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Washington State University
The Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering

With gratitude

Su Ha
Su Ha

As the year draws to a close, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude for your unwavering support and active participation in the Voiland School. We have so much exciting news to share with our alumni and the larger chemical engineering and bioengineering community that an annual e-newsletter just could not wait!

This year has been marked by significant milestones—from the addition of several new faculty members to fortifying our expertise in clean energy and health science research to remarkable strides in student education as highlighted by international and national recognition.

Our commitment to excellence is showcased in several high-impact journal publications. I’m also delighted to share that we’ve achieved a groundbreaking milestone, surpassing $6 million in research expenditures in FY 23.

The Voiland School’s journey has been shaped by your commitment, and we eagerly anticipate the exciting endeavors that the coming year holds. Thank you for being an integral part of our thriving Voiland School community.

Su Ha
The George Austin Endowed Director of Voiland School

 

 

Click here to view the Fall 2023 newsletter.

Turning Base Metals into Gold

Headshot of Dr. Levi Thompson
Professor Levi Thompson

Professor Levi Thompson from University of Delaware gave the Voiland School’s annual Ensor lecture, speaking on the unusual properties of nanostructured early transition metal carbides and nitrides.

The event was held in October on the WSU campus.

In his lecture, Thompson described research in metal carbides and nitrides for catalytic and energy storage applications. Thompson’s group has worked to understand the interactions of hydrogen with these materials and their catalytic properties. They found evidence that subsurface hydrogen influences surface catalytic reactions for some metal nitrides. Because they can be produced with high surface areas, carbides and nitrides hold potential for use as support materials. A better understanding of the interactions could enable the rational design of carbide and nitride-supported metal catalysts.
Thompson is dean of the College of Engineering and Elizabeth Inez Kelley Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware where he leads a college of nearly 200 faculty, 3,600 students and 120 staff with a number of major research centers.

With more than 150 publications and more than 10 patents, his research in nanostructured materials has applications in catalysis and energy storage. Thompson is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the AIChE and recipient of awards including the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, McBride Distinguished Lectureship, Union Carbide Innovation Recognition Award, and Michiganian of the Year Award for his research, entrepreneurship, and teaching. He co-founded T/J Technologies, a developer of nanomaterials for advanced batteries that was acquired by A123 Systems, and Inmatech, a developer of low cost, high energy density supercapacitors for automotive and military applications.

David and Sara Ensor
David and Sara Ensor

The Ensor Lecture was established in 2016 to encourage communication and collaboration on emerging ideas in areas related to chemical engineering, bioengineering, aerosol technology and nanotechnology. David Ensor (’63, chemical engineering) and his wife, Sara, established the lectureship as a reflection of their deep interest in higher education and their strongly held belief in the empowerment that education provides for one’s life.

It’s WSUFacultyFriday, today with Xianglong Wang!

Taken from https://www.facebook.com/WSUPullman on January 14th, 2022.

It’s #WSUFacultyFriday, today with Xianglong Wang, assistant professor (career track) of bioengineering at WSU Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering.

  •  If you conduct research, what is your main research topic?
    “My main research topic is clinical applications of machine learning. We are trying to use neural networks to quantify lung edema through ultrasound imaging. However, since I am in charge of the senior capstone course, I come across a variety of bioengineering problems as well.”
  • What classes do you teach at WSU Pullman Spring Semester 2022?
    “BIO_ENG 330 Bioinstrumentation, BIO_ENG 411 Bioengineering Capstone Project II, and a combined course BIO_ENG 481/CHE 581 Biophotonics and Image Analysis with Prof. Wenji Dong.”
  • What brought you to WSU Pullman?
    “I really enjoyed teaching at the college level, being a teaching assistant 8 times as a college student. I have imagined that I would come to a great university to leave some impact through teaching after obtaining my Ph.D. WSU Pullman is the only school I applied to.”
  • How has #COVID19 changed how you teach?
    “I started teaching at #WSU in Fall 2020, so technically there weren’t changes (laugh). When I formulated course policies during this pandemic, I started to listen to the students more and created more flexibilities. Managing stress has seemed to be the key for me and my students during teaching and learning in this pandemic.”
  •  What is a Fun Fact about yourself?
    “I play bass. Rock, funk, metal – I like them all! I picked bass because the role of bass in a band is like my personality. Just like a bass, I do not intend to stand out most of the time, but I can definitely lead a groove when it’s time. I started by playing Rocksmith on console, and then liked bass so much that I started taking lessons.”
  • Anything else you’d like to add?
    “We are always looking for bioengineering-focused projects to adopt in our senior capstone course. We are especially looking for people who are willing to sponsor or collaborate in projects involving medical devices.”

Update:
As of May 2022, Xianglong has resigned and is pursuing other opportunities.

Xianglong Wang standing in front of tropical trees.

Advanced Degree Opportunities

People working together in group.

Nathan Kallish had originally planned to find a job after completing his bachelor’s degree in bioengineering last spring. As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he decided to enroll in a newly developed, nonthesis master’s program instead.

Nathan Kallish
Nathan Kallish

“I’m very grateful for the program,” said Kallish. “I plan on continuing my search for a career very soon and will hopefully have a job lined up after graduating with my master’s degree in May.”

