Notables

2021

May

Congratulations to Sanmathi Chavalmane Subbenaik, EECE Staff Research Scientist, on receiving the 2021 Outstanding Faculty & Staff Award from the Graduate Student Senate. This award is presented to faculty and staff whose dedication and commitment to excellence in graduate training have made a significant contribution to the quality of life and professional development of graduate students at Washington University.

Professor Kimberly Parker received the Ebelmen Award from International Association of GeoChemistry. The award is given to a geochemist of high merit and outstanding promise under 35.

Congratulations to both Professor's Fangqiong Ling and Kimberly Parker for being awarded the NSF CAREER Award.

April

Congratulations to PhD student, Zhenwei Gao. Zhenwei is the recipient of the 2021 C. Ellen Gonter Environmental Chemistry Award from ACS Environmental Chemistry.

Matthew Ferby, PhD student in the Zhen He Lab, was selected to receive the Ronald Layton Student Award from Missouri Water Environment Association.

2020

October

Congratulations to Fangqiong Ling, won the Rising Star Award given by International Water Association (IWA), in partnership with the International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME). This award is presented to young scientist in the field. 

September

Alumni, Zimeng Wang, PhD (Advisor, Dan Giammar) was recently appointed as co-Editor-in-Chief of Applied Geochemistry, the official journal of International Association of Geochemistry (IAGC). He also received the IAGC Ebelmen Award, which is given biennially to a geochemist under 35.

Zhen (Jason) He was name as a Fellow of the International Water Association (IWA). IWA is the largest water research society globally.

August

Randall Martin, (PI), and Pratim Biswas, (CoPI), NSF, $498,092, AccelNet: Clean Air Monitoring and Solutions Network (CAMS-NET)

Vijay Ramani, (PI), DOE, $577,685, Establishing robust correction schemes for improved and reliable ARM-AOS aerosol optical data products

Jian Wang, (PI), DOE, $412,894, Aerosol hygroscopic growth, mixing state, and cloud condensation nuclei activity during Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment (TRACER)

AAAR Announces EECE visiting research scientist, Erin McDuffie as a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow in Washington DC. Her appointment at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is a highly competitive policy fellowship and she will be joining a class of over 280 incoming fellows who will work at various agencies across the U.S. federal government.

Elijah Thimsen, (PI) and (co-PIs) Marcus Foston and Kimberly Parker, NSF, $1,237,199, ECO-CBET: Electrodeless Electrochemical Valorization of Lingnin

July

PhD student, Maryssa Loehr, has been selected as a recipient of a research stipend in the amount of $12,000 as part of the Graduate Research Award Program on Public-Sector Aviation Issues for the academic year 2020-2021. Sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation and administered by the Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) of the Transportation Research Board/National Academies, this award is being presented for successful completion during the upcoming academic year of a research paper on the research topic: Measurement of Ultrafine Particles during Aircraft Descent for Dispersion Modeling Validation. Congratulations Maryssa!

June

Richard L. Axelbaum (PI), Zhiwei Yang (PI), and Pratim Biswas (co-PI), DOE, $6,710,954, Development of Critical Components for the Modular Staged Pressurized Oxy-combustion Power Plant

April

CONGRATULATIONS! Daniel Giammar, Professor in the department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, has been awarded the 2020 AEESP Award for Outstanding Teaching in Environmental Engineering & Science. Dr. Giammar will accept his award from AEESP at the October 2020 WEFTEC meeting.

Faculty member, Young-Shin Jun, was selected by the US chapter of the Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers (KIChE) as the recipient of the 2020 James M. Lee Memorial Award. The James M. Lee Memorial Award recognizes mid-career Korean and Korean-American scientists and engineers who have demonstrated exceptional leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge in the general field of chemical engineering.

Alumni, Shalinee Kavadiya, was selected as the recipient of the Alavi-Mandell Award for her publication entitled, "Design of Cerenkov-assisted Photoactivation of TiO2 Nanoparticles and Reactive Oxygen Species Generation for Cancer Treatment". This award is given to individuals who are the first author of a paper published in the JNM and were trainees at the time the published work was carried out. Congratulations, Dr. Kavadiya!

