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| Home > Alumni News > Alumni Newsletter > Newsletter Fall 2005/Spring 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Student NewsStudet NewsAlan Bussard recently presented his work at the Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Symposium at the ACS National Meeting in Atlanta. This work is also published as a preprint: A.G. Bussard and K.M. Dooley, "Heterogeneous catalyzed polymer hydrogenation in an oscillating microreactor," Polymer Prepr. (ACS Div. Polymer Chem.), 47(1), 22 23 (2006). Bussard is a Ph.D. student conducting research under the supervision of Kerry Dooley. Shiju Thomas presented two posters at the 30th International Symposium on Combustion, held at the University of Illinois at Oxidation of Catechol [ortho-Dihydroxybenzene]" and "Oxidation of Catechol: Characterization of Decomposition Products". Thomas is a Ph.D. student researching under the supervision of Judy Wornat. Jiao Yang has published four papers in the past year: • J. Yang, B.J. McCoy and G. Madras, "Cluster Kinetics and Thermodynamics during Spinodal Decomposition," Journal of Chemical Physics, In Press • J. Yang, B.J. McCoy and G. Madras, "Nonisothermal Polymer Crystallization Kinetics," Journal of Physics Chemistry B, 109, 18550 (2005) • J. Yang, B.J. McCoy and G. Madras, "Temperature Effects for Isothermal Polymer Crystallization," Journal of Chemical Physics, 122, 244905 (2005) • J. Yang, B.J. McCoy and G. Madras, Distribution Kinetics of Polymer Crystallization and Avrami Equation," Journal of Chemical Physics, 122, 064901 (2005) He also has one in progress: J. Yang, B.J. McCoy and G. Madras, "The Application of Distribution Kinetics on the Crystallization of Polymer Blends," Journal of Physical Chemistry. Yang is a Ph.D. student conducting research under the supervision of Martin Hjortso. Qingzhong Yuan recently submitted a paper: Q.Z. Yuan, K.T. Valsaraj, D.D. Reible, and C.S. Willson. (2006), "Sediment and contaminant release during gas ebullition," Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, submitted. Yuan is a Ph.D. student researching under the supervision of Kalliat Valsaraj. Talks at the Spring 2006 Electrochemical Society Meeting, May 9-12, 2006: Yutong Li, Ruili Fan, M. Moldovan, P. Young, W. Wang, and E. J. Podlaha, "Electrodeposition of a Co/Cu Multilayered Microdevice," 209th Meeting of The Electrochemical Society, Denver, California, May 20, 2006. Alonso Lozano and E.J. Podlaha, "A Demonstration of Electrodeposited Nanocomposites using a Rotating Cylinder Hull Cell," 209th Meeting of The Electrochemical Society, Denver, California, May 10, 2006. Mayank Gupta and E.J. Podlaha, "Electrodeposition of CuNiW Multilayers for Fabrication of Nanomolds," 209th Meeting of The Electrochemical Society, Denver, California, May 10, 2006. AIChE News2005-06 Officers
During the 2005-06 academic year, the LSU AIChE Student Chapter participated in Super Science Saturday (SSS), which is an annual event held on LSU's campus and is geared towards elementary school children. The student chapter also attended the 2006 Southern Regional Conference in Starkville, Mississippi. At the conference Don Morris won first place in his session and second place overall for his research presentation, receiving cash awards of $600 and $450, respectively. The title of Morris' presentation was "Modeling Fluid Flow in Fractured Porous Media." According to Morris, his research deals with the building of a computer algorithm, which can simulate on the pore scale low Reynolds number flow through a fractured media such as a packed oil well fracture using basic fluid mechanics. Morris states that this kind of algorithm is noteworthy because it can do this with uneven boundary conditions and heterogeneity in packing. This is important because once it is completed it can give an actual picture of the fluid dynamics in any porous media or packed system. In addition, it has not been done before and may go a long way in determining the important factors in flow in these systems. Morris has been conducting his research under Karsten Thompson, as part of his senior research project. The student chapter also fared well in the ChemE Car poster competition, where the LSU team took third place. The LSU AIChE Student Chapter is supported through fundraising and donations. James Henry currently serves as faculty adviser. Student HighlightsPh.D. Student Receives Two Travel Awards to Attend International Symposium The Department would like to congratulate Michelle Somers, a Ph.D. student under the direction of Mary Wornat. Michelle has received two travel awards to attend the 31st Combustion Symposium which will be held in Heidelberg, Germany in August 2006. Michelle will be presenting a paper entitled "The Formation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons