Category: Newsletter

Welcome to the UF Department of Chemical Engineering‘s digital newsletter. Each semester, you will receive a message from us highlighting departmental updates and successes. We look forward to connecting with you.

Welcome to the UF Department of Chemical Engineering‘s digital newsletter. Each semester, you will receive a message from us highlighting departmental updates and successes. We look forward to connecting with you. GIVING DAY! MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR GATOR NATION GIVING DAY!FEBRUARY 19, 2026

What do chemical engineering, the aurora borealis, semiconductors and badminton all have in common? That would be Hsiao-Hsuan (Renee) Wan, a third-year chemical engineering Ph.D. student.  Wan came to her academic choice organically because her Taiwanese family has a strong background in chemical engineering. Her mother holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and her father […]

Ryan Montes’ upbringing in a “humble Latin family” in Florida may seem so different from his experiences at the University of Florida and his career path. But, in reality, their tightly held family values, such as hard work, resilience, and focus on pursuing a better life, are why he has thrived in his field.  These […]

Ambar Coral Velázquez-Albino, a Ph.D. candidate defending her dissertation this summer, attended the NextProf Nexus program this past summer after meeting a professor from the University of Michigan at AIChE 2023 in Orlando. Sasha Cai Lesher-Pérez, Ph.D., encouraged her to apply during a poster presentation, where they met and had an opportunity to speak.  Velázquez-Albino, […]

Until recently, Hansel Montalvo was a fourth-year Ph.D. student exploring reaction mechanisms and material catalysts to produce alkenes and aromatics. However, it’s networking that helped him get selected into two prestigious programs this summer and helped him determine his next career step.  Montalvo met Beata Kilos, Ph.D., a Dow Fellow, when she delivered a graduate […]

ChemE Ph.D. student attends NextProf Nexus Conference and prevails at UF despite multiple challenges.  Victor Rivera-Llabres, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering, was nominated to be part of an elite group of scientific and academic leaders. On the surface, that’s impressive, but if you dig a little deeper, his rocky path […]

Piyush K. Jain, Ph.D., an assistant professor and Shah Rising Star Professor in the University of Florida Department of Chemical Engineering, has received the UF Provost’s Excellence Award for Assistant Professors for 2023. The awards are focused on junior faculty and recognize excellence in research. Dr. Jain’s Nano-Biomolecular Precision Lab is focused on developing multi-scale biomolecular engineering platforms using nucleic acids chemistry, protein […]

Janani Sampath, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the University of Florida Department of Chemical Engineering has been selected as one of 35 recipients of the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards. This competitive research award provides seed money for junior faculty members that often results in additional funding from […]

Richard Dickinson, Ph.D., a professor in the University of Florida Department of Chemical Engineering, has received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the assembly and organization of cells in epithelial tissue. This project, in collaboration with Tanmay Lele at Texas A&M University, aims to unravel the biomechanical principles underlying the formation […]

At the Graduate Association of Chemical Engineers (GRACE) annual Symposium, John Blazeck, Ph.D. (ChE B.S. ’07), delivered a captivating keynote speech on his research and shared two big-picture ideas for combating cancer. He is exploring two innovative approaches to help the body fight cancer: using enzymes to fix cancer cells’ metabolism to boost the body’s immune system and […]

Five seniors from the Department of Chemical Engineering Jostin Armada, Dylan Carman, Grace Li, Grace Shoemaker, and Brendan Wernisch, were recently awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP). The fellowship program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral […]

Written by Flynn Baliton and Violet Warren The University of Florida American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) student chapter recently hosted the first fully in-person AIChE Southern Student Regional Conference (ASRC) since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Chemical engineering students throughout the southern region came together to participate in various networking opportunities, industry events, skills-building workshops, […]

Carl Denard, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the University of Florida Department of Chemical Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award. His research focuses on cellular and protein engineering to develop novel strategies to diagnose, target and fight disease. With this award, Dr. Denard aims to discover and redesign protein molecules that can reprogram […]