February

Daniel Giammar, Professor in the department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, received the PE of the Year in Education (2019-20) Award from the St. Louis Chapter of the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers. This award recognizes successful engineering faculty who have demonstrated the ability to link engineering education with professional practice. Recipients must be licensed and hold a faculty appointment in an ABET accredited institution. Congratulations, Dr. Giammar!

2019

November

EECE graduate student, Jiayu Li, won third place for the 2019 Environmental Division Graduate Student Paper Award at the 2019 Annual AIChE Conference.

Graduate student, Girish Sharma, was awarded the Wrighton Leadership Fellowship to study policies on air pollution in India.

AAAR has awarded graduate students Clayton Kacica and Girish Sharma $500 for winning the first prize in particle art competition at the AAAR 2019 conference. Also, Nathan Reed and Girish Sharma were awarded $200 for winning the second place prize in the particle art competition.

Graduate students Sukrant Dhawan and Nishit Shetty were awarded Travel Grants to attend the AAAR 2019 Annual Conference.

Randall Martin, NASA JPL, $697,929, Analysis of Fine Particulate Matter in Africa for MAIA

Randall Martin, NASA JPL, $265,965, USAID Supported MAIA Contribution: Analysis of Fine Particulate Matter in Africa for MAIA

October

Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering doctoral students took home two out of the four best presentation awards at the Mid-America Environmental Engineering Conference at the University of Missouri on October 19. Deoukchen Ghim won an award for his oral presentation “1T/2H Phase MoS2 Membranes for Solar Thermal Water Purification.” Anushka Mishrra received as best poster award for “Role of Sodium Silicate in Controlling Lead Release from Lead Service Lines.” The awards were presented by Diane McKnight, keynote speaker at the conference, and chair of the conference Baolin Deng.

Faculty member, Rajan Chakrabarty received the 2019 Whitby Award from the American Association for Aerosol Research. The Kenneth T. Whitby Award recognizes outstanding technical contributions to aerosol science and technology by a young scientist. The purpose of the award is to encourage continued work in the field and ongoing support of such endeavors.

September

Randall Martin, NASA, $1,163,000, Development of the High Performance Version of GEOS-Chem (GCHP) to enable broad community access to high-resolution atmospheric chemistry modeling in support of NASA Earth Science

August

Fuzhong Zhang, National Institutes of Health, $392,500, Non-genetic metabolic heterogeneity and its influence on drug tolerance.
Rajan Chakrabarty received the 2019 Schmauss Award, given by the European Aerosol Association. This award is granted to an outstanding young scientist in the field of atmospherical aerosol science.

July

EECE Alumnus Yang Wang wins award for dissertation in aerosol research. Wang was selected to receive the GAeF Phd Award from Gesellschaft Fur Aerosolforschung (GAeF), or the Association for Aerosol Research, based in Germany.

April

Students in a 500-level water treatment processes class toured the City of St. Louis’ Chain of Rocks Water Treatment Plant on April 19. The tour was led by Curt Skouby, St. Louis Commissioner of Public Utilities. They group got to tour lime softening, coagulation-flocculation, chlorination, and rapid sand filtration processes. The above group photo is taken outside of the historic filtration facility, which was the largest in the world when it opened.

March

EECE Graduate Students Matt Amrofell, Phillip Irace, and Albern Tan have all won the 2019 NSF Graduate Fellowship. This fellowship recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF supported science, technology and engineering disciplines who are pursuing research based master or doctoral degrees. Congratulations!

February

Faculty member, Pratim Biswas, elected to National Academy of Engineering.

EECE PhD student, Yeunook Bae, won The Graduate School of Washington University, Spring 2019, 3MT Competition. 3MT is an academic competition that challenges PhD students to effectively present their research within three minutes to a broader, non-specialist audience.

2018

November

Faculty member, Rajan Chakrabarty, earns Global Environmental Change Early Career Award from American Geophysical Union.

EECE PhD student, Yeunook Bae, won Best Poster Presentation Award at the Water Quality Technology Conference (WQTC) at Toronto, Canada on November 14th, 2018.

EECE PhD student, Yeunook Bae, has received two outstanding awards. The American Chemical Society awarded him the C. Ellen Gonter Environmental Chemistry Award for outstanding research in environmental chemistry. Also, The Mid-American Environmental Engineering Conference presented Yeunook with the Best Presentation Award in 2018 for the best oral presentation presented at the Mid-American Environmental Engineering Conference.