from the Supercritical Pyrolysis of 1-Methylnaphthalene" at the symposium. The first travel award is from the Combustion Institute, itself, in the amount of $70 0. The second, larger award is the James E. Peters Fellowship, from the Central States Section of the Combustion Institute. The fellowship is a competition for students who will be presenting work at the 31st Combustion Symposium. In order to apply for the fellowship, a student submits his/her paper, along with reviews and rebuttal as well as a letter of recommendation from the student's research advisor. Only one student is selected for the fellowship, which is in the amount of $1,500. The winner of the fellowship was announced at the Central States meeting, which was held in Cleveland, Ohio in May 2006. The paper authored by Michelle, Jennifer W. McClaine, and Wornat has been accepted by the 31st International Combustion Symposium and Michelle will present the paper in Heidelberg. Afterwards, it will be published in Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 31 (2006). Unlike most scientific research conferences, the International Combustion Symposium requires submission of a full journal-style article 8 months prior to the meeting, and these papers are fully peer-reviewed, with acceptance rates lower than most journals. This year only 42 % of the 1000 papers submitted were accepted, and only a minority of these are from graduate students. Therefore, congratulations are thus in order to Michelle for this stellar achievement. Two Graduate Students Receive Prestigious Research Grant The Department would like to congratulate both Alan Bussard and Rohit Mishra as both are recipients of the 2006-2008 Coates Research Grant. The Coates Research Grant is a two-year award of $5,000 per year, with second year funding contingent upon successful progress, documented in an annual report. Only four of these awards can be active at any one time. Alan's research focuses on understanding the relationship between the structure and composition of heterogeneous catalysts and their performance in novel reactors for the purposes of macromolecular hydrogenations. He is pursuing his Ph.D. under the direction of Kerry Dooley. The objective of Rohit's research is to electrodeposit rare earth-transition metal alloy thin films and nanostructures. These alloys have unique magnetic properties and find application in magnetic, magneto-optical, and sensing devices. For the first time, these alloys were deposited as nanowires and nanotubes and his continued study will address the electrodeposition mechanism as well as its properties. Rohit is pursuing his Ph.D. under the direction of Elizabeth Podlaha. These research grants are funded by the Charles E. Coates Memorial Fund, which was set up to support promising doctoral research by superior graduate students in the disciplines of chemical engineering, chemistry, or physics. Four types of awards are given through the Coates Memorial Fund: outstanding dissertation awards, conference travel awards, research travel grants, and the scholar research grants (described above). Undergraduate Receives Numerous Honors
Therefore, it is no surprise that Ryan is the recipient of the department's Jesse Coates Award for 2006. This award is given to the graduating senior exhibiting outstanding professional, campus, and community activities and is decided by a vote of the faculty. The award is given in the form of an engraved LSU watch and is funded by an endowment that was set up by the friends of Professor Coates upon his retirement. Among the activities that set Ryan above was his involvement in a very selective project organized by Shell Oil called the Gourami Business Challenge. Each summer, executives from Shell Oil gather exceptional collegiate scholars (this year 46) from universities across the nation to take part in the week-long challenge in which the students are formed into five teams with the task of solving complex, real-world challenges from the energy sector. Student Awards
John L. Burdick is the 2006 winner of the National AIChE Othmer Award, which is given to the person completing the sophomore year with the highest GPA. The award includes a certificate and a copy of Perry's Handbook. Alan Bussard, a graduate assistant for Kerry Dooley, won a prize for his poster, "Heterogeneous catalyzed polymer hydrogenation in an extruding reactor," at the 2006 Spring Symposium of the Southwest Catalysis Society. The $300 prize was sponsored by ExxonMobil Process Research. Matthew Coenen, a senior in chemical engineering and a native of Rayville, Louisiana, became LSU's first U.S. national champion of the millennium by capturing the 200-meter breaststroke at the U.S. Spring National Championships. The championships were held at the beginning of April at the Weyerhaeuser King Aquatic Center. Coenen was