Students from Mt. St. Joseph High School had an engaging day at the Department of Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering (CBEE) today, where they toured cutting-edge labs and learned about innovative research and CBEE’s academic excellence from leading faculty members. They were accompanied by Jason Ader, Mt. St. Joe’s Director of Sustainability, STEM, and Innovation, and Dr. Rebecca Obniski, a STEM coordinator.

The visit kicked off with a tour of the laboratories of Drs. Josephson, Blaney, and Marten, where students got a firsthand look at ongoing projects in the field. Each lab showcased unique research efforts, sparking curiosity and inspiring future engineers.

Following the lab tour, the students enjoyed a pizza lunch, where they had the opportunity to discuss their interests and ask questions about the engineering field. Dr. Marten, Chair of CBEE, shared insights into the department's research efforts and academic program.

Additionally, COEIT advisor Krista Wallace provided valuable information on the application process for the CBEE program, highlighting opportunities for prospective students to engage in research and hands-on learning.

The visit was a fantastic opportunity for high school students to connect with university faculty and explore potential career paths in engineering, fostering a deeper understanding of the impact of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering on society.

Dr. Marten spoke with 31 first semester students during three “Lunch with CBEE Chair” events in September 2024. These lunches were a part of CBEE’s welcome week events.

During each lunch Dr. Marten and CBEE Student Ambassadors (who are current chemical engineering undergraduate students), met with groups of first semester students. The group enjoyed meeting each other over a lunch of pizza and sodas as they discussed the academic and research opportunities available to chemical engineering majors at UMBC. In one group, students learned they lived in the same dorm, while others recognized each other from classes. 

“This is the first year we've hosted this event, and it was a tremendous success! Not only were we able to help the students feel more connected with CBEE, but it allowed them to develop new connections with each other.” - Dr. Mark Marten, CBEE Chair

Every student received the highly coveted 2024 CBEE t-shirt. Since the first event on September 5, CBEE faculty have already recognized students with their shirts and connected with them while walking across campus. Thus, further building community among students and faculty. 

"I had just finished teaching my class and, as I was walking out of the classroom, I saw a student wearing their ChemE shirt as they were heading into class. Excited, I said, 'You’re a ChemE!' to the student, and they replied with a big smile, 'Yes!' Without the shirts, I wouldn’t have known they were first-year ChemE students so early in the semester." - Dr. Mariajose Castellanos, CBEE Undergraduate Program Director.

These efforts are part of a strategic approach to support student success in chemical engineering by connecting first semester pre-chemical engineering students with CBEE faculty and peers before their Gateway requirements are completed. 

Based on research CBEE conducted in 2021 with data provided from IRADS, early career undergraduate students have limited interaction with CBEE faculty and other chemical engineering students prior to completing their gateway coursework.

In Fall 2022, CBEE partnered with COEIT Advising to pilot CHemical Engineering Curriculum Knowledge (CHECK) meetings (cbee.umbc.edu/check). CHECK meetings provide pre-chemical engineering students with the opportunity to talk with a CBEE faculty member, receive specialized chemical engineering pre-advising and learn about internship and research opportunities for chemical engineering students. Due to the success of the Fall 2022 pilot, this program has continued each semester. 

We look forward to connecting with (pre-) chemical engineering students at our next event. See you there!

The College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) Research Day was held on April 19, 2024. Undergraduate and graduate students across the college presented their research covering a range of topics.

Congratulations to the CBEE students who received COEIT Research Day Poster Awards. Poster presenters are in bold. 

Bachelor Student Poster Awards

Authors: Tithi Prajapati, Mike Tolosa, Venkatesh Srinivasan, and Dr. Govind Rao
Department: Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering
Poster Title: Affordable Hand-held Portable Spectroscopy Technology for PAT applications

Authors: Mesha Shajahan, Preety Ahuja, and Dr. Govind Rao
Department: Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering
Poster Title: Polymer-Carbon Composite for Wearable Transcutaneous CO₂ Sensor

