n InsIde

Steven Little, PhD, Associate Professor and Bicentennial Alumni Faculty Fellow of the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School

of Engineering, has been appointed Chair of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineer-ing effective May 1, 2012.

“Steve is an accomplished researcher and dynamic professor who brings a wealth of ideas and enthu-siasm to the department,” noted Gerald D. Holder, US Steel Dean of Engineering. “As our school continues to grow in academic achievement, his leadership will play a vital role.”

“I could not be more excited in this new role and the level of support from the rest of the faculty is really overwhelming,” Dr. Little said.

Dr. Little joined the Swanson School of Engineer-ing in 2006 where his research focuses on the controlled release of drugs. He holds the Bicenten-nial Board of Visitors Endowed Faculty Fellowship and also retains appointments in the McGowan

Institute of Regenerative Medicine and in the Swanson School’s Department of Bioengineer-ing. Recently he was elected Chair of the Drug Delivery Special Interest Group in the Society for Biomaterials.

Dr. Little holds eight US patents and provisional applications for patents including new methods to fabricate controlled release vehicles in a high throughput fashion; dissolvable synthetic-vasculature; novel complex delivery vehicles; and a description of the first degradable, artificial cell. Since joining Pitt, Dr. Little has received funding from the National Institutes for Health, the National Science Foundation, the US Army, the US Department of Defense, the American Heart Association, The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, and several industrial sources that total almost $5 million.

His research has been recognized with Univer-sity and national awards including the Beck-man Foundation Young Investigator Award, the Swanson School Board of Visitor’s award, the Coulter Foundation Translational Research Award, an NIH K-Award, the American Heart Association’s Career Development Award, and the University of Pittsburgh’s Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award. Most recently he was named the 2012 recipient of the Young Investigator Award from

continued on next page > > >

new Faculty: lei li ......................2

awards and Recognitions .......... 4-6

dr. eric Beckman .............................6

NEWSS u m m E r 2 0 1 2c h E m i c a l & P E t ro l E u m E N g i N E E r i N g

ChemEAnnuAl PublicAtion of the University of PittsbUrgh | SwanSon School of EnginEEring

Dr. Steven Little Named Chair of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the Swanson School of Engineering

7new Research Grants2

welcome from steve little

Recipient of the Bayer distinguished lectureship 2012

Back Cover3FeatuRe stoRy:

dr. Robert Parker

n Summer 2012 | 32 | Summer 2012 n engineering.pitt.edu engineering.pitt.edu

Welcome from Steve Littlethe Society For Biomaterials, which recognizes an individual who has demonstrated outstanding achievements in the field of biomaterials research within ten years following his terminal degree or formal training.

Within his field Dr. Little is active through leader-ship in several societies including the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the Biomedical En-gineering Society (BMS), the Materials Research Society (MRS), and the Society for Biomaterials (SFB). He has organized and served as the chair of large, multi-session symposiums for ACS, SFB and MRS, and this year will serve as organizer of an entire Topical Conference for the AIChE Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, October 28 – November 2.

Dr. Little received his PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2005 from Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy where he held three National Graduate Fellowships and received the American Associa-tion for the Advancement of Science Excellence in Research Award for his work on engineered therapies that interface with the human immune system. He received a bachelor of engineering in Chemical Engineering from Youngstown State University in 2000.

> > > continued from page 1

In February 2010, Professor Lei Li joined Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering ChemE department. Since 2010, Li’s

research has allowed him to interact with a total of 12 undergraduate students and two graduate students and enjoys working with those young researchers. Last fall, he began teaching his first class, Fundamentals of Chemical Engineering, at SSoE.

Before his association with SSoE, Li earned both his Bachelor of Science degree and Master of Science degree in chemical

engineering from Beijing, China’s Tsinghua University in 1994 and 1997, respectively. Afterwards, he moved on to the University of Michigan where he graduated in 2001 with his PhD from the school’s Macromolecular Science and Engineering Center. Upon earn-ing his PhD, Li began his nine-year research involvement with Seagate Technology LLC, where he held positions as a post-doctorate researcher, research staff member, research engineering manager and senior research manager. His research at Seagate involved ultrathin film for nano-tribology application.

