News

  • Sep 28
    2021
    Chemical engineering faculty have awarded Yaxin (Starry) Xu the department’s top honor for a rising third-year PhD student, the prestigious Dow Discovery Fellowship. The department awards one fellowship each year to a student who has made outstanding strides in research and presents a compelling plan for a creative new high-risk, high-reward project.  “I... read more »
  • Sep 16
    2021
    Researchers have developed a calcium sensor for use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that they hope can one day track electrical activity in neurons deep in living brains. The tool potentially allows scientists an unprecedented view of brain activity in specific types of cells across the entire brain of a living organism (ACS Sensors 2021, DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.... read more »
  • Sep 8
    2021
    Anyone using a cellphone, laptop, or electric vehicle depends on lithium. The element is in tremendous demand. And although the supply of lithium around the world is plentiful, getting access to it and extracting it remains a challenging and inefficient process. An interdisciplinary team of engineers and scientists is developing a way to extract lithium from contaminated... read more »
  • Jul 8
    2021
    The UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering (CoE) extends warm congratulations to chemical engineering professor Michelle O’Malley for being named the recipient of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 2021 Allan P. Colburn Award. The award, named for a legendary professor who founded the University of Delaware chemical engineering... read more »
  • Jun 24
    2021
    Two chemical engineering PhD students have been honored for the impact they have made on others in the campus and local communities. George Degen received a University Award of Distinction from UC Santa Barbara’s Academic Senate in recognition of his unselfish and dedicated service to the university and the community. Chelsea Edwards ... read more »
  • Jun 9
    2021
    Assistant teaching professor Joseph Chada, PhD student Mike Schmithorst, and graduating senior Kevin Mauge have received end-of-the-year awards from UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering. For the second straight year, graduating seniors selected Chada for the Outstanding Chemical Engineering Faculty Award. He joined... read more »
  • May 3
    2021
    Jordan Finzel, a third-year PhD student in the Chemical Engineering Department, has been awarded a prestigious fellowship from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). He was among seventy-eight graduate students from across the nation selected for the DOE’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program. Awardees receive supplemental funding and... read more »
  • Mar 24
    2021
    Three UC Santa Barbara chemical engineering graduate students, Daniel ArnoldKevin Modica, and Phong Nguyen, have received prestigious graduate research fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Fellows in NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) receive three years of financial support, totaling $... read more »
  • Feb 9
    2021
    Two UC Santa Barbara engineers are among the 129 new members worldwide elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for 2021. Materials and chemistry professor Craig Hawker and Rachel Segalman, chair of the Chemical Engineering Department, join the 106 American and 23 foreign engineers honored this year. Election to the NAE is... read more »
  • Feb 1
    2021
    Michelle O’Malley has long been inspired by gut microbes. Since she began studying the herbivore digestive tract, the UC Santa Barbara chemical engineering professor has guided several students to their doctoral degrees, won early and mid-career awards (including a recognition from President Obama), attained tenure and advanced to the position of full... read more »
  • Jan 11
    2021
    Water is perhaps Earth’s most critical natural resource. Given increasing demand and increasingly stretched water resources, scientists are pursuing more innovative ways to use and reuse existing water, as well as to design new materials to improve water purification methods. Synthetically created semi-permeable polymer membranes used for contaminant solute removal can... read more »
  • Jan 10
    2021
    We’ve been reading for years now about society’s dangerous overuse of antibiotics and the increasing number of antibiotic-resistant microbes that have resulted. While medicinal overuse of antibiotics has unsettling implications for human health, so, too does the increasing presence of antibiotics in the natural environment, which may result from the improper disposal of... read more »
  • Nov 30
    2020
    Daniela Rivera Mirabal (pictured on left) and Vedika Shenoy (pictured on right), placed first and second in the student poster competition during the 2020 Undergraduate Student Conference hosted by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). The two UC Santa Barbara undergraduate researchers presented work they did while... read more »