The Department of Chemical Engineering is pleased to announce Conor McNamara as the 2023 Young Alumni Award winner

September 12, 2023

Conor works as the Director of Beyond Beer Operations for Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, MO. He leads a cross-functional supply chain team responsible for the production planning and execution of AB's Beyond Beer Portfolio, with a focus on Flavored Malt and Wine-Based products. Conor joined AB immediately after graduating from Rochester and has worked his way through a variety of roles in brewery operations, corporate planning, and supply chain innovations.  Conor received his bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester in 2013 and, in 2014, participated in Rochester's e5 Program (formerly known as KEY) where he worked on developing a product line of zero-waste soap.  

Scientists take another step in the quest to combat antibiotic resistance

May 31, 2023

Scientists have found a counterintuitive wrinkle in the way bacteria spread antibiotic-resistant genes through small circular pieces of DNA called plasmids.

Large language models could be the catalyst for a new era of chemistry

May 24, 2023

Large language models like the one behind the popular ChatGPT could transform the future of chemistry, according to a researcher at the Uuniversity of Rochester. Andrew D. White, an associate professor of chemical engineering, outlines why he believes large language models (LLMs) represent the future of the field in an article published by Nature Reviews Chemistry.

ChemE Student Receives a Fulbright Grant

May 22, 2023

Danielle Getz received a Fulbright U.S Student Grant to head to the University of Copenhagen's Center forHigh Entropy Alloy Catalysis in Denmark.  She will pursue graduate coursework in chemistry and research on high-entroy alloy catalysts to investigate renewable chemical production pathways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

2023 Outstanding MS Prize

May 13, 2023

Kendra Watson (Müller Group) received the 2023 Outstanding MS in Chemical Engineering Prize for her dissertation "Oxygen Reduction to Hydrogen Peroxide Catalyzed by Hydrophilic Carbon Fiber Paper Cathodes”.

GPT-4 Is Here

March 30, 2023

Andrew White, a chemical engineer at the University of Rochester, New York, has had privileged access to GPT-4 as a ‘red-teamer’: a person paid by OpenAI to test the platform to try and make it do something bad.

Engineers Without Borders

March 20, 2023

Six Hajim Students who are members of the Engineers Without Borders student chapter were in Don Juan, Dominican Republic, during January break.  They were making adjustments to a water purification system the EWB chapter installed for an elementary school during previous trips.

Advocacy and Action Award Winner, Astrid Mueller

March 9, 2023

This award recognizes staff, postdoctoral fellows, or faculty who exemplify excellence in developing and sustaining an infrastructure to support equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Alumni News

February 27, 2023

Chemical engineer alumna Amanda Tatem '20 is a great example of a student who made the most of her opportunities at our University.  Now she's a chemical engineer on Eastern Research Group's facilities and process engineering team, analyzing operations, systems and equipmentt used by federal clients including the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The promise of batteries that come from trees

January 3, 2023

Wyatt Tenhaeff, an associate professor of chemical engineering, has also made lignin-derived anodes in laboratory settings. Lignin is “really cool,” he says because it is a byproduct that could have many potential uses. In experiments, he and his colleagues found that they could use the lignin to make an anode with a self-supporting structure, which didn't require glue or a copper-based current collector—a common component in lithium-ion batteries. Despite the fact that this could reduce the cost of lignin-derived carbon anodes, he is skeptical that they can compete commercially with graphite anodes. “I just don’t think it’s going to be a big enough step-change in terms of cost or performance to replace the entrenched graphite,” he says.

2023 Advocacy and Action Award

December 20, 2022

Danielle Getz and Quinn Yu Win Fall TA Awards

December 5, 2022

Congratulations to seniors Danielle Getz and Quinn Yu for winning the Fall 2022 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award! The Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Award (UGTA) recognizes an undergraduate student(s) whose service as teaching assistant in a Chemical Engineering course has been outstanding during that semester. Well done!

Congratulation to our 2022 DEI Award Winner

November 4, 2022

Alumni News

October 31, 2022

Chemical engineering alumnus Wen-Chang Chen ’93 (PhD) has been named president of National Taiwan University (NTU). After earning a BS at NTU, Wen-Chang did his PhD work here under Samson Jenekhe, a professor of chemical engineering, chemistry, and materials science. He then returned to join the faculty at NTU, eventually becoming dean of the college of engineering. In 2021, he was awarded a National Chair Professorship in engineering and applied science. Wen-Chang is also the chair of NTU’s Optoelectronic Polymer Laboratory, which studies the electronic and optical properties of donor-acceptor polymers through chemical structure design, charge transport, band gaps, and light-emitting characteristics. Learn more.

Samantha Cox Wins Research Symposium Award

October 24, 2022

Congratulation Sam on being one of the winners at the GEPA Annual Graduate Student Symposium.  Over 50 students gave 10-minute presentations to audiences that included students, faculty and staff.  These talks shared the breadth of outstanding research and scholarship going on across AS&E! 

ChE Post Doc wins Steadman Prize

October 3, 2022

Parinaz Esbah, a postdoctoral associate in chemical engineering, won the Award for Interdisciplinary Research at the recent Steadman Family Postdoctoral  Associate Prize in Interdisciplinary Research competition— exactly one year to the day after receiving her doctorate in engineering physics from Ghent University in Belgium. Parinaz, who works with Wyatt Tenhaeff’s research group, was recognized for research that represents a unique and impactful synthesis of theory/experiment and methodology from multiple disciplines of study. Her presentation was entitled “Surface science and its application to biomedical and optical coatings.” Parinaz was among five finalists who gave three-minute oral presentations to a panel of judges, who weighed not only the scientific merits of the presentations, but the ability to communicate to a general audience.

Outstanding Student

September 26, 2022

Danielle Getz ’23 decided in high school that she wanted to dedicate herself to mitigating climate change. This summer she worked in theresearch group of Marc Porosoff on cutting edge research aimed at addressing the problem. The chemical engineering major and Grand Challenges Scholar says she’s “really motivated when I have awesome people I am working with, who are passionate and excited – that’s what I love about the University of Rochester.”

Sandra Willison wins ACE Award

September 26, 2022

Congrats to department administrator Sandra Willison for winning the August 2022 ACE Award. This award is given to staff who are integral to making the University "Ever Better". During a time of severe personnel constraint in one of the SAS departments, Sandra "graciously offered her support to assist in completing a required compliance activity" per Roger Smith in the AS&E Dean's Office. "We sincerely appreciate her spirit of cross-divisional collaboration". Sandra, who has been with the department for 20 years, has made a lasting impact with her hard work and dedication. Well done!

Abby Zabrodsky Wins the 2022 Young Alumni Award

September 12, 2022

Professor Porosoff Selected as Scialog Fellow for Negative Emissions Science

August 15, 2022

Professor Marc Porosoff has been named a Fellow for the Scialog initiative, Negative Emission Science (NES). Scialog: NES is cosponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA), with additional support from the Climate Pathfinders Foundation, the ClimateWorks Foundation, and the Thistledown Foundation. The series will hold its third conference on November 9-12, 2022, in Tucson, AZ.