ChBE
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
The Leading Edge of Innovation
Also Inside:
Think Big. Solve Big.
Contents 2
Strength and Breadth: ChBE by the Numbers
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Philanthropy in Action: New Scholarship Feature
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$12 Million NSF Grant Atmospheric Measurement Network
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Faculty News and Achievements
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In the Lab: Research Features
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Breakthrough in Covid-19 Vaccine Delivery
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Alumni Features
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Blue Sky Award Winner
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Student Achievements
About ChBE Established in 1901, the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) is one of eight schools in the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Ranked among the top 5 engineering programs in the nation for both its graduate and undergraduate programs by U.S. News & World Report, the School is one of the oldest and most diverse programs in the country. The mission of ChBE is to provide students with the
intellectual basis to be educated citizens, to prepare them for successful careers, and to advance the science and technology that form the basis of chemical and biomolecular engineering. ChBE faculty members are involved in a comprehensive range of topics in education, research, and commercialization, with a strategic focus on energy & sustainability, biotechnology, materials & nanotechnology, and complex systems.
CONTACTS: Main Office: (404) 894-1838 Chair’s Office: (404) 894-2867 Undergraduate Program: (404) 894-2865 ugrad.info@chbe.gatech.edu Graduate Program: (404) 894-2877 grad.info@chbe.gatech.edu Magazine Editor: Brad Dixon Send news to news@chbe.gatech.edu
Christopher Jones Named John F. Brock III School Chair of ChBE Professor Christopher W. Jones started as the John F. Brock III School Chair in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) in August 2021. Jones has been a faculty member at Georgia Tech since 2000 and previously held the William R. McLain Chair in ChBE. “Chris has been a strong representative of the ChBE faculty for more than 20 years, both as a professor and a leader within Georgia Tech’s research community,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College of Engineering and Southern Company Chair. “His vision includes an increased focus on diversity, collaboration within the ChBE community, and using technology to improve learning outcomes for students. I’m excited to partner with him as we expand on his goals to support the School and the College."
“We are on a tremendous trajectory, and I look forward to helping facilitate the continued growth and success of the program.” - Christopher Jones
pandemic to a new normal.” Jones has published more than 300 peer-reviewed academic papers on materials chemistry, catalysis, and separations. His research Pioneering Research accomplishments have been recJones leads a ChBE research ognized with awards from Georgia group that works in catalysis and Tech as well as several scientific adsorption, with a strong emphasis and engineering societies, including in materials chemistry. He is known the American Institute of Chemical in the field for his pioneering work Engineers’ Andreas Acrivos Award on materials that extract carbon for Professional Progress in Chemidioxide from ultra-dilute mixtures cal Engineering in 2016. such as ambient air, which are key components of direct air capture technologies that have the potential Leadership Experience Jones has served in several to reverse climate change. Georgia Tech leadership positions “I am pleased to have the opthroughout the last decade. He was SaadtoBhamla portunity lead ChBE in our next phase of development,” said Jones. associate vice president for research from 2013-2019. This included a “The faculty, staff, students, and period as interim executive vice alumni of ChBE have been my academic family for the past two de- president in 2018. He has also mencades. We are on a tremendous tra- tored approximately 100 Georgia jectory, and I look forward to help- Tech graduate and post-doctoral students since arriving on campus. ing facilitate the continued growth In addition to his roles at and success of the program.” Georgia Tech, Jones served on a “I am especially excited for the committee commissioned by the opportunity to visit and reconNational Academies of Science, Ennect with our alumni and external gineering, and Medicine to create a partners as we transition from the
national research agenda to address climate change and carbon dioxide removal. The group of experts from across North America developed a consensus study — Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration — from 2017-2018. Jones was also selected as the founding editor-in-chief of the journal ACS Catalysis, leading the journal to a preeminent position during his tenure as editor from 2010-2020. He was recently re-elected as vice president of the North American Catalysis Society, where he oversees the society’s awards portfolio. In 2020, Jones was selected to launch a new open access American Chemical Society Journal — JACS Au, which has a broad, multi-disciplinary chemistry focus. Jones succeeded David Sholl, who stepped down as ChBE chair earlier this year to serve as director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s new Transformational Decarbonization Initiative. The position is a joint appointment with Georgia Tech and the Laboratory. CHBE.GATECH.EDU
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STRENGTH & BREADTH ChBE by the Numbers
#2 #4
Best Undergraduate Chemical Engineering Program in the Nation Best Graduate Chemical Engineering Program in the Nation - U.S. News & World Report, 2022
#6 #10
Best Chemical Engineering Department in the World - Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, 2021
GT’s ranking in America’s Best Public Universities
#5 America’s Best Undergraduate Engineering Colleges
- U.S. News & World Report, 2022
- U.S. News & World Report, 2022
17 ChBE faculty members hold major editiorial positions with top technical journals
Student
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Faculty members elected to the National Academy of Engineering
AIChE Fellows serving on the faculty
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SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
