A year in review: Chemical engineering faculty awards and honors

The Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University is home to renowned faculty who impact society through research. Several faculty received prestigious awards and honors this year, many of which are highlighted below.

Dr. Jodie Lutkenhaus, professor, received the 2022 Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Engineering. In addition, she was honored with the Arthur K. Doolittle Award for her outstanding talk on flexible MXene coatings.

Dr. Stratos Pistikopoulos, professor, received the 2021 Sustainable Engineering Forum Research Award, the Distinguished Achievement Award presented by Texas A&M and had three members of his research group accept faculty positions.

Dr. Xuejun Zhu, assistant professor, was awarded a Welch Foundation grant to help uncover and characterize enzymes that can decrease the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals. She also recently received a National Institutes of Health Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award. 

Dr. Faruque Hasan, associate professor, was named division director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Computing and Systems Technology Division.

Dr. Qing Sun, assistant professor, was awarded the Stephen I. Katz Early Stage Investigator Research Project Grant to develop thermally stable vaccines and relax the stringent conditions needed for vaccine preparation, storage and distribution.

Dr. Pushkar Lele, associate professor, received a National Institute of General Medical Sciences R01 grant totaling over $1.3 million to research how H. pylori invade and cause infections.

Dr. Joseph Sang-II Kwon, associate professor, received the 2021 Premium Award for Best Paper from The Institution of Engineering and Technology in Systems Biology.

Dr. Jeetain Mittal, professor, received a Welch Foundation grant that will be used to develop computational methods for generating new knowledge on the material properties of biomolecular condensates and how these relate to their assembly and function.

Dr. Emily Pentzer, an affiliate faculty of the chemical engineering department, was selected as a finalist for the 2022 Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists in Physical Sciences & Engineering.

These award highlights are among many others the department has received within the past year as our faculty continue to strive for excellence in chemical engineering.