Faculty

ChBE Professor Charlie Nuttelman wins university-wide award for passionate, engaging teaching

Anonymous — Mon, 01 May 2023 17:12:38 +0000

ChBE Professor Charlie Nuttelman wins university-wide award for passionate, engaging teaching Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/01/2023 - 11:12

Susan Glairon

“I am a lifelong learner, so teaching is the perfect career for me,” said Teaching Professor Charlie Nuttelman, who has taught 18 different chemical and biological engineering classes at ��񱦵� since 2007. “Because when you teach something, you have to master it.” Nuttelman is pictured with his wife, Ella, and son, Logan, on top of Cirque Peak in the Canadian Rockies. Photo credit: Kate McNerny.

He cares deeply about his students. He constantly grasps students’ attention during class. He meets with students outside of office hours to ensure everyone gets all the help they need. He is one of the best professors I have had in Chemical and Biological Engineering. I truly feel lucky to have been able to take his courses and learn from him.

These are just a few of the many accolades from undergraduate students who have taken Teaching Professor Charlie Nuttelman’s classes.

Nuttelman recently won the Boulder Faculty Assembly Excellence in Teaching Award for his work as a ��񱦵� professor and as a developer of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). The university-wide award, given to only three faculty members each year, recognizes the importance of teaching and mentoring students as significant components of faculty duties.

“This award means a lot to me,” said Nuttelman, who has been teaching at ��񱦵� since 2007 and has since then won the ChBE Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Faculty Award multiple times. “As a ��񱦵� student, I would look at the teaching awards on the second floor wall of Norlin Library, and I would think, ‘Whoa, those people are pretty important. They have a big impact on students.’ And now I am among them.”

While Nuttelman’s classes cover topics that are not always the most exciting — such as Applied Data Analysis, Introduction to Engineering Computing, and Applied Data Instrumentation and Process Controls — his passion for the subjects and teaching shines through, generating a profound enthusiasm for students to learn.

Sam Burke-Bevis, a CBEN senior, says Nuttelman is excited about some of the most mundane topics in engineering, such as Excel shortcuts.

"He comes to class on time, learns his students names and shows actual excitement to teach the material, Burke-Bevis said. "I can't stress enough how much easier it is to learn a topic when the professor is happy to be there.”

To help students succeed and long before it was common to do so, Nuttelman created screencasts (short videos) of the material he taught. He later pioneered embedding in-video questions using PlayPosit (a tool that lets teachers create and edit interactive video assessments) to create “learning modules” that help students maintain focus. To date he has created hundreds of learning modules for multiple classes.

“These learning modules are a student favorite as they are short, cover the right material and are funny with added jokes throughout,” said Teaching Professor and ChBE Associate Chair Wendy Young. “Students consistently comment on how he makes the difficult material approachable and fun.”

Students can rewatch the screencasts, so they have multiple chances to get the answers right. “Everyone gets a 10 out of 10 if they put the work into it,” Nuttelman said.

Nuttelman also created online versions of Introduction to Engineering Computing (CHEN 1310) and Applied Data Analysis (CHEN 3010).

In response to students expressing difficulties in remembering material between semesters and especially over the summers, Nuttelman created a “booster” course for Material and Energy Balances (CHEN 2120), which include screencasts with in-video questions aimed at reviewing and refreshing prerequisite knowledge among the students. Comparing student performance with past years, Nuttelman found that his booster course led to improved learning and retention of knowledge.

“I have really appreciated the clarity of his teaching style — specifically his notes format, writing directly on the slides and having us work through in-class problems,” said Patricia Mendoza-Anselmi, a CBEN senior. “His screencasts my freshman year were super helpful during recitation and for completing homeworks. My favorite class thus far has been instrumentation and process control because Dr. Nuttelman has done a great job connecting what we're learning and applying it to the real world.”

Burke-Bevis added that Nuttelman’s respectful attitude towards his students has had a significant impact on his personal work ethic.

“He treats us like students who have completed an extremely difficult degree,” he said. “Being treated with respect makes you want to attend class and pay attention to return that respect.”

Known for making difficult material approachable and fun, ChBE Teaching Professor Charlie Nuttelman recently won the university-wide Boulder Faculty Assembly Excellence in Teaching Award. The award also recognizes his highly successful Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), soon to surpass 500,000 learners.