800+ undergraduates 238 graduate students - 217 PhD & 21 MS
Faculty Statistics 38 faculty members (11 women) 6 affiliated faculty 4 academic professionals
18 NSF CAREER Award winners on the faculty
$12 Million NSF Grant Will Establish Nationwide Atmospheric Measurement Network Professor Nga Lee “Sally” Ng has earned a $12 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure program to provide high time-resolution (every 1 to 15 minutes), long-term measurements of the properties of atmospheric particulates known as aerosols, which have significant effects on health and climate change. The award will establish a network of 12 sites around the United States, including locations in national parks, rural areas, and some of the country’s largest cities. Each will be outfitted with state-of-the-art instruments for characterizing the properties of aerosols. These sites will form what is officially called the Atmospheric Science and mEasurement NeTwork (ASCENT). Data from ASCENT will allow researchers to address a variety of questions about how the composition and abundance of aerosols are changing, such as how the modernization of electrical production (coal to natural gas to renewable) and transportation (gasoline to electric vehicles) affect air pollution and climate-relevant variables. “This is an incredibly exciting opportunity,” said Ng. “ASCENT represents a key advancement in atmospheric measurement infrastructure in the U.S. For the first time, we will be able to acquire comprehensive, high time-resolution, long-term characterization of aerosols over a wide range of geographical regions. ASCENT will provide the critical, fundamental knowledge for informing science-based decisions on climate change, air quality, and minimizing inequalities in air pollution exposure.”
ASCENT will also advance understanding of the adverse health impacts of PM2.5 (particulate matter with a diameter smaller than 2.5 micrometers). Exposure to PM2.5 has been associated with cardiopulmonary diseases and millions of deaths per year.
“ASCENT's long-term, advanced chemical composition and particle size measurements will facilitate transformative studies to unravel specific aerosol types and properties responsible for their adverse health effects.” - Sally Ng
“ASCENT will contribute to building a foundation to define future regulations in the U.S. for protecting public health, as aerosol sources and properties continue to evolve in a changing world.” Aerosols impact climate by changing the Earth’s energy balance via direct absorption or scattering of solar radiation and altering the albedo (surface reflection), formation of clouds, and precipitation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment es-
tablished that the aerosol effects represent the single largest source of uncertainty in understanding climate change. Competitive Edge According to NSF, ASCENT will also allow U.S. researchers to remain competitive in a global research environment. The 2016 National Academies report on The Future of Atmospheric Chemistry Research emphasized the critical need for long-term atmospheric chemistry measurements, recommending that the NSF take the lead. Currently, several aerosol monitoring networks exist in the United States, but none have the capability of measuring aerosol chemical and physical properties at high timeresolution (highly regular intervals of measurement). The ASCENT network’s 12 sites across the United States are strategically located in rural, urban, and remote sites that have pre-existing infrastructure for atmospheric monitoring. Each site will be equipped with four advanced instruments: an Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM, non-refractory aerosols), Xact (trace metals), Aethalometer (black/brown carbon), and Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS, aerosol number size distribution and concentration). The sites include: Delta Junction, Alaska; Cheeka Peak/Makah, Washington; Los Angeles/Pico Rivera, California; Rubidoux, California; Joshua Tree National Park, California; Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming; Denver, Colorado; Houston, Texas; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; and Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee. CHBE.GATECH.EDU
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RESEARCH @ChBE Hydrogel Could Open New Path for Glaucoma Treatment Researchers have developed a potential new treatment for the eye disease glaucoma that could replace daily eyedrops and surgery with a twice-a-year injection to control the buildup of pressure in the eye. The researchers envision the injection being done as an office procedure that could be part of regular patient visits. The possible treatment, which could become the first non-drug, non-surgical, long-acting therapy for glaucoma, uses the injection of a natural and biodegradable material to create a viscous hydrogel — a water-absorbing crosslinked polymer structure — that opens an alternate pathway for excess fluid to leave the eye. The research, published in the journal Advanced Science, was conducted in animals, and shows that the approach significantly
lowered the intraocular pressure. As many as 75 million people worldwide have glaucoma, which is the leading cause of irreversible blindness. Glaucoma damage is caused by excess pressure in the eye that injures the optic nerve. Current treatments attempt to reduce this intraocular pressure through the daily application of eyedrops, or through surgery or implantation of medical devices. To provide an alternative, ChBE Professor Mark Prausnitz teamed with Biomedical Engineering Professor Ross Ethier to use a tiny hollow needle to inject a polymer preparation into a structure just below the surface of the eye called the suprachoroidal space (SCS). Inside the eye, the material chemically crosslinks to form the hydrogel, which holds open a channel in the
“We believe the injection could be done as an office procedure during routine exams that the patients are already getting.” - Mark Prausnitz
SCS that allows aqueous humor from within the eye to drain out of the eye through the alternative pathway. There are normally two pathways for the aqueous humor fluid to leave the eye. The dominant path is through a structure known as the trabecular meshwork, which is located at the front of the eye. The lesser pathway is through the SCS, which normally has only a very small gap. In glaucoma, the dominant pathway is blocked, so to lessen pressure, treatments are created to open the lesser pathway enough to let the aqueous humor flow out.
