthesis in one step. The difference in our method is, in principle, we can continuously make a uniform catalyst on a solid support through the conveyor belt system.”

Through transmission electron microscopy (TEM), the team demonstrated that the metal cube catalysts were produced uniformly in both size and shape on the support.

Yang Research Group developsCONVEYOR BELT TRANSPORT SYSTEM FOR PRODUCING PRECISION CATALYSTS By Mike Koon,

College of Engineering Communications

ChBE @ Illinois : 9

Yang reiterates that although the nano-material has a nice property, in order to have the kind of impact on the chemical industry, it must be able to be produced at scale. The ultimate goal for his group is to create a viable commercial product that can do just that.

“We are moving in that direction,” Yang said. “One can start to generate a uniform catalysts using our system. We have been using batch synthesis to make catalysts for fuel cells, but now we want to apply this technology to a high production run to move to the next phase.”

Although Yang has proven the effectiveness of the technique, he and his group are increasing the efficiency by testing different geometric forms of the resulting catalysts.

“If we can demonstrate applications that shows high production rates of the catalyst we generated with dramatic enhancement of performance in comparison with the others, that could be the turning point for this technology,” Yang said. “In the example of the fuel cell catalyst, the challenge is to reduce the cost of the catalyst. You can imagine if one can improve the performance (generating the same amount of power by using less catalyst), the fuel cell itself will be more efficient.”

While the technique is targeted for hydrogen fuel cell applications in the automobile industry, Yang hopes to apply that same technique to produce high precision catalysts for other chemical conversion processes, such as creation of epoxy from hydrocarbon or conversion of carbon dioxide into commodity chemicals.

“In principle, all these solid catalysts follow the same working principle,” Yang said. “You need to have the right structure and atoms on the surface that can allow molecules to quickly react and leave the surface. It has to allow the chemicals to have the right distance for the most efficient adsorption rate.”

Woese ScholarSenior Elijah Karvelis received a Carl R. Woese Undergraduate Research Scholarship for Summer 2016. The scholarship offers exceptional students a stipend to fund their room and board for a ten week summer program at the Institute for Genomic Biology. Over 30 students already working in IGB labs applied. Karvelis was chosen along with Rebecca Wipfler, a sophomore in Molecular and Cellular Biology,

for the scholarship. Karvelis worked in the research group of Dr. Brendan Harley, Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and theme leader at IGB. He looked at microfluidic devices in the study of glioblastoma multiforme, a particularly deadly form of brain cancer.

“The time is great,” Karvelis said. “Not having to worry about classes, but also not having to worry about working a part-time job to pay rent and buy food and that type of thing, it really allows me to devote all my time to research, which is what I want to do.”

Fulbright recipientCarol Grzych, who graduated in May 2016 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, was one of 10 University of Illinois students offered Fulbright grants this year. The Glenview native was offered a placement as an English teaching assistant for nine months at Silesian University of Technology in Poland. Grzych was a Chancellor’s Scholar and Stamps Scholar at Illinois and a member of the Hoeft Technology and Management Program, which brings top students from engineering and business fields together for cross-disciplinary learning. After a Fulbright

year honing her intercultural communication skills, Grzych will work as a global management trainee with AB InBev, where she hopes to build an international management career.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to build international relations to solve global challenges.

“Winning a Fulbright grant requires not only scholarly excellence but also adaptability, maturity and integrity,” said Ken Vickery, the U of I's director of the Office of External Fellowships.

Undergraduate Achievements

Photo credit: Kathryn Faith



Bootcamp instructors were AIChE CCPS Staff Consultant John Herber and CCPS Project Director Rich Sarnie. Also participating in the workshop were Illinois ChemE alumnus Dan Crowl (PHD ’75) and co-author of the textbook, Chemical Process Safety: Fundamentals with Applications; and Ken Tague, Global Process Safety Manager at ADM.

AIChE’s Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative aims to improve and accelerate process safety education at the university level. It has three core components: modernizing and developing curriculum; educating faculty; and engaging and educating students.

“Thanks to the generosity from AIChE Foundation early supporters of the Doing a World of Good campaign, including Founders’ Circle members, The Dow Chemical Company, Chevron, DuPont and Univar, we are thrilled to partner on this recent Student Boot Camp,” said Lisa Lanzkowsky, director of AIChE’s corporate relations. “Engaging and educating students from around the world is part of a global effort to accelerate undergraduate process safety learning, a core priority of our Doing a World of Good campaign.”

The University of Illinois Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering was selected by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers this fall to host a process safety boot camp. The two-day workshop, held by AIChE’s Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), took place in Roger Adams Laboratory in Urbana.

“We were pleased to hold this event at Illinois, given the department’s longstanding commitment to safety education throughout the undergraduate curriculum,” said Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Lecturer Dr. Troy Vogel. Vogel is faculty adviser for the student chapter of AIChE at Illinois and the North-Central Regional Safety Coordinator for AIChE's annual Chem-E-Car Competition.

The boot camp was geared toward ChBE students, especially juniors and seniors. Organizers also invited students from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Purdue University, making the boot camp accessible to more students and creating the first ever mini-regional boot camp.

“Teaching process safety in the undergraduate curriculum is a community effort,” Vogel said. “All of

the faculty must be engaged, actively looking at their course curriculum to incorporate it as a natural portion of a problem. We must engage faculty outside of our home institution for additional approaches to common challenges. AIChE, through CCPS, allows us to expand this community by engaging with the employers of our students and making process safety experts accessible to faculty and students,” he said.

The workshop covered a variety of topics and is a shortened version of AIChE’s intensive four-day industrial Process Safety Boot Camp. The first day included lectures and discussions on the differences between process and occupational safety, an introduction to management systems, risk-based process safety and other issues. The second day looked at managing risk, design issues, asset integrity and reliability, operational readiness and more.

“The class was filled with examples and exercises, and the industry professionals with decades of experience made the content both engaging and relevant,” said Benjamin Reeber, a senior at Illinois. “I feel the lessons learned in this course can definitely be applied in a future job as a chemical engineer,” he said.

AIChE student boot camp emphasizes process safety

The two-day safety workshop for students covered a variety of topics. It is a shortened version of AIChE’s intensive four-day industrial Process Safety Boot Camp.

ChBE @ Illinois : 11

involved aligns with Shell’s values. It is just one example of why Shell continues to count U of I among its core schools to find talent,” they said.

As a supporter of the program, Shell representatives have opportunities to meet with the department’s outstanding students throughout the year. As tutors, students also build competence in skills, such as leading small groups, which are beneficial to future employers.

Tutoring is provided each semester for core ChBE courses: CHBE 221: Principles of Chemical Engineering; CHBE 321: Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics; CHBE 421: Momentum and Heat Transfer; and CHBE 424: Chemical Reaction Engineering.

“This program is a tremendous resource to those students who wish for extra help beyond the regular discussion sections and TA office hours,” said Department Head Dr. Paul Kenis. “Already we hear anecdotes from some of our recent alumni that this program was key in them successfully obtaining their chemical engineering degree. We are grateful to Shell for supporting this valuable program!”

The Shell Tutoring Program in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering offers peer tutoring to any student taking core ChBE courses. The goal of the program is to strengthen students’ knowledge of course subject matter and to increase retention of students who may be struggling with required courses, said Kay Moran, the department’s Academic Programs Specialist. It’s also not uncommon for high-achieving students to seek tutoring to improve their understanding of course material, she said. The tutoring program also helps students who want to transfer into the chemical engineering undergraduate program.

“With state funding in decline and budget cuts on the horizon, donations like these are needed more than ever before,” Moran said.

The program’s slogan is “ChBE students helping students.” Depending on needs, the department hires 10 to 18 students per semester to work as tutors. If more students request tutoring, more peer tutors are hired. About 30 to 50 students receive tutoring services per semester.

Tutors hired by the department are ChBE students who have excelled in their ChBE classes and meet strict department qualifications. Students who work as tutors hone their leadership, judgement, and communication skills and increase their own understanding and knowledge of the subject matter.

