Purdue University's Davidson School of Chemical Engineering recently announced the recipients of the 2020 Marilyn Forney Trailblazer Awards. Graduate student Laura Wilcox and undergraduate student Jennifer Barrett are this year's winners.

"Sounds Like the Future," a podcast by Purdue University's College of Engineering features, an interview with Dr. Rakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering. Professor Agrawal discusses his contribution to the future of energy sustainability and multidisciplinary collaborations extending far beyond chemical engineering.

New software designed to help manufacturers better predict and adjust costs may assist organizers with huge events such as the Olympic Games. Innovators led by Jan-Anders Mansson, a Purdue distinguished professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering who serves as co-executive director of the Indiana Next Generation Manufacturing Competitiveness Center, created the software to help manufacturers better predict overall costs and the costs associated with layout alternatives and adjustments to their manufacturing processes.

Nitrogen-based fertilizer contributes to high crop yields in the developed world, but its use damages waters and ecosystems. Developing countries needing yield improvements face bottlenecks in getting the fertilizers because of high costs and low crop prices. Purdue scientists, including ChE faculty Dr. Rakesh Agrawal and Dr. W. Nicholas Delgass, and ChE alumnus Dr. Emre Gençer, have published findings in Biofuels, Bioproducts & Biorefining describing how farmers could raise enough bioenergy crops to make nitrogen-based fertilizers more cheaply and reduce their reach into nearby waterways.

The Davidson School of Chemical Engineering and the Purdue Research Foundation are partnering with The Pantheon Business and Innovation Theatre, investing Purdue talent and resources in a new entrepreneurial and commercialization initiative in the heart of Knox County in southwest Indiana. The innovative agreement will place graduate alumni from ChE with undergraduate interns in the Pantheon to commercialize Purdue technology with established corporations or newly formed startups.