Li’s current research emphasizes polymer thin and ultrathin films at surfaces and interfaces. He believes that the key to understanding these films lies within the understanding of different interactions that govern various properties of polymer thin films. Through the understanding of these films, researchers can develop nanotechnology and bio-system materials for purposes such as anti-friction and anti-corrosion application in micro/nano devices as well as low friction and wear for biomedical implants.

Lei Li, Polymer Thin Film Researcher and New SSoE Professor

Welcome to another edition of ChemE News!! We are currently celebrating the University of Pittsburgh’s 225th Anniversary as well as the Department’s 93rd Anniversary, tracing back to 1919 when the University of Pittsburgh estab-lished one of the world’s first Departments of Chemical Engineering.

We are in the process of moving into completely renovated and even more impressive offices, laboratories and classrooms in Benedum Hall. We now host two NSF-sponsored research expe-riences for undergraduate (REU) programs each summer thanks to Dr. McCarthy and Dr. Parker. Our collaborative, graduate student “GAANN” program (sponsored by the US Department of Education) provides opportunities for our PhD students to be mentored by two or three faculty with different research interests. ChemE students are also winning awards and competitions like never before (see page 5).

In research, the Department’s programs are grow-ing rapidly and making an impact internationally and even on regional economics! For example, our Department has spun off two start-up companies based on technologies discovered in our laborato-ries. One of these, Dr. Beckman’s company Cohera is producing TissuGlu and is advancing toward human translation (see page 6). Several faculty

have received prestigious international grants and awards this past year including grants from the NSF, NIH, DoD, and elite awards from profes-sional societies and well-known foundations. We have had a number of high impact scientific publications this past year, including several in Nature Nanotechnology, JACS, and PNAS by Dr. Balazs. We will highlight all of these accomplish-ments at AIChE this October in Pittsburgh, where we have an impressive number of talks and an entire Topical Conference highlighting our faculty and students.

Lastly, I recently had the pleasure of meeting alumnus Dan Ortiz ’50 and his wife Joan, who established a scholarship fund for our chemical engineering students. Gifts like these enable our Department and students to do all of the great things we do each year. I also hope to see you at one of our two big upcoming events – the 12th annual alumni golf outing at Longue Vue on July 9, and homecoming, which will be October 12. Now is indeed a very exciting time to be at Pitt!

Sincerely,

Steven Little, PhDChair

Dr. Robert Parker Receives NSF Grant Toward Systems Medicine

Associate Professor Robert Parker was named the recipient of a National Science Foundation Research Experi-

ences for Undergraduates (REU) grant to further research in the emerging field of systems medi-cine. “REU Site: Engineering Tools for Decision Support in Systems Medicine” will bring together nine undergraduates each summer for the next three years for a mentored journey of research-based learning to help clinicians make more informed decisions. The grant is effective March 1, 2012 through February 28, 2015.

“Systems medicine is the translational arm of systems biology, in which we apply mathematical and calculational rigor to models that directly help clinicians make better decisions for patient care,” Dr. Parker explains. “Clinicians are outstanding linear thinkers, but their intuition can break down when faced with the body’s common nonlineari-ties (e.g., saturation) and the multitude of pos-sible interventions then can administer. We are exploring methods to help them make better use of available information, and hence interventions, when battling disease.”

According to the NSF grant application, under-graduates from Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) backgrounds are ideal candidates to participate in this program. Students will develop along the path of dependent to independent investigator, to the degree possible for a given student. Additional objectives include the ability to deploy their modeling and analysis toolkit beyond their research problem, the ability to work in team-based research environments – a requirement for the systems medicine field – and an increased desire to continue their studies at the post-graduate level.

Dr. Parker notes that the University of Pittsburgh is an outstanding site to host an REU program in systems medicine because of the close collabora-tive environment between the Swanson School of Engineering and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which is listed annually among the top 10 NIH research-funded medical centers

in the US. Additionally, the breadth and depth of the mentoring faculty coupled with the Swanson School’s Center for Medical Innovation promises to yield high-quality mentored research experiences for participating students

“One of the main contribu-tions we can offer through systems medicine and this grant is helping to affect the timing of decisions within a clinical setting,” Dr. Parker adds. “We will be very focused on dynamics – the response to an intervention as a function of time. Timing can be crucial to treatment decisions for patients suffering from diseases such as sepsis, diabetes and cancer.”

