The department had wonderful showings at both the AIChE Annual Student Conference and at the AIChE Annual Meeting.

AIChE Annual Student Conference, Oct. 31 – Nov.2

24 undergraduates traveled to Boston for the student conference, where they participated in professional development and leadership workshops and competed in various competitions. Our student AIChE chapter was recognized at the Student Awards Ceremony as a 2024-25 National Outstanding Chapter – this was the 30th Outstanding Chapter award in their history and the 27th award in the last 29 years!  Three other students were recognized at the Student Awards Ceremony:

• Emmy Shore won the Donald F. & Mildred Topp Othmer Scholarship for academic achievement and involvement in the student chapter.
• RJ Taylor received the Donald F. Othmer Sophomore Academic Excellence Award for the sophomore member of our student chapter with the highest GPA. 
• Jesse Mindel received the Freshman Recognition Award for an active freshman member of our chapter.

NC State had a team compete in the ChemE Car competition for the first time in twelve years, and big congratulations to Jesse Mendel for captaining the team!  We also had thirteen undergraduates enter the research poster competition, with eight winning awards:

• 1st Place – Lead Murad
  • Materials Engineering and Sciences VII; Liquid-Based Scalable Nanofabrication of Aerogels from Polymer Nanosheets; advised by Orlin Velev
• 1st Place – Kaitlyn Rosenberg
  • Catalysis III; Olefin Production via Non-Oxidative Coupling of Methane Using Proous and Hollow Silica Catalysts; advised by Fanxing Li
• 1st Place – Ryan Sedlacek
  • Food, Pharmaceutical, and Biotechnology VI; Perturbation of TCA Metabolic Pathways Influencing Trophoblast Stem Cell Differentiation; advised by Balaji Rao
• 2nd Place – Phil Klem
  • Materials Engineering and Sciences I; Accelerating Industrial Multi-Stage Synthesis of InP Quantum Dots through Self-Driving Fluidic Labs; advised by Milad Abolhasani
• 2nd Place – Anna Shay
  • Materials Engineering and Sciences II; Developing Aqueous Dispersions of Microbial Nanocellulose; advised by Michael Daniele (BME/EE)
• 3rd Place – Maasrith Amara
  • Fuels, Petrochemicals, and Energy II; Molten-carbonate-mediated oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane with in situ CO2 capture and conversion; advised by Fanxing Li
• 3rd Place – Kara Bracken
  • Food, Pharmaceutical, and Biotechnology XVII; Impact of Cellulose-Based Delivery of Agricultural Biologicals on Early Growth and Drought Resistance of Bioenergy Crops; advised by Saad Khan
• 3rd Place – Emmy Shore
  • Food, Pharmaceutical, and Biotechnology XV; Investigating Mechanisms of Release from Alumina Coated Vaccine Particles in Physiological Conditions; advised by Ted Randolph (University of Colorado-Boulder)

Nathaniel Baird, Ian Moran, Angela Ni, Cooper Smith, and Anastasiia Steksova also presented at the conference. A big congratulations also goes to our AIChE Student Chapter president, Ryan Sedlacek, for his organization effort, as well as to the chapter faculty advisory, Kim Roberts!

AIChE Annual Meeting, Nov. 2 – Nov. 6

Prof. Milad Abolhasani was recognized at the Institute Honors Ceremony with the AIChE Colburn Award for Excellence in Publication by a Young Member. Click here to read more about this prestigious award.  Abolhasani also gave an invited talk “Data-Rish Autonomous Labs for Accelerated Materials and Molecular Discovery” in a special session in the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering (CRE) Division devoted to his 2024 CRE Early Career Investigator Award.  Prof. Phil Westmoreland organized and chaired the special session. 

Four additional faculty gave invited talks at the conference: 

• Prof. Lilian Hsiao spoke at a special session on coating science, technology and applications about “Bioinspired coatings and surfaces for haptic engineering.”
• Prof. Cristiana Boi spoke at an honorary session for Prof. Andrew Zydney on “A Scalable Membrane Process for the Purification of Extracellular Vesicles.”
• Prof. Phil Westmoreland spoke at the 25 Years of CoMSEF (Computational Molecular Science and Engineering Forum): Past, Present and Future session on “CoMSEF Today – and Its Origins.”
• Prof. Michael Dickey spoke at the Polymer Networks and Gels I: Mechanics and Topology session about “Glassy Gels Via Ionic Liquid Crosslinking.”

Alumnus Leo Brody (MS ’21, PhD ’24) was also recognized at the conference as the 2025 recipient of the AIChE George Klinzing Best PhD Award. This prestigious award recognizes an outstanding dissertation in the physical, biomedical or engineering sciences, with particle science and engineering as its focus.  Click here to read more about Leo’s work and what he is doing now.  

Congratulations to all NC State presenters and award winners!