Approach Developed to Synthesize Ammonia in Ambient Conditions To meet global food demands, environmentally friendly and energy-efficient ways to produce ammonia for fertilizer production are essential. Currently, ammonia is obtained almost exclusively through the Haber-Bosch process, which operates at high temperatures and requires specialized facilities and centralized plants. This has inhibited ammonia production in developing regions, restricting access to fertilizers and limiting agricultural output. However, a team led by researchers in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has demonstrated a 4
to drive the reaction in ball mills. Milling titanium powder in a vibratory ball mill with a stainlesssteel milling vessel modified to allow a steady gas flow of nitrogen and hydrogen resulted in the formation of titanium nitride (TiN) and the continuous synthesis of ammonia without the need for external heating or pressuring. new approach to mechanocata“You don’t have to heat a reaclytically synthesize ammonia under tor because the balls create localized nominally ambient conditions that hot spots,” explained ChBE Profescould enable localized, on-demand sor Carsten Sievers. “Because of the localized energy input, reactions production in developing parts of the world. that traditionally require elevated The researchers, who recently temperatures and pressures can ocpublished their study in ACS Energy cur in reactors at nominally ambient Letters, applied mechanical energy conditions.”
SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
Efficiency Leap in Separating Para-xylene Using New Carbon Membranes The petrol industry recognizes the importance of para-xylene, given its many uses in everyday products, from plastic soda bottles to polyester fiber. The challenge is that xylenes travel in threes and are virtually identical, making it extremely difficult to efficiently separate and purify para-xylene from its less used siblings such as ortho-xylene. These molecules’ size differs by one-tenth of a nanometer. However, membranes with tiny pores engineered to differentiate these molecules can potentially enable this important separation. Georgia Tech researchers have uncovered new insights into the fab-
thin layers of materials in such a way as to drive off all the atoms other than carbon, resulting in a charcoallike substance that has moleculesized holes. In 2016, researchers at Georgia Tech and Exxon Mobil first demonstrated that a new carbonbased molecular sieve membrane could successfully separate xylene molecules and extract the super-useful para-xylene from the pack. Now rication of carbon membranes that have the potential to drive significant they have advanced this work. “We have made more stable macost savings once the solution for terials by changing the polymer prexylene isolation separation is scaled cursor we use. Then by changing how for industrial use. we transform the polymer into the The work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of carbon, we’ve made the membranes more productive,” said Associate Sciences, focuses on “carbon-based Professor Ryan Lively. molecular sieves,” made by heating
Covid-19 Mask Study Finds Layering, Material Choice Matter Wearing a face mask can protect you and others from Covid-19, but the type of material and number of fabric layers used can significantly affect exposure risk, a Georgia Tech study found. The study measured the filtration efficiency of submicron particles passing through a variety of different materials. For comparison, a human hair is about 50 microns in diameter while 1 millimeter is 1,000 microns. “A submicron particle can stay in the air for hours and days, depending on the ventilation, so if you have a room that is not ventilated or poorly ventilated, then these small particles can stay there for a very long period of time,” said Associate Professor Nga Lee (Sally) Ng. Published in Aerosol Science and Technology, the study was conducted during spring 2020, when the pandemic triggered a global shutdown of most institutions. Communities faced massive shortages of personal protective equipment, prompting many people to make their own homemade masks. Georgia Tech quickly set up the study since it already had “a great system for testing filtration efficiency using existing instruments in the lab,” Ng said.
