ChemE NEWS CHEMICAL & PETROLEUM ENGINEERING
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NSF Recognizes Three Pitt Junior Chemical Engineering Faculty with Prestigious Career Awards
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hree researchers from one Pitt department were recognized with the National Science Foundation’s most significant award in support of junior faculty. John Keith, Giannis Mpourmpakis, and Christopher Wilmer, all assistant professors of chemical and petroleum engineering at the Swanson School, received individual NSF CAREER awards, which “recognize faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.” The three professors received $500,000 each in funding for the five-year awards. “Receiving an NSF CAREER Award can be one of the most tremendous highlights for any junior faculty member, but it is truly rare for a university to receive three awards within one department,” noted Steven R. Little, Department Chair. “What’s more, these three researchers are focused on dynamic energy research, and these grants will not only benefit their labs but also the students they teach and mentor. As an additional component, the grants will enable our students to engage in community outreach and encourage young adults to consider careers in STEM.” The awards include: John Keith – Inaugural R.K. Mellon Faculty Fellow in Energy and Assistant Professor
SusChEM: Unlocking local solvation environments for energetically efficient hydrogenations with quantum chemistry Summary: This project will address the production of carbon-neutral liquid fuels via electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) to methanol. Its focus will integrate high-level electronic structure theory, molecular dynamics, and machine learning to understand how interactions between solvent molecules, salts, and co-solutes regulate CO2 reduction from greenhouse gas into fuels. Dr. Keith’s graduate and undergraduate students will develop educational modules to engage and excite students in the Pittsburgh Public School District about opportunities in STEM fields, with an emphasis on renewable energy and computational chemistry. Giannis (Yanni) Mpourmpakis Assistant Professor Designing synthesizable, ligandprotected bimetallic nanoparticles and modernizing engineering curriculum through computational nanoscience Pictured from left to right are John Keith, Chris Wilmer and Giannis Mpourmpakis
Summary: Although scientists can chemically synthesize metal nanoparticles (NPs) of different shapes and sizes, understanding of NP growth mechanisms affecting their final morphology continued on page 2
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Greetings from the Chair On behalf of our faculty, staff and students, it is my pleasure to share the latest news and research from our Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. The new academic year is off to a tremendous start, with growth in student enrollment as well as strong additions to our faculty. This fall’s student body includes 459 undergraduates, 64 master’s students and 60 PhD candidates – a phenomenal record! Our junior faculty continue to impress, and I am especially proud of a record for the Department, Swanson School and Pitt. John Keith, Giannis Mpourmpakis and Chris Wilmer each received an NSF award early this year. What’s more impressive, they joined two other engineering faculty (in civil and environmental, and electrical and computer) with CAREER awards in one funding announcement. Receiving an NSF CAREER Award can be one of the most tremendous highlights for any junior faculty member, but it is a true honor for a university to receive three awards within one department. What’s more, these three researchers are focused on dynamic energy research, and these grants will not only benefit their labs but also the students they teach and mentor. I am also proud that one of our most distinguished researchers, Anna Balazs, was awarded funding to establish a third NSF Center at the Swanson School.
The new NSF Center for Chemo-Mechanical Assembly, established in partnership with Penn State, Princeton and UMass Amherst, will work toward developing “pumps without parts,” controlling fluid flow in micro- and nano environments without the need for power or mechanisms. I hope you enjoy the articles about our other research advances and accomplishments by our faculty, students, and alumni. I especially want to highlight the story about our own Dean Jerry Holder, who will be returning as a faculty member in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering after more than 20 years as Dean. Over the course of those decades he has helped to transform the Swanson School into one of the top 25 public engineering programs in the U.S., and with it, increasing the reputation of all of our disciplines. I am sure many of my colleagues are aware of his leadership, especially as outgoing chair of the ASEE Engineering Deans Council, and I hope you will join me in celebrating his legacy. My best wishes for a prosperous academic year, and I hope to see you on campus and on the road. Sincerely,
Steven R. Little, PhD William Kepler Whiteford Professor and Department Chair
NSF Recognizes Three Pitt Junior Chemical Engineering Faculty (continued from page 1) and associated properties is limited. With the potential for NPs to impact fields from energy to medicine and the environment, determining with computer simulations the NP growth mechanisms and morphologies that can be synthesized in the lab is critical to advance NP application. Because this is a relatively new field, traditional core courses in science and engineering lack examples from the nanotechnology arena. In addition to improving the research, the award will enable Dr. Mpourmpakis and his students to modernize the traditional course of Chemical Thermodynamics by introducing animation material based on cutting-edge nanotechnology examples and developing a nanoscale-inspired interactive computer game.
Christopher Wilmer Assistant Professor Fundamental limits of physical adsorption in porous materials Summary: The development of new porous materials is critical to improving important gas storage and separations applications and will have a positive impact on reducing greenhouse gases. This includes the deployment of methane and/or hydrogen gases as alternative fuels, development of new filters for removing trace gaseous contaminants from air, and separation of carbon dioxide from flue gas to mitigate greenhouse emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Dr. Wilmer’s grant will enable his lab to utilize computational methods to probe the limits
of material performance for physical adsorption to porous materials. Although past computational screening has suggested physical limits of adsorption capacity for metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), this project will explore the novel use of so-called “pseudomaterials,” which represent all potential atomistic arrangements of matter in a porous material. As part of community outreach, Dr. Wilmer’s research group to develop educational movies on the fundamental science of gas adsorption, including those relevant to carbon capture to mitigate climate change.
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Fall 2017 | 3
Carborane Research by Giannis Mpourmpakis Lands Cover of Catalysis Science & Technology
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esearch into a more energy-efficient catalytic process to produce olefins, the building blocks for polymer production, was featured on the inside front cover of the Royal Society of Chemistry journal, Catalysis Science & Technology (21 May 2017, Issue 10). The team’s investigations could impact potential applications in diverse technology areas from green energy and sustainable chemistry to materials engineering and catalysis. “Carboranes: the strongest Brønsted acids in alcohol dehydration” (DOI: 10.1039/ C7CY00458C) was authored by Giannis Mpourmpakis, assistant professor. PhD candidate Pavlo Kostetskyy and undergraduate student Nicholas A. Zervoudis, part of Mpourmpakis’ ComputerAided Nano and Energy Lab (C.A.N.E.LA.), are co-authors. Pitt’s Center for Simulation and Modeling provided computational support. “Carboranes are one of the strongest known acids, but little is known about how these molecular catalysts can dehydrate biomass-derived alcohols,” Dr. Mpourmpakis explained. “Our computational research not only detailed the mechanism under which alcohols dehydrate on these catalysts, but most importantly we developed linear relationships between the energy input needed to observe dehydration of alcohols and the alcohol characteristics.” According to the paper, “these obtained relationships are especially relevant to the field of solid acid catalysis, a widely studied area with a vast range of industrial applications, including the formation of olefins (polymer building blocks) from biomass-derived alcohols as well as fuels and chemicals from sugars and polyols.”
