It is my pleasure to share with you our department e-newsletter, containing highlights of some of the most memorable events, awards, and other news from the Spring and Summer semesters. These achievements are made possible in part by support from alumni and friends like you. We invite you to make an immediate impact on our future success by making a gift today to the Excellence Fund in support of our student teams and activities.

We are excited to announce that our faculty ranks continue to grow. This year we’ve had four tenure track assistant professors and two teaching faculty begin their appointments and we also recruited two new tenure track assistant professors and one more teaching faculty who will begin their appointments in the coming academic year. This phenomenal growth in our faculty will provide our students with innovative and exciting areas of research and expose them to frontier developments in chemical engineering.

Our staff continue to innovate and work tirelessly to support our faculty and students, and for that they have received worthy recognitions. Our students continue to garner University and national awards. In many ways, all of this is possible thanks to support from alumni and friends like you.

Over the past year as Department Chair, I have learned much about what our faculty, staff, and students do and where help is needed. Our students show time and time again that they are technically excellent and highly employable – with more than 90% of our students completing an industry internship or research experience over the course of their time at UF. However, our students need additional support in order to keep this momentum going.

Every year the department receives more requests than we can support for travel assistance so that our students can attend prestigious national meetings to present their work or participate in professional development activities. Our student organizations want to participate in national competitions, such as those sponsored by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, but lack funding to attend meetings or build prototypes. Yet, we are committed to showing the world what Gator Engineers can do.

I encourage you to make a contribution in support of our student teams and activities by visiting the Department of Chemical Engineering Excellence Fund. Thank you for your helping to ensure the future of our students and Go Gators!

Carlos Rinaldi, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Chemical Engineering
Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering