April 18, 2016

Purdue University recently announced its highest award recognizing graduate student teachers, the 2016 Graduate School Excellence in Teaching Award, and Emre Gencer, a Chemical Engineering graduate student was the recipient. He will be recognized with a plaque and monetary award at the 18th Annual Celebration of Graduate Student Teaching Excellence on April 26, 2016.

Four additional Chemical Engineering graduate students were honored at the College of Engineering Graduate Student Research, Teaching and Service Awards Program on April 14, 2016.

George Weeden 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. Weedon is advised by Dr. Linda Wang.

Sydney Hollingshead is the recipient of the College of Engineering Outstanding Service Scholarship. 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. Julie Liu.

Todd Zhen and Edward Tomlinson are recipients of the 2016 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. Zhen is advised by Dr. Carl Laird and Tomlinson is advised by Dr. Bryan Boudouris.

The School recently honored two current students and two recent graduates.

Elcin Icten 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. Icten is co-advised by Drs. Gintaras "Rex" Reklaitis and Zoltan Nagy, and will graduate with a PhD in May 2016.

She presented a lecture entitled "Manufacture of Individualized Dosing: Dropwise Additive Manufacturing of Pharmaceutical Products (DAMPP)" on April 14, 2016.

Claire Kilmer was selected as the recipient of the Teaching Academy Graduate Teaching award for Chemical Engineering. She was among the top ranked Graduate Teaching Assistants as surveyed by ChE undergraduate students and was then selected by the Graduate Awards Committee as the nominee for the School of Chemical Engineering.

Two recent graduates also earned recognition for their excellence in research. Dr. Shane Bates and Dr. Danni Gao received the 2016 Citation Award from the School. Each year this award honors outstanding achievement by two Chemical Engineering graduate students who were the lead author on an article published within the last two years that was cited the most times.

Dr. Bates’ article, "Identification of the Active Cu Site in Standard Selective Catalytic Reduction with Ammonia on Cu-SSZ-13," appeared in the Journal of Catalysis in April 2014 and has been cited 38 times. Dr. Bates received his PhD in 2013 and was advised by Dr. Fabio Ribeiro.

Dr. Gao's article, "Conversion of Guaiacol on Noble Metal Catalysts: Reaction Performance and Deactivation Studies," appeared in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research in December 2014 and was cited 14 times. Dr. Gao received her PhD in 2014 and was advised by Dr. Arvind Varma.