“We are grateful for the opportunity to sponsor such a promising program,” said Chris Beuerle and Andrew Lee, Shell leads for engineering recruitment at the University of Illinois. “These student tutors are developing strong leadership skills for their futures as they grow as effective mentors, while their peers are able to learn from them to excel in a field with ample opportunities to make a difference. This type of collaborative environment and the level of dedication put forth by all those

Partners in Success: Shell supports tutoring program for undergrads

Photos above: Tutors Vitaliy Dushnov and Wan Tang Lim meet with students.

Photo on right: Shell recruiters Andrew Lee and Joe Sawa met with the following tutors this fall: Megan Randby, Abdul Ibrahim, Wan Tang Lim, Sumeng Hu, Haley Brown, Henry Czajkowski, Justin Genova, and Vitaliy Dushnov.

In recent years the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has offered tutoring for students who would like to improve their understanding of course material in an open, informal setting. This year, Shell will support the program.



“In this work, we use single molecule techniques to investigate the extensional dynamics of dilute ring polymers, semi dilute linear polymers, including their relaxation from high stretch, transient stretching dynamics under step strain. Finally, we relate the micro-scale polymer stress response to bulk rheological extensional viscosity,” she said.

Chinese American Chemical Society awards Kai-Wen Hsiao received the Outstanding Student Research Award at the 20th Annual Great Lakes Chinese American Chemical Society (GLCACS) conference in May for her presentation, “Single polymer dynamics of linear and architecturally complex chains in semidilute solutions.” Hsiao is a graduate student in Dr. Charles Schroeder’s research group. She received her undergraduate degree from National Taiwan University.

Ran Chao, a graduate student in Dr. Huimin Zhao’s group, received a second place for his presentation,

Teaching excellence, “Next Gen” investigator Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering graduate student Arkaprava Dan was the recipient of a 2015-2016 School of Chemical Sciences Teaching Award. Dan is a member of Reid T. Milner Professor Deborah Leckband’s research group. His undergraduate degree is from the Indian Institute of Technology.

He was also honored as a “Next Gen” Investigator at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Wound Healing and Tissue Regeneration Research Day this fall.

Polymer research award Kai-Wen Hsiao received the Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Award at the 2016 AIChE Annual Meeting in San Francisco this November. Hsiao is a graduate student in Dr. Charles Schroeder’s research group. Her presentation was entitled, “Single polymer dynamics of linear and circular chains in semi-dilute solutions.”

“Development of a Biological Foundry,” at the GLCACS conference. His undergraduate degree is from the University of British Columbia.

Dissertation Completion Fellowship Yung-Tin Pan received a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the University of Illinois Graduate College.

Pan was a Dow Chemical Company Fellow in Dr. Hong Yang’s research group. The theme of Pan’s research lies in understanding the behaviors of bimetallic nanomaterials in reactive gaseous environments. He studies the dynamic elemental distribution and arrangements to the atomic level with advanced in situ microscopy techniques. Pan received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from National Taiwan University.

The Graduate College's Dissertation Completion Fellowships help outstanding students complete the doctoral degree by providing a one-year stipend of $20,000, along with coverage

Graduate Education

Graduate Student Achievements

Arkaprava Dan

Yung-Tin Pan

Anish Shenoy

Ran Chao

Isamar Pastrana-Otero

Kai-Wen Hsiao


National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow Daniel Bregante (David Flaherty)

National Institutes of Health—Chemistry Biology Interface Traineeship Katelyn Dahlke (Charles Sing)

National Institutes of Health—Tissue Microenvironment Traineeship Jee-wei Chen (Brendan Harley)

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow Elizabeth Horstman (Paul Kenis) Mai Ngo (Brendan Harley)

U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science–Graduate Student Research Fellow Thao Ngo (Hong Yang)

Sloan Scholar Isamar Pastrana-Otero (Mary Kraft) Aleczandria Tiffany (Brendan Harley)

Illinois Sloan Scholar Jason Madinya (Deborah Leckband/Charles Sing)

University Block Grant Fellowship Girija Bodhankar (Christopher Rao) Gavin Donley (Gavin Donley) Charles Young (Charles Sing)

College of Engineering Mavis Future Faculty Fellow Elizabeth Horstman (Paul Kenis)

College of Engineering Support for Underrepresented Groups in Engineering (SURGE) Elizabeth Horstman (Paul Kenis) Uzoma Nwabara (Paul Kenis) Raul Sun Han Chang (Brendan Harley)

Graduate College Fellow Jason Madinya (Deborah Leckband/Charles Sing)

Graduate College Dissertation Completion Fellowship Yung-Tin (Frank) Pan (Hong Yang)

3M Fellow Behnam Enghiad (Huimin Zhao) Zahra Shamsi (Diwakar Shukla) Yajie Wang (Huimin Zhao)

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Graduate Research Fellowship Kaiwen Hsiao (Charles Schroeder) Ge Qu (Ying Diao) Dylan Walsh (Damien Guironnet)

Dow Chemical Company Fellow Sumit Verma (Paul Kenis) Neil Wilson (David Flaherty)

Harry G. Drickamer Fellow Geethika Yalamanchili (Christopher Rao)

DuPont Science and Engineering Fellow Yelena Ilin (Mary Kraft) Jeremy Schieferstein (Paul Kenis)

Samuel W. Parr Fellow Jason Adams (David Flaherty) Daniel Davies (Ying Diao) Anshu Deewan (Christopher Rao) Yu-Tong Hong (Hyunjoon Kong) Bijal Patl (Ying Diao) Abinaya Sampath (David Flaherty) Nicholas Troescher (Jonathan Higdon) Michael Tu (Charles Schroeder)

A. T. Widiger Fellowship Hyunjoong Tim Chung (Ying Diao) Zahra Shamsi (Diwakar Shukla)

of tuition and other fees. The intent is to free fellows from assistantships and other work obligations, allowing them to devote themselves full-time to the completion of the dissertation.

Outstanding Research Isamar Pastrana-Otero received the Outstanding Research Award from the Summer Pre-Doctoral Institute at the University of Illinois. Pastrana-Otero is a first-year graduate student and her advisor is Dr. Mary Kraft. The goal of her summer research was to develop a noninvasive approach to objectively identify the differentiation stages of living cells from the five rarest and most primitive hematopoietic cell populations with location specificity. She used Raman spectroscopy and multivariate analysis to accurately identify cell phenotype.

“Ultimately, this research will help tissue engineers to identify the cues that direct hematopoietic stem cells to differentiate into the blood and immune cell populations that are needed for disease treatment,” she said.

Pastrana-Otero received her undergraduate degree from the University of Puerto Rico.

ACS presentation award Congratulations to Anish Shenoy, graduate student in Dr. Charles Schroeder’s research group, for winning third place in the Langmuir Graduate Student Oral Presentation Awards Session at the 90th American Chemical Society’s Colloids and Surface Science Meeting this summer at Harvard University.

Shenoy’s talk was entitled, “Stokes trap for multiplexed particle manipulation and assembly using fluidics.” He is pursuing his Ph.D. in Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois.

2016-2017 Graduate Fellowships

Graduate EducationMassTransfer : Fall/Winter 2016

Thanks to this year’s judges: Dr. Cory Berkland, Dr. Khushnuma Koita, Dr. John Gohndrone, and Dr. Matthew Liberatore.

Paul Kenis and John Gohndrone with Daniel Bregante (first place, oral presentation) and Emily Chen (third place, oral presentation). Not pictured: Second place winner Kai-Wen Hsiao.

Arkaprava Dan won first place in the poster presentation category. Paul Kenis and John Gohndrone with Tim Chung (third place, poster presentation) and Ge Qu (second place, poster presentation). Not pictured: First place winner Arkaprava Dan.

The symposium allows graduate students to present their work in the form of either a poster or an oral presentation. Research areas include a range of topics, such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, computational science, and energy applications.

Invited judges are typically Illinois alumni from industry and academia who help identify the best poster and oral presentations. The symposium also provides students with one-on-one opportunities to network with the judges.