The group’s research focused on primary, secondary and tertiary alcohols, and revealed the slope of linear relationships depending on the reaction mechanism.
this process involves biomass-based production of polymers, we can potentially create a more sustainable and energyefficient process.”
“This research is important because now experimentalists have a way to identify the reaction followed when different alcohols dehydrate,” Dr. Mpourmpakis said. “Because
Image below: Inside front cover of Catalysis Science & Technology. Catal. Sci. Technol., 2017, 7, 1974-1974 – Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry.
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Novel Theory Explains How Metal Nanoparticles Form
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lthough scientists have for decades been able to synthesize nanoparticles in the lab, the process is mostly trial and error, and how the formation actually takes place is obscure. However, a study recently published in Nature Communications by chemical engineers at the Swanson School explains how metal nanoparticles form. “Thermodynamic Stability of Ligand-Protected Metal Nanoclusters” (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15988) was co-authored by Giannis Mpourmpakis, assistant professor, and PhD candidate Michael Taylor. The research, completed in Mpourmpakis’ Computer-Aided Nano and Energy Lab (C.A.N.E.LA.), is funded through a National Science Foundation CAREER award (1652694) and bridges previous research focused on designing nanoparticles for catalytic applications. “Even though there is extensive research into metal nanoparticle synthesis, there really isn’t a rational explanation why a nanoparticle is formed,” Dr. Mpourmpakis said. “We wanted to investigate not just the catalytic applications of nanoparticles but to take a step further and understand nanoparticle stability and formation. This new thermodynamic stability theory explains why ligand-protected metal nanoclusters are stabilized at specific sizes.”
A ligand is a molecule that binds to metal atoms to form metal cores that are stabilized by a shell of ligands, and so understanding how they contribute to nanoparticle stabilization is essential to any process of nanoparticle application. Dr. Mpourmpakis explained that previous theories describing why nanoclusters stabilized at specific sizes were based on empirical electron counting rules – the number of electrons that form a closed shell electronic structure, but show limitations since there have been metal nanoclusters experimentally synthesized that do not necessarily follow these rules. “The novelty of our contribution is that we revealed that for experimentally synthesizable nanoclusters there has to be a fine balance between the average bond strength of the nanocluster’s metal core and the binding strength of the ligands to the metal core,” he said. “We could then relate this to the structural and compositional characteristic of the nanoclusters, like size, number of metal atoms, and number of ligands. “Now that we have a more complete understanding of this stability, we can better tailor the nanoparticle morphologies and in turn properties, to applications from biolabeling of individual cells and targeted drug delivery to catalytic reactions, thereby creating more efficient and sustainable production processes.”
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Fall 2017 | 5
Building a Pump without Parts NSF Awards $1.8 Million to Pitt Establishing National Center to Develop Nanoscale Chemical Reactions that Drive Fluid Flow
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ontrolling fluid flow at the micro- and nano-level can enable the development of self-operating microfluidic devices and even small-scale factories that perform chemical synthesis and biomedical assays, as well as drive robotic systems operating in harsh environments. The stumbling block, however, is devising effective ways to regulate the movement of the fluids at such small, confined levels. To find solutions to this challenge, the National Science Foundation awarded $1.8 million to the Swanson School of Engineering, establishing the NSF Center for Chemo-Mechanical Assembly (CCMA). Principal investigator is Anna Balazs, Distinguished Professor and the John A. Swanson Chair of Engineering. The CCMA is established through the Centers for Chemical Innovation (CCI) Program, which supports research centers focused on major, long-term fundamental chemical research challenges. Dr. Balazs explained that while mechanical pumps are traditionally used to drive fluid flow, such systems are not useful when designing micro- and nano-fluidic devices that could operate without external controls or power supplies. Catalytic reactions, however, can serve as “chemical pumps” by creating gradients in chemical concentrations and fluid densities that spontaneously give rise to net flows. “Just as a river current carries a pebble, fluid flows can carry particulates such as nanoparticles and microcapsules. Building upon our previous research at Pitt and partner institutions, we have developed novel tools to enable unprecedented control over fluid flow and particle organization in confined, small-scale environments,” she said. “These “catalytic conveyor belts” enable the design of self-powered, self-sustaining systems that organize particles and are capable of
performing complex functions, such as delivering significant amounts of particulates to sensors on surfaces and, thus, allowing highly sensitive studies to be performed both efficiently and rapidly, or fabricating complex microstructures and patterned surfaces in solution. “Most importantly, our research shows that we can do this without the need for mechanical devices, and instead create micro- and nanosystems that harness chemical reactions to drive their performance. In essence, our systems convert chemical energy into mechanical motion,
The NSF award also enables Dr. Balazs to engage in STEM workforce development and public outreach. Funding will support graduate and postdoctoral students, especially those from underrepresented populations, as well as public lectures, hands-on traveling exhibits, and museum and science center projects. Dr. Balazs’ co-investigators include Todd Emrick, Professor of Polymer Science & Engineering and Director of the NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) on Polymers at the University of MassachusettsAmherst; Ayusman Sen, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at The Pennsylvania State University; and Howard Stone, the Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University.
much as our bodies harness nutrients to drive our actions. The CCMA will host an interdisciplinary team with expertise in catalysis, synthetic chemistry, physical chemistry, fluid flow, and modeling.” Potential applications for this research includes the creation of stand-alone microfluidic devices that autonomously perform multi-stage chemical reactions and assays for biomedical applications; automated materials assembly in harsh environments; and small-scale factories that can operate autonomously to build microscale components for use in fine instrumentation and robotic systems.
“This center will work on exciting chemistry at the forefront of the field. Researchers will utilize novel approaches to manipulate the behavior of particles using catalytic chemical reactions to drive the self-organization of particles and form useful micro-devices,” said Dr. Angela Wilson, Division Director for the NSF Division of Chemistry. “The fundamental research conducted by this new CCI could enable a new generation of portable biomedical devices, automated materials assembly in harsh environments, and even small-scale ‘factories’ for building microscale instrumentation and robotics components. We look forward to the developments that will ensue from this CCI.”
