Think Big. Solve Big.
To inquire about making a gift in support of ChBE, contact:
Sarah Flake (Individuals and Foundations) sarah.flake@chbe.gatech.edu
Donna Peyton (Corporate Development) donna.peyton@chbe.gatech.edu
John F. Brock III
We hope you like the 2024 ChBE@GT Annual Report, which collects some highlights from the last year in the ChBE program at Georgia Tech.
In this edition you will find news on an array of alumni, including a current CEO, our Alumni Award winners, and four ChBE members of Georgia Tech’s 40 Under 40.
Two of our alums discuss their decision to give back to ChBE@GT, after endowing scholarships for undergraduate ChBE students. As Georgia is one of only two states in the nation without a need-based financial aid program, such gifts are vital to the success of our undergraduate program.
We also highlight elements of our research program, including stories on lignin conversion into
chemicals, our work on vaccines and anti-bacterials, as well as our Frugal Science Academy, which introduces high school students to ChBE and laboratory research. We introduce five recent faculty hires and celebrate our colleague Mark Prausnitz’s election to the National Academy of Medicine. A pioneer in drug delivery, Mark contributed to Georgia Tech’s first FDA-approved drug and has been elected to the National Academies of Engineering and Inventors, as well. Brief updates on the programs of 10 other faculty members are also presented. Finally, two stories describe the journeys of our recent graduates. I hope you enjoy this year’s Annual Report, and we hope to see you next time you are in Atlanta!
I hope you enjoy this year’s Annual Report, and we hope to see
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.
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
#3 Best Undergraduate Chemical Engineering Program in the Nation
#5
Best Graduate Chemical Engineering Program in the Nation
America’s Best Undergraduate Engineering Colleges - U.S. News & World Report
Best Chemical Engineering Department in the World - Shanghai Ranking
AIChE Fellows serving on the faculty #4
All 11 of the College’s graduate programs are ranked in the nation’s top 10 - U.S. News & World Report
Faculty members elected to the National Academy of Engineering (5 emeritus) 9
Saad Bhamla 17
ChBE faculty members hold major editorial positions with top technical journals
More than 60% of ChBE undergrads participate in research.
Raised by a single mother who is an elementary school teacher in Orlando, Florida, chemical engineering major Amanda Johnston is grateful for the various types of scholarship support she has received during her years at Georgia Tech.
“Going out of state was a big financial burden for me, so it was very helpful to have support from the Georgia Tech community to help me alleviate some of my concerns,” said Johnston, a student government leader who was one of two honorees crowned Ramblin’ Royalty at the 2023 Homecoming game. She will graduate in fall 2024.
“I give back to my community every day as a student leader and can’t wait to continue my contributions once I am a Georgia Tech alum,” she said.
During 2023-24, Johnston was a recipient of the Ashlee Townsend Cribb Scholarship. Recently, Johnston and fellow chemical engineering major Lucinda Nugent (the 2022-23 Cribb scholarship recipient who’s served as a leader in the student affiliate of the American Chemical Society) were able to meet Cribb.
They expressed appreciation of the scholarship that Cribb endowed while discussing their career goals and receiving advice.
“It’s amazing to meet you,” Nugent (who is due to graduate in Spring 2025) told Cribb. “This scholarship has given me both financial support and inspirational encouragement. Especially coming from another female chemical engineer, the scholarship served as a symbol of the supportive alumni
community this major has.”
Cribb, who is vice president of wood products for PotlatchDeltic Corporation, is a 1987 graduate of ChBE and now serves on the School’s External Advisory Board.
The ChBE scholarship is the second she has endowed at Georgia Tech. The first was in honor of her late husband Ric Cribb (EE 1987) whom she met on her first day on campus and married shortly after graduation.
“He was passionate about innovation, and I was able to promote that through a scholarship supporting a team in the entrepreneurial CREATE-X program,” she said.
Later she decided it was time to create a scholarship geared toward women undergraduates in ChBE, and the endowment has benefited four students to date. She’s
also in the process of endowing a fellowship to support ChBE graduate students amidst the rising cost of living.
“It’s great to give back to a place that’s been an important part of helping me become who I am today.” - Ashlee Townsend Cribb
Prior to joining PotlatchDeltic in 2021, Cribb was senior vice president/chief commercial officer at Roseburg Forest Products. She previously worked for GeorgiaPacific in several roles, including vice president of industrial packaging.