Biomolecular Engineer Wins Grant to Make MicroorganismInspired Machines What do the cylinder in an internal combustion engine and the four-millimeterlong creature, Spirostomum ambiguum, have in common? Surprisingly, quite a bit. Both are similarly shaped. Both shrink to a fraction of their size in an instant. And both release about the same amount of power output per cubic centimeter in volume. But for all we know about the engine, we know relatively little about the living organism. Assistant Professor Saad Bhamla recently received an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, to continue studying Spirostomum and attempt to build machines based on similar principles. The grant will provide his research group with $1.98 million in funding over five years. For Bhamla, the comparison between the organism and the engine is more than just an analogy. He is now working to build something directly akin to a micro-engine, with pistons and cylinders made out of synthetic cells similar to Spirostomum. CHBE.GATECH.EDU
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BBQ Lighter, Combined With Microneedles, Sparks Breakthrough in Covid-19 Vaccine Delivery Future vaccine delivery may rely on everyday items like BBQ lighters and microneedles, thanks to the ingenuity of a team of Georgia Tech and Emory University researchers. The researchers have developed and tested an innovative method that may simplify the complexity of delivering Covid-19 and other vaccines through a handheld electroporator. While electroporation is commonly employed in the research lab using short electric pulses to drive molecules into cells, the technique currently requires large, complex, and costly equipment, severely limiting its use for vaccine delivery. Georgia Tech’s approach does the job using a novel pen-size device that requires no batteries and can be mass produced at low cost. The team’s findings are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Aha Moment The inspiration for their breakthrough came from an everyday device that people use to start a grill: the electronic barbecue lighter. “My lab figured out that you could use something all of us are familiar with on the Fourth of July when we do a barbecue — a barbecue lighter,” recalled Saad Bhamla, assistant professor in ChBE, explaining that every time one clicks the lighter, it generates a brief pulse of electricity to ignite the flame. His team took the innards of a lighter and reengineered them into a tiny spring-latch mechanism. The device creates the same electric field in the skin as the large bulky electroporation machines already in use, but using widely available, low-cost components that require no battery to operate. “Our aha moment was the fact that it doesn’t have a battery or plug into the wall, unlike conventional 6
“We know that Covid-19 won’t be the last pandemic. We need to think from a cost as well as design perspective about how to simplify and scale up our hardware so these modern interventions can be more equitably dispersed — to reach more underserved and more under-resourced areas of the world.” - Saad Bhamla
electroporation equipment,” he explained. “And these lighter components cost just pennies, while currently available electroporators cost thousands of dollars each.” Pairing the reimagined lighter device with microneedle technology from Georgia Tech’s Laboratory for Drug Delivery has resulted in a new ultra-low-cost electroporation system, or “ePatch.” Besides the lighter, a key innovation involved tightly spacing the electrodes and using extremely short microneedles. While commonly used in cosmetics to rejuvenate skin and for potential medical applications, microneedles are not generally
used as electrodes. Coupling the tiny electroporation pulser with microneedle electrodes made an effective electrical interface with the skin and further reduced the ePatch’s cost and complexity. According to ChBE Professor Mark Prausnitz, their microneedlebased system uses voltages similar to conventional electroporation but with pulses that are 10,000 times shorter and using electrodes that penetrate just .01 inch into the skin surface. “Our goal was to design a method for Covid-19 vaccination that uses a device that is simple, low-cost and manufacturable,” said Dengning Xia, lead author on the study while working as a research scientist at Georgia Tech and currently an associate professor at Sun Yat-sen University in China. Testing for an Immune Response But could their system be used with a vaccine to generate an immune response? To find out, the researchers teamed with Chinglai Yang of Emory University School of Medicine to test the delivery system, first using a florescent protein to ensure it worked, and then to deliver an actual Covid-19 vaccine. The researchers say the ePatch should also work for mRNA vaccination, which they are currently studying. But devising a simpler, cost-effective electroporator that works with the DNA vaccine could dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of vaccinations since it doesn’t require deep-freeze storage of mRNA vaccines. The team must meet multiple milestones before human trials. Prausnitz anticipates it will be more than five years before their invention could complete clinical study and be ready for widespread use.
SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
Philanthropy in Action:
Butryns Establish Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship As Mark and Kimberly Butryn’s 25th class reunion at Georgia Tech approached in 2020, the couple decided to make their first major gift to the Institute, endowing an undergraduate scholarship. But the Covid-19 pandemic postponed their class reunion for a year, so the Butryns decided to mark the occasion in 2021 with a second gift equal to the first in support of the Butryn Family Scholarship Endowment Fund. Pulp and Paper Background The Butryns’ preference is for their scholarship to support students interested in the pulp and paper industry, where the couple built careers, or those participating in Georgia Tech’s Co-op Program, which Kimberly found invaluable during her undergraduate years. Mark is now vice president of sales and marketing (Mill Group) for Greif Inc., which acquired Caraustar Industries (where he had worked since 2016) a few years ago. Prior to that, he had worked for 21 years at International Paper. The Butryns married six months after their graduation in 1995 (Mark, chemical engineering, and Kimberly, industrial engineering). For seven years after graduation, the Butryns both worked for International Paper, first in Louisiana and then in Tennessee. But Kimberly left the company in 2005 to focus on raising their children. Now living in Kennesaw, the couple moved back to Georgia in 2017. Fall 2021 has been their first as season ticketholders for Georgia Tech football games. In recent years, Mark has talked to Georgia Tech students taking a pulp and paper engineering course about the industry. “I discussed the different career paths one could
Kimberly and Mark Butryn attend their postponed 25th class reunion at Georgia Tech in October 2021.