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Catalytic Conveyer Belt PhDs Awarded December 2016 Ms. Sharlee Mahoney (Götz Veser) “Evaluation of the Toxicity Associated with Complex Engineered Nanomaterials Utilizing In Vivo and In Vitro Models”
Chemical Engineering and Chemistry Researchers at Pitt and Penn State Develop Controlled Delivery of Particles via Fluid Flow
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apitalizing on previous studies in selfpowered chemo-mechanical movement, researchers at the Swanson School and Penn State University’s Chemistry Department have developed a novel method utilizing chemical reactions to drive fluid flow within microfluidic devices. Their research, “Harnessing catalytic pumps for directional delivery of microparticles in microchambers,” was published in the journal Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ ncomms14384). The computational modeling research was led by Anna C. Balazs, Distinguished Professor and the John A. Swanson Chair of Engineering, with postdoctoral associates Oleg E. Shklyaev and Henry Shum. Experiments at Penn State were conducted by Ayusman Sen, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, and graduate student Isamar OrtizRivera. Their findings could enable complex transport of particles, allowing highly sensitive chemical assays to be performed more rapidly and efficiently. “One of the critical challenges in transporting microparticles within devices is delivering the particle to a specific location,” Dr. Balazs explained. “Much like a conveyer belt in a factory, you want to move the particle autonomously within a closed system without any modification to its surface or damage to its structure.”
Dr. Balazs noted that in addition to successfully delivering the particle, the other challenges the researchers faced were maintaining unidirectional flow from point A to point B within a closed chamber and overcoming the need for particle sensors that only operate above a certain threshold. The solution was, in effect, in the solution – creating a chemical reaction between the reservoir itself and the particle surface. “Previously one would need to chemically add something to the microparticle itself to generate self-propulsion,” Dr. Balazs said. “But that doesn’t allow you to take into consideration how it moves within the chamber. We were able to show in our computational models and Ayusman was able to prove in experimentation that the flow itself could transport particles to a particular sensor, and you could control the speed and direction without a pump or any modification.” “Utilizing chemical reactions to drive fluid flow is a new field, even though it’s what our bodies do at any given moment when converting food to fuel. Replicating it within a synthetic system however is very difficult,” Dr. Sen added. “For the first time in our lab, we were able to design a “machine” without the need for a mechanical device that could be used many times over simply by adding fuel to the chamber while allowing the particle to remain a passive participant along for the ride.”
Mr. Amey Sudhir More (Götz Veser) “Chemical Looping for Syngas & Hydrogen Production with Parallel CO2 activation” Mr. Mathew Raymond Markovetz (Robert Parker and Timothy Corcoran) “Multiscale Mathematical Modeling of the Absorptive and Mucociliary Pathophysiology of Cystic Fibrosis Lung Disease” Ms. Christine M. Carcillo (Robert Parker) “Modeling Chemotherapy- and Radiotherapy-Induced Hematological Toxicity”
April 2017 Mr. Timothy David Knab (Robert Parker and Steven Little) “Model-Based Glucose Control in Critical Illness”
August 2017 Mr. Thomas Charles Richardson (Ipsita Banerjee) “Fundamental Study of Alginate-Based 3D Platforms for the Propagation and Pancreatic Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells”
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W E H AV E A
QUORUM New Research Reveals Potential for Synthetic Materials Systems that Can “Count” and Sense Their Size
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rom the smallest cell to humans, most organisms can sense their local population density and change behavior in crowded environments. For bacteria and social insects, this behavior is referred to as “quorum sensing.” Researchers at the Swanson School have utilized computational modeling to mimic such quorum sensing behavior in synthetic materials, which could lead to devices with the ability for self-recognition and self-regulation. The findings are based on research into biomimetic synthetic materials by Anna C. Balazs, Distinguished Professor and John A. Swanson Chair of Engineering, and post-doctoral associate Henry Shum, who is now an assistant professor of applied mathematics at the University of Waterloo. The article, “Synthetic quorum sensing in model microcapsule colonies,” is published in the journal PNAS (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1702288114). “Quorum sensing (QS) is a distinctive behavior of living organisms that allows them to initiate a specific behavior only when a critical threshold in population size and density are exceeded,” Dr. Balazs explained. “This tunable self-awareness is apparent in macro systems such as bees selecting a site for a new hive but is vital to cellular systems like bacteria, which produce and secrete signaling molecules that act as “autoinducers” once a specific population is reached. Creating a biomimetic response can allow synthetic materials to effectively “count”; that is, to sense and adapt to their environment once a preprogrammed threshold is reached.” In a biological system, autoinducers in low concentrations diffuse away and therefore do not trigger response. Hence, the system is in a type of “off” state. However, when the cells reach a specific number or quorum,
the production of autoinducers leads to a detection and response. This “on” state increases the production of the signaling molecule and activates further metabolic pathways that are triggered by QS, coordinating the colony behavior. “However, autoinducers tend to maintain the “on” state once activated so the system is less sensitive to subsequent decreases in the population,” Dr. Shum said. “For self-regulating materials to unambiguously determine their present density, we modeled a colony of immobile microcapsules that release signaling chemicals in a “repressilator” network, which does not exhibit the same “memory” effect. Instead, we found that chemical oscillations emerge in the microcapsule colony under conditions that are analogous to achieving a quorum in biological systems.” The researchers note that their findings could inspire new mechanoresponsive materials, such as polymer gels with embedded QS elements that would activate a certain chemical behavior when compressed, and then switch off when stretched, or when a specific temperature is reached. “For example, you could have a robotic skin that solidifies to protect itself at a certain temperature and then becomes “squishy” again when the temperature drops to a nominal level,” Dr. Balazs added. “Although our work is computational, the results show that the creation of self-recognizing and self-regulating synthetic materials is possible.” This research was supported as part of the Center for Bio-Inspired Energy Science, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences under Award DE-SC0000989.
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An Eye towards Islets Pitt-Led Research Collaboration Could Treat Type I Diabetes by Engineering Pancreatic Islets Outside the Body
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iny packets of cells called islets throughout the pancreas allow the organ to produce insulin. Type 1 diabetes – also known as juvenile diabetes – tricks the immune system into destroying these islets. Patients must take insulin daily to maintain blood sugar, or too much sugar will build up in the blood stream and lead to hyperglycemia, diabetic ketoacidosis, and, if left untreated, death. Patients must self-regulate their blood sugar for their entire lives, unless there were some way to restore the pancreatic islets. To explore that potential, the National Science Foundation has funded a multi-university study led by researchers at the Swanson School who are investigating the use of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) to engineer pancreatic islets in the lab. A major goal of the research is to develop a method of vascularizing islets in vitro – literally “in glass” – which studies suggest will result in higher viability and enhanced function after the transplant. “This the first attempt to generate in vitro vascularized pancreatic islet organoids from hPSCs,” explains Ipsita Banerjee, associate professor of chemical engineering and principal investigator of the study. “Through collaborative efforts, we have developed a method of
Pictured from left to right are PhD candidate Thomas Richardson and Dr. Banerjee.
implanting blood vessel fragments into the islets. By vascularizing the islets before they are transplanted to the body, they are more likely to survive and can begin regulating blood glucose more quickly.” In addition to developing vascularized islets inside the lab, the study – “Engineering a functional 3D vascularized islet organoid from pluripotent stem cells” – will use a novel hydrogel system to create a three-dimensional cell culture configuration that mimics the way the body forms pancreatic cells naturally. “The hydrogel is like a scaffold, and it helps to configure the cells in a 3D space,” says Dr. Banerjee. “The status quo is hPSCs randomly arranged in uncontrolled configurations with varying size and structure; however, by using the hydrogel developed by our collaborator at Arizona State, we can create a precise, multicellular architecture called ‘spheroids.’ Unlike a 2D culture grown in a petri dish, islet spheroids grown on the hydrogel look the same as the ones made by the body.”
