April 16, 2014

Several Chemical Engineering graduate students and recent graduates will receive honors for their excellence in research and service in the coming weeks.

Recent graduate Dr. Maneesh Singh is the winner of this year’s Faculty Lectureship Award. This award honors outstanding achievement in scholarly research and publication by a Purdue Chemical Engineering graduate student. Dr. Singh is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where he works on artificial photosynthesis for solar fuels. While at Purdue, he was advised by Dr. Ramkrishna.

Dr. Singh will present a lecture entitled “A Journey through Crystal Forests” at 9 a.m. on April 24, 2014.

Dr. Maynak Shekhar, another recent graduate, and PhD student Haoran Yang are the recipients of the School of Chemical Engineering’s 2014 Citation Award. This award honors outstanding achievement by a Purdue Chemical Engineering graduate student who was the lead author on an article cited multiple times in prior years.

Yang’s article, “Nontoxic and Abundant Copper Zinc Tin Sulfide Nanocrystals for Potential High-Temperature Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting,” has been cited 20 times since it was published in February of 2012. Yang is advised by Dr. Wu.

Dr. Shekhar’s article “Size and Support Effects for the Water-Gas Shift Catalysis over Gold Nanoparticles Supported on Model AI2O3 and TiO3,” has been cited 34 times since it was published in March of 2012. Dr. Shekhar graduated from the school in 2012 and was co-advised by Dr. Ribeiro and Dr. Delgass.

Frank DeVilbiss is the recipient of the College of Engineering Outstanding Service Award. This award honors a graduate student who has contributed over time to the quality, reputation or success of the graduate student community in the School, College or University. DeVilbiss was selected based on his involvement in the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Organization, he is president this year, and his outreach efforts, especially to elementary school children. Last year DeVilbiss started a in which graduate students travel  to Murdock Elementary School every other week to give after school science lessons.  He is advised by Dr. Doraiswami Ramkrishna.

Aniruddha Kelkar is the recipient of the College of Engineering Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award. This award recognizes students who have demonstrated excellence in research through peer reviewed publications, awards for research, leadership, potential contribution, academic achievement and participation in professional societies. Kelkar received the award based on his work in the kinetics of aggregation and sedimentation for colloidal systems. Additionally he developed a novel risk-management framework for prediction of subsea pipeline blockage due to hydrates, which are water-hydrocarbon complexes that form under production conditions. Hydrates were a major impediment in the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.  Kelkar is co advised by Drs. David Corti and Elias Franses.