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Fighting “the bends”: Shields receives Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award for decompression sickness study

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Fighting “the bends”: Shields receives Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award for decompression sickness study Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/07/2022 - 00:00

Jonathan Raab

Shields

Assistant Professor C. Wyatt Shields IV is a recipient of a 2022 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program Award for his proposal “Mapping Immune Cell Responses to High Pressures in Decompression Illness.” He is among 32 researchers nationwide selected to receive funding for conducting “innovative scientific research that will benefit the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps” according to the ONR.

The U.S. Navy has an ongoing interest in studying decompression sickness, which is often referred to as “the bends.” Shields and his group seek to understand how immune cells in human lungs respond to extreme diving conditions to learn more about the origins of this affliction.

“As divers descend, increased gas pressure within the lungs leads to increased dissolved oxygen and nitrogen in the bloodstream, affecting the biochemistry of alveolar cells,” Shields said. “Our research aims to understand how alveolar immune cells respond to extreme environmental factors associated with deep sea diving as a step toward discovering the potential etiology of decompression sickness.”

The lab group is currently developing a “lung-on-a-chip" device as a model system that replicates the physiological conditions of human lungs experiencing high pressure loads. This work requires cross-disciplinary collaboration with human health researchers, including Professor Ivana Yang at CU Anschutz, who will help identify genes that regulate cellular responses to these environmental factors through epigenomic and transcriptomic screens on monocytes.

The first phase of research is devoted to building the lung-on-a-chip devices, with initial results expected by the second year of the three-year project.

NSF CAREER Award winner

Shields recently received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his research into biosensing, which is part of his outreach and mentorship program at Northglenn High School.

Assistant Professor C. Wyatt Shields IV is the recipient of a 2022 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program Award for his proposal “Mapping Immune Cell Responses to High Pressures in Decompression Illness.”

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Senior capstone design course marks 25 years of real-world problem solving with industry partners

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Senior capstone design course marks 25 years of real-world problem solving with industry partners Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 02/28/2022 - 00:00

Jonathan Raab

Chris Stanton, Sara Horton and Sherri Zeller presented their findings from the 1999 course.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the revamped and retooled Chemical Engineering Design Project course — a class (re)designed to provide seniors with practical problem-solving experience and foster stronger ties to industry.

Industry liaisons — often department alumni — work with seniors on chemical process, design and economic analysis in the context of real-world projects. Students provide bi-weekly letter reports, two midterm oral presentations, a final 45-minute presentation at the liaison’s facility and a written final design report based on their experience.

“When we started, the course was in disarray and many students were apparently complaining – enough that the external advisory committee recommended that the department do an about-face and move away from the standard AIChE capstone problem,” Melvin E. and Virginia M. Clark Professor Alan Weimer said. “They recommended bringing in industry projects. In all honesty, this had a lot to do with hiring me on as a professor after I spent 16 years in industry.”

Weimer — who still teaches the course — saw an opportunity to modify the existing class, opting to connect students with industry professionals and to provide assignments that would lead to real-world outcomes that students could draw upon in job interviews. Since the course’s conversion to an industry-facing model, over 100 organizations have participated, including private companies and government laboratories.

“We were the first department in the college to use external liaisons and industry projects, providing students with relevant learning opportunities,” Weimer said. “Most of the industry liaisons are now past students. It was difficult getting started in 1997, but now we routinely have alumni volunteering to give back to the department and to be involved in our students' education. We have had as many as 35 different projects in one semester.”

New vision, new opportunities (and new software)

The first industry liaison, Dena Lund (ChemEngr’89), now the president of Anvil Corporation, collaborated with Professor Weimer in the spring 1997 course. Lund recalled her own senior design project as a difficult, confusing experience. When Weimer approached her to develop a new, industry-focused, project-based approach, she was excited to participate.

Weimer had recently received brand-new, Windows-based thermodynamic modeling software, which he had laying around his office. Lund had a burst of inspiration.

“’How about if I design a project around the software and a couple of student teams can learn how to use it and make a recommendation back to the department on its value?’” she asked. Weimer approved the idea, and the student recommendations led to the department adopting the software.

“Seeing students work in teams on real-life projects with industry professionals is energizing,” Lund said of her time as a liaison. “They get to be creative, apply all their skills, collaborate and gain experience with real-world work. The presentation sessions prepare them to showcase their efforts and respond to live questions. The other students get exposure to all the different projects and learn about a variety of engineering applications.”

Because Lund has such confidence in the course’s efficacy, she has sought out and hired several department graduates who have completed the class.

“By the time these students graduate, they are prepared to contribute,” she said.

Lund’s involvement with the program was her way of giving back.