Although Dr. Banerjee’s research will most directly impact cell therapy for diabetics, creating a procedure for developing working islets outside of the body could also serve as a valuable tool for testing the efficacy and toxicity of new drug compounds for pancreatic disease. The general implications of in vitro vascularization of cells show even more promise. “The principles behind pre-designing vascularization before transplantation apply to any type of tissue, not just pancreatic,” Dr. Banerjee says. “Even when donor islets are used for a transplant, a fraction of the islets survive the procedure. We expect the advanced measures we are taking in the lab, before the new cells enter the patient’s body, to have tremendous application to the next generation of regenerative medicine.” Dr. Banerjee’s team of researchers includes Prashant Kumta, professor of bioengineering at Pitt; Kaushal Rege, professor of chemical engineering at Arizona State University; and James Hoying, professor of surgery at the University of Louisville.
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Fall 2017 | 9
NSF Grant Provides Research Opportunities for Engineering Undergraduates at Pitt
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hanks to the National Science Foundation, a program at the Swanson School of Engineering will once again be able to better prepare undergraduates for academia, research, and industry. The NSF awarded a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant to provide undergraduate students with research opportunities in the Swanson School’s Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. The three-year, $425,000 grant will fund a 10week summer research program for students and provide them with a stipend and financial assistance for food, housing, and travel. Principal Investigator Joseph McCarthy, former William Kepler Whiteford Professor and Vice Chair for Education, will lead the REU program. Dr. McCarthy co-authored the grant proposal “REU Site: Enhancing Knowledge Integration Through Undergraduate Research – Particle-based Functional Materials for Energy, Sustainability, and Biomedicine.” Co-Principal Investigator is Professor Taryn M. Bayles. As a Particle-based Functional Materials (PFM) REU grant, the student research will comprise computational and experimental studies of materials that fulfill a specific function either because of their particulate nature or the influence of particles on structure. The program will admit 12 students each year beginning in 2017 and take place between May and August. The PFM REU program is in its third round of funding and is the second funded grant for the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering to help provide research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students focused on this topic. For more than a decade, this REU program combined with a similar program called the PFM Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) fellowships have provided both undergraduate and graduate students with research opportunities at Pitt. By the end of this funding cycle, these combined programs will have sponsored over 100 students to pursue their research goals. In addition to working with Pitt graduate students and faculty, undergraduate students accepted in the REU program will work in teams on a “cross-training” internship. They will complete a mini-project in a different area of particle-based functional materials. They can also attend weekly seminars on topics such as laboratory safety, research integrity and oral presentation skills. Students will have the opportunity to participate in social, recreational and cultural activities. The program will include an Ethics Forum in the middle of the ten weeks and will conclude with a Research Symposium. Dr. McCarthy is recognized for his impact on undergraduate engineering education. He is the primary architect of the Pillars curriculum in Chemical Engineering, an award winning blockscheduled curriculum for chemical engineering undergraduates that is the first fully integrated engineering curriculum. Additionally, he oversees both of Pitt’s undergraduate and graduate programs in chemical and petroleum engineering, and is the recipient of a Carnegie Science Award for Higher Education (2008), the Swanson School of Engineering Outstanding Educator award (2012), and the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award (2015). For more information visit: http://granular.che.pitt.edu/PFM/PFM-REU/
Research Team Receives $1.7 Million NIH Award to “Sniff Out” Better Treatment of Lung Disease
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ystic Fibrosis (CF) causes the accumulation of dehydrated mucus in the lungs, which can lead to chronic infection, inflammation, and respiratory failure and drastically affect the lives of CF patients. These ever-changing complexities often make it difficult for doctors to decide which therapies will be most effective in treating the disease. To develop better evaluation methods, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a research team at Pitt’s schools of engineering and medicine a highly competitive $1.7 million U01 grant to develop new mathematical models of liquid and ion transport in the human lung. These models could allow doctors to rapidly personalize interventions for patients suffering from CF and other lung diseases and administer the most effective treatment by simply studying a cell culture from the patient’s nose. Robert Parker, professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, and Tim Corcoran, associate professor of medicine, bioengineering, and chemical engineering in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine will lead the study as co-principal investigators. Three co-investigators will join the study: Carol Bertrand from pediatrics, and Joe Pilewski and Mike Myerburg, both from the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine. continued on page 10
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Better Treatment of Lung Disease (continued from page 9) The researchers will begin by collecting data from patients with CF, biological parents of patients with CF who carry the CF mutation, and healthy controls. After sampling and culturing of human nasal epithelial (HNE) cells - under the direction of Dr. Myerburg - Dr. Corcoran will use aerosol-based nuclear imaging to measure mucus clearance and airway surface liquid dehydration in the lungs. Once the researchers have collected data from the patients’ HNE cell cultures and lung imagining, they will use advanced computational techniques to find the correlation between the nasal cell physiology and lung physiology. Dr. Parker will lead the group’s effort to translate the data collected from the test subjects into multi-scale mathematical models that provide cell- and organ-level visualizations of the patients’ physiology. Ultimately, the researchers hope to show that nasal cell sampling and interpretation of the data by the computer models can lead to a highly personalized approach to treating a patient with CF that could begin as early as birth. This would greatly enhance a patient’s quality of life, increase life expectancy, and limit progress of the disease.
Image above: Nuclear imaging shows mucus clearance from the lungs. These imaging techniques can be used along with systems models to help develop treatments for Cystic Fibrosis.
