Please join the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) in welcoming their newest faculty members: Dr. Whitney Blocher McTigue as Assistant Professor and Dr. Joseph Menicucci as Associate Teaching Professor and Associate Department Chair.
These faculty bring new expertise, new ideas, and new perspectives to the research and education missions of the ChBE department at Lehigh.
Professor Blocher McTigue comes to Lehigh from a Postdoctoral Researcher position in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering with Great Distinction and Minor in Mathematics from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY in May 2015. In September 2020, she completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Chemical Engineering with a Certificate in Soft Materials for Life Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA. Her resume includes an extensive list of publications, presentations, research proposals, honors, and teaching experiences; while her research focuses on using charged polymer moieties to solve real-world problems. The work from her PhD utilized complex coacervation, which is a liquid-liquid phase separation phenomenon, to encapsulate and thermally stabilize biomacromolecules.
She won the best PhD dissertation award from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2020 and her 2020 paper titled “Thermostabilization of Viruses via Complex Coacervation” was highlighted in the journal Biomaterials Science “Most Popular 2020".
Dr. Menicucci comes to Lehigh having previously served as a teaching faculty member at his alma mater, Montana State University. There he completed three degrees, B.S., M.S., and Ph.D, all in Chemical/Biological Engineering. His career has provided him with vast experience in chemical engineering education in a university setting, with a strong record of course and curriculum development, innovative instructional technology implementation, and academic management and advising.In 2018, Dr. Menicucci was awarded an Excellence in Teaching Award in the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering at Montana State and was honored in 2021 as a Spirit of Discovery Award winner by the Montana State University Honors College. He was one of five faculty members in the School of Engineering at Nazarbayev University (NU) in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan upon opening in 2011, and Vice-chair of the inaugural NU faculty senate. Most recently, he was awarded the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering Excellence in Advising Award in 2022. While he continues to have an immense resume with a multitude of accomplishments, he is especially proud of his collaborations with former students.
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