Dr. Parker also finished 2011 on a high note when he and his colleagues received the David Him-melblau Award for Innovations in Computer-Based Chemical Engineering Education from The Comput-ing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). This award recognizes an individual or group making new and novel contributions to computer aids for chemical engineering education. The nomination must refer to a significant contribution to computer-based chemical engineering educa-tion within the past decade.

“This work goes back to my graduate years when, along with Ed Gatzke (now a professor in chemical engineering at South Carolina), I had the good for-tune to get involved in the Process Control Mod-ules (PCM) software package being developed by Dr. Frank Doyle (UC Santa Barbara). PCM provided a set of realistic (nonlinear) simulation workshop modules. We developed and/or coded case stud-ies and provided a user interface that students would encounter in an industrial environment.

“PCM was very effective because monitors would display output in (faster-than) real time, and stu-dents would be able to view the system response and interact with the simulation, much as a plant operator would. This environment provided a good complement to traditional classroom lecture. From a safety perspective, it also allows students to learn the risks associated with making critical mistakes without, in effect, blowing up the plant.”

Both the NSF grant and the CAST award reflect Dr. Parker’s passion for teaching and for helping students think in different ways.

“I’ve tried to focus on ways that students can engage in experiential learning and develop interactive processes that they can experience first-hand,” he says. “I want them to think through a problem before making a decision, but they must also realize that sometimes they have to just try something – and that something may be wrong. Ultimately this will lead to some mistakes, but learning how to avoid similar mistakes in the future is an outstanding way for them to develop into the next generation of engineers.”

n Summer 2012 | 54 | Summer 2012 n engineering.pitt.edu engineering.pitt.edu

Society for Biomaterials Recognizes Steven Little

Bayer Professor Robert M.

Enick, PhD was part of a team from the National Energy Technol-ogy Laboratory honored by U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu with a Secretary of Energy Achieve-ment Award, the

highest internal, nonmonetary award a team can receive from DOE. The ceremony was held October 27 in Washington, DC.

Secretary Chu recognized NETL for its contribu-tions to two significant environmental efforts in 2010: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and DOE’s remediation activities at the Hanford nuclear materials production site in Washington State. In both efforts, NETL contrib-uted its time, effort, and expertise to solve critical problems facing the United States. Dr. Enick was a member of the Deepwater Horizon Team.

In congratulating all of the 2011 Honor Award winners, Secretary Chu stated, “The employees

recognized today have gone above and beyond the call of duty, demonstrating an exceptional commitment to public service. Their dedication, knowledge, and skills have served to strengthen our nation’s economic and energy security and the work of the Energy Department.”

The Deepwater Horizon Flow Estimation Group/Nodal Analysis Team, led by NETL’s Dr. George Guthrie coordinated the efforts of 46 scientists and staff members from 6 DOE national labs—NETL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory—and the National Institute of Standards and Technol-ogy (NIST).

More than 50,000 barrels of oil per day were flow-ing into the Gulf of Mexico, and determining the flow rate was the first step in identifying options for capping the well. Data were sparse, conditions were hostile, and the need for a fully defendable estimate was critical and immediate.

DOE’s researchers operated with the utmost efficiency, employing state-of-the-art technologies and methods to develop unique approaches for solving a problem for which there

was no precedence. Dr. Guthrie’s staff worked tirelessly to assemble, reduce, and analyze data and vet results with other professionals. They con-ducted their activities with a minimum of support staff and produced analytical products quickly, helping to speed the ultimate solution and reduce the environmental cost of the disaster.

The Nodal Analysis Team helped the FRTG quickly and effectively achieve its primary objective: accurately estimate the rate of oil flowing into the Gulf. Responders used this information to develop options to cap the well. Many of the processes developed for this task will now be refined and documented to guide the work of response ana-lysts in the future.

The NETL federal and contractor staff members that worked on the FRTG Nodal Analysis Team were George Guthrie, Grant Bromhal, Brian Anderson, Robert Enick, Roy Long, Shahab Mohaghegh, Bryan Morreale, Neal Sams, and Doug Wyatt.