Cribb said there were not many women in the timber industry when she joined Georgia-Pacific in 2008.
“I am one of the women who has paved the way in the timber industry to show you can be here and be successful,” she said.
As a first-generation college student, Stephen Sirard said he experienced some headaches covering his expenses when he first started as a chemical engineering undergraduate at Georgia Tech in 1993.
“Having to work as a golf caddie on weekends while being a full-time student was very demanding,” said Stephen (BS ChBE 1998), who grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia. But he eventually began to win scholarships to help cover his expenses as he excelled in his studies. “That was extremely helpful, and I thought one day I’d like to pay it back.”
And that’s exactly what he and his wife did in 2019, endowing the Ratchana and Stephen Sirard Scholarship in the College of Engineering, benefiting students in both the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) and School of Materials Science and Engineering.
Ratchana, who moved to the United States at age 4 as a refugee from Laos, experienced similar challenges paying for her higher education. She met Stephen at the University of Texas-Austin where they received their doctorates (hers in materials science, his in chemical engineering), and they currently reside in that city.
“Both of us saw education as extremely important for us in improving our lives,” Stephen said. “We strongly support helping engineering students. The world has a lot of problems, and engineers will be on the front lines.”
Senior Holden Voelger was one of the first ChBE students to receive the Sirard scholarship
during his sophomore year. A native of Long Island, New York, who loves to travel, Holden knew he didn’t want to attend college in his home state.
But with a tuition rate significantly higher than in-state Georgia students and without access to Georgia scholarships like HOPE, Holden said the Sirard scholarship has eased his financial burden for the last few years.
“I’m definitely grateful for the Sirards financing such a scholarship,” Holden said. “Every penny counts when it comes to outof-state tuition.”
Holden had the opportunity to meet Stephen Sirard during
the latter’s recent trip to campus. “My meeting with Steve really opened my eyes to how beneficial obtaining a graduate degree could be in terms of getting research experience,” said Holden, who will graduate in Fall 2024 and is still weighing career options.
“I’ve always considered graduate school, and talking to him really opened me to the idea of it.”
Stephen, who focused his PhD studies on the interaction of polymer thin films with supercritical fluids, decided to go into industry after his studies. He retired in 2021 as technical director for advanced technology development at Lam Research.
Since 2020, Stephen has served on ChBE’s External Advisory Board, which has members from a wide range of industries who meet twice a year with school leadership and students to listen and make recommendations.
“We want to help Georgia Tech provide the best experience for students while maintaining and building its status as a thought leader in the engineering field.” - Stephen Sirard
Stephen and Ratchana are considering future financial support for graduate fellowships to help students deal with the rising cost of living.
“I have a heartfelt appreciation for Georgia Tech and how much it’s done for me. I really believe in the Institute’s mission and hope to support it for as long as I can.”
An electrochemical process developed at Georgia Tech could offer new protection against bacterial infections without contributing to growing antibiotic resistance.
The approach capitalizes on the natural antibacterial properties of copper and creates incredibly small needle-like structures on the surface of stainless steel to kill harmful bacteria like E. coli and Staphylococcus.
It’s convenient and inexpensive, and it could reduce the need for chemicals and antibiotics in hospitals, kitchens, and other settings where surface contamination can lead to serious illness.
It also could save lives: A global study of drug-resistant infections
found they directly killed 1.27 million people in 2019 and contributed to nearly 5 million other deaths — making these infections one of the leading causes of death for every age group.
Researchers described the copper-stainless steel and its effectiveness in the journal Small.
“Killing Gram-positive bacteria without chemicals is comparatively easy but tackling Gram-negative bacteria poses a significant challenge, due to their thick, multilayered cell membrane.
“And if these bacteria persist on surfaces, they can grow rapidly,” said Anuja Tripathi, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral scholar.
“We aimed to develop an antibioticfree bactericidal surface effective against Gram-negative and Grampositive bacteria.” - Anuja Tripathi
Tripathi and her colleagues — Professor Julie Champion and former Ph.D. students Jaeyoung Park and Thomas Pho — produced a one-two punch that overcomes those challenges and doesn’t help bacteria develop resistance to drugs.