Swanson School to Play a Lead Role in New Department of Energy National Institute Focused on Clean Energy Research Chemical Engineering Faculty will Direct Natural Gas Upgrading Application Focus Area
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n collaboration with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the Swanson School will be part of a new institute that will leverage a total $70 million contribution by U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of its new network of Manufacturing USA Institutes. The Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment (RAPID) Manufacturing Institute, led by AIChE, is the 10th and newest member of this network, which received a five-year commitment from DOE and from private partners and energy industries. The goal is to increase domestic productivity and efficiency of various forms of energy by 20 percent over the next five years through improved manufacturing processes. The RAPID proposal elected the University of Pittsburgh to serve as one of eight lead institutions in the RAPID organizational structure. The University is proposed to be responsible for strategic roadmapping and oversight on all research activity in RAPID’s Natural Gas Upgrading Application Focus Area. Pitt will guide and coordinate member efforts from the portion of 75 industrial
partners, 34 academic institutions, seven national laboratories, two other government laboratories, and seven non-governmental organizations in the RAPID community who are targeting Natural Gas Research. The University will provide support through its multiple labs and centers dedicated to energy, process intensification, advanced manufacturing, simulation modeling, and leverage Swanson School faculty expertise in natural gas and unconventional fuels research. The Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering will head up the Pitt team under the direction of Michael Matuszewski, instructor and Director of External Relationships for Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and Götz Veser, professor and Associate Director of Pitt’s Center for Energy. “Creation of the RAPID Manufacturing Institute comes at a critical time as federal, university, and industrial research are transforming how the U.S. improves its domestic energy production and use,” noted Mark Redfern, vice provost for research. “The Swanson School has more than a
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century of experience in energy research – and also established the first petroleum engineering program in the world – and so we are proud to partner with DOE and AIChE on this national challenge.” According to Dr. Veser, the Pitt team will serve as the first tier of communication with the RAPID leadership in evaluating and recommending selection of natural gas-related projects. “Our focus is to identify more efficient and costeffective methods to convert natural gas into clean energy and other useful products through advance manufacturing,” Dr. Veser said. “Access to Marcellus and Utica shale deposits has created new opportunities to utilize our natural resources in pursuit of greater independence, and the University of Pittsburgh is geographically located and technically positioned perfectly to lead the efforts towards clean and efficient utilization of these resources.” In addition, the Pitt team said that its current industry partnerships help to provide a stronger connection to identifying potential end-uses, complement existing energy and manufacturing technologies, and even build a more knowledgeable workforce. “The Swanson School’s partnership with industries such as Lubrizol Corporation – which is broad-based but includes a priority on process intensification research – reflects the mission of RAPID and the other Manufacturing Institutes to assure cooperation and to share approaches toward commercialization,” Dr. Matuszewski said. “Most importantly for Pitt, the RAPID framework will allow us to scale our existing collaboration model, almost instantaneously; we’ll be able to leverage the advances that RAPID supports to better train students with expertise in new technology approaches and the ability to engineer cutting-edge processes. Moreover, we will position all RAPID students to advance the U.S. workforce by invigorating it with advanced, environmentally-conscious expertise and increasing high tech job opportunities to further strengthen our country’s manufacturing industry.”
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Closing the Carbon Loop
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esearch focused on developing a new catalyst that would lead to large-scale implementation of capture and conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) has the potential to advance capture and conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Principal investigator is Karl Johnson, William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering. Postdoctoral associate Jingyun Ye is lead author. The article, “Catalytic Hydrogenation of CO2 to Methanol in a Lewis Pair Functionalized MOF” (DOI: 10.1039/C6CY01245K), is featured on the cover of Catalysis Science & Technology (vol. 6, no. 24) and builds upon Dr. Johnson’s previous research that identified the two main factors for determining the optimal catalyst for turning atmospheric CO2 into liquid fuel. The research was conducted using computational resources at the University’s Center for Simulation and Modeling. “Capture and conversion of CO2 to methanol has the potential to solve two problems at once – reducing net carbon dioxide emissions while generating cleaner fuels,” Dr. Johnson explained. “Currently, however, it is a complex and expensive process that is not economically feasible. Because of this, we wanted to simplify the catalytic process as much as possible to create a sustainable and cost-effective method for converting CO2 to fuel – essentially to reduce the number of steps involved from several to one.” Johnson and Ye focused on computationally designing a catalyst capable of producing methanol from CO2 and H2 utilizing metal organic frameworks (MOFs), which potentially provide pathway for a single-process unit for carbon capture and conversion. The MOFs could dramatically reduce the cost of carbon capture and conversion, bringing the potential of CO2 as a viable feedstock for fuels closer to reality. “Methanol synthesis has been extensively studied because methanol can work in existing systems such as engines and fuel cells and can be easily transported and stored. Methanol is also a starting point for producing many other useful chemicals,” Dr. Johnson said. “This new MOF catalyst could provide the key to close the carbon loop and generate fuel from CO2, analogously to how a plant converts carbon dioxide to hydrocarbons.”
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Findings About Immune System Could Stop Allergic Skin Reactions at the Cellular Source Many people have suffered through an itchy skin rash after a brush with poison oak, wearing jewelry containing nickel or using latex gloves. That rash is one of the several symptoms caused by allergic contact dermatitis (ACD), a common skin condition that also causes blistering, ulcers and cracking skin, among other ailments. Topical creams and ointments can relieve symptoms, but they do not treat the underlying causes. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh may have hit upon a better treatment. In a paper recently published in the Journal of Controlled Release, Steven Little and colleagues propose that the underlying causes of ACD can be remedied by manipulating T cells, which control inflammation. “The technology here coaxes the body’s own cells to address inflammation that leads to these kinds of diseases,” said Dr. Little, department chair.
“We are essentially using strategies like this to convince the immune system into not attacking something that it would normally attack. When we administer our treatment at the same time as the allergen, it teaches the body to not become inflamed to that specific thing.” The researchers manipulated cells to release proteins, immune system molecules and other compounds to suppress destructive hypersensitivity responses to allergens that cause skin rashes, effectively preventing or reversing ACD in previously sensitized mice. Dr. Little said other researchers are trying to solve this problem by administering drugs that suppress the immune system, but side effects are a concern. Another treatment method under investigation takes cells out of the body, manipulates them and then reinjects them.
“This is really tough, because it is inefficient and we don’t know what happens to the cells when you put them back into the body,” Dr. Little said. “The FDA is wary of these kinds of things.” The difference between these methods and the one proposed by Little and his colleagues is that it appears possible to induce the body’s own cells to treat the disease by manipulating cells inside the body with proteins that promote T cells to divide and react to allergens more quickly and aggressively to better control inflammation. Researchers also said this approach to what is known as in vivo T cell induction could also aid in the development of new therapies for transplant rejection and autoimmune diseases. “It has the potential to do all of this without the side effects you’d normally see,” he said. Author: Amerigo Allegretto, University Communications Specialist. Originally published in Pittwire, September 18, 2017.
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In Search of a
Greener Cleaner Pitt Researchers Awarded $300K by NSF to Identify Environmentally Sustainable Chelating Agents
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olecular chelating agents are used in many areas ranging from laundry detergents to paper pulp processing to precious metal refining. However, some chelating agents, especially the most effective ones, do not degrade in nature and may pollute the environment. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), researchers at the Swanson School of Engineering are developing machine learning procedures to discover new chelating agents that are both effective and degradable.
Developing new chelating agents so far has relied on trial and error experimentation. Dr. Beckman continues, “In the past, folks have tried to create better chelating agents by tweaking existing structures, but whenever that produces something less toxic, the chelating agent winds up being much less effective too. We’re trying a new approach that uses machine learning to look through much larger and more diverse pools of candidate molecules to find those that would be the most useful.”
