2014 AIChE Student Awards Ceremony [On Location]

The Awards Ceremony for the 2014 Student Conference in Atlanta acknowledged notable achievements of AIChE student members, recognizing various winners of awards, scholarships, and competitions. The master of ceremonies was Cliff Henderson, Chair of the Student Chapters Committee.

Award ceremony presenters

Cliff Henderson opened the event by introducing himself and thanking ScaleUp Sponsors. The ScaleUp program offers a sponsored membership to all undergraduate students taking any chemical engineering course. In addition, he thanked the 2013-2014 Executive Student Committee, who just concluded their year of service. Finally, Cliff drew attention to some of the ScaleUp sponsor companies with booths at the conference's Recruitment Fair at Georgia Institute of Technology. In addition to ScaleUp sponsors, representatives of graduate schools and companies from across the country were also on hand to describe their degree programs, along with job and internship opportunities.

AIChE's student paper & design competitions

Taking the podium next was Dr. Douglas Ludlow, professor of chemical engineering at the Missouri University of Science & Technology, and president of Omega Chi Epsilon. He introduced the nine students whose performance at the spring regional conferences earned the opportunity to compete in this year's Student Paper Competition Finals, which will take place on Monday, November 17 from 8:30-11:30am.

  • Haley Cleous - University of Arkansas representing the Mid-America Region
  • Tyler Fruneaux - Lafayette College representing the Mid-Atlantic Region
  • (James) Zach Girod - University of Washington representing the Pacific Northwest Region
  • Sai Gourisankar - University of Texas as Austin representing the Southwest Region
  • Jonathan Horton - Brigham Young University representing the Rocky Mountain region
  • Ryan Kent - University of South Florida representing the Southern Region
  • Haefa Mansour -from Purdue representing North Central Region
  • Sophie Miller - Stanford University representing the Western Region
  • Michelle Teplensky - from MIT representing the Northeast Region

Details on each of the above students' papers will be posted here.

Student design competition

Discussing the design competition, Dr. Ludlow continued:

AIChE runs on the commitment of its volunteers, and the Design Competition is no exception. AIChE's longest-running award is the Student Design Competition - which has been conducted nearly every year since 1932. This year's Design Competition challenge was titled, "Manufacturing the Next Generation of Vaccines: Non-egg-based Platform for Influenza Vaccine," and a team of judges selected the top solutions in both individual and team categories.

Dr. Ludlow then thanked the judges and announced the winners.

Individual

First Place in the Individual Category goes to Andrew Woolley of Kansas State University.

Honorable mention went to Eric Vasko of Michigan State University.

Team

First place in the William A. Cunningham Award Team Category goes to the Cleveland State University team, whose members were Zakaria Benmerzouga, Jeremy Miller, and Andrew Zak. See photos of the Cleveland State University team. Honorable mention went to Nicholas Kelsey and Benjamin Witter of Trine University (photo), and to Arin Greenwood, Kim-Huong Huynh and Tami McTaggart of University of Washington. AIChE's Executive Director, June Wispelwey, took the floor next, thanking the volunteers who spend many hours behind the scenes to promote an ensure the value of AIChE's student awards, competitions, and programs. She then talked about the importance of AIChE's global expansion, which includes sister chapters in India, China, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil, and member programs to benefit chemical engineers everywhere.

Awards from ScaleUp sponsors

ScaleUp Sponsor awards were presented onstage. Among them were: Joshua Schley, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, received Dow's ScaleUp award for his essay submission on what emerging technology will have the greatest influence on society and how it will revolutionize the chemical industry.

Tarynn Huitt, Rowan University, received UOP's ScaleUp award for her essay submission on why the world needs more chemical engineers.

Ingrid Paredes, Rutgers University, was awarded DuPont's ScaleUp award for her essay submission on three actions that industry, universities, and government can take to encourage a diverse pipeline of engineering talent. Michael Richards of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (who could not be here today) and Sam Albert, Oregon State University, are being presented with Chevron's ScaleUp award for their essay submissions on the role of process safety for a chemical engineer within the energy industry.