Lignin is one of the most plentiful organic polymers on Earth, making up about 20 to 30 percent of the dry mass of wood and other plants.
Despite this abundance, lignin’s complex structure has challenged researchers in breaking it down into useful components that can be used in the sustainable production of chemicals, plastics, and fuels. Therefore, lignin is often discarded as waste during the production of paper and other plant-based products.
However, Georgia Tech researchers have developed an approach that could transform lignin into valuable chemicals more efficiently than ever before.
The researchers published their findings in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering on using a method known as mechanocatalysis, which uses physical forces, such as vibration or rotation, in a ball mill to drive chemical reactions without the need for solvents, heat, or high pressure.
Professor Carsten Sievers ex-
plained that the first step in a lignin biorefinery is depolymerization, which breaks lignin down into small molecules.
“Unfortunately, many depolymerization processes require the use of solvents, and separating the products from solvents, catalysts, and contaminants can be complicated, energy intensive, and leave behind waste,” he said.
“One way to reduce the need for these separation steps is to perform lignin depolymerization in a ball mill where collision with steel balls creates environments that enable solid-state reactions without the need for solvents or liquid phases.” - Carsten Sievers
Studying the complex motility patterns of cells and microorganisms is key to understanding their behaviors and biomechanics. However, many conventional microscopes are constrained by fixed lenses and the lack of ability to track organisms over extended periods without manual intervention.
But Georgia Tech researchers have overcome these limitations through the development of an inexpensive, easy-to-assemble, modular, autonomous tracking microscope.
Costing $400 in parts with DIY assembly instructions available, Trackoscope is a frugal-science innovation accessible to a wide range of users, from high school laboratories to resource-constrained research environments.
Developed in the laboratory of Associate Professor Saad Bhamla, the Trackoscope is described in a paper published in the journal PLOS One. The lead author of the paper is mechanical engineering major Priya Soneji, an undergraduate researcher working in the Bhamla Lab.
Soneji’s original concept evolved into a versatile microscope
capable of monitoring organisms across velocities ranging from 0.1 µm/s to 2 mm/s within a vast tracking area of 325 cm₂.
“Utilizing Trackoscope, we captured a diverse array of behaviors, from the airwater swimming locomotion of amoeba to bacterial hunting dynamics in actinosphaerium, walking gait in tardigrada, and binary fission in motile blepharisma,” Bhamla said.
“With Trackoscope, any scientist will be able to gain new insights into the microbial world.” - Saad Bhamla
Existing tracking solutions can cost from $1,000 to $5,000, putting them out of the reach of researchers in resource-constrained environments.
Scientists have been searching for the optimal coronavirus vaccine since the Covid-19 pandemic started.
The mRNA vaccines developed through the federal government’s “Operation Warp Speed” program were a massive innovation; however, annually updating those boosters for specific SARS-CoV-2 variants is inefficient for scientists and patients.
SARS-CoV-2 is just one member of the Sarbecovirus (SARS Betacoronavirus) subfamily (others include SARS-CoV-1, which caused the 2002 SARS outbreak, as well as other viruses circulating in bats that could cause future pandemics).
Researchers at Georgia Tech (including Professor Ravi Kane) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a new vaccine that offers broad protection against
not only SARS-CoV-2 variants, but also other bat sarbecoviruses.
This trivalent vaccine has shown complete protection with no trace of virus in the lungs, marking a significant step toward a universal vaccine for coronaviruses.
“We had been working on strategies to make a broadly protective vaccine for a while. This vaccine may protect not just against the current strain circulating that year, but also future variants” - Ravi Kane
They presented their findings in “Broad protection against clade 1 sarbecoviruses after a single immunization with cocktail spike-proteinnanoparticle vaccine,” published in Nature Communications.
Making a broad vaccine is more appealing because it enables patients to get one shot and be protected for years. To create their general vaccine, Kane’s team capitalized on the key to the original mRNA vaccines — the spike protein, which binds the virus to healthy cells.
Their vaccine uses three prominent spike proteins, or a trivalent vaccine, to elicit a broad enough antibody response to make the vaccine effective against SARS-CoV-2 variants as well as other sarbecoviruses that have been identified as having pandemic potential.