Doctoral Student Poster Awards

Authors: Revati Kadolkar, Vikash Kumar, Venkatesh Srinivasan, Sanjeev Kumar Ujjain, Dr. Douglas Frey, Dr. Govind Rao
Department: Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering
Poster Title: Development of a Novel Analytical Sensor Utilizing Ni-NTA and His-tag Affinity for At-Line Quantitative Analysis of Binding Proteins

Honorable Mention – Student Poster Awards

Authors: Alexander G. Doan, Matthew S. Quintanilla, Jessica E. Schafer, Casey M. Douglas, Meredith E. Morse, Dela-Joshua K. Dayie, Kay T. Latt, Julianna C. Wasiuta, Steven D. Harris, and Dr. Mark R. Marten
Department: Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering
Poster Title: Crosstalk Between Aspergillus nidulans CWIS and SIN Pathways Under Cell Wall Stress

Authors: Amir Babaei Gharehbagh, Rose Taylor, Joy Kiguru, Alyssa M. Burns, Ann Marie G. Carlton, and Dr. Christopher J. Hennigan
Department: Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering
Poster Title: Effects of Inorganic Salts and pH on the Gas-Aqueous Partitioning of Formic Acid and Acetic Acid

Authors: Elias Gilotte, Chad Sundberg, Hasib Hasan, and Dr. Govind Rao
Department: Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering
Poster Title: Developing an Online ATP Sensor for Cell-Free Protein Synthesis Monitoring

Judges

Thank you to the Research Day Poster Judges for all their help review of posters, specifically,
Jorge Almodovar (CBEE).

Nathan Gull, 

CBEE is excited to Welcome students (back) to campus for Fall 2024. 

We have a variety of events that we want to highlight as part of welcome week: https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/cbee/events?tag=welcome-week

By: Catherine Meyers Published: Aug 16, 2024 UMBC NEWS

A few weeks into her summer internship with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, rising senior Ortisemoyowa “Moyo” Ikomi, chemical engineering, attended an event celebrating a milestone in the company’s construction of a new drug manufacturing plant in Rockville, Maryland. During the event, the organizers played a video featuring a young girl whose seemingly terminal cancer was cured with immunotherapy drugs—the same type of drugs that would be manufactured in the new facility.

“This girl was in hospice care, at home with her family who thought they might just have to wait for her life to end, and this drug gave her a new lease on life. It drove home for me how important this work is, and how I would love to keep working in the pharmaceutical industry,” says Ikomi.

Ikomi landed her internship with AstraZeneca after talking with a company representative at the UMBC Career Fair. She worked on the company’s management of the planned Rockville plant, investigating a software tool that could track construction progress.

“It’s not traditional chemical engineering, more within the realm of project management of large-scale engineering projects. I’m definitely enjoying it,” Ikomi says. “I’ve learned so much during the internship. The experience has made me think I’d like to continue working in the engineering project management sphere.”

Ikomi credits the UMBC Career Center with supporting her throughout her internship application process—consulting with her on application timelines, uncovering resources for finding job openings, and offering tips for honing her resume and interviewing skills. “They offer an invaluable service,” she says. “Even more students could benefit from using them.” 

Ikomi, who came to UMBC from Lagos, Nigeria, says she arrived thinking she wanted to be a scientific researcher. When she realized basic research wasn’t the best fit for her, faculty and fellow students listened as she talked through her dilemma and offered advice on other options. She found that her true passions lay in shepherding discoveries from the lab to the wider world, where they could directly impact people’s lives.

Since that celebration event at AstraZeneca, Ikomi says she often thinks back to the video of the young girl who was cured of cancer. “When I think of this internship as a whole, my mind always goes to that experience. That moment crystallized that this type of work is what I want to dedicate my career to.” 

Read original post via UMBC NEWS: https://umbc.edu/stories/umbc-chemical-engineering-student-intern/

Are you a CBEE Alumni? Stay connected via LinkedIn

On the first weekend of April, hundreds of chemical engineering students from across the Mid-Atlantic converged on the UMBC campus for two days of learning, networking, and friendly competition. They heard talks from academic and industry leaders, attended workshops and a career fair, competed in rounds of ChemE Jeopardy, mixed chemicals to power small cars along a track in the ChemE Car competition, and mingled over catered lunches, dinners, and cups of evening hot cocoa. 