This year’s presentations were judged by Dr. Cory Berkland (PhD '03, Pack), Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas; Dr. John Gohndrone (PhD '88, Masel), process engineering specialist with Dow Corning Corporation; Dr. Khushnuma Koita (PhD '12, Rao), development specialist at Praxair; and Dr. Matthew Liberatore (PhD '03, McHugh), Associate Professor at the University of Toledo.

Graduate Research Symposium

The 15th annual Graduate Research Symposium, organized by the ChBE Graduate Student Advisory Council, was held on Friday, October 28, 2016, as part of Homecoming Weekend.

Images from top to bottom

Congratulations to this year’s winners!

Poster Presentations

First Place: Arkaprava Dan (Leckband), "Breathe In, Breath Out: Lung Endothelial Monolayers Respond to Cyclic Stretch."

Second Place: Ge Qu (Diao), "Understanding Interfacial Alignment of Solution Coated Conjugated Polymers."

Third Place: Hyunjoong (Tim) Chung (Diao), "Molecular Cooperativity in Single-Crystal-to-Single-Crystal Polymorphic Transitions of an Organic Semiconductor."

Oral Presentations

First Place: Daniel Bregante (Flaherty), "Understanding Olefin Epoxidation with H202 in Transition-Metal Substituted Zeolites."

Second Place: Kai-Wen Hsiao (Schroeder), "Microfluidic-based Direct Measurement of Normal Stress in Semi-Dilute Polymer Solutions."

Third Place: Emily Chen (Harley), "Biomaterial Models of Cancer: Invasion and Cancer Stem Cells."

Other graduate students participating in the symposium included:

Eitan Barlaz, Jiho Choi, SiWei (Andy) Chang, Qilong Huang, Tyler Lytle, Linling Miao, Pranjali Priyadarshini, Mohammad (Sam) Hamedi Rad, Zahra Shamsi, Jye Yng Teo, Yuecheng (Peter) Zhou.



Faculty Feature

Hyunjoon Kong: Pioneering advances in nanobiomaterials for diagnosis and therapies


Since he joined the University of Illinois Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering faculty in 2007, Kong has made a name for himself around the world as an innovative collaborator in advanced material systems. Just this year he earned accolades such as the Dean's Award for Excellence in Research from the College of Engineering and the Campus Distinguished Promotion Award. This August he was promoted to full Professor.

At Illinois he has developed several bio-inspired material systems useful for molecular and cell therapies of vascular diseases, control of biotransports, and organoid/tissue engineering. Although some engineering professors prefer to develop technology and launch their own companies to market that technology or product, Kong has taken a different approach.

“I am more interested in licensing technology so I can spend more time developing new materials in futuristic ways. At the same time, I hope to collaborate with people in industry

who can mature our technology,” he said.

Early focus on rheology Kong grew up in Seoul, South Korea. At Hanyang University, he studied in the department of industrial chemistry (now the department of chemical engineering) for his B.S. His father was a pharmacist and often spoke about synthesis and physiological activities of drug molecules. Under this environment, Kong became interested in studying chemistry and chemical engineering. In 1995, he came to the U.S. as a graduate student at the University of Michigan’s Macromolecular Science and Engineering Program, an interdisciplinary program in the college of engineering with a focus on polymer science and engineering.

He studied colloidal rheology, specifically the effect of colloidal interaction on the deformation and flow of colloidal particle suspension (called “sol”) and the subsequent mechanical property of cured materials (called “gel”). The “sol” he worked with was a fresh cementitious mix and the “gel” he worked with was the flexible and tough cement composite. As a student, Kong contributed to developing various cementitious materials with controlled fluidity and ductility. Some of the products he developed—a self-compacting cementitious composite and a sprayable composite—are being used today to repair old infrastructures, including bridges and highways.

With two different advisors, one an expert in fluid mechanics and the other an expert in fracture mechanics, Kong was able to gain a better understanding on rheology-structure properties and their relationship towards enhanced material performance.

As a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan and a research associate

at Harvard University, Kong had an opportunity to translate what he learned with complex fluids and construction materials into the design of biomaterials used for “living” tissue regeneration.

“I started to realize that lots of materials, including concrete, which we have been using in our daily lives are inspired by our body structure. What I started to think was, if I had chance to learn more about tissue engineering, which aims to recreate functional tissue by orchestrating biomolecules, cells, and matrices, I can use that understanding to develop advanced materials systems in my own career. That’s when I changed my direction,” he said.

Creative collaborations Kong joined the University of Illinois as an assistant professor in 2007. What appealed to him about the university was its reputation for intense, innovative engineering research and its interdisciplinary institutions. He knew it would be a great place to establish strong ties with other faculty and for launching an independent research program.

As a side note, the first time he had heard about the university was when he was around 10 years old. One of his uncles, Dr. Young-Il Kong, an English Literature professor and later a president of Kyung Hee University in Korea, was a visiting scholar at Illinois.

At Illinois, Kong established a research program that focuses on the synthesis, characterization, and processing of nanobiomaterials for diagnostic imaging and molecular/cell therapies of vascular diseases, a major health problem in the U.S. He is a core member of the Regenerative Biology and Tissue Research Theme at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. He is also affiliated with the Departments of Bioengineering and Pathobiology, the Neuroscience Program, the Center for Biophysics

Self-folding hybrid materials, bio-inspired nanoprobes and nanomedicines, revascularization patches, cardiovascular organoids. Welcome to the futuristic world of Professor Hyunjoon Kong.

Hyunjoon Kong: Pioneering advances in nanobiomaterials for diagnosis and therapies


Faculty Feature

and Quantitative Biology, the Micro and Nanotechnology Lab, and Beckman Institute.

He has authored or co-authored more than 115 research papers and has more than five issued and pending patent applications. Earlier this year, he joined the editorial board of the journal Biomaterials. He also is acting director of the graduate program in bioengineering and an executive committee member of the neuroscience program.

He has taught the courses Principles of Chemical Engineering, Thermodynamics, and Biotransport, a new course he created after arriving on campus. The biotransport course investigates the roles that the transports of mass, energy, and momentum play in the function of living systems such as cells, tissues, and organs.

“The course is a nice integration between physiology and traditional chemical engineering principles. We can use our chemical engineering principles to understand physiology in a quantitative manner and to develop advanced engineering systems,” he said.

Kong partners with faculty across campus and the world on a variety of futuristic research projects. He has

been working with Steve Zimmerman, Roger Adams Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Sanjay Misra and Dr. Y.S. Prakash, medical doctors at the Mayo Clinic, to develop nanomedicine that can detect vascular defects characterized by clogging, swelling, or leakage, similar to problems found in pipelines of chemical factories. If found during its early stage, vascular defects can be easily treated with surgical or biomedical tools, he said.

“But it’s not easy to find these defects. It’s not easy to treat them, if too late. Therefore, what we are trying to do is develop a small nanoparticle that can be injected into the circulation to probe for defects. When scanned by an MRI, it can highlight those defects,” Kong explained.

He and his fellow researchers also want to deliver medication via the probing nanoparticles, controlling the release of the drug or transport of therapeutic stem cells for more enhanced treatment of diseased tissue. They have been demonstrating some success in their tests with lab mice. Next, Kong and his fellow researchers will talk with potential collaborators who are interested in testing the technology in large animals and eventually human patients.

“My research is about how to design advanced materials for this type of

diagnosis and treatment, particularly by mimicking the function of immune cells and pathogens. But in addition to that, we hope to better understand how these particles and surface-engineered therapeutic stem cells can circulate in our vasculature, and how they eventually go out of the vasculature and diffuse into the tissue so they can control pathological processes and finally repair or recreate tissues,” Kong said.

In particular, Kong has been utilizing intermolecular self-assembly techniques to synthesize nanoprobes or nanomedicine with non-spherical geometry similar to rod-shaped E-Coli bacteria and parasites. Unlike sphere-shaped nanoprobes, these non-spherical particles could offer better contact and interaction with targeted tissue while traveling through circulation, Kong said. For this project, he also has partnered with Charles Sing, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Separately, he also started a new National Institutes of Health project that aims to use these nanocarriers for treatment of skeletal muscle with Marni Boppart, a professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health.