Levi Phillips’ path to enrollment as a first-year major in ChBE@GT in fall 2024 included interning in the Frugal Science Academy, which a ChBE professor created to nurture the next generation of engineers, inventors, and change makers.
Phillips learned of the Frugal Science Academy (FSA) as a student at Lambert High School through his biotechnology teacher Janet Standeven, who had developed a collaboration with FSA founder Saad Bhamla, an associate professor in ChBE.
“The Frugal Science Academy is building a world where synthetic biology is accessible to everyone who wishes to participate through the creation of affordable equipment. We help high school students build synthetic biology tools using everyday objects and share those technologies with others.” - Saad Bhamla
Frugal innovations that have emerged from the Bhamla lab include an automated tracking microscope, a 3D-printed centrifuge, and an inexpensive cell lysis device for molecular biology.
During his senior year at Lambert in Suwanee, Georgia, Phillips worked remotely with Bhamla’s FSA, conducting an independent project on a PIO reactor, an affordable opensource bioreactor.
Phillips’ project continued in summer 2024 as he worked in campus labs at Georgia Tech as part of the two-week FSA Boot Camp and Teacher Training, which involved, at various times, 15 high school interns
and 20 other high school students working with undergraduate mentors on various projects from new hardware devices to innovative synthetic biology projects.
Six high school teachers also took part in the teacher development portion of the Boot Camp.
Phillips, who said the overall experience with the FSA attracted him to apply and enroll at Georgia Tech, described the mentorship and lab experiences during the Boot Camp as exceptional.
“If I had to give a star rating, it would be six stars out of five, just fantastic,” he said.
Phillips’ former biotechnology teacher at Lambert, Janet Standeven, organized the Boot Camp in her role as program manager of the FSA.
She began partnering with Bhamla in ChBE in 2017 when her Lambert students wanted to take part in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (IGEM) Competition. Standeven reached out to Bhamla to see if her students
could use an open-source centrifuge from his lab for a project.
Through the years, their partnership continued and evolved into Standeven, a former Georgia Biotechnology Teacher of the Year, joining the FSA in ChBE full time in 2023. Earlier this year, Georgia Tech’s Center for Teaching Learning recognized FSA with the Education Partnership Award.
A five-year Science Education Partnership Award from the National Institutes of Health has enabled Bhamla and Standeven to expand frugal science access beyond Lambert to high schools across Georgia.
In addition to students, the grant focuses on training teachers on how to conduct academic-level research from anywhere using frugal equipment. Teachers in rural areas often do not have access to university research labs that those in Atlanta and other larger cities might.
“We will grow a STEM-engaged workforce by enabling teachers to provide immersive research opportunities at their high schools.” Standeven said. “We’ve found teachers are the multiplier of shared resources. When you train teachers in rapidly evolving technology, they can bring real-life examples into the classroom, enriching their teaching content and student understanding.”
A major focus of the teacher and student training in the summer 2024 FSA Boot Camp included the frugal technologies of a Lambert High School project for the IGEM Competition.
Lambert is one of only eight high
schools in the country to have a team competing in IGEM, which is typically intended for college students.
From 2018 -2023, Lambert IGEM teams won gold medals at the Grand Jamboree International Competition. In 2022, the Lambert team was awarded The Grand Prize for the best high school project in the world for their early diagnostic tool detecting micro RNA associated with coronary artery disease.
Lambert’s current team, consisting of 24 students, competed at the 2024 international competition in October in Paris, France, placing in the top 10.
This IGEM team is developing a multi-faceted approach (called SHIELD) for combating the growing threats posed by antimicrobial resistance, which can be accelerated by the misuse of antibiotics in agriculture.
camp was great in getting our project moving and ensuring that we had results,” she said.
Kate Sharer, a biotechnology teacher and IGEM advisor at Lambert, reiterated the value of the lab time made possible by the generosity of the School of Biological Sciences’
with new lab experiences, skills, and knowledge,” she said. “My goal is to help my students understand that the topics or concepts of science are not standalone but interconnected.” She said that learning lab techniques and technology involved in the IGEM student project on preventing antimicrobial resistance (aggravated by the misuse of antibiotics in agriculture) was of particular interest to her because of personal background. She lives on her family’s farm, and many of the people in her community grow some of their own crops.