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, students and professionals have been faced with a changing job market. The Voiland College has expanded its offerings to help students navigate challenging circumstances and changes in their career trajectories.

Many departments have expanded their programs, offering one-year, non-thesis master’s degrees in chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, engineering, environmental engineering, materials science and engineering, and mechanical engineering.

For its one-year chemical engineering program, the Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering requires that students take 26 graded credits, including classes in transport phenomena, thermodynamics, kinetics, as well as research methods and communications. They also take a one-credit graduate seminar.

Kim-Lien Vu
Kim-Lien Vu

Some of the upper-level courses taken as an undergraduate can count toward the degree, and the school also has offered some scholarship support to offset tuition costs.

Kim-Lien Vu recently began her studies in the one-year program. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering this spring and when her summer internship was cancelled, she began looking into how people responded to the economic downturn of 2008. She learned that many people chose to continue their education during the recession and that professionals who graduated with a master’s earned higher salaries than those with bachelor’s degrees.

“I decided to invest myself in WSU’s non-thesis master’s program,” said Vu, “In one year I will have my master’s degree.”

Kallish believes that the additional skills he will gain from his studies will help him stand out from other job seekers.

“While continuing to learn is wonderful, I believe the most valuable aspect of continuing for a master’s degree is the opportunities it can provide,” he said. “With a master’s degree I will be able to look for jobs with a higher starting wage or a position that is not considered an entry-level job since I have a higher level of education.”

Meanwhile, programs for professionals, such as WSU Global Campus’ Master’s of Engineering and Technology Management and Electrical Power Engineering programs have also seen enrollment increases. The ETM program, which has seen a 10 percent increase in enrollment this year, also offers six certificate programs to prepare professionals for meeting management needs in industry.

“The ETM program is a great way for students to build their skills and improve their marketability, especially in today’s world,” said John Pricco, an Engineering and Technology Management faculty member who worked in executive management at the Boeing Company for 34 years. “As part of the global campus, students can complete their degree from anywhere. In the rich ETM learning environment students learn not only from the course material but from each other and from what each brings to the program.”

Finding ways to teach from a distance

For more than 50 years, Voiland School chemical engineering students have gotten their first taste of the real-world workplace environment in their Units Operations lab course.

There, they have learned critically important skills and have gotten hands-on experience troubleshooting many of the operations of chemical processing plants.

With the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic and required social distancing, faculty members in the Voiland School have found creative new ways to deliver these important learning experiences for today’s students.

Clinical Assistant Professor Dave Theissen David Thiessen Headshot 2019 is using both remote and in-person delivery for the Unit Ops class. As part of the course, the students typically plan and develop operations for equipment, such as heat exchangers, gas scrubbers, or distillation columns. Students in teams of four have two major projects, spending 6-7 weeks designing, running, analyzing, and presenting each project.

“This is not a cookbook lab,” Thiessen said. “The students have to figure out what to do and what experiments they will run. They have to apply what they have learned.”

flow meter measuring a dilute alcohol solution is entering a distillation column
This is showing a flow meter measuring the rate at which a dilute alcohol solution is entering a distillation column that is continuously separating the water and alcohol.
For remote class delivery, Thiessen set up web cameras throughout the lab, so that students can view different parts of the chemical processing equipment. The chemical engineering lab equipment is large with analog gauges that need to be read and areas that need to be visually monitored to assure proper operation. Thiessen wrote a proposal and received special funding from the WSU administration that enabled him to install several cameras on each piece of equipment, so that students can monitor their experiments remotely after a TA starts them up. In this way, they are becoming familiar with the equipment, so that they are prepared once they enter the lab for the in-person aspect of the course.

Thiessen also received special permission from the provost to enable an in-person component to the course. Each student will attend two in-person sessions of 10 hours each to take data for their experiments. A total of eight of the 37 students in the class will attend at a time, so at the end of the semester, each student team will have about 20 hours of in-person data taking, which is fairly close to what they would get during a normal school year.

Meanwhile, Voiland School faculty are making adaptations in other courses to give students hands-on experience.

Anita Vasavada Headshot 2019 In Bioengineering 322, or Mechanics of Biological Materials Lab, Associate Professor Anita Vasavada also wrote a proposal and received special funding from the provost’s office that enables her to provide students with a kit of materials to create a socially distanced lab in their homes. The kits include a scale to measure forces, utility calipers, clamps, and testing materials, such as rubber bands, foam, and craft sticks.

The course covers skills such as mechanics, experimental design, statistical analysis of data, scientific writing, and teamwork.

With their at-home kits, students are conducting several experiments, such as measuring elasticity by stretching a rubber band, measuring bending deflection and calculating stress, and measuring the bonding strength of adhesive putty. They will also follow along via a web camera with three guided experiments from an in-class mechanical testing machine.

“I am using web cameras so that students can observe the experiments being run while I and my TA prepare and place the specimens,” Vasavada said.

WSU Researchers Working to Insulate Fruit Trees with Cellulose Nanocrystals

Student spraying fruit trees with cellulose nanocrystals

Washington State University researchers are studying how to use cellulose nanocrystals to insulate sensitive trees and buds against the cold. So far, their experiments have been successful.

The team is led by horticulturist Matt Whiting and engineer Xiao Zhang. Their research was recently featured in Good Fruit Grower Magazine. Read the article >>