NETL Teams Earn High Achievement Awards Chem-E Car Team Places in Top 10 in 2011 Nationalsand Preps for 2012 Regionals

Dr. Götz Veser to Join Editorial Boardof New “Energy Technology” Journal

Götz Veser, PhD, Professor and CNG Faculty Fellow, has been

selected to serve on the editorial board for Energy Technology, a new journal from Wiley-VCH. Set to launch in 2013, Energy Technology will explore the latest developments

in energy, chemistry materials sci-ence, and sustainability as it relates to energy.

Wiley-VCH publishes for the scientif-ic community, for scientific societies and for researchers, practitioners, teachers and students all over the

world. Headquartered in Weinheim, Germany, Wiley-VCH ensures that scientists, engineers and economists receive high quality information, in print and online, in the most varied forms.

Dr. Steven R. Little, has been awarded the 2012 Young In-

vestigator Award from the Society For Biomaterials. The Young Inves-tigator Award annually recognizes an individual who has demonstrat-ed outstanding achievements in the field of biomaterials research within ten years following his terminal degree or formal training.

Dr. Little will receive the award at the Society’s 2012 Fall Symposium in New Orleans, October 4-6, 2012.

This marks the Swanson School of Engineering’s third recognition in as many years from the Society For Biomaterials. William R. Wagner, PhD, director of the McGowan Institute for

Regenerative Medicine and professor of surgery, bioengineer-ing and chemical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh won the Clemson Award from the Society For Biomaterials in 2010 and Stephen F Badylak, PhD, professor, Department of Surgery, won in 2009.

After placing second in car performance and third in the poster competition at AIChE’s

(American Institute of Chemical Engineers) Mid-Atlantic Regional Chem-E Car Competition in March of 2011, Swanson School’s Chem-E Car team moved on to the National Chem-E Car Competition in Minneapolis, Minnesota in October 2011, where the team placed tenth overall in car performance. The team competed against thirty top-ranking universities, including the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, University of Califor-nia at Davis, Missouri S&T, University of Akron, Carnegie Mellon, University of British Columbia, University of Missouri at Columbia, Louisiana State University and Oklahoma State University.

At AIChE’s Chem-E Car Competition, sponsored by Chevron, the participating teams have one hour to create a chemical reaction that can power their shoe box-sized car, forcing it to travel a predeter-mined distance while carrying a predetermined volume of water. “Chem-E Car urges members to brainstorm creative and effective methods to accomplish the tasks involved – oftentimes this aspect is not part of a curriculum,” said Gerald McFarlin, a sophomore team member. “There is no lab manual to follow, so it allows us to create an experiment and see the real-life results,” con-firmed Renee Millard, a junior team member.

Swanson School’s Chem-E Car team began in September 2010 with the goal to place in the top half of the March 2011 regional competition, but exceeded their goal excessively. The founding members created the team as an opportunity for ChemE students to use their knowledge in a new and exciting way by applying important theory to real-world engineering problems, while improving leadership and team skills, as well as network-ing with other professors and pre-professionals. “Chem-E-Car has given me a chance to work with my chemical engineering peers towards a common goal,” said Ian Lynch, another junior team member.

The team credits their success to the advising of Dr. Di Gao, corporate co-sponsorship of Westing-house Electric and BASF, as well as the support of Swanson School’s ChemE department. The Chem-E Car team is currently headed by John Lyons

and Andrew Zmolek, president and vice president respectively, as well as Charles Ringel and Oren Lawitt, business co-managers.

Since competing successfully in 2011, the team grew to now include twenty-three members ranging from sophomores to seniors. Because of this growth, the team plans to not only design a new car, but also improve their 2011 car design, and use a pneumatic engine powered by sodium bicarbonate and vinegar and a color sensor brak-ing mechanism. Swanson School’s Chem-E Car team will compete in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Competition at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, April 13 through 15, 2012, and plans to later compete in the National competition, which the University of Pittsburgh will co-host in Pittsburgh.

n Summer 2012 | 76 | Summer 2012 n engineering.pitt.edu engineering.pitt.edu

AIChE Recognizes Di Gao, 2011 Owens Corning Early Career Awardee

TissuGlu Ready for US Testing

Cohera Medical, Inc.®, co-founded by Eric J. Beckman,

PhD, is ready for its first US trials.