John J. McKetta Undergraduate Scholarship

2014 AIChE President Otis Shelton took the stage to present the John J. McKetta Scholarship to Austin Tackaberry. Austin is a senior from Purdue University. Over the past four years, he has had two internships with UOP, where he assisted in developing new catalysts. He also had an internship assignment with Chevron in process engineering. One of his major projects with Chevron involved debottlenecking an Avgas loading system. Austin is very involved with AIChE. This is his second year as president of the AIChE Purdue University Student Chapter, and he is also the chairman of the AIChE Executive Student Committee. Austin is looking forward to a career with Chevron and has accepted a full-time position in process engineering at the Chevron Richmond Refinery. Learn more about this award.

Youth Council on Sustainable Science and Technology Award

This year's Youth Council on Sustainable Science and Technology (YCOSST) Award went to Purdue University for its Biowall design that aimed to maintain high levels of indoor air quality while reducing energy use in buildings. Caroline G. Kelemen accepted the YCOSST award on behalf of the Purdue team. This award is presented annually by AIChE's Institute for Sustainability. It recognizes the competing EPA "People, Prosperity and the Planet" P3 team whose project best employs sustainable practices, interdisciplinary collaborations, engineering principles, and youth involvement.

2014 President-Elect Cheryl Teich took the stage and quizzed students in the room as to how many working engineers they know and what some of their job hunting techniques may be.

  • How many of you know a chemical engineer in a consulting, design, or regulatory function?
  • How many of you have been employed in a summer job or co-op position where you have gained exposure to what chemical engineers do?

She encouraged students to use their membership in AIChE to help build their real-world network by participating in their student chapter, get involved with local sections, meet people at the Annual Meeting, and get their voice out there on this very blog!

Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer National Scholarship Awards

Following her remarks, Cheryl recognized the 15 winners of the Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer National Scholarship Awards. The award of $1,000 is given to chemical engineering students for their outstanding academic achievement and involvement in student chapter activities. The following students were recognized:

She also recognized the Donald F. Othmer Sophomore Academic Excellence Award, which is presented to one student in each student chapter for the highest scholastic grade point average during his or her freshman and sophomore years. This year 50 students earned the prize. In addition, more than 30 Freshman Recognition Awards winners were acknowledged. Recipients of this award are individuals from a student chapter who have been most active in freshman year.

SACHE & Safety and Health Division awards

Wendy Smades, chair of the Safety and Chemical Engineering Education Committee (SACHE), took the podium next. She first presented the 2014 winner of the Walter Howard Individual Design Award to Andrew Woolley of Kansas State Univeristy. Each year, SACHE awards prizes to teams whose submissions to AIChE's Student Design Competition best apply appropriate principles of chemical process safety. This year the Jack Wehman SACHE Team Design Award was presented to Pratyush Agarwal, Brent Bostwick, and Chris Brockman of Virginia Tech (not present).

The AIChE's Safety and Health Division also recognized teams from each year's Design Competition entries that have made the most appropriate application of inherent safety in their design solutions. The Ted Ventrone, Ephraim Scheier, and Walt Silowska Award was presented to the following teams:

  • Virginia Tech
  • University of Iowa (pic)
  • Oklahoma State University (pic)
  • Trine University (pic)

Outstanding Student Chapter Advisor Award

This award recognizes an individual's outstanding service and leadership in guiding the activities of an AIChE student chapter in accordance with AIChE principles. The award is sponsored by ConocoPhillips, and this year it went to Professor Bill Elmore of Mississippi State University.

Outstanding Student Chapter Award

This year 16 Chapters received the Outstanding Student Chapter Award. See photos of these chapters.

Those recognized were:

  • Brigham Young University
  • Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Illinois Institute of Technology
  • Michigan State University
  • Mississippi State University
  • New Jersey Institute of Technology
  • North Carolina State University
  • Oklahoma State University
  • Oregon State University (recognized for being an outstanding student chapter for 10 consecutive years)
  • University of Iowa (also recognized for being an outstanding student chapter for 10 consecutive years)
  • University of Kentucky at Lexington
  • University of Kentucky at Paducah
  • University of Michigan
  • University of North Dakota
  • University of South Florida
  • Virginia Polytechnic Institute