Graduate student Anisha Chakrabarti '17 Ph.D. was awarded Best Poster Presentation at the 2017 Annual Graduate Student Poster Competition held by the Catalysis Club of Philadelphia in November.

Over 30 graduate students participated in the competition, representing research from University of Delaware, University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University in addition to Lehigh University. Other students from Lehigh’s chemical and biomolecular engineering department were Christopher Curran, Benjamin Moskowitz, Jeff Lai, Sagar Sourav and Lohit Sharma.

Chakrabarti's advisor is Israel E. Wachs, who founded a world-class catalysis laboratory at Lehigh. Chakrabarti's winning poster, "Molecular Structure-Reactivity Relationships for Olefin Metathesis by Al2O3-Supported Surface MoOx Sites," presented work that the pair had published in ACS Catalysis in December.

The Catalysis Club, established in 1949, aims to foster discussion of worthy advances in the fields of catalysis and reaction mechanisms in chemistry.

As part of the best presentation award, Chakrabarti will be invited to present her work at the club's annual symposium in May.

Story by Mary Anne Lynch '16G