take,” he said. “The vast majority of my career has been on the commercial side with a focus on strategy work and sales and marketing.” Rewarding Hard Workers In establishing the scholarship, the Butryns aren’t interested in necessarily supporting students with the highest GPA or the greatest need. “We would like to help someone who has been working very hard and provide additional incentive to consider the pulp and paper industry as a career,” Kimberly said. The scholarship will be awarded out of the School where students are known personally by administrators. As the endowment accrues income, students will begin receiving scholarship benefits. With two sons now in high school, the Butryns want to establish a family tradition of philanthropy. This relates to Mark’s upbringing in the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan, where his small town (Escanaba) had a collective scholarship program integral to the local culture. That support, along with his status as an Eastman Kodak National Scholar and other scholarships, helped fully cover his studies at Tech. Kimberly, who grew up in a small farming community in South Georgia, had loans and co-oped. “Our hope is that this scholarship will help students be able to leave college with less financial burden,” Kimberly said.
Giving Opportunities To inquire about making a gift in support of ChBE, contact: Lauren M. Kennedy (Individuals & Foundations) lauren.kennedy@mse.gatech.edu Donna Peyton (Corporate Development) donna.peyton@chbe.gatech.edu CHBE.GATECH.EDU
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faculty news Blair Brettmann Won a 2020 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation. 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, excellent education, and the integration of education and research. Ryan Lively Selected for the 2021 Van Ness Award from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The award is presented annually to honor a chemical engineer who has made seminal contributions to the profession. Hang Lu Honored as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The Royal Society was established in 1841 and later chartered by Queen Victoria for the general advancement of chemical science.
Chris Jones Winner of Georgia Tech’s 2021 Outstanding Achievement in Research Innovation.
Matthew Realff Elected as a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) in recognition of his contributions to the chemical engineering field. A fellowship is the highest grade of membership in AIChE.
Christian Cuba-Torres Winner of the Teacher Excellence Award presented by the Women in Engineering (WIE) program at Georgia Tech. Lily Cheung Won a $1.1 million Human Science Frontier Program (HSFP) award to investigate the interplay of cellular movement and metabolism in grass stomata – the microscopic breathing valves on plant leaves.
Corey Wilson Principal investigator of a new NSF award ($1,077,799) titled “Engineering Intelligent Chassis Cells.” The goal of this research is to engineer intelligent biological systems, with Michael Filler advanced security features. Principal investigator of a team that won an NSF Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award ($519,700), which supports the acquisition of a fluidized bed vapor deposition Julie Champion reactor capable of applying precise nanoscale coatings to a Recipient of a 2021 Rising Star Award from the American range of materials. Chemical Society’s Women Chemists Committee. This award recognizes exceptional early- to mid-career women chemists across all areas of chemistry on a national level. David Sholl Elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) “for seminal contributions Yuhang Hu in connecting atomic-scale modeling with practical applications in chemical separations, energy storage, and Named the 2021 recipient of the data reproducibility. Sia Nemat-Nasser Early Career Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Saad Bhamla
Fani Boukouvala Elected as a Director for the Computing and Systems Technology Division of AIChE for years 2021-2023.
Received a $200K grant from the Disability Impact Fund for clinical translation and evaluation of the lab’s $1 hearing aid prototypes, with partners in Malawi.
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Krista Walton Wins DoE’s Ernest Orlando Award Professor Krista Walton is one of eight U.S. scientists and engineers to receive the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award this year for contributions in research and development supporting the U.S. Department of Energy’s missions in science, energy, and national security. Since 1959, the Lawrence Award has recognized mid-career scientists and engineers in the United States who have advanced new research and scientific discovery in atomic, molecular, and chemical sciences; biological and environmental sciences; computer,
information, and knowledge sciences; condensed matter and materials sciences; energy science and innovation; fusion and plasma sciences; high energy physics; national security and nonproliferation; and nuclear physics. “These researchers have made significant advances and contributions across a broad range of disciplines critical to Energy Department missions,” says U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. “We congratulate them on their many accomplishments and look forward to their achievements in the coming years.” Walton (in the category of
Atomic, Molecular, and Chemical Sciences) was honored for her “pioneering and interdisciplinary research of porous material stability under a variety of challenging conditions and advancing separation science. Working at the intersection of chemistry, computation, and chemical engineering, Walton has identified physical and chemical factors driving water stability of sorbents, especially metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and the impact of defects and complex mixtures on the chemical stability of MOFs.” Walton is the associate dean for research & innovation in Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering and the Robert “Bud” Moeller faculty fellow. She served as interim chair of ChBE in summer 2021.
