Chemical and biomolecular engineering faculty and graduate students recently received teaching awards from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Chemical Sciences (SCS) and the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE). These awards recognize the recipients for their efforts throughout the 2023-2024 academic year.
SCS Teaching Awards
The SCS Teaching Awards are given annually in recognition of the entire scope of SCS educational efforts, from course development to in-class instruction. This year's awardees include professor Ryan Mullen and graduate students Vijay Shah, Rithwik Ghanta and Destiny Gray.
Mullen taught CHBE 431 (Process Design) and CHBE 412 (Computational Tools in Chemical Engineering) this past academic year. He joined the department in 2022, bringing with him a strong academic background in statistical mechanics, rare-events theory and molecular simulation. He earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara and, prior to joining ChBE, worked as a staff scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Shah joined the Kenis Group in 2023 and is studying organic electrosynthesis and CO2 capture. He holds a Bachelor of chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. In the fall 2023 semester he taught CHBE 431 (Process Design).
Ghanta is a member of the Kuenstler Research Group where he is developing new methods to control material properties spatially within vat photopolymerization additive manufacturing. He received his B.S. from the University of California Berkely in mathematics and chemistry. In spring 2024, Ghanta taught CHBE 321 (Thermodynamics). Shah and Ghanta were both recently selected as a Mavis Future Faculty Fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year as well.
Gray uses rheology as a tool to understand polymer nanocomposites’ time dependent behavior under large deformations as a member of the Simon Rogers Group for Soft Matter Research. She earned a Bachelor of Science Engineering from Calvin University. Gray taught CHBE 459/594 (Polymer Rheology) during the spring 2024 semester.
Professor Nick Jackson and graduate students Ethan Walker, Sidhartha Banerjee, Peisen Qian and Suritra Bandyopadhyay, all in the Chemistry department, also received 2023-2024 SCS Teaching Awards.
ChBE Teaching Awards
ChBE Teaching awards recognize graduate students for their exceptional contributions to the ChBE instructional mission each year. Michael Taleff and Haisu Kang are the awardees for the 2023-2024 academic year.
Taleff is a member of the Guironnet Lab studying the control of polymer structure and its effects on material properties. He holds Bachelor of Science degrees in chemical engineering and chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin. Taleff taught CHBE 458/594 (Synthetic Nanomaterials) during the spring 2024 semester.
Kang studies theoretical and computational polymer physics in the Sing Research Group. She earned a B.S. in organic materials science and engineering and an M.S. in chemical engineering from Pusan National University. In the spring 2024 semester she taught CHBE 440 (Process Control and Dynamics).