Author: Brazel, Chris

Alumni Newsletter, Fall 2015

Greetings … from the Department Head
Alumni: it’s been a while since we’ve sent out a newsletter, and it’s been an eventful few years. Here, you’ll see some of the recent activities going on in Chemical and Biological Engineering at UA. I invite you to connect with the department– please visit when you have the opportunity to return to Tuscaloosa, consider volunteering to help with AIChE events, work to convince your employer to put Alabama on the map for UA recruiting and co-op or internship opportunities, and let us know what you’ve been up to!
Roll Tide!
Christopher Brazel,
Interim Department Head
CBrazel@eng.ua.edu

About ChBE at UA in 2015 . . .
957 undergraduate students (a new record!). The graduating class from Aug 2014 to May 2015 was 111, and there are around 170 seniors set for 2015-16. The substantial growth of our undergraduate program puts UA ChBE as #3 in the U.S. for students enrolled. (see graph at left)
28 graduate students (M.S., Ph.D., and scholars students)
17 full-time professors and instructors
Student population: 65 % honors, 40.3 % female and 12 % minority
2015 ChBE Freshman: Avg ACT = 31.0; HS GPA = 4.09; 62% out of state
#1 International program at UA: more ChBE students travel abroad while at UA than even the international studies department!
Since 2005, UA ChBE students have won 9 Goldwater Awards, 6 Hollings scholarships, 1 Truman Award, and more than 10 have been named Outstanding Graduating Senior by the National Alumni Association.

Faculty and Staff News
New Faculty and Staff Join UA ChBE
Ryan Summers, Ph.D.
joined July 2014; metabolic
engineering, fermentations
Qing Peng, Ph.D.
joined January 2015; surface
engineering, sustainable energy
Shreyas Rao, Ph.D.
joined August 2015; tissue engineering, tumor microenvironment
Also, Sadeddin Kherfan joined ChBE in August 2014 as an instructor, and Qiang Huang, Ph.D., will be joining the faculty in January 2016 from IBM.

Eric Carlson retires
Dr. Carlson retired from UA in May 2015. He is currently using his skills as a consultant to the oil and gas industry.
Heath Turner takes sabbatical at Vanderbilt
Dr. Turner is spending Fall 2015 and Spring 2016 in Nashville. He is working with Dr. Peter Cummings as part of the Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures and Transport Energy Frontier Center. We look forward to his return to UA next fall.
Jason Bara wins AIChE Separations Research Award
Dr. Bara was announced as the winner of the FRI/John Kunesh Award of the Separations Division of AIChE. He will give an award address and receive the award at the National AIChE meeting in Salt Lake City in November (uanews.ua.edu).

UA ChBE goes International
UA Students Study Abroad
Summer lab in Europe? You bet! UA ChBE has embarked on international opportunities that include a European take on unit operations lab. Led by Dr. Turner and Dr. Bara, 34 students took part in summer lab in Denmark and Vienna, Austria, in 2015, vaulting UA ChBE to the top of the chart in UA students studying abroad. For 2016, we plan to expand the lab opportunities to London! We have also developed an exchange with University College in Dublin, Ireland, covering the spring semester.
International Undergraduate Students Study at UA
UA participates in the Brazilian Scientific Mobility Program, which sent 26 ChE undergraduate students from all over Brazil to spend 1 year in Tuscaloosa in 2015. If you hear a foreign language around the Engineering buildings at UA, it’s probably Portuguese!

James Hill retiring; hanging up the white hard hat!
Mr. James Hill, the longtime mechanician in ChBE, is well-known to any student who has passed through lab in chemical engineering since 1985. After 30 years of service, he will be retiring in December.
Help us celebrate his upcoming retirement:
If you are near Tuscaloosa, join us for a retirement party on Friday, December 4 (send an e-mail to UAChBEAlumni@eng.ua.edu and ask us to put you on the invite list! … or, better yet,
Help us celebrate James Hill’s impact on countless ChBE students and alumni by SHARING YOUR LAB MEMORIES! Send your stories of ChE lab and your well-wishes for James, and we will include all of them in a memory book that includes pictures of all of the lab classes he has been involved with, dating to 1985. We will present the book to James in December. Be sure to include your lab class (Summer 1994, Fall 2014, etc.) and your graduating class! Send your note to UAChBEAlumni@eng.ua.edu by October 31 so that your sentiments (even if they aren’t about lab) are included! To reminisce about summer lab days, see the photos on http://jhill.eng.ua.edu.
Consider giving to the ChBE department fund. Donations received through Nov. 15 will be combined as a fund in honor of James Hill. To donate on-line, go to giving.ua.edu and select College of Engineering in the first drop-down menu, then Chemical and Biological Engineering in the second drop-down menu. You can also send a check to the department (address below). Don’t forget company matching, if applicable.

Visit UA ChBE
With growth and new buildings, UA ChBE has many changes which will be obvious when you step on campus next time. Faculty are in buildings surrounding the Shelby Engineering and Science Quad (pictured above). The main office is in 360 HM Comer (aka MIB).

CONNECT WITH UA ChBE
Let us know what you are up to! Career News, family news… send us an e-mail to UAChBEAlumni@eng.ua.edu!
Get Involved with AIChE
AIChE is hosting the Southern Regional Student Conference in 2016, and needs judges for research posters! Interested in speaking at an AIChE student meeting? Hosting a plant tour? In town for the Tennessee game? Stop by our tailgate on the quad. E-mail us and we’ll make the connection.
Donate to UA ChBE to help the next class of students on the way to an exciting career path! Visit giving.ua.edu.

AIChE students win spirit award at Chem-E-Car competition in Tampa

Box 870203
Chemical and Biological Engineering
The University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0203
(205) 348-6450
Twitter: @UAChBE