The AIChE Executive Committee has decided to hold the election for 2021 Chair-Elect early this year, and separate from the other officer elections. The Bylaws do not dictate a single election for all open 2021 ExCom positions. The Chair Elect election will run through September 3rd, 2020. The other three elections will then commence and run through October 1. For more information on other election positions, please see details here. Thank you for your help and your participation.
To be eligible to vote, you must be an active member and have paid your AIChE and STS-AIChE dues for 2020. Please have your membership number available to complete the ballot. Your membership number will serve as your personal identification number. You may obtain your member information by accessing your member account on the AIChE website (aiche.org) or you may call the AIChE Customer Service tollfree at (800) 242-4363. Your membership number was also included in a recent email sent by AIChE to renew your 2020 membership. *Reminder to pay local section dues when paying national dues! We will only have online voting this year. You may cast your ballot electronically by following the link supplied below and in an e-mail that will be sent out.
2021 Chair Elect (2022 Chair and 2023 Past Chair)
Candidate 1: Julie D. White, PE, CFSP
Bio
While I have traveled for work to five of seven continents, I am privileged to call Houston my hometown. I am Julie D. White, PE, CFSP, who attended my first STS meeting in high school and have enjoyed supporting STS since 1993. I am an Advisor in Strategic Process Safety for Chevron, providing planning, leadership, and execution support for Operational Excellence/HSE audits. My industry experience includes a diversity of operations, process, and process safety engineering in the petrochemical, polyolefins, offshore, and federal sectors. Leadership includes stewarding multi-regional cross-discipline teams, managing technical safety teams, developing industry and remote best practices, and inspiring professional societies for growth. I obtained my B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines (1993) and Louisiana State University (1999).
Pay it Forward
I have been privileged to volunteer on industry committees (7), present at conferences (14), publish in a journal, and receive honors (6+). My greatest memories and opportunities have been created by AIChE STS. Opportunities such as the PE prep course (2017), volunteering for AIChE STS Houston Science Fair awards with the judges who had judged me (1994+), presenting the Keynote (Jan’17), the Southwest Process Technology conference (2016), and an STS workshop (2010). These opportunities led to others. It is my privilege and opportunity to support AIChE STS in a time of industry change.
Building Upon Precedent
For thirty years, I have used the opportunity of professional society office to develop long standing success such as increasing membership, developing events and programs, coaching and training new officers, and increasing STEM volunteering. Notable examples are:
- As President of Society of Women Engineers (1990-91), university membership tripled by surveying and continuously engaging membership and leveraging the talents and dedication of the leadership team and chapter members. STEM volunteering was reinvigorated and ‘Evening with Industry’ began which continues to be a networking opportunity and funding source for scholarships today.
- As AIChE VP (1991-92), I initiated, developed, networked, and led the first Engineer’s Week on campus including STEM volunteering and industry events.
- As Gulf Coast Regional Director of Colorado School of Mines Alumni Association (2001-04), my integral role on the founding committee of the Houston area annual scholarship golf tournament in place 15+yrs,
- As Science Engineering Fair of Houston, Materials Science and Bioengineering Division Judges Coordinator (2015-present, c.2004 lead roles), I led the first new category in 20+yrs, including recruiting judges and establishing guidance and training for this innovative and technically diverse category.
Leadership Goals
Based upon my experience, my goals for the years 2021-2023 will be to:
- Build upon the success of AIChE STS, by understanding both the STS membership and executive committee needs, interests, and goals at a time of accelerated industry change. Identify these goals and develop programs based upon membership surveys.
- Leverage digital technologies and innovation for supporting remote STS and executive meetings and workshops. Promote education of membership on innovative technologies that enable remote meetings and execution of engineering for career development.
- Excite interest in STS by balancing programs and workshops with core and diverse applications of chemical engineering that are currently used in our STS counties (e.g. medical, space, analytics, plant operations, design, others).
- Grow active membership by engaging potential members in virtual and in-person events that connect young professionals, engineering parents working-from-home, and our 30+ year experienced workforce.
I have the dedication and skills to help lead AIChE STS during a time of accelerated change and I welcome your vote and support. Please contact me at juliedeanwhite@gmail.com or www.linkedin.com/in/juliedwhite with your thoughts or questions.
For a full list of Julie's qualifications, please review her full candidate statement here: Julie D. White Candidate Statement
Candidate 2: Babak Rafienia
I am Babak Rafienia, a ChemE by degree and by heart; and passionate about problem solving, teaching, sharing knowledge, and my family. I usually get excited talking about these topics, especially if I can somehow connect them to Chemical Engineering. I moved to Houston, TX in 2014 and live here with my wife and son since then. I hold B.Sc. and M.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering and had various research, technical and commercial roles in in the oil & gas market which has led to leading several research and development projects, publications, a patent, and becoming specialized in separation technologies. Currently I am a Senior Sales Engineer at AMACS Process Tower Internals and specialized in separation and mass transfer technologies to design and troubleshoot separators and distillation towers in oil & gas industry, globally. I have led various projects for the past 8 years and I have volunteered and been involved in many AIChE activities trying to contribute to and positively impact this community. As a result, I have been able to collaborate leaders in different sectors of Chemical Engineering industry and play a role in shaping the national AIChE community and AIChE South Texas Section. Recently, I was honored to be selected as the recipient of national AIChE’s prestigious 35Under35 Award in Leadership for 2020.
Within last few years, I held some key roles in different divisions and been involved in main activities of national AIChE Management Division (MGMT) and South Texas Section (STS). As a Senior Member of AIChE and Continuing Education Officer of STS, I work closely with industry leaders and various companies on developing technical content for our local section members and provide technical workshops in the monthly meetings from experts in the industry to share their knowledge in various fields. In addition, as a board member of AIChE MGMT division, I have been the division secretary since 2019 and work continuously with other leaders on developing programs in various areas such as open innovation models, training managers in different stages for their career, and to help the younger engineers transition into the managerial positions. Currently I am one of the technical representatives of AMACS at AIChE national and regional conferences and below is the list of my activities and involvement in AIChE.
- AIChE Management Division (MGMT) Executive Committee and Board member
- AIChE Management Division Secretary (2019-2020)
- AIChE STS Excom and Board Member / Continuing Education Chair (2019-2020)
- Chair and Co-Chair of AIChE Conference Sessions in Management Division
- AIChE Separation Division Member
- Judge at AIChE regional conferences for Best Technical Presentation Award
- Providing Technical Seminars for AIChE Local Chapters
- AIChE 2020 35U35 Leadership Award recipient
As Chair-Elect of the South Texas Section, I will support our 2020 Chair, Dr. Ramanan Krishnamoorti, and focus on leveraging my current experience and involvement with AIChE in both national and local section levels, to expand the technical and leadership knowledge of our STS members by involving SMEs from the industry and universities and allowing leaders and experts to get more involved in our chapter. As mentioned, I am passionate about teaching and knowledge sharing and strongly believe that the knowledge is valuable only when it is taught and transferred. I will try hard to focus on promoting mentorship and career coaching programs to younger chemical engineers by using the vast experience of our senior members and connect these two groups. To do so, I expect to be working with the Chair in trying to reach out to more companies and individuals to improve the collaboration with STS. In addition, I will focus on improving the local section’s online features and tools and try to promote networking events, technical workshops, supportive coaching, etc. with the focus on younger professionals and to expand the reach of our message to a wider spectrum of Chemical Engineering.
For more about Babak, please visit his LinkedIn Profile here: www.linkedin.com/in/babakrafienia
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