Four ChBE Professors Win Prestigious NSF CAREER Awards Four assistant professors in ChBE have won 2020 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF): Saad Bhamla, Fani Boukouvala, Lily Cheung, and Andrew J. Medford. The CAREER Award is the NSF’s most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, education, and their integration within the context of the mission of their organizations.” “Having four of our faculty win these awards in a single year is truly remarkable.” - Professor David Sholl, the John F. Brock III School Chair of ChBE
Saad Bhamla Bhamla will receive $994,387 over five years to study “Fast, Furious and Fantastic Beasts: Integrative principles, biomechanics and physical limits of impulsive motion in ultrafast organisms.” This research will focus on understanding ultrafast motion of slingshot spiders native to the Amazon
neering principles to achieve “Hybridization.” Funded by the Division of Process Systems, Reaction Engineering, and Molecular Thermodynamics at NSF under the Directorate of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental & Transport Systems.
Lily Cheung Cheung will receive $992,174 over five years to study “Understanding the role of sugar transporters in plant growth.” This research will focus on identifying the molecules recognized by plant sugar transporters of the SWEET family. Sugar transporters—the proteins embedded in membranes that enable the uptake and release of sugar from cells or subcellular compartments—are critical determinants of plant yield, and understanding their function will guide future efforts to use these proteins to engineer better crops. Funded by the Division of Molecular and Cellular Bioscience under the Directorate of Biological Sciences.
Andrew J. Medford
Rainforest. Funded by the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (iOS) at NSF under the Directorate of Biological Sciences.
Medford will receive $565,691 over five years to study “Computational discovery of oxide-based photocatalysts to create fertilizer from air.” Fani Boukouvala This research will utiBoukouvala will relize computational screenceive $546,789 over five ing approaches to identify years to study “Machinenew transition-metal comLearning Assisted Process pounds that are promising Systems Engineering: Hyfor synthesis of ammonia brid modeling for process from nitrogen in air. His team will combine quantumoptimization, design and mechanical simulations, high-throughput screening synthesis.” accelerated by machine learning, and simple process This research will focus models to discover new materials and establish target on “opening up the blackmetrics for producing fertilizer from air. boxes” of modern Machine Funded by the Catalysis program under the DiviLearning (ML) methods sion of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and and integrating their training with core chemical engi- Transport Systems. CHBE.GATECH.EDU
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