An innovator and developer of absorbable surgical adhesives and sealants, Cohera received Investiga-tional Device Exemption (IDE) approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration to begin a prospective, multicenter, randomized clinical trial for its lead product, TissuGlu® Surgical Adhe-sive, in the United States.

Dr. Beckman, George M. Bevier Professor of Engineering and Co-Director of the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, is the primary inventor of TissuGlue along with Michael Buckley, MD.

“IDE allows Cohera to start its pivotal trial on TissuGlu in the US,” Dr. Beckman explains. “This will be a 150 patient trial at five to six sites.”

TissuGlu is an internal surgical adhesive for large flap surgeries, such as abdominoplasty (tummy tuck), that eliminates or reduces fluid accumulation

and the need for post-surgical drains. TissuGlu’s chemical composition is re-absorbable, non-toxic, forms a strong bond between tissue layers and allows for natural healing, which ultimately may enable faster recovery.

The study will investigate the effectiveness of TissuGlu and its effect on wound drainage and associated complications in abdominoplasty surgeries. There are currently no medical devices approved by the FDA, or in pivotal clinical trials, for a synthetic adhesive indicated for approximation of tissues in large flap surgeries.

Cohera Medical received CE Marking approval for TissuGlu and began sell-ing product to hospitals and surgeons in Germany in September 2011. The company plans expanded the commercial availability of TissuGlu to additional European markets in early 2012. In May 2012 TissuGlu received its patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Cohera employs over 30 people, including Despina Xenakis (Che ’07) and Bradd Picone (Che ’09).

“This is a huge hurdle that Cohera spent years working toward, and so we’re very excited to finally begin,” Dr. Beckman says. “The vast majority of small medical device firms never get this far. A successful trial completion really adds value, and is a critical step towards US approval. We have been very pleased with its reception in Europe and soon hope to fully introduce it in the US, which represents the world’s largest market for medical devices.”

The American Institute of Chemical Engineering (AIChE)

Materials Engineering and Sci-ences Division (MESD) recognized Swanson School’s Dr. Di Gao as their 2011 Owens Corning Early Career Awardee. As part of award accep-tance, Gao presented as a keynote speaker during the MESD Plenary Session in Minneapolis, Minnesota in October 2011.

The Owens Corning Award recog-nizes outstanding contributors to scientific, technological, educational and service areas of material sci-ence and engineering. Awardee qualifications include active MESD membership, outstanding work in materials science and the awardee must be less than forty years old during the year of recognition. MESD recognized Gao for his ongoing research and creativity in nano-material design and development.

After earning his Bachelor of Sci-ence degree in chemical engineering from Beijing China’s Tsinghua Uni-versity in 1999 and his PhD in chemi-cal engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 2004,

Gao joined Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering in 2005. His research emphasizes synthesis, assembly and characterization of nanostructures and their integration into functional biomedical, environmental and sustainable engineering application devices and systems. Gao’s position include William Keplar Whiteford faculty fellow and associate pro-fessor in SSoE’s ChemE department. His classes include Fundamentals of Chemical Engineering, Transport Processes, Biosensors and Mathematical Meth-ods in Chemical

Engineering. He also participates as an instructor with the Plus 3 China Study Abroad Program and advisor for SSoE’s nationally-ranked team for AIChE’s Chem-E Car Competition.

new

Res

eaRc

h GR

ants

in Ch

emE anna c. Balazs, Phd

Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engi-neering and Robert Von der Luft Professor (PI)

Defense University Research Instrumentation Program Supplement for Office of Naval Research “ Novel Materials Approaches for