For years Kong has been investigating how biological cells communicate with their microenvironments including biomolecules, matrices, and neighboring cells, and in turn undergo emergent behaviors responsible for building “living” tissue and organs. In particular, he has been formulating hydrogel materials, which can mimic microstructure and chemical/mechanical properties of an extracellular matrix. Using these hydrogels, he engineered miniature organs, termed “organoids,” which can partially reproduce structure and function of organs such as the heart, nerves, and muscles.

In particular, he has been recently focusing on engineering a

My research is about how to design advanced materials for this type of diagnosis and treatment, particularly by mimicking the function of immune cells and pathogens. But in addition to that, we hope to better understand how these particles and surface-engineered therapeutic stem cells can circulate in our vasculature, and how they eventually go out of the vasculature and diffuse into the tissue so they can control pathological processes and finally repair or recreate tissues.

“

”Hyunjoon Kong


neuron-muscle interface called a neuromuscular junction, which controls muscle locomotion with signals from the brain. He is making efforts to incorporate the neuromuscular junction into biological machinery, together with his on-campus collaborators Rashid Bashir (Professor of Bioengineering), Taher Saif (Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering), Martha Gillette (Professor of Molecular & Cell Biology), and Gabriel Popescu (Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering).

“What we’re trying to develop is an in vitro platform especially for the motor neurons connected to the muscle. If we can engineer that neuromuscular function, it can also be part of the biological machine which has been invented by my collaborators,” Kong said.

He has been conducting this research through a multi-institution effort known as the Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems, or EBICS. In 2010, the research group, of which Kong is a member, received $25 million from the National Science Foundation to build living, multicellular machines to solve environmental, health and security problems. They recently received another $25 million to continue this research for another five years.

Kong is further advancing so-called "organoids" to simulate human

physiology. “The basic idea is whenever we develop new medicine and its nano or micro-sized carriers in our school setting, we can test it in a mouse. But the mouse’s physiological environment is very different from a human’s. The question then becomes, ‘Can we create an in vitro tissue model which can provide an environment closer to a human? Organoids mimic human tissue much closer,” he said.

To pursue this goal, Kong is working with Reid T. Milner Professor Deborah Leckband, who investigates how cells communicate through cell adhesion, on a project that aims to interrogate how cell-cell adhesion influences development of and fluid transports through organoids.

In another collaboration, Kong and researchers at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in South Korea and Germany started a project aiming to engineer a liver organoid useful for studying environmental impacts on marine organisms, including fish. Because of growing concern over non-metabolized pharmaceuticals potentially polluting rivers and streams, scientists want to understand how these drug molecules can affect reproduction and metabolism of fish. Due to governmental regulation on the use of fish in research, the fish liver organoid will be an invaluable tool to both fundamental and applied bioscientists.

Additionally, Kong has been assembling a material that can regulate regeneration of new vascular networks in tissue damaged by accidents, surgery, or diseases. One highlight was a hydrogel patch that can recreate microvascular networks with similar spatial organization of original microvascular networks and in turn ensure recovery of perfusion. He used a 3D printer to assemble the patch together with Professor Rashid Bashir. This patch was granted a U.S. patent. He is testing therapeutic efficacy of the patch to treat cardiac

infarction and non-healing wounds. Furthermore, he explores a hydrogel that can change shape in response to external stimuli. He is now assembling hydrogels that can take the shape of a tube or ring via self-folding, and then revert back to their original shape. By doing so, he will be able to non-invasively deliver his therapeutic hydrogel implants inside a body.

Because he has a foot in two worlds—engineering and medicine—Kong was a natural choice to co-direct course development for the new Carle Illinois College of Medicine. It is the first college of medicine in the U.S. specifically designed at the intersection of engineering and medicine.

Kong said he appreciates continued engagement and collaboration with medical doctors, who provide valuable insight and feedback on technology he is developing. No engineer wants to develop technology that is useless.

“Once I talk with the medical doctors, I have a clearer idea about what I have to do. If we have a successful medical school, it will accelerate the progress of our work,” ‘Kong said.


Faculty Feature

Dr. Richard C. Alkire, the Charles and Dorothy Prizer Chair Emeritus in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has had a long and distinguished career at Illinois. He joined the faculty in 1969 and served as head of the department from 1986 to 1994 and as Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate College Dean from 1994 to 1999. He is known around the world for his expertise in metal deposition and multi-scale simulation from atomic-to-processing scales. In 2008, Alkire became an emeritus faculty member.

Since his retirement, Alkire has continued to play an active role in the department and academic community. We caught up with him this fall to learn more about his research, travel adventures, and musical endeavors.

Let’s start by talking about your research. What did you focus on during your later years in the department?

I always thought my research group would atrophy (while serving in campus administration in the 1990s), but the proposals kept getting funded,

the students kept coming with interest, and we moved into new areas. While I was Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR), Larry Smarr (founding director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the U of I) converted me to believing supercomputing was the best thing. When I left the OVCR, he gave me time on the supercomputer and I started toying with it. Within half a dozen years I was getting a million units (in supercomputer time). Engineering needs to take full advantage of molecular science. To bring all that information at the molecular level requires different mathematics than what was used before. By the late 90’s, I was using these computers to calculate molecular movement on problems that had applications in microelectronics. After retirement, I gradually reduced my group and increased collaborations with colleagues in Japan (Y. Fukunaka at Kyoto University, T. Homma at Waseda University); L. Petzold at University of California, Santa Barbara; and D. Kolb in Germany.

What applications did you work on? What problems did you want to solve?

I had been involved with electrodeposition and etching, the passing of current through solution in order to create a chemical reaction on the surface, and that reaction is deposition of metal. I had worked with IBM for decades on depositing copper. I’d been depositing and dissolving copper for decades, but with this new molecular interest and with the science of Dieter Kolb (doing science at the atomic scale), we had access to images of the actual atoms during surface construction. I started trying to predict what the images showed on average. At such times, my feeling is that it doesn’t matter if you succeed exactly or not, it’s important to move the field forward.

When I retired, I was a good 10 years or more, maybe 15 years into that ‘molecular engineering’ thrust. Most recently, I have been looking at the

early stages of nucleation on the surface, and how those first few atoms evolve in shape as they grow, for example, whether they grow upward into a needle or sideways into a film. Those questions are important to several technologies such as the formation of copper wires on a computer chip, or the formation of dendrites in batteries.

Such work involved a massive amount of computing, and the University of Illinois is ground zero in that business. My use of the computers was to optimize at multiple scales between the molecular and the device. Our engineering approach to these very complicated electrochemical systems was to make calculations that were "wrong," but that zeroed in on a reasonably accurate result that was “less wrong” than the rest. This engineering approach to optimization served to give industrial researchers the intuition to develop their systems. My former student Lili Deligianni at IBM was extraordinarily helpful in pursuing these mutual interests.

What can you tell us about your involvement with research proposed for the International Space Station?

A colleague in Japan continues to be interested in nucleation in zero gravity. He’s been doing near-zero gravity experiments for a long time. He wants to put these experiments into the space station to study nucleation. The big application today is to understand how dendrites form in lithium ion batteries, where growth occurs at the tip. One source of lithium ion battery problems is related to this issue of how dendrites form. There are theories about the nucleation process that involve gravitational forces, and the experiments proposed for the space station would test these kinds of theories.

The question is how do those dendrites begin? What is the nucleation phenomenon? What is it that causes them to become dangerous? Because of the risk

Q:

Q: Q:

Catching up with...PROFESSOR RICHARD C. ALKIRE


involved, the experiments have to be extraordinarily thought through. We’re working with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, the European Space Agency and NASA.

What other work do you currently focus on?

The Advances in Electrochemical Sciences and Engineering (published by Wiley-VCH) series continues. Begun in 1961 by my research advisor, a new volume on electrochemical topics comes out every year. (The series is currently edited by Alkire, Bartlett, and Lipkowski.) The next volume I am pulling together is ‘Electrochemical Engineering: The Path from Discovery to Product.” It will have chapters on new engineering methods that reach across scales—that is, engineering techniques to reach down to molecular science and pull it into engineering quality control and error bars. To gather ideas for these volumes, I go to technical meetings, listen to papers, and work with an advisory board which feeds us names and topics from all over the world.