October

EECE PhD student, Doyoon Kim, received the Doh Wonsuk Memorial Award. This award is given by KIChE to Korean students who study for a doctoral degree in chemical engineering in the U.S. and stands high in performance in classes, excellence in research, and regarded as an international graduate student role model by faculty, friends and staff members.

September

Professor Pratim Biswas was bestowed with the high honor of the FUCHS Memorial Award. This award is the premier international prize in Aerosol Science and presented every four years at the International Aerosol Conference. This award memorializes Nikolai Albertovich Fuchs, the great Russian scientist who is regarded by many as the 'father of aerosol science'. The award recognizes outstanding worldwide contributions to the field of aerosol research.

June

EECE Lecturer, Janie Brennan won Best Poster for the ChE division at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). Congratulations, Janie!

May

PhD student, Ben Sumlin, wins NASA Earth & Space Science Fellowship.

PhD alum, Yang Wang, has been awarded the 2017 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad. This award honors a select number of self-financed students studying overseas with exceptional academic excellence in their PhD studies.

April

PhD student, Shalinee Kavadiya, was selected to receive the 2018 Association of Women Faculty Graduate Student Award. She will receive her award at the Spring Reception and Graduate Student Award Presentations on May 1, 2018 in Umrath Lounge.

Elijah Thimsen, MURI, $1,128,542, New Materials from Dusty Plasmas

PhD student, Audrey Dang, has won the 2018 NSF Graduate Student Fellowship Award. This award recognizes and supports outstanding students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based Masters and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions.

March

PhD student, Ahmed Abokifa, has been selected to receive the 2018 Innovyze Excellence in Computational Hydraulics/Hydrology Award from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers. The award will be presented at the Academy's Awards Luncheon on April 19, 2018 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

2017

September

Kimberly Parker, NIFA, $469,227, Environmental Fate of RNA Molecules from RNA Interference (RNAI) Agricultural Biotechnology

Jay Turner, Federal Highway Administration, $85,465, Monitoring and Modeling of Vegetative Buffers for Mitigating Air Pollutant Concentrations in Near-Road Environments

August

Elijah Thimsen, National Science Foundation, $249,000, Vaporization of Nanoparticles in Low Temperature Plasmas.

July

Daniel Giammar, National Science Foundation, $ 400,000, Impact of Redox-driven Recrystallization on the Stability and Reactivity of Uranium and Lead Oxides.
Richard Axelbaum, National Science Foundation, $15,000, ISS: Collaborative Research: Spherical Cool Diffusion Flames Burning Gaseous Fuels.

May

Pratim Biswas and Richard L. Axelbaum, National Science Foundation, $499,841, SusChEM: Ultrafine Particle Formation in Advanced Low Carbon Combustion Processes.

April

PhD student, Apoorva Pandey, was awarded the Environmental Management / Policy Research and Study Related to Air Quality scholarship from the Air & Waste Management Association. Apoorva will be recognized at the 110th Annual Conference & Exhibition in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Student Awards Ceremony. Congratulations!

Rudy Husar, member of CASE, attended and presented at the 2nd Conference of the Association of Hungarian-American Academicians. Dr. Husar has been a member of the Association of Hungarian American Academicians since 1998.

EECE faculty member, Kimberly Parker chosen for ES&T Best Science Paper of 2016:
Top Paper, Kimberly M. Parker, Elke S. Reichwaldt, Anas Ghadouani, and William A. Mitch. Halogen Radicals Promote the Photodegradation of Microcystins in Estuarine Systems. Environ. Sci. Tecnol., 2016, 50 (16), 8505 - 8513. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b01801

February

Yinjie Tang, National Science Foundation, $32,500, EAGER: Collaborative Research: Integrating microtome sectioning with isotopic tracing to study biotransformation in synthetic Escherichia coli biofilms.

January

Heinson gets $172,000 NSF postdoctoral fellowship: William Heinson, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, has received a two-year, $172,000 Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Heinson, who works in the lab of Rajan Chakrabarty, assistant professor of energy, environmental & chemical engineering, is studying how aerosol size, shape and composition impacts the interaction of aerosols with radiation. He will focus on black carbon, which is emitted from forest fires and vehicle exhaust. His goal is to estimate the sensitivity of radiative properties to how aerosols are formed and composed, which will help to improve climate model simulations.