“I was an engineer because of the department, and I have enjoyed a successful career and raised a family,” she said. “Helping students with that extra effort, by being a liaison and giving some guidance and reinforcement of skills was my way of helping students transition to a career in engineering in a way that was better than my experience.”

Megan Glenn and Sarah Spaustat during student presentations for the 2000 course sponsored by Roche Colorado.

Course graduates to industry liaisons

Ann Colwell (ChemEngr’97) is a former student who transitioned to industry partner. She now works as a venture executive at ExxonMobil.

“Over the course of my career, the tools and valuable insights that I was able to develop through this course provided me the foundation for success and a passion to stay involved as an industry project sponsor,” Colwell said. “While engineering students go on to many different types of careers, it is inspiring to see the students innovate solutions that exceed the design basis for their projects, including opportunities to apply concepts for safety and energy efficiency.”

Colwell said that within the course’s project teams, she sees emerging engineers developing an attention for detail and a desire to test boundaries in a process that connects them to the industries of which they will soon be a part.

"Courses like the senior capstone design class provide a foundation that ensures the students entering our industries today are equipped to transform and evolve sustainable energy solutions for the next 100 years,” she said.

Bill Perry (ChemEngr’98) is the owner and operator of Myrmix Pharma Solutions. Perry completed the course as a student and returned to teach a section after extensive project management experience in industry.

“Every year, I am impressed by the students’ ability to prepare effective slides and present in a clean, polished manner,” Perry said. “Their presentation skills reflect the experiences they have had not only in the senior design course, but throughout the department’s curriculum.”

Perry said one of the course's strengths is how it encourages students to make critical decisions on whether or how to limit the scope of their projects.

“Deciding where to make simplifying assumptions and where to dive deeply into a technical assessment is a real-life challenge they will face in their careers as engineers,” he said. “This is the most valuable project management skill the students learn from the senior design course.”

Jake Carrier (ChemEngr’13) is a senior process engineer at DCP Midstream.

John Ritchie, John Brown and Melissa Haugum from the course in April of 2001.

“The course exposed me to real-world design considerations and made the academic concepts less abstract,” Carrier said. “Through the networking opportunities afforded by the course, I was able to get my first job in consulting, which was a career path I had no knowledge of and had not considered. This ended up being a great jumping off point for me that could not have happened without this course.”

As a liaison for the course on behalf of DCP Midstream, Carrier gets to provide industry connections and mentorship to current students.

“Engineering is an apprenticeship, and my goal is to provide the students with some of the skills needed to transfer their academic knowledge into the practical,” he said. “In an increasingly lean profession, it is incredibly important to provide this mentorship to young engineers to ensure that the knowledge gained over many years is not lost.”

Carrier’s focus is on helping students break complex problems down to first principles of chemical engineering, encouraging creativity and cleverness in how they approach their projects.

“Congratulations to Professor Weimer on 25 years of helping to better prepare young engineers for a career in industry,” Carrier said. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without your help and guidance – truly.”

Tunkie Saunders (ChemBioEngr’18) is a senior chemical engineering manager at Redwood Materials.

“Senior design was fundamental to my growth and career trajectory as an engineer,” Saunders said. “Before the class, chemical engineering was a collection of theories and textbook problems. Going through the class ties the curriculum together.”

Saunders said that practical problems — the design of a plant or a new process, for example — forces students to deal with real-world design implications.

“The hardest engineering decisions take place at a higher level, where the interconnectedness of a unit operation, plant and the world around us takes shape,” he said. “The open-ended nature of the class is a significant shift from solving textbook problems, where only one answer exists and is the sole source of truth. You are now pitted against the unknown and must integrate creativity, decision-making and all you’ve learned.”

After Saunders completed the course at the end of his senior year, he found himself with a stark choice: join an established company or a startup.

“Thanks to senior design, I knew I had the foundation to make the jump and join a startup, where dealing with open-endedness and fast timelines is part of the job,” he said.

Adriana Robinson (ChemEngr'21) is an associate process design engineer with Chevron's TEMA Branch.

"Professor Weimer's senior design capstone class allowed me to network with a great company, learn directly from industry professionals and get exposure to design topics that I hadn't had much experience with in my classes," Robinson said.

"It challenged me to gain new skills, learn how to align with client-company expectations and lead a team successfully from project start to completion — something that has prepared me to face my new career path with confidence."

Alison Peters (ChemBioEngr’21) is a research associate at KBI Biopharma, Inc. Peters said that alongside internships, the Chemical Engineering Design Project course is the best way for students to gain perspective and experience on industry.