LSU's top breaststroker this season. Despina Davis, a Ph.D. student of Elizabeth Podlaha, received a 2nd place award for the Sigma Xi Technical Writing competition. Yutong Li, a Ph.D. student of Elizabeth Podlaha, received a travel award from the Electrochemical Society to present his research results at the 209th Meeting of the Electrochemical Society. Hongfei Lin, a 2005 Ph.D. graduate of Kalliat Valsaraj, received the Best Ph.D. Dissertation Award from the local Baton Rouge AIChE section. The award, a certificate and a $100 check, was presented at the Coates Award Banquet on May 18, 2006. Lin's dissertation was titled, "Photocatalysis in a Novel Semiconducting Optical Fiber Monolithic Reactor for Wastewater Treatment." James Michiels, a senior in chemical engineering, is one the winners of the Southwest Chemical Association Scholarship for 2006. This is a one-time, $5,000 award, and was presented to James at an award banquet held in August in Houston. Alonso Lozano Morales, a Ph.D. graduate assistant for Elizabeth Podlaha, received a student travel grant from the Electrochemical Society to attend the 208th Meeting of The Electrochemical Society (ECS) held in October 2005. His presentation was entitled, "Metal Matrix Nanocomposites as Thin Films and Microstructures from Basic Electrolytes,". The co-authors were Jill Fitzergald (B.S., 2004) and Lozano's advisor, Podlaha. Jorge Ona, a Ph.D. graduate assistant for Judy Wornat, received the Erich Clar Award for the best student presentation at the International Society of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons conference held in Toronto, Canada, in August of 2005. The presentation dealt with a reaction scheme that was proposed back in June 2005 to explain the formation of products during the supercritical pyrolysis of methylcyclohexane. Two undergraduate students received an AIChE Minority Scholarship for 2005-06. Anino Adokpaye and Judith A. Udeke were two of only eight students nationally to receive the scholarship this year. The scholarship is given to students based on their academic records and participation in AIChE student and professional activities. We congratulate both of them on this exemplary achievement. The following graduate students were awarded the Coates Travel Award during the academic year 2005-06: Lisa Brenskelle, a Ph.D. student for Martin Hjortso, presented the following paper at the 2005 AIChE Annual Meeting held in Cincinnati, Ohio, in November 2005: "Cluster-kinetics of pressure-induced glass formation." Young-Pyo Jeon, a Ph.D. graduate assistant for Martin Hjorsto, also presented a paper at the 2005 AIChE meeting. His dissertation research is in the area of distribution dynamics of complex systems. Yutong Li, a Ph.D. graduate assistant for Elizabeth Podlaha, presented at the 208th Meeting of The Electrochemical Society (ECS) held in Los Angeles in October. His oral presentation was entitled, "Electrodeposition of Co/Cu Multilayered Thin Films and Micro-posts." Rohit Mishra, another Ph.D. graduate assistant for Podlaha, presented a poster at the ECS meeting entitled, "Fabrication of Rare Earth-Transition Metal Alloy Nanowires and Nanotubes." Jiao Yang, another Ph.D. graduate assistant for Hjortso, presented at the 2005 AIChE meeting as well. His dissertation research deals with the kinetics of polymer crystallization. Wenli Zhang, a Ph.D. graduate assistant for Karsten Thompson, presented two papers at the AIChE meeting in 2005. The oral presentations were titled as follows: "Multiscale modeling of melt infiltration in random fibrous materials" and "Analysis of local and global structure during densification of non-spherical particulate materials." 2005-06 Scholarship RecipientsO. Dewitt Duncan Scholarship
Gerard Family Undergraduate Scholarlship
I.H. Gottlieb Memorial Scholarship Clara & Frank Groves, Sr. Undergraduate Scholarship
R.L. Hartman Scholarship Paul M. Horton Undergraduate Scholarship BP Amoco Scholarship Chevron/Texaco Chemical Engineering Scholarship
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![[New Chemical Engineering Building on the way - Fund-raising Campaign in motion]](../../images_main/new_che_building_150.jpg)
Ryan
David Fontenot, who graduated in May, garnered many awards
and honors during his time at LSU including Chancellor's Alumni
Scholar, Dow Outstanding Junior, Chancellor's Research Aide, Sophomore
Honors Distinction, and Mortar Board Top 10 Freshmen. He was selected
as the College of Engineering's Outstanding Junior in 2005 and was
named the college's Oustanding Senior for 2006. In addition, he
was a member of several organizations, including Tau Beta Pi, Gamma
Beta Phi, Omicron Delta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Golden Key, American
Institute of Chemical Engineers, Union Programming Council, and
LSU Honors College Advocates.
lsu.edu