2016

December

Engineering alumnus Joseph H. Senne Jr. has died. Joseph H. Senne Jr., who earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis in 1948, died Dec. 20, 2016. Senne, a World War II veteran, was professor emeritus and former chair of civil engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology. He began there as an instructor in civil engineering from 1948-1951, earning a master’s degree in civil engineering at the same time, then was an assistant professor of civil engineering from 1951-1954. After earning a doctorate in civil engineering from Iowa State University, he returned to Missouri S&T as professor of civil engineering in 1963. He was named chair of the civil engineering department in 1965 and served in that role for two decades. Senne also was an astronomer who made the calculations for the Missouri S&T Stonehenge replica that was unveiled in 1984. In addition, he predicted the time of satellite crossings over Missouri, including Skylab, and made them available to news media. He was a Fellow and life member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Society for Engineering Education and the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers, and was the chair of the ASCE Advanced Technology Committee and the ASCE Space Shuttle Task Committee.

On December 17, 2016, alumnus and former faculty member, Muthanna Al-Dahhan was recognized as the University Of Missouri Curators' Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and of Nuclear Engineering at Missouri S&T. This is the highest rank in the University of Missouri System. Full details here.

November

The following paper was featured on the cover of Advanced Materials: AAQRL Collaborative research by Ramesh Raliya and Pratim Biswas with Srikanth Singamaneni and his group on the synthesis of novel bilayered hybrid biofoam of graphene oxide and bacterial nanocellulose for highly efficient solar steam generation; Advanced Materials, Vol. 28, Issue 42. Details: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201670294/full

October

A group of students attended the Mid-America Environmental Engineering Conference at SIU Edwardsville on October 22, 2016. Yeunook Bae, Haesung Jung, and Qingqing Zeng all presented. Yeunook Bae won Best Presentation award.

Pratim Biswas, US DOE, $1,498,323, Catalytic Removal of Oxygen and Pollutants in Exhaust Gases from Pressurized Oxy-Combustors

Richard Axelbaum, US DOE, $1,167,332, Enabling Staged Pressurized Oxy-Combustion: Improving Flexibility and Performance at Reduced Cost

September

Vijay Ramani, US DOE, $200,000, Economical Production of Hydrogen through Development of Novel, High Efficiency Electrocatalysts for Alkaline Membrane Electrolysis

Pratim Biswas, assistant vice chancellor, chair of the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, and the Lucy & Stanley Lopata Professor, will receive the Harry J. White Award from the International Society for Electrostatic Precipitation at the organization’s conference in Wroclaw, Poland, Sept. 20-23. The award is given to “a scientist or engineer who has made notable contribution as a researcher or teacher in the field of electrostatic precipitation technology,” according to the ISESP.

Young-Shin Jun, NSF, $402,900, SusChEM: Photochemically-Induced Nucleation and Growth of Manganese Oxides at Environmental Interfaces

Young-Shin Jun, NSF, $300,000, Collaborative Research: Nucleation of Calcium Phosphate Biomaterials

August

Marcus Foston, NSF, $224,970, Collaborative Research: SusChEM: Designing Catalytic Interfaces to Promote Selective Lignin Depolymerization

Young-Shin Jun, NSF, $169,990, SusChEM: Photothermally-Enabled Multifunctional Membranes for Improved Foulant Resistance during Reverse Osmosis

Vijay Ramani, Office of Naval Research, $468,087, Development of mechanically and chemically stable anion exchange membranes for direct borohydride fuel cells for applications in UUVs and other electrochemical technologies relevant to U.S. Navy

Yinjie Tang, NSF, $245,474, Collaborative Research: Productivity Prediction of Microbial Cell Factories using Machine Learning and Knowledge Engineering

July

Daniel Giammar, NSF, $91,708, Collaborative Research: Rates and mechanisms of lead phosphate formation, aggregation and deposition for more efficient corrosion control

Daniel Giammar, Water Research Foundation, $75,000, Process Controlling the Time for Orthophosphate to Achieve Effective Corrosion Control