Professor Weimer

“The soft skills I picked up in the class have proven to be invaluable,” Peters said. “In my role as a research associate for a contract pharmaceutical lab, my daily tasks involve performing independent research, collaborating with teammates, seeking advice from supervisors, presenting progress to clients and writing and reviewing technical reports. Design was intentionally set up to give students real-life experience performing these kinds of tasks in cooperation with real-life chemical engineering companies, while reinforcing the chemical engineering curriculum.”

Peters said that her course experiences were invaluable in job interviews and helped prepare her for her first industry position.

“When I was asked to provide the department with feedback to improve the course, my only answer was: ‘I wish courses like this were available to underclassmen, too!'”

"I want to thank all of the hundreds of liaisons who have given their time over these 25 years to a unique capstone experience for our students," Weimer said. "The development of this course required getting over a high activation energy back in 1997, but it was well worth it as I see these graduates leave with valuable professional skills. I know that they put in an incredible amount of work and I am really proud of what they achieve.”

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McGehee and Toney recognized as highly cited researchers

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 17:22:44 +0000

McGehee and Toney recognized as highly cited researchers Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/22/2021 - 10:22

Jonathan Raab

Two faculty from ChBE were recognized at highly cited researchers for 2021.

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Faculty collaboration earns $2M NSF award for post-consumer plastic waste research

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 16:09:19 +0000

Faculty collaboration earns $2M NSF award for post-consumer plastic waste research Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/25/2021 - 10:09

Jonathan Raab

Single use plastics represent an environmental challenge that researchers at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering hope to address.

The proliferation of plastic products has created an environmental challenge: what should be done with unusable, discarded plastic waste that can harm the environment? Faculty from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering are working on a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project, Hydrogenolysis for Upcycling of Polyesters and Mixed Plastics, to address this serious environmental issue.

Denver Business Challenge Endowed Professor Will Medlin, James and Catherine Patten Endowed Professor Ryan Hayward, Assistant Professor Kayla Sprenger, Professor Michael Toney and their respective groups are collaborating on this project, which the NSF is funding through a $2 million grant.

“Figuring out how to deal with post-consumer plastic waste is a major societal problem,” Medlin said. “We were all independently interested in working on this problem, but were approaching it from different angles. Ryan is an expert on how plastics are formed and could be degraded, Mike is an expert on developing experimental tools to understand the interfaces between materials that arise in chemical upcycling of plastics, Kayla is an expert on computational modeling studies of similar interfaces and my group works on catalysts for depolymerization.”

Given the complexity of the problem, the researchers decided to combine their diverse yet complementary approaches to address problems in chemical upcycling. The Medlin group has been working on the conversion of biomass-derived polymers to renewable products for the last several years.

“Although plant-made polymers are certainly different from man-made plastics, some of the essential catalyst processes are quite similar,” Medlin said. “You’re trying to break apart a macromolecule into specific units that can be made into useful products. Extending our work to plastics upcycling made sense based on the group's general focus, and students are highly motivated to work on this critical environmental problem.”

The Hayward group will work on characterizing how the polymers in question are catalytically deconstructed — specifically how the polymers interact with the catalyst support surfaces and how the polymer chain lengths evolve as the reactions proceed.

“Enabling a shift to a more sustainable use of polymers, where the vast majority are recycled or converted to higher value products rather than being discarded after a single use is one of the most important challenges facing materials scientists today,” Hayward said. “We were very excited about the opportunity to join this team and to be able to work towards a very promising route toward deconstructing polymers into high value products.”

Toney said that his group will contribute research that focuses on the interfacial interactions between the catalyst, support and polymers as they react. This will require the development of new 'operando' experimental tools to observe the reactions in real-time.

“My research is largely motivated by helping to solve the sustainability challenges facing humanity by helping to develop new materials and processes,” Toney said. “Eliminating plastic waste is one such challenge perhaps most popularly seen by reports of ‘The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.’ This is my first research effort aimed at helping the team develop more effective methods to eliminate plastic waste.”

Medlin also credited Adjoint Professor Gregg Beckham as being a key part of the team. Beckham, who also works at NREL, will be contributing his expertise in plastics upcycling and conducting technoeconomic analyses of the processes the collaboration develops. Professor Andreas Heyden from the University of South Carolina will also conduct quantum mechanical simulations to understand the atomic-scale interactions between plastics and active catalysts, which will complement the Sprenger group’s efforts.