Do you continue to play the piano? Do you take lessons? How long have you played?

I’d wanted to restart (lessons) for years. And I did restart just before I retired. I take an hour and a half lesson each week.

I can’t remember when I first started playing. I know I was playing when I was three. My parents were music teachers so there was a lot of music in the house. (His father, Elbern “Eddie” Alkire was widely recognized for his innovations with guitars, particularly the Hawaiian steel guitar. His archives, including original music, sound recordings, and prototype Hawaiian guitars, are housed at the University of Illinois Sousa Archives and Center for American Music. Music continues to run in the family. Dr. Alkire’s daughter, Hannah Alkire, is a professional cellist.)

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t playing piano. And I never stopped playing either.

Was there a time when you considered a career in music? Do you perform in public?

Yes, up until I went to college. I think it was a shock for everyone that I didn’t go into music. I never once regretted it.

I perform when asked by a friend, and I inflict it on people who come to dinner and have a captive audience. On the piano, I enjoy Bach through the early 20th Century. That includes Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Ravel, and other usual suspects. The pieces I have performed in public recently include the Chopin Barcarolle, opus 61, and Ondine from the suite “Gaspard de la Nuit,” by Maurice Ravel. I am currently working on the Bach-Busoni arrangement of the Chaconne.

Tell me about your recent travel adventures. This past year you went to Bhutan and Taiwan?

I travelled often, but it was usually to technical meetings and they were all over the world. This year’s trips to Bhutan and Taiwan—they were both for fun. In Taiwan, I visited a former student, Po-yen Lu (PhD ’82), who went to Bell Labs in electric deposition and moved to Taiwan when they sought to attract entrepreneurs. He started a successful business in the microelectronics industry. The loyalty and the sense of appreciation that students feel years later is something that never ceases to amaze me.

Bhutan is a small Buddhist kingdom northeast of India and south of Tibet that dates back several millennia. The current king went to Oxford University, and my daughter (Sabina Alkire) went there, and at some point she became involved in what they used for their assessment of good government, their GDH, Gross National Happiness (an index the country uses in place of Gross Domestic Product). She’s also a priest in the Church of England and formed a connection with the Buddhist monks. … The trip was just astounding. … (While visiting a new secular high school in eastern Bhutan, Alkire delivered the talk, “Making Science Work: Engineering in the Presence of Risk and Uncertainty.”) I talked about the scientific method, the engineering method, and the Bhutanese style of Buddhism.

You have advised 58 Ph.D. and 86 M.S. theses, and quite a few B.S. thesis students. Who have you seen recently (in addition to Po-yen Lu in Taiwan)? Do you miss teaching?

It’s surprising to me how many stayed in the electrochemical area, broadly speaking, and others go into other areas of technology—one’s a real estate developer in Texas, but he sure knows about corrosion of water pipes. They keep in touch with each other. And they come back to campus, to walk around the buildings and through the halls, to show their family members where their lives changed. Recently, I saw Patrick Ng (PhD ’76) and Ali Asghar Mirarefi (PhD ’76) in Chicago.

I miss the human side of teaching. I miss the friendships that come about. I miss the “aha moment” when someone suddenly gets it. (Since retiring) teaching has gone through a significant change. Having someone stand in front of a classroom talking about equations is a hard sell today. On the other hand, those are not just equations. They encapsulate how the physical world behaves. Those equations mean something and if you think about them enough of the time, they give you an intuition on how the physical world works. Sometimes that intuition can move quicker because you feel it. You feel the answer, you feel the right way to move. I just love this simple approach to physical phenomena and how much you can learn just by looking at the equation.

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Professor Shi-chern Yen, Alkire and Po-yen Lu (PhD ’82) in front of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the National Taiwan University in 2016.


Alumni

With strong foundations in chemical engineering, University of Illinois alumni and spouses Helen Yang (PhD ‘88) and Michael Lee (PhD ‘87) have forged successful careers as global business leaders. Both credit their graduate school training as having proven valuable in their careers at DuPont and Honeywell.

At Illinois, “you really got an opportunity to train yourself in analyzing problems, in problem solving, finding the root cause and solution to problems,” said Lee, who still remembers the late nights of studying and taking photographs of droplet dispersion in the lab.

Both applied the methodology they learned at Illinois–designing experiments, analyzing, and testing results—to their early careers. And as they expanded their roles and responsibilities, both have found that technical background useful in their careers at science and technology-based companies, Yang said.

Since 2002, Lee and Yang have been based in Shanghai, China, where they have witnessed the country’s rapid growth and rising influence in the world’s economy. Lee, who started his career at DuPont, is now an executive at Honeywell, where he is Vice President and General Manager of its Environmental & Energy Solutions business and Vice President and General Manager of its Automation

and Control Solutions business in China. Yang is Managing Director of Customer Service at DuPont in Asia Pacific.

Illinois years Helen Yang and Michael Lee were born in Taiwan and emigrated to the U.S. with their families as children. Both excelled in math and chemistry in high school and decided to major in chemical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. They met there as undergraduates while living on the same floor of their dorm.

Lee was a year ahead of Yang and was the first to come to the University of Illinois for graduate school. Yang, who was awarded a DuPont Fellowship, enrolled the following year. At Illinois, Yang studied thermodynamics under Professor Charles Eckert. Specifically, she examined the kinetics of the uncatalyzed and homogeneously catalyzed oxidization of p-chlorophenol in supercritical water. It was an experimental project and she designed and built the apparatus from scratch, with help from Eckert. Yang fondly remembers reviewing research and receiving advice from Eckert, who would also invite graduate students to his home for barbecues and Thanksgiving dinners.

Lee studied under Professor Thomas Hanratty. His thesis explored the droplet deposition in two-phase flow, how the dispersion of droplets in a

turbulent pipe flow impacts the mass transfer of a two-phase process. Hanratty was great at coaching him on how to analyze and interpret data, Lee said. He has fond memories of being surrounded by tremendously talented people like Dr. Hanratty, other faculty, and fellow graduate students who were approachable and willing to talk through problems and possible solutions.

During their graduate school years, it was not uncommon for Lee and Yang to be in the lab through the night hours. But they did find some time to socialize with fellow graduate students over deep-dish pizza, attend events at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and tailgate before football games. In the summer, they enjoyed local food like corn on the cob.

“The sweetcorn was out of this world,” Lee said.

They married at the First Presbyterian Church in Urbana and celebrated at the University Inn, now a student residential complex called the Tower at Third. Both wanted to enter industry after completing their graduate studies and when DuPont representatives came to campus and interviewed them, both were hired.

Building careers at DuPont After graduate school, Lee and Yang headed to Seaford, Del. There Yang was a research engineer in the flooring division, spending her days on the manufacturing floor, which provided good hands-on experience. Lee also

Meet Michael Lee and Helen Yang, PhD grads married at Illinois, now living and working in Shanghai

InternationalBUSINESS LEADERS


joined the company as a research engineer, working in new product development. At the time, DuPont’s flooring business was introducing new pigmented fiber with better lightfastness.

While there, Lee’s interest in sales and marketing grew as he interacted with more people in that division. Within a few years, he moved into sales and marketing. Yang became a technical group leader, supporting day-to-day operations, and later taking on more managerial and supervisory roles.

Through the years both rose through the ranks at DuPont, first moving to Wilmington, Del., and later to Dalton and Atlanta, Ga., then to Richmond, Va. After her technical roles, Yang transitioned into a supervisory role in the company’s program that hired graduates from top engineering schools and helped them establish careers with the company through a series of rotational assignments. Later, Yang moved into sales and marketing for flooring, working with carpet mills, designers, and architects of commercial buildings.