John Keith, a Richard King Mellon Faculty Fellow in Energy and assistant professor of chemical engineering, is principal investigator; and Eric Beckman, Distinguished Service Professor of chemical engineering and co-director of Pitt’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, is co-PI. Their project titled “SusChEM: Machine learning blueprints for greener chelants” will receive $299,999 from the NSF.
The Pitt research team will use quantum chemistry calculations to develop machine learning methods that can predict new molecules that would be more effective and greener than existing chelating agents. While computational quantum chemistry can be used to screen through a thousand hypothetical chelating agents in a year, machine learning methods based on quantum chemistry could be used to screen through hundreds of thousands of candidates per week. Once the researchers identify promising candidates, they will synthesize and test them in their labs to validate the efficacy of the machine learning process for designing greener chemicals.
“Chelating agents are molecules that bind to and isolate metal ions dissolved in water,” explains Dr. Keith. “Cleaning detergents normally don’t work well in hard water because of metal ions like magnesium and calcium interfering. That’s why commercial detergents typically include some chelating agents to hold up those metal ions so the rest of the detergent can focus on cleaning.” While chelating agents are valued for their ability to bind strongly to different metal ions, researchers are also factoring how long it takes them to degrade in the environment and their probabilities of being toxic when searching for more effective chelate structures. “Many of the widely used chelating agents we use end up in water runoffs, where they can be somewhat toxic to wildlife and sometimes to people as well,” says Dr. Beckman.
The results of the research will have a significant impact on a range of topics relevant to environmentally-safe engineering and the control of metals in the environment, including computer-aided design of greener chelating agents used in detergents, treatments of heavy metal poisoning, metal extractions for soil treatments, waste remediation, handling normally occurring radioactive materials from hydraulic fracturing sites, and water purification. “Chelating agents are used in such a wide range of industries, so even a small improvement can have a big impact on sustainability as a whole,” said Dr. Keith.
Water, Water Nowhere Pitt Research Indicates Graphane Could Act as an Efficient and Water-Free Hydrogen Fuel Cell Membrane
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ydrogen powered fuel cell cars, developed by almost every major car manufacturer, are ideal zero-emissions vehicles because they produce only water as exhaust. However, their reliability is limited because the fuel cell relies upon a waterbased membrane that only functions in specific environments, limiting the vehicle’s potential market. Researchers at the Swanson School have found that the unusual properties of graphane – a two-dimensional polymer of carbon and hydrogen – could form a type of anhydrous “bucket brigade” that transports protons without the need for water, potentially leading to the development of more efficient hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles and other energy systems.
protons and electrons to produce water, releasing a great deal of energy. At the heart of the fuel cell is a proton exchange membrane (PEM). These membranes mostly rely on water to aid in the conduction of protons across the membranes. Everything works well unless the temperature gets too high or the humidity drops, which depletes the membrane of water and stops the protons from migrating across the membrane. Dr. Johnson explains that for this reason, there is keen interest in developing new membrane materials that can operate at very low water levels – or even in the complete absence of water (anhydrously). “PEMs in today’s hydrogen fuel cells are made of a polymer called Nafion, which only conducts
protons when it has the right amount of water on it,” says Dr. Johnson. “Too little water, the membrane dries out and protons stop moving. Too much and the membrane “floods” and stops operating, similar to how you could flood a carbureted engine with too much gasoline,” he added. Dr. Johnson and his team focused on graphane because when functionalized with hydroxyl groups it creates a more stable, insulating membrane to conduct protons. “Our computational modeling showed that because of graphane’s unique structure, it is well suited to rapidly conduct protons across the membrane and electrons across the circuit under anhydrous conditions,” Dr. Johnson said.
Principal investigator is Karl Johnson, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering. Graduate research assistant Abhishek Bagusetty is the lead author. Their work was published in Physical Review Letters, “Facile Anhydrous Proton Transport on Hydroxyl Functionalized Graphane” (DOI: 10.1103/ PhysRevLett.118.186101). Computational modeling techniques coupled with the high performance computational infrastructure at the University’s Center for Research Computing enabled them to design this potentially groundbreaking material. Hydrogen fuels cells are like a battery that can be recharged with hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen enters one side of the fuel cell, where it is broken down into protons (hydrogen ions) and electrons, while oxygen enters the other side and is ultimately chemically combined with the
In computer simulations at Pitt, graphane provides a water-free “bucket brigade” to rapidly conduct protons across the membrane and electrons across the circuit. (Credit: A. Bagusetty/University of Pittsburgh; Rick Henkel)
“Cellular” Biology Pitt Engineers Develop Virtual Reality Game for Smartphones to Teach Young People about the Immune System
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hite blood cells are like the “assassins” of systems biology. Some destroy viruses by swallowing them whole, others lie ready to sound the alarm with inflammation, while “natural killer” white blood cells hose down infected cells with a toxin that causes immediate cell death. The human immune system is an intense, fast-paced game of cat and mouse on a cellular level, and thanks to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, now the game can take place on a cell phone. Jason Shoemaker, assistant professor, and Robert Gregg, a PhD candidate studying intercellular immunity in Dr. Shoemaker’s group, created the game “Vir-ed” – a virtual reality (VR) education game designed to teach new biology and biochemistry students about the human immune system. “Systems biology is something you can’t really see, and it’s not a hands-on subject, but it is a holistic tool that can help young minds understand how biological systems function,” says Dr. Shoemaker. “We decided to design the game to create a way for students to be able to visualize what they were studying.” In Vir-ed (which rhymes with “wired”), players follow a storyline and a series of mini-games while learning how viruses invade host cells, the basic biological mechanisms associated with infection, and how human cells detect viruses. As the game begins, the immersive technology casts the player in the role of the virus, determined to avoid the predatory white blood cells and find a juicy red blood cell to infect. “The first story shows you how a virus invades a cell, and the second shows you how a cell stops a virus,” explains Gregg. “Players unlock mini-games by playing through the story mode, and the mini-games require certain achievements to unlock trophies. Each trophy comes with a description and more information about a subject like “DNA” to help educate the player.” One of the Vir-ed mini-games follows a similar format to the memory game Simon. Players must remember the sequence of a ribonucleic acid (RNA) nucleotide, which consists of the nitrogenous bases adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil (AGCU). To complete the mini-game, the player must
remember a random assembly of three to six nitrogenous bases with the ultimate goal of getting the order right for a total of 21 cumulative nucleotides. To develop the software for the game, the Pitt team worked with a nonprofit called Cacti Council – an educational organization that uses computer science to promote critical and creative thinking. A 17-member Cacti Council team worked on Vir-ed, including graphic designers, programmers, recording artists, and user experience (UX) designers. “Educational games are tricky,” says Jeremiah Blanchard, a Cacti Council founder. “They’re really an attempt to thread the needle of meeting the requirements for both a game and an educational tool. You have to find the points of overlap. If you do, it can really impact a student’s life in a positive way.” Vir-ed is already available on Google Play and can be downloaded and viewed on an Android phone and any VR headset. Dr. Shoemaker and Gregg have almost finished adapting the game for Apple devices, and they are considering adding new features like augmented reality in the future. “The immediate next step will be to work with the school’s Engineering Education Resource Center to introduce the game to middle and high school students and get feedback on how it performs as an educational tool,” says Dr. Shoemaker. “Based on what we’ve seen so far, we expect positive response,” adds Blanchard.