“Future Farmers of America and 4-H are big in our area,” Rowe said. “I’m planning to apply for grants to test soil from different areas for antibiotic resistance. That’s important to us in the health of our crops and farm animals in our area.”
One component of SHIELD is ThermoX, a portable device for diagnosing bacterial diseases quickly. Another is a CRISPR-interference (CRISPRi) system designed to target and suppress essential genes in antibiotic-resistant bacteria without using traditional antibiotics.
To measure the effectiveness of CRISPRi in real-world scenarios, the team designed a biosensor called a “toehold,” which helps quantify CRISPRi’s impact by detecting changes in bacterial genes.
Lambert senior Christiana Cho, a member of the IGEM team, said that the opportunity to use Georgia Tech’s labs over the summer was a great experience and huge help in advancing their project.
“We didn’t have to cram all of our experiments into the fall, so the boot
The Frugal Science Academy instructs teachers on how to conduct academiclevel research from anywhere using frugal equipment.
lab manager Alison Onstine, who provided space in the Boggs building.
“To have a solid eight hours a day in the lab is something we never get in high school,” said Sharer, a Georgia Tech alum (CHEM 1996).
“To have that has been wonderful, as well as the collaborations with the undergraduate mentors and access to the postdocs and faculty members who’ve been generous with their time and expertise.”
Making Impact Statewide
Melissa Rowe, a teacher at Chattooga High School in Summerville, Georgia, attended the FSA boot camp in both 2023 and 2024.
“It’s really increased the rigor of my classes and provided my students
Sharing FSA Resources FSA student projects are added to a website of open-source files that other classrooms can access for their experiments. Forming virtual networks of teachers and classrooms to test new designs and give critiques to the inventors will provide a feedback loop to improve the projects as well as provide data for possible publications.
“Students at every high school need and deserve these opportunities. Eventually, every high school will be able to support a bio-engineering mindset and the opportunity to develop ideas into projects. Eventually, communities will see that synthetic biology is doable, achievable, and a way to solve major world problems.”
- Janet Standeven
Saad Bhamla won an $825,000 Moore Inventor Fellowship from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and a $500,000 Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
David Flaherty won the Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis. The award recognizes and encourages individual contributions in the field of catalysis.
Martha Grover was named the College of Engineering’s Thomas A. Fanning Chair in Equity Centered Engineering. She was also named a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).
Marta Hatzell won a 2024 ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering Lectureship Award, which recognizes leading contributions of scientists and engineers active in the general fields of green chemistry, green engineering, and sustainability.
Vida Jamali won a 2024 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, the National Science Foundaton’s most prestigious award in support of junior faculty.
Christopher W. Jones was elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He also won the American Chemical Society’s 2025 E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry.
Hang Lu was selected as the College of Engineering’s associate dean for research and innovation, responsible for identifying new research opportunities, encouraging research collaborations, and facilitating partnerships
J. Carson Meredith was the 2024 recipient of the Andrew Chase Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Forest and Plant Bioproducts Division.
Krista Walton was selected as the recipient of the 2024 Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).
Corey Wilson received a $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to study the human gastrointestinal microbiome. He was also named ChBE’s associate chair for faculty development.
For his work creating new kinds of drug delivery techniques and bringing those technologies to patients, Mark Prausnitz is one of the new members of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).
Membership in NAM is consid ered one of the highest recogni tions in health and medicine, reserved for those who’ve made major contributions to healthcare, medical sciences, and public health.
“It’s an honor to be elected to the National Academy of Medicine and have the work of our team at Georgia Tech recognized in this way,” said Prausnitz, Regents’ Professor, Regents’ Entrepreneur and
J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair.
The Academy cited Prausnitz for innovating microneedle and other
advanced drug delivery technologies. He also was honored for translating those methods and devices into clinical trials and products and founding companies to bring the advances to patients Microneedles (pictured below) are minimally invasive structures used for drug delivery, diagnostics, and vaccine administration.