Lee was responsible for marketing in the southeast region of the U.S. in the flooring business. In Richmond, Lee joined DuPont’s specialty fiber business, which sold Nomex, the heat and flame-resistant fabric used in firefighter apparel and other uses. Yang was promoted to a role managing the company’s Kevlar segment for industrial applications in North and South America.

“That was a really good experience because it was cross-functional and there was responsibility for sales, marketing, and technical development of that product line,” Yang said.

She soon become the global marketing manager for Kevlar protective apparel and then Nomex global supply chain manager, traveling to South America, Asia, and Europe. Meanwhile, Lee became a global business strategist and later oversaw the company’s involvement in Six Sigma, becoming the first employee at DuPont to be a certified Six Sigma Black Belt for Sales and Marketing.

Working, living in China In 2002, DuPont offered Yang a regional director position running its package printing business in Asia Pacific. The position would be based in Shanghai. Lee took a role as the New Business Development Manager in the packaging and industrial polymer business in Asia Pacific. Later he was promoted to Business Development Director for the Glass Laminated Solution business in Asia Pacific.

“At the time, we never thought of leaving the U.S. to work,” Lee said. They did a “look-see” trip and were intrigued and excited by Shanghai’s energy. “We both decided to take the challenge,” he said.

Both grew up speaking Chinese at home, but when they moved to Shanghai, they found the depth of their language skills improve. They learned new business-related vocabulary. And they learned more about the intricacies associated with conducting business in the diverse Asia Pacific region.

“It was very eye-opening,” Yang said.

They anticipated staying for three to five years. But after those years passed, Lee and Yang asked the company to extend their stay.

“We decided to stay because there were opportunities here. China is a growing market and Shanghai is an interesting place to live. It’s so dynamic,” Yang said.

After managing the packaging printing business for DuPont in Asia Pacific, she moved into strategy, planning and corporate operations and later, corporate marketing and sales for China and other Asia Pacific countries, such as Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. She is now the Managing Director of Customer Service for Asia Pacific, leading the consolidation and transformation of the company’s customer service function and process.

“The type of work I like to do is general management, something that is multifunctional, where you lead people and processes,” Yang said.

In 2008, Lee was recruited by Honeywell and offered a position as its vice president and general manager in Asia Pacific for its Sensing and Control business, which includes more than 20 sensors for the automotive, health care, and a variety of other industries. In recent years, he’s taken on additional roles and responsibilities. He currently holds two executive positions at Honeywell in their automation controls solution business: Vice President of Sales & Commercial Excellence and Vice President and General Manager of Environment and Energy Solutions.

Their days are often long, to accommodate business calls to the U.S., and they are always “on call,” responding to customer needs, but it’s been rewarding, Lee said.

“Job satisfaction has been very high,” he said.

Witnessing the exponential growth in Shanghai has been “beyond words,” he said. When they first moved to the city in 2002, it was rare to see luxury cars. Now they are prevalent, he said. They’ve also enjoyed seeing Shanghai transition to a modern global city.

For the past 10 years, Yang has been a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai (Lee also is a member.) In 2015 she was elected to the chamber’s board and plans to run for another two-year term. Yang also is involved with the U.S. China Business Council, a member of International Market Assessment Asia and the International Professional Women’s Society, which organizes events on a variety of topics, such as leadership and career development. In addition, she is a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, which organizes lectures, study groups, and other cultural events in Shanghai.

Lee and Yang anticipate continuing to build their careers in China, and will likely move back to the U.S. upon retirement. They travel frequently for business and for pleasure throughout the world.

“I love being exposed to new cultures,” Yang said.

Brian Gracon, PhD ’77 (Alkire), is the author of Meconomics 101: 16 Ways to Improve Your Marketing, Selling and Business Management for Today’s Consumers. In his book, Dr. Gracon writes about the latest research on consumer buying trends and ways to leverage those trends in marketing, selling, and business management strategies and tactics.

David Hacker, BS ’49, of Highland Park, IL, currently lectures on a variety of topics, from alternative fuels to electric cars and battery development. He is retired from Amoco. After earning his B.S. from Illinois, Dr. Hacker earned an M.S. from MIT and a PhD from Northwestern University.

Eric Higgs, BS ‘94, was named vice president of marketing for the commercial tire business at Bridgestone Americas. Higgs has more than 20 years of experience in global marketing and spent the last four years at Kimberly-Clark serving as general manager for the hands and face category.

Aravind Immaneni, PhD '97 (McHugh), was named executive vice president and chief operations and technology officer for Fifth Third Bank. He is responsible for all aspects of information technlogy and back-office operations at the bank. He previously held positions at TD Bank, Capital One, and DuPont. He also has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Ryan Kramb, MS ’08, PhD ’10 (Zukoski), was recently named the 2016 recipient of the LyondellBasell Rising Star award, which is given to an individual employed for three years or less who has shown outstanding performance in his or her position. Kramb was awarded for his contributions to the specialty polypropylene business

in the area of product and application development. Ryan lives in Monroe, Ohio with his wife, Tiffany, and their three boys.

Anthonie Moll, BS ’08, joined the Quinn Law Group, an intellectual property law firm in Novi, Mich., as a principal. Prior to joining the Quinn Law Group, Moll worked at DeLizio Law in Cypress, Texas as well as Nixon Peabody in Chicago. He graduated from the John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

Nikhil Nair, PhD ’10 (Zhao), was honored with a prestigious National Institutes of Health New Innovator Award for his research into new treatments for potentially fatal, rarely studied “orphan diseases” caused by improper food metabolism. Nair is Assistant Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Tufts University.

Brian Rosen, PhD ’13 (Masel and Kenis), joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Tel Aviv University as an assistant professor in January 2015. Rosen recently published his first “last author paper” in ACS Catalysis.

Darsh Wasan, BS ’60, was named recipient of the AIChE-Particle Technology Forum Award, which recognizes forum members’ lifetime outstanding scientific/technical contributions to the field of particle technology as well as leadership in promoting scholarship, research, development, service, and/or

education in his field. Wasan is vice president for international affairs and Distinguished Motorola Professor of Chemical Engineering at Armour College of Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Sheldon Wiederhorn, PhD ’60 (Drickamer), of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, was one of three researchers presented with the 14th Otto Schott Research Award for their groundbreaking findings on the strength of glass. The Schott company has awarded the honor since 1991 to encourage cooperation between science and industry.


Giving

Class Notes


At a time of dwindling state support and rising costs of recruiting and retaining top faculty and maintaining facilities, your support of graduate education is critical to ensuring the tradition of excellence continues. As federal funding for research becomes more uncertain we need internal resources to sustain our outstanding research portfolio and maximize our global impact.

Competition for the best graduate students is fierce, and it is vital we bring the best to Illinois. Your investment will help provide them with the skills and tools they need to become leaders in industry and academia.

The Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Legacy Fellowships program seeks to raise a $10 million endowment to attract the nation’s top students and to provide them with fellowships during their first year of study.

Support the Legacy Fellowships Fund to:

• Honor the legacy of a faculty member/your research advisor.

• Create your legacy at Illinois.

• Bring the best and brightest graduate students to Illinois.

• Sustain excellent graduate and undergraduate education at Illinois.

Establishing the Legacy Fellowship endowment for graduate students offers alumni like yourself a wonderful opportunity to honor the legacy of your advisor or to establish your personal legacy to celebrate your time at Illinois.

Contact us today to arrange your gift or pledge a future gift.

Honor Your MentorLEAVE A LEGACY

The Legacy Fellowships Fund

The Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Illinois has a 100-year tradition of providing outstanding graduate education through world-class research supervised by its excellent faculty.

Thanks to all the Illinois alumni and friends who came to the department's reception at the annual AIChE conference in San Francisco this November.

Jim Grant, the grandson of Polish immigrants and son of a carpenter and stay-at-home mom, grew up with extended family in a two-unit apartment building on Chicago’s south side. He knew there wouldn’t be much money for college, but he was certain of two things: he wanted to earn a college degree and he wanted to become a chemical engineer.

Not only would he go on to graduate from Illinois with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1969, becoming the first in his family to obtain a college degree, but he would also earn three additional master’s degrees.