Prevention of Marine Biofouling”amount: $125,700

Abstract: Current protection strategies from marine biofouling include the costly removal of settled organisms from the vessels and ecologically hazardous chemobiocidal defense involving toxins and metals. There is a critical need for conceptually new materials that provide cost-, energy- and environment-saving protection strategies. In

contrast to current antifouling methods that involve static, passive coatings, we propose a novel approach that effectively mimics successful active mechanisms employed by echinoderms to prevent fouling and remove debris from their surfaces. In particular, our approach harnesses dynamically active, high-aspect-ratio surface structures that would provide a unique level of control over the available surface area, topography, and local flow patterns encountered by organ-isms in the fluid. As evidenced by the behav-ior of the biological analogues, we expect that these engineered surfaces will create surface flow patterns that will interfere with and delay attachment and settlement of various organisms. In the course of these studies, we will design a variety of actuated

surface structures to determine the needed geometries, flexibilities, and modes of motion. To minimize or eliminate the need for external energy input, we will optimize our structures to harvest energy from the fluid flow itself. The unique capability of our design – which involves actuation and movement of the microstructures in the fluid flow – will enable innovative protection/removal strategies that do not require the release of any chemical substances or the use of energy-intensive procedures. Further-more, our computational studies will yield fundamental insight into the hydrodynamic interactions and interfacial adhesion phe-nomena occurring at these active surfaces.

Götz VeseR, Phd Professor and CNG Faculty Fellow (PI)

National Science Foundation “Chemical Looping Beyond Combustion”amount: $340,000

Abstract: Periodically operated fixed-bed re-actors are an emerging type of catalytic re-actors with increasing application in energy and environmental applications. The present project aims to demonstrate the application of chemical looping, an emerging combus-tion technology, to the partial oxidation of methane to synthesis gas in a periodically

operated fixed-bed reactor configuration. The resulting process has significant practi-cal advantages (alleviating safety concerns in methane partial oxidation by avoiding direct contact between methane and O2, and allowing direct utilization of air without diluting the syngas with nitrogen), and will at the same time allow the investigation of the dynamics of coupled endothermal/exo-thermal gas-solid reactions in periodic fixed-bed reactors. We will furthermore extend the chemical looping principle onto a fully multifunctional reactor design by integrating desulfurization of the product stream,

resulting in a strongly intensified, highly scalable, and efficient syngas process.

“The project builds onto expertise in methane conversion and chemical looping (an emerging clean combustion technology) that my group has built up over the past ten years, and applies this expertise to the (non-combustive) conversion of methane to useful chemicals,” Dr. Veser notes. “Some of the groundwork behind the proposal is based on the collaboration with NETL, which has been and is continuing to fund research on chemical looping in my laboratory.”

JudIth c. yanG, PhdNickolas A. DeCecco Professor

Department of Energy, sub-project from the University of Illinois 12-month (grant extension) “ The Reactivity and Structural Dynamics

of Supported Metal Nanoclusters Using Electron Microsopy, In-situ X-ray Spec-troscopy, Electronic Structure Theories, and Molecular Dynamics Simulations”

amount: $160,000

Abstract: The distinguishing feature of our collaborative program of study is the focus it brings to emergent phenomena originat-ing from the unique structural/electronic environments found in nanoscale materials. We exploit and develop frontier methods of atomic-scale materials characterization based on electron microscopy (Yang) and synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy (Frenkel) that are in turn coupled innately with advanced first principles theory and methods of computational modeling

(Johnson). In the past year we have made significant experimental advances that have led to important new understandings of the structural dynamics of what are unquestionably the most important classes of heterogeneous catalysts – the materials used to both produce and mitigate the consequences of the use of liquid hydrocar-bon fuels.

Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering Swanson School of Engineering Benedum Hall 3700 O’Hara Street Pittsburgh PA 15261

unIVeRsIty oF PIttsBuRGh | SwanSon SChooL oF ENGINEERING | CHEME NEWS | SUMMER 2012

NoNProfit org.U.S. PoStage

PaidPittSbUrgh, PaPermit No. 511

The Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering welcomed Arup K. Chakraborty, PhD, the Robert T. Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, and Biological Engineering at MIT, as recipient of the Bayer Distinguished Lectureship 2012. Dr. Chakraborty presented

lectures on Thursday, March 22 and Friday, March 23.

The Bayer Distinguished Lectureship is presented annually by the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and recognizes excellence in chemical education, outreach and research. The lecture is underwritten in part by Bayer Material Science.

“Dr. Chakraborty is one of the nation’s leading researchers in research related to experimental immunol-ogy through theoretical and computational methods, especially directed toward autoimmune deficiencies and HIV,” noted J. Karl Johnson, William Kepler Whiteford Professor in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.

Arup K. Chakraborty, PhDRecipient of the Bayer Distinguished Lectureship 2012