April 15, 2015

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

Lizbeth Rostro is the winner of this year’s ChE Faculty Lectureship Award. This award honors outstanding achievement in scholarly research and publication by a Purdue Chemical Engineering graduate student. Rostro is advised by Dr. Bryan Boudouris and will graduate with a PhD in August, 2015.

She will present a lecture entitled “Synthesis, Optimization, and Characterization of Radical Polymers for Organic Electronic Applications” at 9 a.m. on April 16, 2015 in FRNY G140.

Dr. Haiyu Fang, Nathan Nurse and Charles Hages are the winners of the School of Chemical Engineerings 2015 Citation Award. This award honors outstanding achievement by Purdue Chemical Engineering graduate students who is the lead author on an article that has been cited the most times since 2013.

Nurse’s article “Clipping of Flexible Tails of Histones H3 and H4 Affects the Structure and Dynamics of the Nucleosome,” was published in Biophysical Journal in March 2013, Dr. Haiyu Fang’s article “Synthesis and Thermoelectric Properties of Compositional-Modulated Lead Telluride-BismuthTelluride Nanowire Heterostructures,” was published in Nano Letters in April 2013, and Hages' article "Improved Performance of Ge-alloyed CZTGeSSe Thin-film Solar Cells through Control of Elemental Losses,” was published in Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications in December 2013. All three articles have been highly cited since their appearance.

Nathan Nurse is advised by Dr. Chongli Yuan; Dr. Haiyu Fang graduated from the School of ChE in December 2014 with a PhD degree and is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Charles Hages is advised by Dr. Agrawal.

Hages also 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, academic achievement and participation in professional societies.

Nicole Devlin 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 and success of the graduate student community in the School, College or University. She is advised by Dr. Michael Harris.

Nathan J. Davis and Joseph Kubal are recipients of the 2015 Magoon Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award recognizes outstanding teaching assistants and instructors through funds generated by a trust established by Estes H. and Vashti L. Magoon. Davis is advised by Dr. Jim Litster and Kubal is advised by Dr. Jeff Greeley.

Dr. Aniruddha Kelkar, who graduated in December 2014, is the recipient of the Purdue Graduate Student Government Award for PhD Graduate Student Excellence. Award applicants are evaluated based on discovery, learning and excellence. Kelkar, who was advised by Dr. David Corti, was selected from among 40 applicants.