“My parents instilled in me and my siblings a lifelong desire to learn,” Grant said.

In his nearly 47-year career, he has worked with chemists in pharmaceutical process development and managed major environmental remediation and restoration projects. Today he oversees handling of hazardous waste for the Transportation Security Administration. His wife, Pam Grant, also the first in her family to receive a college education, is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Communications (now the College of Media).

“My wife and I both owe so much to Illinois,” he said, citing dedicated professors and superb, affordable education. “We wanted to pass on that opportunity to today’s students,” Grant said.

He and Pam recently established the James K. Grant Scholarship to support undergraduates studying chemical engineering.

Putting his education to work Although he doesn’t recall when he first heard about chemical engineering as a career option, “I can’t remember

a time when I didn’t want to be a chemical engineer,” Grant said.

At Thornton Township High School in Harvey, he enrolled in college-preparatory classes and started planning for college. He spent his first year of college at the University of Pennsylvania, but transferred to the U of I his sophomore year.

“All the classes at Illinois were very challenging. The professors were outstanding,” said Grant, who had classes with Professors Thomas Hanratty, Charles Eckert, Harry Drickamer, and John Quinn. At the time, James Westwater chaired the department.

During his second year at Illinois, he joined Acacia Fraternity and met Pam. They married in 1969.

After graduation, he became a process engineer, and later a production supervisor, for Monsanto at one of its plants near St. Louis. But his work was not related to chemical engineering. About six years later, he switched companies to accept a position as a senior process engineer at Mallinckrodt, a major manufacturer of acetaminophen, radiopharmaceuticals, and laboratory chemicals. At Mallinckrodt, he worked with organic chemists and was involved in areas such as new drug processes.

“It was my dream job. I really did put my chemical engineering education to work,” he said.

Throughout the 1970s and early 80s, Grant continued to further his education, earning a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Washington University in

St. Louis, a master’s degree in engineering management from the University of Missouri at Rolla, and a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Meanwhile, his wife built a successful career in public relations and communications, working for corporations and government agencies.

In 1981, Grant was offered the position of manager of environmental affairs at Mallinckrodt. At that time, new environmental laws and regulations were being rolled out, with more to come. He was intrigued by the challenges the position offered, and he accepted. Later, he became director of environmental affairs and director of environmental remediation for the company, later known as Tyco Healthcare Mallinckrodt. Grant would manage a number of “legacy” projects in the region. During the Manhattan Project, when the U.S. was engaged in developing nuclear weapons, Mallinckrodt processed uranium until the 1950s. Grant worked with the U.S. Department of Energy and Army Corps of Engineers to evaluate and execute cleanups of these old sites throughout the St. Louis region.

In 2007, the Grants headed to the East Coast. Pam Grant continued to advance her career in communications, working for federal agencies and the White House. Jim Grant would join the Transportation Security Administration as Hazardous


Giving

S U P P O R T E R S P O T L I G H T

Jim Grant, BS ’69 First generation college student establishes new scholarship.


Materials Program Manager. He interfaces with regulators on handling hazardous waste that accumulates when passengers dispose of everything from butane lighters to distilled spirits at TSA checkpoints. His office works with 440 airports, including several outside the continental U.S.

Today the Grants remain in Washington, D.C. Pam now teaches communications at the University of Maryland, and their daughter, Darby Wade Grant, is a lawyer for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Since graduating from Illinois, Jim and Pam have stayed in touch with many of their classmates; among their group of friends from college, they counted 12 couples who have married and remain together. Jim skis, and is a member of the DC Sail Club, sailing on the Potomac River during the summers. He and Pam hold National Park passports and have enjoyed traveling to numerous national parks and historic sites.

Supporting students In recent years Grant has had time to reflect on the education he received at Illinois and how it served him in his career.

“Coming from a blue collar family, I knew there would not be a lot of money coming from the family for college. I had to figure out how to pay for education.”

He’d work during the summers before and during college, in an electrical conduit factory, at a research laboratory, the Illinois State Water Survey, and later as house manager at his fraternity. A state scholarship helped cover about 20 percent of his tuition and he also took out some loans.

“I always wondered, what does a student do now?” Grant said. Students are still getting a bargain at the University of Illinois, but for many, especially first generation college students, paying for college is a major challenge, he said. “How do they make it? By taking out loans? That concerned me. What I wanted to do was set up a scholarship that could help them out.”

Grant said he is looking forward to attending the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering’s spring awards ceremony to meet the first scholarship recipient.

“Because of the University of Illinois and my education in chemical engineering, I was able to get a good job and work for good companies. My education served as an outstanding base for my career.”

Giving to Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

JIM GRANT

Residence Arlington, Va.

Education B.S. Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois, 1969

M.S. Chemical Engineering, Washington University, 1972

M.S. Engineering Management, University of Missouri-Rolla, 1977

M.S. Chemistry, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 1981

Career Highlights Current: Hazardous Materials Program Manager, U.S. Transportation Security Administration

Previous: Director, Environmental Remediation, Tyco Healthcare Mallinckrodt

Volunteer activities Dean’s Engineering Advisory Committee, University of Missouri-Columbia

Member, ASTM Committee on Environmental Assessment, Risk Management and Corrective Action

Former member and chairman of the Industrial Advisory Board for the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Missouri-Columbia

Family • Wife, Pam Grant (BS Communications, University of Illinois, 1968) • Daughter, Darby Wade Grant

Alumni and friends play a vital role in the success of the University of Illinois Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

You can make a gift to the department online at chbe.illinois.edu, by phone, or by using the enclosed envelope in this newsletter. Your investment in the department can sustain vital scholarships and fellowships to attract and retain the brightest students, support our world-renowned faculty and their innovative research and teaching, or help fund state-of-the-art laboratories, classrooms, and technologies.

Thank you for your generosity!

Braden Shain Assistant Director of Development [email protected] | office: (217) 300-9993 | mobile: (217) 246-6969

In Memoriam

Thomas J. Hanratty 1926-2016

Thomas J. Hanratty, a pioneer in fluid dynamics, passed away on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016, in Urbana.

Dr. Hanratty was a longtime chemical engineering professor who found joy in both research and teaching. He was a leader in establishing multiphase flow as a new academic discipline by relating macroscopic behavior to small-scale interactions.

He was a respected and integral part of the department, joining as an assistant professor in 1953 and formally retiring in 1997. As emeritus professor, he continued an active research program and interaction with colleagues culminating in over 60 years of active engagement with the Chemical Engineering department. During his career at Illinois, Dr. Hanratty worked with nearly 80 Ph.D. students and was admired by students for his dedication to helping them succeed. His colleagues on the faculty also praised him for his efforts to help their professional development at different stages throughout their careers.

A devoted and inspiring teacher, Professor Hanratty would always find time for students in the laboratory and classroom. He believed that the opportunity for students to present their work at technical conferences and to interact with researchers at other institutions was a major stimulus in their professional development. Upon his retirement from the university, Professor Hanratty, friends and former students worked to create a new fund (the Hanratty Professional Development Fund) to provide financial support for graduate students to attend national conferences in their discipline. His family has requested that memorials be made to that fund.

In a 2009 compendium on his research, Dr. Hanratty said his work was motivated by a desire to improve fundamental understanding of basic problems in fluid dynamics. He embraced new techniques to expand the scope of his research, with supercomputers to do direct numerical simulations of turbulent fields, and with optical techniques, which provided measurements of velocity flows without interfering with the flow. His work was the basis for the design of the Alaska pipeline, among many other applications.

Born in Philadelphia in 1926, he received a bachelor’s degree from Villanova University in 1947. He held research positions at Fischer and Porter Company in Pennsylvania and Battelle Memorial Institute in Ohio. While at Battelle, he took night courses at The Ohio State University, earning a master’s degree from there in 1950. He then entered the Ph.D. program at Princeton University, working in reactor design and fluidized beds.

