We greet new students and faculty and bid
farewell to old friends

The department was very pleased to learn earlier this year that Rachel Segalman has received a prestigious NSF CAREER award. This grant, awarded to faculty in the early development of their academic careers, represents a substantial investment by the National Science Foundation in Rachel's work and will provide her with significant research support for the next five years.

I am also delighted to announce that two of our professors have been honored by the Division of Biochemical Technology (BIOT) of the American Chemical Society. Douglas Clark has received the 2006 Marvin J. Johnson Award for his outstanding research contributions to microbial and biochemical technology, and David Schaffer has received the 2006 Young Investigator Award in recognition of his many achievements in the area of gene therapy and stem cell biology. Doug and Dave will each present an award lecture in September at the Annual meeting of the ACS in San Francisco. Doug also received the department's teaching award this year for his dedication to mentoring his students.

Finally, it is a pleasure to tell you that John Prausnitz's lifetime of extraordinary contributions to the field of molecular thermodynamics has been recognized by the journal Fluid Phase Equilibria, with an entire issue honoring his work (Vol. 241, 2006). A Professor in the Graduate School, John has recently been working with Jud King, director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education and our former Chemical Engineering chair and College dean, on approaches for introducing more humanities concepts into the ChemE curriculum. His work is supported in part by a grant from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.

Dr. Jhih-Wei Chu to Join the Faculty

I am extremely pleased to report that Dr. Jhih-Wei Chu will be joining the department as an Assistant Professor this fall. Dr. Chu obtained his Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering from MIT, working with Profs. Bernhardt Trout (Ph.D. '66, ChemE) and Daniel Wang. His research concerned the development of a mechanistic understanding of the oxidative degradation of pharmaceuticals using ab initio theoretical methods and molecular dynamics simulations. In the course of this work he was able to establish a quantitative structure-oxidative reactivity relationship for therapeutic proteins and to develop novel computational methodologies for finding reaction pathways in complicated systems. Since completing his work at MIT, Dr. Chu has been carrying out postdoctoral research at the University of Utah, where he has been investigating multi-scale modeling and simulation of actin filaments with Prof. Gregory Voth. This research has focused on understanding how protein-protein interactions contribute to the longer-range mechanical properties of actin filaments, and bioassemblies in general.

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Recruiting New Graduate Students

With interest we awaited the responses this spring from the bright young people to whom we made an offer of admission to our graduate program. A total of 49 offers were extended. Most of these students came to Berkeley for a two-day visit in early March, in order to learn more about our program and to visit individually with members of our faculty. We look forward to welcoming 15 new Ph.D. students this fall, as well as seven Master's Degree students who will join our new Product Development Program, which is directed by Dr. Keith Alexander (Ph.D. '83, ChemE).

Berkeley Lectures

Since 1985, the department has invited an outstanding researcher from academe or industry to spend three days with us each year, during which he or she presents two lectures, the Berkeley Lectures in Chemical Engineering. This year we were honored to welcome Professor James Dumesic of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Dumesic is highly recognized for his outstanding work in catalysis and chemical reaction engineering. He is best known for his studies of the mechanisms of catalyzed reactions and the use of microkinetic analysis to describe the overall kinetics of such reactions. More recently, he has turned his attention to the conversion of biomass to gaseous and liquid fuels. These topics were the subjects of his two lectures "Supported Metal Catalysts for Hydrogen Production Reactions" and "Catalytic Production of Fuels and Chemicals from Biomass-Derived Oxygenated Hydrocarbons" presented on April 10 and 12.

Undergraduate Awards

Chevron has been actively and generously supporting our chemical engineering undergraduates this spring. I am happy to announce that two of our students have won Chevron Undergraduate Scholarships. Five finalists were selected from a group of ten exceptional students recommended by the department, and the winners, based on interviews with Chevron representatives, were Constantyn Gieske and Bryan Liao. In addition, undergrad Jeraldine Mendoza has won the Chevron Essay contest ("Why I chose Chem E for my career"), sponsored by AIChE. We are proud of our undergraduate students and extend our congratulations to them.

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Technology Breakthrough Award

I also am delighted to report that a team of researchers from Jay Keasling's lab, postdoc James Kirby and chemical engineering graduate student Eric Paradise, won both the Grand Prize and the Science Category Award at the Berkeley Technology Breakthrough Competition last November. The annual competition seeks to reward campus researchers developing highly significant science and technologies that can be applied widely within five years. The award-winning presentation, "The Metabolic Engineering of Yeast," described research that could lead to the reduction of the cost of malaria treatment by 90 percent. Hats off to them both!

Memorials Held for Eugene Petersen and Alan Foss

In the last NewsJournal, I reported that Eugene Petersen had passed away on October 27, 2005. A memorial, held at The Faculty Club on November 9, was attended by many of his friends and colleagues. Members of his family and several of his colleagues spoke about their interactions with Gene and recalled his wide-ranging interests, which spanned chemical reaction engineering, the fabrications of high-point gears, woodworking, gardening, hiking in the Sierras, philosophy, and music.

More recently, the department was saddened by the passing of Alan Foss, another long-time member of the faculty, on February 27 after an extended illness. A memorial service was held at the Unitarian Church of Oakland on March 25. Alan will long be remembered for his dedication to undergraduate teaching and, in particular, for the wonderful lecture and laboratory course that he developed in process control. At his memorial, his son, Willard Foss (B.S. '86, ChemE), also recalled Alan's devotion to his family and the many trips that he had planned and led to the Sierras and many other parts of the world.

The members of the faculty value their memories of Gene and Alan and the wonderful contributions that they made to the department.

The department also lost a valued lecturer and researcher, Dr. Heinz Heinemann, on November 23, 2005. A memorial celebration was held at The Faculty Club on January 29.

Congratulations to Graduates

In May, another group of students graduated and became alumni of our department. Congratulations to these wonderful young men and women, and my best wishes for success as they start on their careers! My colleagues and I look forward to seeing them on campus at future alumni events.

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