This grant was funded through the NSF Directorate for Engineering’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program.

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Kaar joins team using NSF grant to develop "on-demand, on-site" mRNA creation

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 19:43:41 +0000

Kaar joins team using NSF grant to develop "on-demand, on-site" mRNA creation Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/21/2021 - 13:43

Jonathan Raab

COVID-19 vaccines are just the beginning for mRNA-based therapies; enabling a patient’s body to make almost any given protein could revolutionize care for other viruses, like HIV, as well as various cancers and genetic disorders. However, because mRNA molecules are very fragile, they require extremely low temperatures for storage and transportation. The logistical challenges and expense of maintaining these temperatures must be overcome before mRNA therapies can become truly widespread.

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Alumnus Burdick to join faculty as Bowman Endowed Professor

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 18:11:17 +0000

Alumnus Burdick to join faculty as Bowman Endowed Professor Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/20/2021 - 12:11

Jonathan Raab

Bowman Endowed Professor Jason Burdick

Alumnus Jason Burdick (PhDChemEngr’02) will return as faculty early next year, becoming the first Bowman Endowed Professor.

“I have great memories from my time as a graduate student at ��񱦵�, from interactions with my peers and mentors to exploring the Rocky Mountains,” Burdick said. “I learned to be a researcher here and found my passion for mentoring students. It is really fantastic to be returning.”

While earning his PhD, Burdick studied under Distinguished Professor Kristi Anseth. He has since kept in contact with his former mentor, as well as with faculty who provided support and guidance to him, including Professor Stephanie Bryant and Distinguished Professor Christopher Bowman.

“Kristi has remained a fantastic mentor during my years at the University of Pennsylvania and we have kept in touch about potential opportunities back in Boulder,” Burdick said. “It has been really great to follow the developments at ��񱦵� in the last decade, including the hiring of many great faculty and the initiation of new programs and infrastructure such as the BioFrontiers Institute and connections to the CU Anschutz campus.”

As the first Bowman Endowed Professor, Burdick’s hire was made possible through the establishment of the Barbara, Cheryl and Clair Bowman Endowment. Professor Bowman, ��񱦵� and the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering formed the endowment through a portion of their shared royalties from a polymeric dental technology patent licensed to 3M.

“The Bowman Endowment was established to enable us to bring world-class educators and researchers like Jason here to ��񱦵�,” said Department Chair and Professor Will Medlin. “The fact that Jason is an alumnus with a longstanding and deep connection to the department makes him an especially fitting holder of the Bowman Professorship, which was so generously funded by the Bowman family. The endowment will bring immediate and long-term positive impacts for our students and faculty alike.”

Burdick’s primary research field is biomaterials, which his group designs for therapeutic applications or as tissue models to better understand biological questions and for the screening of new drugs.

“We apply the fundamentals of materials science to design biomaterials with new properties,” Burdick said. “We are very interested in the translation of technology developed in the laboratory into new products, including therapeutic biomaterials.”

His research group has focused on biofabrication — 3D bioprinting — in recent years, he said. They have been using automated tools to process biomaterials and cells into desired configurations.

Burdick will primarily work within the BioFrontiers Institute and is also exploring opportunities with the Materials Science and Engineering Program for student recruitment and research opportunities.

When he begins at ��񱦵� in January 2022, Burdick hopes to recruit graduate students who are excited about leveraging innovative materials design for the development of new materials for medicine.

“Students may come from scientific backgrounds that range from materials science to chemical engineering to biology,” he said. “I am very interested in recruiting a diverse laboratory where our differences — gender, ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation — are embraced and encouraged to make our science even better.”

With family in the surrounding states, and the draw of Colorado’s ski season and hiking trails, Burdick is excited to be returning to Boulder and its namesake university.

“Although both have changed quite a bit since I was here as a graduate student, it feels like a bit of a homecoming,” he said. “I look forward to reconnecting with previous friends and colleagues and meeting many new faculty and students in the upcoming years.”

Alumnus Jason Burdick (PhDChemEngr’02) will return as faculty early next year, becoming the first Bowman Endowed Professor.

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In memoriam: Professor Emeritus Robert “Bob” Sani

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 15:54:42 +0000

In memoriam: Professor Emeritus Robert “Bob” Sani Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/01/2021 - 09:54

Jonathan Raab

Robert "Bob" Sani. Photograph courtesy the Sani family.

It is with great sadness that the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering community learned of the recent passing of Professor Emeritus Robert “Bob” Sani.