Dr. Hanratty was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1974 for his contributions in the analysis and design of turbulent, gas-liquid, and solid-liquid flow systems. In 1997, he was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1999, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Throughout his career, Dr. Hanratty received numerous awards and recognitions. AIChE honored him with the Ernest Thiele Award in 1986, the Professional Progress Award in 1967, the Walker Award in 1961, and the Colburn Award in 1957. He was the first winner of the Multiphase Flow International Prize in 1998. He also received the Curtis McGraw Research Award (1963) and the Senior Research Award (1979) from the American Association for Engineering Education. In addition, Hanratty served as Associate Editor of the International Journal of Multiphase Flows and he authored the textbook, Physics of Gas-Liquid Flows, published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.

At Illinois, he was named a University Scholar and he was the first faculty member to hold the James W. Westwater professorship. Dr. Hanratty received honorary degrees from Villanova University and the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse and the Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award from The Ohio State University.

Services were held in Champaign-Urbana. Memorials may be made to the Hanratty Professional Development Fund at the University of Illinois Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, 600 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, or online at chbe.illinois.edu.

In MemoriamMassTransfer : Fall/Winter 2016

Professor Thomas Hanratty, William Sulzby (on his right) and Gavin Schmidt (on his left) examine a wavy surface to be used in the turbulent flow facility in the background. (Photo: Thompson-McClellan.)


In Memoriam

John L. “Jack” Hudson, BS ’59, of Charlottesville, Va., passed away on Aug. 6, 2016, at 79 years old. Born in Chicago, he earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at Illinois in 1959, his M.S.E. at Princeton University, and his Ph.D. at Northwestern University, where he met his future wife Janette. Dr. Hudson was on the faculty of the Illinois chemical engineering department from 1963 to 1974. He later moved to the University of Virginia, where he remained for 37 years, serving as chair for a decade, and publishing more than 200 refereed scholarly articles on the dynamics of complex reacting systems.

Dr. Hudson was a recipient of the Wilhelm Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering from AIChE and the Alexander von Humboldt Prize from Germany, which led to a long-standing collaboration with researchers at the Fritz-Haber Institute in Berlin. In 2008, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Hudson worked closely with scientists from around the world and held an honorary professorship at the East China University of Science and Technology, and mentored many international students. A competitive athlete, he could be found on the handball court when he wasn’t in the lab. He enjoyed dancing, playing guitar, reading, camping, hiking, and spending time with family.

Ronald L. Engel, BS ’58, died May 5, 2016, in Chicago. He earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1959 from Illinois and his J.D. from the University of Chicago. He was a partner at Kirkland

& Ellis in Chicago and represented companies such as Coca Cola, Frito Lay, and Procter & Gamble. He later created algorithms for use in the financial markets. A master chess player, puzzle solver, and poker player, he enjoyed intellectual games and challenges of all kinds.

Mary Fung Koehler, BS ’56, died on April 26, 2016. She grew up working in her family’s Chinese-American restaurants before enrolling at the University of Illinois. She was one of the earliest female graduates of the program, earning her B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1956. Mrs. Koehler went on to work for the U.S. Department of Mines. While raising young children in Washington, she graduated from the University of Washington law school, the only female minority in her class. Mrs. Koehler practiced law in Lake Forest Park, Wash. for two decades, handling a variety of cases, from criminal defense to business law. She served as a board member of ACLU and was a broker with Koehler Realty.

Gerald F. “Jerry” Malling, MS ’63, of Oak Ridge, Tenn., died Oct. 12, 2016. Dr. Malling earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Northwestern, his master’s from Illinois, and doctoral degree from Northwestern. He served in the U.S. Navy Reserve for eight years. Dr. Malling worked as a development engineer and engineer specialist at Oak Ridge in specialties uranium enrichment, gaseous diffusion theory and technology. He retired in 1999.

Frank Maslan, PhD ’40, of West Hartford, Conn., died on June 15, 2016, at 97 years old. Born in Kansas City, Mo., Dr. Maslan earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at Illinois, his M.S. at the University of Missouri, and his Ph.D. at Yale University, where he worked on the development of the atomic bomb. A WWII veteran, Dr. Maslan worked in research at Brookhaven National Laboratory and taught at Yale and the University of Connecticut. He also worked in consulting for the U.S. Department of Energy.

John C. “Jack” McIlrath, BS ’68, of Madison, Ala., died June 14, 2016, at 70 years old. A member of the ROTC at the university, he graduated with his B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1968 and served in the U.S. Army Engineer Corps, Medical Service Corps, and Army Environmental Hygiene Agency. He earned a M.S. in Sanitary Engineering from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and worked around the world, including Vietnam and Germany. While at the Quartermaster School at Fort Lee, Virginia, he worked on developing a reverse osmosis purification unit that was used in Desert Storm to turn sea water into potable drinking water. Most recently, he was president and CEO of Buffalo Restoration, which finds and destroys unexploded ordnance on former Department of Defense sites.

William B. Retallick, PhD ’53, of West Chester, Pa., died on Sept. 8, 2016. He was an engineer and inventor who held more than 40 patents. Dr. Retallick attended MIT and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Illinois in 1953, working under H. Fraser Johnstone. During World War II, he served as a Merchant Marine officer and in 1946 was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Navy Reserve. He remained in the Reserve for 15 years. Dr. Retallick was one of three co-founders of an Ohio-based manufacturer that is now part of Johnson Matthey Process Technologies. His industrial experience also included research and management positions at Oxy Catalyst, Air Products and Chemicals, Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal, Phillips Petroleum, and private consulting.

AlumniMassTransfer : Spring/Summer 2016MassTransfer : Fall/Winter 2016

25

Where are our nearly 5,000 Alumni?

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Source: University of Illinois Alumni Association

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UNITED STATES ........................... 4,433SINGAPORE ......................................... 27REPUBLIC OF KOREA ..................... 20CHINA ...................................................... . 16HONG KONG ........................................ 10MALAYSIA ............................................... 10CANADA .................................................... 9GREECE ..................................................... 8INDIA ........................................................... 7TAIWAN ...................................................... 7THAILAND ................................................ 6

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES ............... 6INDONESIA .............................................. 5AUSTRALIA .............................................. 3CYPRUS ....................................................... 1DENMARK .................................................. 1FRANCE ....................................................... 1GERMANY ................................................. 3ICELAND ...................................................... 1ISRAEL ......................................................... 2ITALY ............................................................... 1JAPAN .......................................................... 2

MEXICO ...................................................... 1NEPAL .......................................................... 1NETHERLANDS ....................................... 1PERU ............................................................ 2PHILIPPINES ............................................. 1SPAIN ............................................................. 1SWITZERLAND ........................................ 1TURKEY ........................................................ 1UKRAINE ..................................................... 1UNITED KINGDOM ................................ 1

ACROSS THE GLOBE

Remember WhenTOP IMAGE: Longtime faculty member Thomas Hanratty passed away on Aug. 24, 2016. Many will remember him for his love of research and dedication to students. In this photo Dr. Hanratty is in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory with Lawrence R. Williams (PhD ’90) in the late 1980s with a flow loop that Williams built to study gas-liquid flows in horizontal and inclined pipelines. Hanratty’s obituary may be found on page 28.

BOTTOM IMAGE: Curtis W. Frank earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Illinois in 1972, studying under Dr. Harry Drickamer. In this picture from 1969, Frank uses a double-beam, high-pressure optical spectrometer to measure optical spectra to 150,000 atmospheres over a wavelength range from 2,500 A to 12,000 A. Frank is the W. M. Keck, Sr. Professor in Engineering at Stanford University. Frank delivered this year’s Parr Lecture, “Solid Matter at Interfaces,” on Nov. 4, 2016, in Urbana. His research interests are in soft materials and recent work has included studies of thin films and interfaces, interpenetrating network hydrogels, phospholipid assemblies, biodegradable polymers, and ion transport in fuel cell membranes.

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Department of Chemical and Biomolecular EngineeringUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign114 Roger Adams Laboratory600 South Mathews AvenueUrbana, Illinois 61801-3602

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Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering alumni, graduate students, family and friends celebrate Homecoming 2016.

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Happy Holidays - Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering · ing of colleagues, alumni, and friends to...

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