The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) will present a pair of prestigious awards to two Davidson School of Chemical Engineering faculty members. Dr. Rakesh Agrawal and Dr. Gintaras Reklaitis are slated to receive awards for outstanding research and education at the AIChE Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota in October.

Dr. Rajamani Gounder has been selected for the AIChE 35 Under 35 award. The award was created to acknowledge the successes of some of AIChE's youngest members, all under the age of 35, and to promote the achievements of this generation of chemical engineers who are changing the face of the profession.

Davidson School of Chemical Engineering's Dr. Vilas Pol is part of a team of Purdue researchers that has created a new type of non-liquid lubricant that has been shown to reduce friction and wear significantly under the extreme conditions found in various applications, from air compressors to missile systems. ChemE PhD student Arthur Dysart is also part of the research team.

Dr. Rajamani Gounder, Larry and Virginia Faith Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, is part of a multi-institutional team of researchers that has been awarded $2 million over three years to study novel adsorber and catalyst technology to reduce automotive emissions in low-temperature gasoline exhaust after-treatment.

Dr. Rakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University, is principal investigator (PI) of a research project awarded funding as part of the NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program. Seventeen projects received a total of $51 million to develop bold, new, potentially transformative models for graduate education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. The new NRT awards included funding for Sustainable Food, Energy, and Water Systems (SFEWS): Dr. Rakesh Agrawal, Purdue University, and Dr. Aavudai Anandhi Swamy, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.