Bjarne Kreitz
Assistant Professor
PhD, Clausthal University of Technology, Germany, 2021
Chemical Kinetics in Heterogeneous Catalysis
Patricia Stathatou
Assistant Professor
PhD, National Technical University of Athens, 2017
Life Cycle Assessment in Sustainable Water and Energy Systems
Micah Ziegler
Assistant Professor
Solomon Tolulope Oyakhire
Assistant Professor
PhD, Stanford University, 2023
New Materials in Electrochemical Energy Systems
Julia Yang
Assistant Professor
PhD, University of California Berkeley, 2022
Energy Storage and Electrification
PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 2017
Assessment of Sustainable Energy and Chemical Technologies
Joe Arcuri’s chemical engineering studies at Georgia Tech helped teach him how to grow being “comfortable with the uncomfortable.” And he’s carried that mentality as he’s pursued new challenges throughout his extensive career in corporate leadership.
Now CEO of American Greetings, Arcuri said, “I’ve had a fantastic series of opportunities that have kept my learning curve vertical. I’m a lifelong lover of learning.”
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, with a father who worked in aviation, Arcuri originally thought he’d pursue a career as a pilot. “I have logged two million miles in airplanes, just not in the cockpit,” he said of his corporate career that has taken him around the world.
After graduation from Georgia Tech in 1986, Arcuri began a 28year career at Procter and Gamble (P&G), starting in product development. Two years in, he found himself increasingly drawn to the marketing side, so he earned an MBA from Duke University.
Arcuri went on to lead several global business units for P&G across the health and beauty care industries. “I helped build the emerging personal health care business, which was called ‘toilet goods’ when I started, so it’s come a long way,” he said. “It was an amazing run.”
But in 2014, he felt drawn to “get back on a vertical learning curve,” taking on a new challenge as global president of Newell Rubbermaid’s home business solutions segment and then as the company’s chief commercial officer.
CEO of American Greetings since 2019, Arcuri emphasizes the importance of finding the right
“When you come to Tech, you understand that you’ll be uncomfortable more than you are comfortable. It’s an exciting place to be because it gives you a lot of confidence to stretch yourself and grow and be able to approach any challenge and lean into it.”
cultural fit when considering new career opportunities. “Talk to as many people as you can who work there or who’ve worked there,” he advised.
An important part of what drew him to American Greetings, a global leader in the celebrations business, was its mission “to make the world a more thoughtful and caring place.”
Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, American Greetings has more than 13,000 employees in several countries and sells its products online and in more than 60,000 stores, including greeting cards (printed, electronic, and video), gift packaging, and festive materials for
celebratory events.
Over its 118-year history, American Greetings has transitioned from a family-run to a publicly traded to a private equity-owned company, so understanding the culture was Arcuri’s top priority as he came in to help transform the business for a new era.
“I spent the first months just listening and asking questions to see what was working and what could be improved,” he said.
“I manage by walking around, getting out there, seeing the products, and talking to teams, not just depending on meetings,” he said. “It’s also essential to listen to what the consumer is saying.”
Arcuri said one of his greatest strengths is his ability to help create strong teams. “From sports to musical bands to my career, I’ve always enjoyed the creation of winning teams that gel together for a common goal,” he said.
Arcuri said majoring in chemical engineering, which appealed to him because of his interests in chemistry and math, provided a great foundation for everything he has accomplished.
“It taught me how to problem solve and got me comfortable using data as a tool and a guide,” he said.
Outside of work, Arcuri is passionate about spending time with his wife Maria of 34 years and their family, as well as road cycling and playing music. He’s been drumming since age eight and has played in various country/pop bands. Lately, he’s been focused on composing and studio work. “It’s a great creative release for me.”
Four graduates of ChBE were honored at the Georgia Tech College of Engineering Awards in April 2024 for their achievements and contributions to the profession.
"Our honorees are the epitome of Georgia Tech, and I’m humbled to stand among them as members of our alumni community," said College of Engineering Dean Raheem A. Beyah.
This year’s inductees from ChBE are:
w James Robert (Bob) Spencer, ChE 1959 (Engineering Hall of Fame), Retired Chief of Pathology, Sarasota Memorial Hospital; Retired Managing Partner, Sarapath Diagnostics
w Erika Peterman, ChE 1997 (Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni), Senior Vice President, Global Intermediates & Derivatives
Manufacturing and Oxyfuels, LyondellBasel
w Lingbo Zhu, PhD ChE 2007 (Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni), Executive President, Oversea e-Car Business, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL)
w Ashley Newton, ChBE 2009 (Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni), Tetrashield Innovation Program Manager, Eastman Chemical
Osama Kashlan
ChBE 2006
Kashlan is a neurosurgeon who currently serves as associate professor of Neurosurgery at Weill Cornell Medicine and is director of Spine Surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital–Brooklyn Methodist.