“Bob has left a lasting legacy in the chemical engineering field and in our department,” said Professor Will Medlin, chair of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. “His work in fluid mechanical simulations has been cited many thousands of times and continues to have an impact. More importantly, he was a beloved teacher and colleague in our department for decades and was a presence in the department long after he retired, regularly joining us for discussions up until just before the start of the pandemic.”

Sani served on the department faculty from 1976 to 2012, including his time as associate chair from 2007 to 2011. During his 36-year career at ��񱦵�, he taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate chemical engineering courses and was well known for his contributions to the junior and senior labs.

Sani’s research focused on a variety of challenging chemical engineering subjects, including computer-aided analysis of flow and transport in microgravity processing, mass transfer and shape change effects in electrochemical systems, applied mathematics and numerical methods and more. This resulted in three books and over 100 research publications.

Faculty and students who knew him said that his impact as an educator and mentor on his students was just as impressive as his research work.

"I have so many fond memories of Bob, including his love for free food and true, genuine care towards us students,” said Associate Professor Katie Dongmei Li-Oakey (PhD ChemEngr’03), now a faculty member at the University of Wyoming. “He told me once that he visited Beijing in the 80s and wandered into a local music store. He tried to communicate in English first, but the owner didn’t seem to understand him. Then, he tentatively used his somewhat rusty French and they were able to chat happily after."

The Sani family is arranging for a celebration of his life, which will take place in Boulder later this year.

Those wishing to honor Professor Sani's legacy can contribute to the Memorial Scholarship Fund.

It is with great sadness that the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering community learned of the recent passing of Professor Emeritus Robert “Bob” Sani.

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Heinz elected as Senior Editor for ACS journal Langmuir, Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 15:40:53 +0000

Heinz elected as Senior Editor for ACS journal Langmuir, Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/17/2021 - 09:40

Jonathan Raab

The June issue of Langmuir, the ACS journal of fundamental interface science

Associate Professor Hendrik Heinz earned two prestigious distinctions recently: his election to the Senior Editor position for the ACS journal Langmuir and as a Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM).

Langmuir, which is published by the American Chemical Society, is the leading chemistry journal focused on “the science and application of systems and materials in which the interface dominates structure and function.”

The journal publishes advances in established concepts as well as novel and emerging research directions. As Senior Editor, Heinz will work with the editorial staff to bring hundreds of manuscripts a year to publication. He will also recruit authors and develop lectures and symposia for the publication’s community of researchers.

Heinz hopes to highlight promising new areas of research, figuratively and geographically.

“An example of one such promising area is the chemistry of interfaces in cement and sustainable building materials, where we recently contributed an interesting perspective,” Heinz said. “One of my major goals for the journal is to raise its global impact, especially in Asia. At the heart of all our activities is relationship building and excellent service among the authors, referees and readers of Langmuir.”

Hendrik has previously served as an associate editor for the New Journal of Chemistry from 2017-2021 and for RSC Advances from 2015-2017.

Hendrik was also elected as a Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials, one of the highest honors afforded advanced materials researchers. Election as a Fellow of IAAM represents a member’s significant contributions to the field of advanced materials science, engineering and technology. Heinz delivered his IAAM Fellow Lecture in December.

“I was elected as a Fellow and invited for the Fellowship lecture to share our advances in precision modeling of biological and nanostructured materials from atoms to the micrometer scale,” Heinz said. “As a fun fact, I still do not know who organized the nomination for me! I had a similar experience when I was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016.”

Heinz points to the simulations he developed with his group to visualize and quantify molecular recognition and assembly of an expansive range of biomaterials and nanomaterials.

“We can consistently cover mixtures of compounds and nanostructures of diverse chemistry across the periodic table using these molecular dynamics simulations,” he said. “We also developed new chemical theory that has allowed us to unite force fields for inorganic compounds with those for organic and biomolecular compounds—which were previously separated—in a singular platform called the Interface Force Field. We also developed reliable parameters for many inorganic compounds that were unavailable previously.”

The methods Heinz describes have greatly increased the accuracy of computational predictions at a significantly reduced computational cost.

“We are the first group to develop and implement such a tool for molecular dynamics simulation, which is critical for computational chemistry and materials science going forward,” he said. “The Interface Force Field is used by academics, companies and government labs, and we are working on efficient ways of integration for the user community, new functionality and integration of data science methods.”

Associate Professor Hendrik Heinz earned two prestigious distinctions recently: his election to the Senior Editor position for the ACS journal Langmuir and as a Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM).

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