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urther strengthening its focus on interdisciplinary research and entrepreneurship, the Department has hired Tagbo H.R. Niepa, PhD as assistant professor. Dr. Niepa, currently the Postdoctoral Fellow for Academic Diversity at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with Professors Kathleen Stebe and Daeyeon Lee, joined Pitt in July 2017. “Tagbo’s expertise in biofilms, microfluidics and interfacial science is an outstanding addition to our department,” said Steven R. Little, PhD,
Department Chair. “He is young researcher who is gaining a national reputation for his bacterial research, and his experience as an entrepreneur with his own successful startup will be a tremendous asset and inspiration to our students.” Dr. Niepa currently focuses on interfacial phenomena associated with bacterial films and is developing artificial microniches to model microbiome dynamics as well as microbial communities relevant to antibiotic discovery. His research also seeks to understand how beneficial microbes could be used to better clean the environment after an oil spill and how pathogens could be prevented from causing disease. He earned an associate degree in food science at the Food Industry College (Ivory Coast) and worked at the Pasteur Institute as a research associate, before transferring to University of Dortmund (Germany) to study bioengineering. He later earned a BS in biomedical engineering and PhD in chemical engineering from Syracuse University. His doctoral research on the electrochemical control of bacterial persister cells revealed new means to control the electrophysiology of highly drug-tolerant bacterial cells and sensitize pathogenic persister and biofilm cells to antibiotics. His technology was tested successfully for safety on human cells and for efficacy in curing a rabbit model of sinusitis and was awarded two U.S. patents and recognized by Syracuse University with the All-University Doctoral Prize.
Pictured left to right are Dr. Hseen Baled and Dr. Tagbo Niepa.
Dr. Niepa is a co-founder of Helios Innovative Technologies Inc. (now PurpleSun Inc.), a medical device company that develops automated sterilization systems to fight bacterial crosscontamination. Also joining the faculty this fall as assistant professor is Hseen Baled. “Hseen was our number one choice in the hiring pool and brings not only ability to teach practically any course in our chemical engineering curriculum, but our petroleum engineering curriculum as well,” Dr. Little said. Dr. Baled received his PhD degree in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2012. He graduated from Rheinisch-Westfälishce Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen University in Germany with a diploma (a combined BSc and MSc) in chemical engineering. He has extensive research experience in highpressure fluid thermodynamic and transport properties and phase equilibria. Beginning in 2015, Dr. Baled worked at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) as an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Research Associate. He studied the viscosity and phase behavior of crude oil components at deepwater conditions of extreme temperatures and pressures, as well as pre-combustion carbon dioxide capture using physical solvents. Dr. Baled is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), and he received the Coull Award for Outstanding ChE PhD Student at the University of Pittsburgh in 2012.
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ChemE Presents Donna Blackmond with 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award
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he 2017 recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award for the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering was Donna G. Blackmond, PhD, BSCHE ’80, MSCHE ’81, Professor of Chemistry, Scripps Research Institute.
director at Merck & Co., Inc. In 2010 she moved from a joint research chair in chemistry and chemical engineering at Imperial College London to her present position as professor of chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
“Many of us remember Donna as an outstanding student and researcher and have followed her many accomplishments while making a major impact with her research,” said Dean Jerry Holder. “She is a pioneer of Reaction Progress Kinetic Analysis, and her research into prebiotic chemistry and asymmetric catalytic reactions is recognized worldwide.”
Dr. Blackmond’s research focuses on kinetic, mechanistic, and reaction engineering studies of organic reactions for pharmaceutical applications, including asymmetric catalysis. She has been invited to give her short course on Kinetics of Organic Catalytic Reactions in academia (including Harvard, Berkeley, Zürich, Nagoya) and at major pharmaceutical companies around the world. Dr. Blackmond also carries out fundamental studies probing the origin of the single chirality of biological molecules. She was invited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to speak at a Nobel Workshop “On the Origin of Life” in Stockholm (2006). In 2012 she was named a Simons Investigator in the Simons Foundation Collaboration on the Origins of Life.
Donna G. Blackmond received BS and MS degrees in chemical engineering from Pitt in 1980 and 1981, respectively. She received a PhD degree in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1984. Dr. Blackmond started her career as an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Pitt in 1984 and was promoted to associate professor in 1989. She has held professorships in chemical engineering and in organic, physical, and technical chemistry in the US, Germany, and the UK; and she has worked in the pharmaceutical industry as an associate
Pictured above from left to right are Dean Holder, Donna Blackmond, and ChemE Department Chair Steven Little.
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AWARDS ACCOLADES Faculty Awards AIChE elected Professor Taryn Bayles as a Fellow, its highest grade of membership. She is the fourth professor at the University of Pittsburgh to become an AIChE Fellow, including Karl Johnson, George Klinzing, and Dean Gerald Holder. The Journal of Materials Chemistry A, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, included John Keith, Assistant Professor and Richard King Mellon Faculty Fellow, in its list of Emerging Investigators in 2017. The journal’s themed issue highlighted “rising stars” of materials chemistry research recommended by experts in the field. “Computational investigation of CO2 electroreduction on tin oxide and predictions of Ti, V, Nb and Zr dopants for improved catalysis” (DOI: 10.1039/C7TA00405B) outlines improving the performance of tin electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction.
of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and professor of surgery, bioengineering, and chemical engineering, has also been involved in six licenses or options of Pitt technology. Three of these are with the startup Neograft Technologies, which is developing new treatment options for coronary artery bypass surgery and recently initiated clinical trials in Europe. He is the founding editor and editor-in-chief of one of the leading biomaterials and biomedical engineering journals, Acta Biomaterialia. The Foresight Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on promoting future technologies, named Christopher Wilmer, Assistant Professor, to its
Dr. Wilmer was also named the 2017 recipient of the Young Investigator Award for Modeling and Simulation. The AIChE Computational Molecular Science and Engineering Forum (CoMSEF) presents the award annually to one individual who received his/her highest degree within the past seven years and recognizes “outstanding research in computational molecular science and engineering, encompassing both methods and applications.” The American Physical Society (APS) elected Professor Judith Yang to the position of Fellow. APS President Homer Neal cited Yang’s selection, “for seminal contributions to in situ environmental transmission electron microscopy, the fundamental understanding of metal oxidation and the application of nanomaterials and catalysis.”