Korin Reid
PhD ChE 2015
Reid serves as CEO of Ellison Laboratories and has more than a decade of experience building AI and advanced analytics solutions in the healthcare space, as well as leading global innovation, data science, data engineering, and software development teams.
Arlyne Simon
ChBE 2008
Arlyne Simon is a patented inventor, biomedical engineer, and author of the STEM children’s book series Abby Invents. She works as an AI systems architect at Intel Health and Life Sciences.
Apoorv Sinha
ChBE 2010
Apoorv Sinha is the co-founder and CEO of Carbon Upcycling, a leading decarbonization and carbon capture and utilization company. The company converts CO2 emissions and industrial wastes into sustainable alternatives to conventional cement blends.
Seven students of Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering won 2024 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships.
ChBE@GT student winners: Jessica Bonsu, Ramy Ghanim, Geoffrey Hopping, Donguk (Daniel) Kim, Huston Locht (pictured above left to right)
Former undergrads: Maeve Janecka (ChBE 2024) and Julia Vallier (ChBE 2024)
A sustainable human presence on Mars might one day be possible, thanks to the efforts of researchers like Georgia Tech alum Joshua Crawford.
Crawford, who earned his BS in chemical engineering from Tech in 2023, recently received a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Fellowship. Worth $84,000 over four years, the fellowship will aid Crawford’s research as a chemical engineering doctoral student at Columbia University.
During his undergraduate studies, Crawford interned at NASA’s Langley Research Center, where he worked on technology involving turning rocky moon material into metals for infrastructure development.
He learned about the NASA fellowship after reaching out to his
former manager there for funding or collaboration opportunities. His winning research proposal is related to making space missions to Mars possible by using resources such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and
water ice that are already abundant on the planet.
Specifically, Crawford is studying solid-state protonic ceramic electrolysis cells (PCECs), which can convert CO2 and water into valuable resources such carbon monoxide, hydrogen, methane, and oxygen.
He is focused on improving catalysts that can help speed up the chemical reactions inside these cells. He aims to design better catalysts by tuning their composition, size, shape, and arrangement.
“The goal is to enhance the technology for turning Mars’ resources into usable materials, helping future space missions by reducing costs and increasing capabilities”
Sabrina Klein, ChBE 2024, finished first grade shortly after starting and had enrolled in North Central Texas College by age 12, earning two associate degrees in art and sciences before enrolling at Georgia Tech at 16.
“At the community college, I was taking classes with 20-yearolds who were talking about car payments when I couldn’t even drive yet,” she said.
While her advanced educational progress had long left her feeling disconnected socially (outside of activities like soccer games with her own age group), she had closed some of the age gap by the time she enrolled at Tech because other first-year students were only two years older than her.
“Georgia Tech is the place where I bloomed socially because I’d never had the opportunity to as much before,” said Klein, whose family had moved around the coun-
try a lot due to her father’s military service.
She built strong friendships through participation in Georgia Tech’s student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and the Georgia Tech Astronomy Club, where she served as historian and met her boyfriend, Oscar Haase (Physics and AE 2024).
After Klein graduated in August 2024 (in just over three years at Tech with transfer credit), she and Haase moved to Houston, Texas, where she started as an associate process engineer at Celanese, and he enrolled in graduate school for physics at Rice University.
“In my role as a process engineer in the Utilities unit at Celanese, I’m excited to work on projects that make a real impact on efficiency and sustainability,” Klein said. “A highlight has been implementing a project I developed as an
intern here, where we’re optimizing our demineralization system to reduce wastewater and save costs.”
“It’s rewarding to see my initial design come to life, and my background from Georgia Tech has been a huge asset—giving me the technical foundation to dig into the details and make adjustments as we implement.”
Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
311 Ferst Drive NW
Atlanta, GA 30332-0100
404-894-1328 (phone)
404-894-2866 (fax) chbe.gatech.edu