The activities were all part of the 2024 Mid-Atlantic Student Regional Conference of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)—hosted by the UMBC student chapter of the national group. Around 400 people attended the event, an increase from last year’s conference at Virginia Tech. Organizing the logistics, recruiting speakers and sponsors, securing rooms, and ordering thousands of plates worth of food presented a formidable challenge—one that the UMBC students tackled with aplomb. 

“I am feeling fantastic after the conference,” says Pavan Umashankar ’25, chemical engineering and biochemistry and molecular biology, who served as the chair of the conference organizing committee. “I am super proud of everyone’s commitment and dedication to make it a resounding success.”

“Truly, I could gush about the UMBC conference planning team all day,” says Alyssa Block, the membership associate of ChemE student programs for AIChE. “These students really are the future leaders of their profession and of AIChE: engaged, excited, collaborative, supportive of each other, and willing to lend a hand.” 

A club on the upswing 

Hosting an AIChE regional conference for the first time at UMBC marked a milestone for a student club that has seen increasing levels of engagement and success in recent years. While many college clubs across the country are in decline post-Covid, UMBC’s AIChE student chapter is on a clear upward trajectory. The club sent its first team to compete in ChemE Jeopardy at the spring 2019 AIChE regional meeting. Just three years later, the UMBC team won the national ChemE Jeopardy competition. 

Neha Raikar, a senior lecturer in the Department of Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering (CBEE) and one of the advisors to the student AIChE chapter, remembers attending the 2019 meeting: “Back then, we wondered if we would ever be able to host a regional conference at UMBC,” she says. “We’ve achieved that goal.” 

It was especially remarkable, she adds, to see some members of UMBC’s first ChemE Jeopardy and ChemE car teams return to this year’s conference as industry representatives.

Strong attendance and smooth conference logistics weren’t the only successes of the weekend—UMBC also triumphed in the ChemE Jeopardy and ChemE car competitions. 

“Planning for the conference was already a significant undertaking, and on top of that, many of our students participated, and excelled, in the competitions,” says Raikar. “Their achievements not only showcased their individual capabilities but also the strength of our club as a whole, which is growing and thriving.”

A winning formula

AIChE chapter members and their advisors ascribe the club’s success to the hard work and dedication of the students coupled with the support of the CBEE department, college, and university. Thirteen CBEE students formed the conference planning committee, which met regularly to ensure all conference planning efforts were on track. An additional 37 students and 14 faculty and staff also volunteered their time—as check-in staff, poster and presentation judges, and more. About 10 UMBC alumni actively participated in the conference, and others contributed to fundraising efforts, helping the organizing committee secure sponsorships from notable companies such as AstraZeneca, ExxonMobil, Advanced Thermal Batteries, and Astek Diagnostics and from the chemical engineering department of Columbia University. 

An Dang ’24, chemical engineering, led the fundraising efforts. She gamely approached industry representatives at the UMBC career fair and made the pitch. “I’m not an extrovert, and being in these roles forced me to go out of my comfort zone,” she says.

“Securing sponsorships was vital for making the conference possible, and An did a remarkable job” says Mariajosé Castellanos, another CBEE faculty who advises the AIChE chapter. Castellanos also praised the management skills of conference planning committee chair Umashankar. “Despite his modesty, Pavan is a true mastermind in everything he does,” she says.

For their part, the students applauded the support of the CBEE department, especially the work of their two advisors, Raikar and Castellanos, and the event planning support of Andrea Miller, the CBEE graduate program coordinator. 

The conference was both a marker of the club’s success and an opportunity for individual students to grow their skill sets.

“I have developed leadership and project management skills, which will be incredibly useful throughout my professional career,” says Umashankar. 

Ben Welling ’25, chemical engineering, the leader of the UMBC ChemE car team, believes his experience with the competition helped him land internships. “I talked about it extensively with employers. They like leadership experience and it shows you are willing to do more than is required.” 

Raikar sees a bright future for the student stars of this year’s conference and for the club as a whole. “I hope the conference will boost the club membership and participation of students in other AIChE activities,” she says. And, she adds, the conference shows that with support, “UMBC students can accomplish any task.”