Julie Champion and Corey Wilson Elected as AIMBE Fellows Associate Professors Julie Champion and Corey Wilson of Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering have been elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Election to the College of Fellows is an honor reserved for the top 2 percent of medical and biological engineers in the country. According to AIMBE, the most accomplished and distinguished engineering and medical school chairs, research directors, professors, innovators, and successful entrepreneurs comprise the College of Fellows. Champion and Wilson were among 174 engineers inducted into the College of Fellows during AIMBE’s 2021 Annual Event. Candidates for the AIMBE Col-
lege of Fellows are nominated by existing members and evaluated by a panel of their peers. Reviewers consider significant research accomplishments and how candidates have engaged in service and given back to the fields of medical and biological engineering for the benefit of society. Champion was nominated and elected for the creation of materials made from therapeutic proteins that enable their delivery and function in immunomodulatory and
cancer applications. Wilson was nominated and elected for his seminal work in developing the field of biomolecular systems engineering, intelligent microorganisms, and promoting diversity in STEM. According to AIMBE, since 1991, the College of Fellows has led the way for technological growth and advancement in the fields of medical and biological engineering. “AIMBE Fellows have helped revolutionize medicine and related fields to enhance and extend the lives of people all over the world. They have successfully advocated for public policies that have enabled researchers and business-makers to further the interests of engineers, teachers, scientists, clinical practitioners, and ultimately, patients.” - AIMBE
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alumni spotlight Robyn Gatens Named Director of International Space Station It’s a busy time at NASA. The next chapter of human space exploration is underway. It’s been more than 50 years since Neil Armstrong took those first steps on the moon and 48 years since Gene Cernan – the last man on the moon – climbed back into the lunar module to return to Earth. Now, NASA has decided to return to the moon with its Artemis program by 2024, but this time they plan to stay. It’s all part of an effort to explore deeper into space – more specifically, land humans on Mars. But to go further than the moon, NASA must learn how to sustain missions of much greater distance and duration. NASA plans to leverage the knowledge gained from 20 years of continuous human presence in low Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station to develop a plan for an extended stay in lunar orbit. Georgia Tech alumna Robyn Gatens (BS ChBE, 1985) was named director of the station in May 2021 after serving as acting director for seven months. Gatens began her NASA career in 1985 at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where she held various leadership positions. She is the recipient of the NASA Outstanding Leadership and Exceptional Achievement medals. Life Support For more than 20 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station Gatens said that dealing with the station’s life support systems is a current focus area. “Learning about these systems is going to be critical, even more so as we break the supply chain from Earth and go on these 10
long duration missions beyond low Earth orbit.” In her new role, Gatens works with administration, Congress, and international and commercial partners to develop overall strategy for the International Space Station. “There is a lot going on,” said Gatens. “And we are doing so much with the Artemis program and our commercial initiatives. And the space station is just one part of human exploration. Every day is different and challenging and that’s all exciting.” According to Gatens, NASA is working to make life support systems more sustainable and is seeking to better understand the environment for deep space travel. NASA is gaining a lot of knowledge from the International Space Station by using it as a testbed to prepare astronauts for these future exploration missions, such as studying the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body. When astronauts journey to Mars, it will be a three-year round trip, so NASA needs to understand and mitigate effects on the body such as bone loss, and other issues.
As a result, NASA is looking at ways that it can use the International Space Station to practice for sending astronauts to Mars. The International Space Station has other key focus areas in addition to enabling exploration. According to Gatens, it establishes the U.S. as a leader in space exploration and is the basis for NASA’s international partnerships. Space Station Longevity Of course, the International Space Station won’t last forever. According to Gatens, NASA has analyzed the structural health of the station and all the components to be operational until around 2030 but is working on extending that analysis to see how far beyond 2030 the facility can go. “Eventually we do want to move off the space station, and that's why we're trying to enable companies to build commercial platforms in low Earth orbit that won't be as big or complex as the space station,” said Gatens. “But if we can get some commercial platforms in low Earth orbit that we can then transition off of space station, then that's our plan.”
SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
Engineering Alumni Create Reframe App to Reduce Alcohol Abuse As studies show that the stress of the Covid-19 pandemic significantly contributes to rising alcohol consumption, two Georgia Tech alumni now offer an increasingly popular solution to curb or eliminate alcohol abuse: a sobriety app called Reframe. Since the launch of its app in fall 2020, Reframe has drawn more than 3,000 paid subscribers. The company, which has received key support from Georgia Tech’s CREATEX program for developing startups, has also attracted the attention of investors, recently completing a $1.4 million round of seed funding. Reframe’s co-founders are Ziyi Gao, who earned a bachelor’s in industrial engineering in 2017, and Vedant Pradeep, who graduated two years later with bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering and computer engineering.
John Hopkins University who believed the technology would better help with alcohol addiction, which is also a much larger market. “We realized early on that we were out of our depth, but we drew strength from reaching out to experts in this space, talking to at least 500 people,” Gao said. With a team of advising doctors and mentors from CREATE-X, Reframe has gone through multiple iterations of its app since mid-2019.
Interrupting Urges The Reframe app’s 120-day program provides diversions that interrupt users from the urge to consume alcohol during a typical 20-minute craving. The app’s Brainstorming features include games, messages, The two first got the idea for the meditations, breathing exercises, app during an introductory Chemiand a journaling component. cal Process Principles class in the “When you’re in the middle School of Chemical and Biomoof a craving, your judgment is lecular Engineering. Initially they clouded,” Pradeep said. “But it’s targeted hypoglycemia detection but easy to click a button and distract switched course when they realyourself. Reframe helps break ized that a similar product already bad habits by replacing them existed. with good things that bring balThey then turned their focus ance into life. Integrating fitness, to obsessive-compulsive disorder, nutrition, and self-care, we want which Pradeep has struggled with, to help users create lives where driving him into repetitive behaviors drinking alcohol is not considered such as rechecking the locking of helpful or attractive anymore. On doors. “When I’m in the middle of their journeys, they can track their a compulsion, I don’t know when it progress and how much money will stop, but cognitive behavioral they’ve saved from not drinking.” research shows that they typically Gao said that many people end in 20 minutes,” he said. who use the app would never go to recovery centers, which are often Expert Input expensive, or a program like Alcoholics Anonymous, which they Designing an app that would might consider stigmatic. distract users during the negative While many their app’s users habit loop of OCD episodes, Gao and Pradeep showed a product prototype might not want to seek out professional help, they still want structo doctors at Emory University and
“We’ve received hundreds of emails from people whose lives have been transformed, and that’s what we’re really proud of at this point.”
tured guidance, which is what the app provides, Pradeep said. “People want to be told what to do more than we expected.” The two entrepreneurs note that their app can put a recovery center in the user’s pocket at “one thousandth of comparable cost” of a physical facility. Goal Setting About 50 percent of Reframe’s users initially said they wanted to cut back on alcohol instead of quitting. “There haven’t been many options for that middle ground,” Gao said. But what Reframe co-founders have noticed is that many people ultimately decide to quit entirely, with about 49 percent ceasing alcohol consumption in the first 30 days. “As the program progresses, the goal becomes how to rebuild your life, addressing core issues,” Pradeep said. “It’s about the whole journey, not just about drinking. You better understand why you drink, as your triggers become more obvious.” Gao and Pradeep have plans to modify their app to address other addictions, starting with binge eating and later opioid abuse. “We want to provide tools that anyone can use for any negative behavioral habit,” Gao said. CHBE.GATECH.EDU
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PhD Student Udita Ringania Wins Blue Sky Award for Sustainability For her research that could help paper and packaging manufacturers advance their sustainability efforts, Udita Ringania was one of three international winners of the 2021 Blue Sky Young Researchers and Innovation Award. Ringania, a fourth-year PhD student in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was recognized for her project titled “Dewatering of Cellulose Nanomaterials Using Ultrasound.” Presented every two years, the Blue Sky award is sponsored by the International Council of Forest and Paper Associations (ICFPA), a worldwide network of forest and paper associations. The theme for the 2020-2021 award program was “Boosting the Forest Bioeconomy: Nature-Based Solutions Toward a Lower Carbon Economy.” Ringania’s Blue Sky-winning project began during her first year at Tech when her advisor, Assistant Professor Saad Bhamla, suggested the idea of applying ultrasound to remove water from cellulose after another research team demonstrated an ultrasonic fabric dryer. “The idea stemmed from there,” Ringania explained. “We wondered if we could develop related technology for the paper industry, which uses a lot of energy in the process of removing water.” Industrial Use Ringania, who collaborated with ChBE undergraduate researcher Joseph Harrison on the project, said the ultrasound method would be more sustainable and could be achieved affordably at an industrial scale because the transducers used in the process can be bought cheaply in bulk. As she prepares this research for journal submission, Ringania hopes that the Blue Sky recognition 12
will attract corporate interest. “The pulp and paper industry might be very interested in this technology, and then we can start work on scaling it up,” she says.