Giannis Mpourmpakis, assistant professor, was the 2016 recipient of the Department’s James Pommersheim Award for Excellence in Teaching. James M. Pommersheim PhD ’70 established the award through a legacy gift to recognize departmental faculty in the areas of lecturing, teaching, research methodology and research mentorship of students. Dr. Pommershiem, formerly Professor of Chemical Engineering at Bucknell University, received his bachelor’s, master’s and PhD in chemical engineering from Pitt. With 17 patents and more than 40 invention disclosures to his name, Professor William Wagner was named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Dr. Wagner, director
inaugural class of fellows. The 10 inductees are all working on technologies with massive potential for the future, including space technology, human longevity and the interface between human minds and computers. The Foresight Institute selected Dr. Wilmer for his work with nanostructures called “molecular machines.”
Student Awards
Pictured left to right are James Pommersheim and Giannis Mpourmpakis, 2016 recipient of the James M. Pommersheim Award for Excellence in Teaching.
PhD candidate Natalie Austin participated in the 67th Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany this summer. Ms. Austin, who works in the Computer-Aided Nano and Energy Lab (CANELA) at Pitt, qualified nationally as part of the Oak Ridge Associates Universities team and then passed through an international selection pool ranging from undergraduate to post-doctoral students below the age of 35.
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Alec Kaija, Blake Dube and Mark Spitz won $10,000 and second place at Princeton University’s TigerLaunch Finals competition for entrepreneurship for their startup company Aeronics, which designs and develops improved methods of storing oxygen in lightweight, lowpressure tanks. Christopher Wilmer is an adviser to the team. Mr. Dube, CEO of Aeronics, worked with Dr. Wilmer investigating theoretical limits of oxygen storage in porous materials while pursuing his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering.
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Mr. Spitz, who serves as COO, is majoring in exercise science in the School of Education. Mr. Kaija, currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, will continue to develop Aeronics technology while completing his studies. The American Society for Engineering Education’s (ASEE) Cooperative & Experiential Education Division (CEED) selected undergraduate Kendra LaVallee as the 2017 National Co-op Student of
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the Year. Ms. LaVallee is the fourth Pitt student to be named ASEE Co-op Student of the Year, tying Georgia Tech for the most student winners. She was also named the Swanson School of Engineering Co-op Student of the Year for 2016 for her accomplishments as a Technical Operations Co-op at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc.
The Department Appoints Two New Vice Chairs
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n response to increasing enrollment and curricular evolution, the Department has established two Vice Chair positions. Taryn Bayles will become the Vice Chair for Undergraduate Education, and Robert Parker will become the Vice Chair for Graduate Education.
given for faculty achievement in the University of Maryland system. To increase diversity at Pitt, she will draw upon her experience with the Meyerhoff program, in which she developed and led engineering workshops for the summer bridge program and received the Mentor of the Year Award.
Joseph McCarthy, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor in the Department, ended his current role as Vice Chair for Education to become the University of Pittsburgh Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies this summer.
Since joining Pitt, Dr. Bayles has incorporated a hands-on design project in the CHE 0100 course, which was to design, build, test, and analyze a hemodialysis system. She serves as the faculty advisor of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) student chapter and the ChemE Car team. Dr. Bayles also serves as Chair of the Education Division of AIChE and the Publications Board of Chemical Engineering Education.
As Vice Chair for Undergraduate Education, Dr. Bayles will be responsible for the academic experience of students through the Pillars program, a National Science Foundation-funded grant designed to reform the undergraduate Chemical Engineering curriculum at Pitt. Her focus will be on increasing diversity, inclusion, and student satisfaction. Dr. Parker served as the Department’s graduate program coordinator from 2006 – 2012. He will be responsible for building the graduate program quality and diversity, with a focus on engaging the post-graduate community.
About Dr. Bayles Prior to joining Pitt, Dr. Bayles was the Undergraduate Program Director in Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Under her leadership, the program enrollment more than quadrupled and the percentage of female and underrepresented minority students increased. She has served as the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on $6.6 million in NSF awards that focus on support and mentoring for undergraduate students, outreach, and hands-on design experiences. She has developed and led more than 100 workshops with more than 5,000 participants for K-12 students, K-12 teachers, college students, and faculty members. Dr. Bayles was awarded the University System of Maryland Regents Award for Collaboration in Public Service and the University System of Maryland Regents Award for Excellence in Mentoring. These are the highest awards
About Dr. Parker Dr. Parker joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2000 and was promoted to Professor in 2014. His research program focuses on systems medicine and the use of mathematical models in the design of clinical decision support systems. He has been recognized for excellence in education through awards such as the Carnegie Science Center Excellence in Higher Education Award, the David L. Himmelblau Award from the Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division of AIChE, and most recently the 2017 Swanson School of Engineering Outstanding Educator Award. His commitment to a collaborative future in graduate education formed the basis of two funded Department of Education Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) training programs, as well as the Systems Medicine Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. In addition to developing graduate-level training programs to support PhD students, Dr. Parker will lead graduate admissions, manage PhD timelines including qualifying examinations, support graduate recruiting, work with the Swanson School Office of Diversity to continue building a diverse graduate program, serve as the faculty advisor of the Department’s Graduate Student Association, and manage faculty teaching assignments.
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After Two Decades as Dean, Gerald Holder Returns to ChemE Faculty
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arking the culmination of more than two decades of dynamic leadership, Gerald D. Holder, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering, has announced his intention to step down from his position to return to the faculty in the fall of 2018. Dr. Holder, Distinguished Service Professor of chemical engineering, has been dean of the Swanson School since 1996 and a member of its faculty since 1979. “Two words come to mind when I look back on Jerry’s incredible career as dean of our Swanson School of Engineering: tremendous growth,” said Chancellor Patrick Gallagher. “Under Jerry’s leadership, our Swanson School has seen record enrollment levels, and total giving to the school has topped $250 million.
“The school has also expanded academically to support new knowledge in areas like energy and sustainability – and also new partnerships, including a joint engineering program with China’s Sichuan University. And while I will certainly miss Jerry’s many contributions as dean, I am grateful that he will remain an active faculty member and continue to strengthen our Swanson School’s bright future,” Chancellor Gallagher said. “Through a focus on innovation and excellence, Dean Holder has led a transformation of the Swanson School of Engineering into a leader in engineering research and education,” said Patricia E. Beeson, provost and senior vice chancellor. “From the establishment of the now top-ranked Department of Bioengineering to the integrated first-year curriculum that has become a national model, the Swanson School has been a change maker.”
UNI VE RSI T Y OF PI T T S B U R G H | S WA N S O N S C H O O L O F EN G I N EER I N G | C H EM E N EW S | FA L L 2017