Lehigh’s Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Association (ChEGA) will host its fifth annual Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Graduate Symposium on Friday, September 27, at Ben Franklin TechVentures on the Mountaintop Campus.
“The university’s doctoral program in chemical engineering dates back to 1938 and continues today with a vibrant and globally recognized research program,” says Mayuresh Kothare, department chair and R. L. McCann Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “Graduate research and the graduate student body in our department are at the heart of our intellectual footprint of research, innovation, and discovery.”
Industry representatives from companies such as Polysciences, Regeneron, Merck, Suez, Air Products, Solvay, Corteva, and Evonik are scheduled to attend the full-day event (8:30 am to 4:30 pm), which includes multiple poster sessions and student-led talks on a variety of research topics.
“We hope to be able to showcase the best research coming out of our department in this symposium,” adds Kothare, “while recognizing the outstanding organizational and leadership skills demonstrated by ChEGA in putting together a stimulating program."
Andrew L. Zydney, Bayard D. Kunkle Chair and Professor of Chemical Engineering at Penn State, will deliver the keynote presentation on “Purification of Plasmid DNA for Gene Therapy and Vaccines—New Opportunities for Membrane Technology.” Zydney is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Membrane Science and serves as director of the Penn State Center of Excellence in Industrial Biotechnology. His research focuses on the application of membranes in bioprocessing, including the purification of monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, and gene therapy agents.
The following graduate students will give talks on their research:
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Justin Nice, “Outer Membrane Vesicles are an Important Toxin Carrier for Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria”
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Benjamin Moskowitz, “Structure-Activity Relationships in the Conversion of Ethanol to 1,3-Butadiene over Supported ZnO/ZrO2/SiO2 Catalysts”
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Nichole Moyle, “Enhancement of Elastohydrodynamic Friction from Elastic Hysteresis in a Periodic Structure”
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Ann Maula “Design Guidelines for the Creation of Building Blocks that can membSelf-assemble into Ordered Heteroporous Structures”