Ringania, who was also recently selected to receive a sustainability fellowship from Georgia Tech’s Brooks Byers Institute of Sustainability, earned her master’s degree in chemical engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, before starting at Georgia Tech. She pursued the master’s to explore whether she liked research before entering a PhD program. Attraction to Tech Part of what attracted her to Georgia Tech was the presence of Bhamla, whose research she’d followed closely since learning about his commitment to “frugal science,” developing high-performance, low-cost, easy-access engineering solutions. Specifically, she had seen his work on creating paper centrifuges for developing areas, where doctors need them for disease diagnosis. “I was persistent in e-mailing
Bhamla about his research before joining Georgia Tech; I knew I wanted to be part of his lab,” Ringania says. “The Bhamla lab is curiositydriven, going wherever our curiosity takes us. We’re trying to solve problems that can have an actual impact in industry and society today.” Community Bond Ringania remembers that her first semester at Georgia Tech was challenging, but she said that the camaraderie of her classmates helped make the transition easier. “We created a strong bond among us,” she said. She became active in the community-building efforts of the Georgia Tech chapter of the Association of Chemical Engineer Graduate Students (AChEGS), serving as the organization’s treasurer in 201920. Ringania, who grew up in Guwahati, India, said she felt shy at first as an international student, concerned that she might not understand colloquial words or references in conversations. “But everyone made me feel so welcome,” she said. “The first semester was not a cultural shock because of the community we have here. You can go talk to professors any time you need to.” Ringania, who married her husband (Vaibhav Gupta) in March 2021, hasn’t decided what career path to pursue after earning her PhD. Initially she was sure she wanted to become a professor, but she has also grown interested in corporate opportunities. “Right now, I’m leaving my options open,” she says. “I haven’t experienced corporate life yet, so an internship might be helpful.”
SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH
Select Graduate Honors Students recognized for their achievements during the 2020-2021 Academic Year include: • Ziegler Award for Best Proposal Maria Jennings • Ziegler Award for Best Paper - Yamin Zhang (Pictured below)
• Exemplary Academic Achievement - Elisavet Anglou, Marco Avendano, Daniel Aziz, Yuchen Chang, Steven Crouse, Natalie Duprez, Alexandros Flippas, Jimin Park, Laura Proano, Mingyu Song, Haley White • AIChE Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant - Andrew Bai • Outstanding Performance on the Qualifying Exam - Natalie Duprez • Outstanding PhD Thesis - Ronald Rondon • Outstanding MS Thesis - Samuel Hays • Outstanding PhD Proposal - Isaiah Borne, Gabriel Gusmao • Teamwork Awards - Isaiah Borne, Yoyin Ibikunle • Shell Outstanding Teaching Assistants - Amir Hejri, Zachary Herde, Fernanda Piorino, Haley White, Amy Wood
Select Undergraduate Honors • Helen Grenga Outstanding Woman Engineer Award - Hannah Huang • AIChE Outstanding Undergraduate Course Assistant Award - Cameron Chong, Shelbe Johnson, Kun Ryu (Pictured Below)
• Chair’s Award—Outstanding ChBE Junior Shelbe Johnson • Chair’s Award—Outstanding ChBE Senior - Harsh Patel • ChBE Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Maxwell Kazman
Prestigious Astronaut Scholars
Two undergraduate students in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering – Katelyn Groenhout and Maxwell Kazman – are among 60 students nationally who have been awarded scholarships for the 202122 academic year by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF). The prestigious Astronaut Scholarship, initiated by the Mercury-7 astronauts, provides up to $15,000 for a year of undergraduate study. The scholarship is awarded annually to outstanding juniors and seniors who intend to pursue research-oriented careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Astronaut Scholars receive mentoring and professional development support, attend the Astronaut Foundation’s Innovators Gala in Orlando, Florida, and have the opportunity to participate in other ASF events. Scholarship recipient Katelyn Groenhout, who also won a 2021 Barry Goldwater Scholarship, is a member of Professor Paul Kohl’s lab at Georgia Tech, where she has worked on a project on anion-exchange membrane electrolyzers for clean production of hydrogen. She plans to pursue a PhD in chemical engineering and then continue into a career in research and academia, with a focus on electrochemical energy solutions. Her fellow Astronaut Scholar Maxwell Kazman is a member of Professor Mark Styczynski's lab at Georgia Tech, where he has worked on cell-free biosensors for low-resource detection and quantification of pathogenic DNA and RNA. After pursuing a PhD in bioengineering, Kazman plans to join the biotech industry and use synthetic biology to design new therapeutics. CHBE.GATECH.EDU
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