Todd Whittaker, a Chemical and Biological Engineering PhD student in the Holewinski and Musgrave research groups, has been awarded the , a prestigious fellowship for citizens of the "Quad countries" (USA, Japan, India and Australia). Whittaker, a citizen of Australia, was one of 50 students selected as a 2024 Quad Fellow.  The fellowship is administered by the , a global not-for-profit organization managing prestigious scholarship and fellowship programs.

The Quad Fellowship aims to build connections among the next generation of scientists and technologists by fostering academic excellence and promoting cross-cultural understanding. The award will support Whittaker's research on catalytic phenomena in electrochemical devices such as fuel cells, electrolyzers and batteries. With the expected rapid increase in renewable electricity, Whittaker's research aims to develop rigorous experimental and theoretical frameworks to understand what drives reactivity at electrochemical interfaces and leverage those insights to design superior catalysts for a more sustainable future.

"I am extremely proud to represent Australia as a scientist at this scale," Whittaker said. "I come from a small town in rural Australia, where this career path is relatively uncommon. It excites me to know that my research, which is mostly directed at engineering renewable energy systems, will contribute to the long-term protection of vulnerable rural communities like mine."

Now in its second year, the Quad Fellowship supports exceptional master's and doctoral students pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in the United States. Initially supporting students from the four Quad countries, the program has expanded this year to include students from various ASEAN countries.

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Assistant Professor Ankur Gupta has been selected as the winner of the inaugural Johannes Lyklema Early Career Award in Electrokinetics, given by the International Electrokinetics Society. 

Electrokinetics, which focuses on the study of the movement of particles, ions, or fluids under the influence of an electric field or chemical gradients, has applications in energy storage, environmental technologies and microfluidic devices.

Gupta was given the award for his contribution towards "new insights in diffusiophoresis, including links to Turing patterns, and charge transport in porous energy systems."

"I am honored to receive this award," Gupta said. "It is heartening to be recognized by the electrokinetics community. I would like to thank all the students and postdocs in the group for their hard work, which made this award possible, and extend my gratitude to the mentors and colleagues who nominated me for the award."

The award will be presented on Sept. 18 at the ELKIN meeting in Sevilla, Spain, and as part of that honor, Gupta will give a lecture. In addition to the honorary talk, Gupta will deliver a lecture about the research developed by his CU Boulder group, the Laboratory of Interfaces, Flow and Electrokinectics.  

Johannes Lyklema, the award's namesake, was a passionate supporter of young scientists in the electrokinetics field.

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Assistant Professor Kayla Sprenger has been honored with the 2023 Outstanding Partner Award from CU Boulder's Research & Innovation Office (RIO).

The RIO Outstanding Partner Award is an annual honor presented to a campus employee who embodies a deep commitment to partnership and collaboration with RIO. It is conferred upon campus employees who foster relationships and promote a culture of collaboration within RIO units.

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The dean’s office of CU Boulder's College of Engineering and Applied Science has chosen PhD student Emily Rhodes as the recipient of The Teets Family Endowment in Nano-Technology Graduate Fellowship for the 2022-2023 academic year. 

Established in 2002 with a generous donation from Peter Teets, The Teets Fellowship aims to support outstanding graduate students conducting research related to micro/nano systems in engineering and life sciences. The fellowship provides $15,000 per year from September 2023 to August 2025.

Rhodes is a member of the . The fellowship will be awarded beginning in fall 2023.

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Assistant Professor Wyatt Shields has been selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering's Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering 2023 Symposium. Engineers who are performing exceptional research and technical work in a variety of disciplines will come together for the two-and-a-half-day event. The participants — from industry, academia, and government — were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations.

The symposium will be hosted by the University of Colorado Boulder, Sept. 10-13, 2023.

Since the program’s inception in 1995, more than 5,000 early-career engineers have participated in previous symposia, many of whom have gone on to become national leaders in the engineering community.

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Two professors from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering were recently honored with AB Nexus Awards, which aim to foster interdisciplinary research collaborations between CU Anschutz and CU Boulder.

Under the program, ChBE Associate Professor Anushree Chatterjee is partnering with with Assistant Professor Lakshmi Chauhan (infectious diseases, CU Anschutz) to develop a high-throughput and accelerated antibiotic susceptibility testing method. ChBE Assistant Professor Kayla Sprenger is collaborating with Assistant Professor Kimberley Bruce (endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes, CU Anschutz) to investigate specialized immune cells in the brain known as microglia and explore whether targeting the lipid metabolism process could mitigate the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. 

The spring 2023 round of AB Nexus awards has allocated nearly $825,000 across 11 teams, consisting of seven new collaborations and four projects that expand upon existing collaborations. This funding includes support from co-sponsors, including a $10,000 contribution from CU Boulder’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

Since its launch nearly three years ago as a pilot project, AB Nexus along with its co-sponsors has awarded . The program has also positioned both campuses for success in securing additional external funding – particularly for grants that prioritize team-based research. 

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Daniel Schwartz, Glenn L. Murphy Professor of Engineering, has received the College of Engineering and Applied Science 2023 Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award. The award recognizes faculty members who demonstrate exceptional advising skills with graduate students and who serve as role models to other advisors.

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Congratulations to Adam Holewinski, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, for being at the April 28 University of Colorado Boulder Board of Regents meeting. Holewinski leads the Holewinski Research Group, which focuses on “efficient, renewable and environmentally benign catalytic processes for the production of energy, as well as commodity and fine chemicals.”  Beginning in late August, he will spend five months as a 2023 Fulbright Scholar at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), conducting research, advising graduate students and giving research talks at various universities in Denmark.

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In 2021 Haichao Wu was recognized for his outstanding dissertation by CU Boulder's College of Engineering and Applied Science. Today Wu (PhD'21, CHEN) is being recognized nationally for his dissertation work.

Wu is the winner of the 2023 Victor K. LaMer Award for Graduate Research in Colloid and Surface Chemistry. The award, given by the American Chemical Society Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry, recognizes an outstanding PhD dissertation, contributions to the field and the potential as an emerging leader in colloid and surface science. It is the most prestigious award given in that discipline to a young researcher. Previous winners of this award comprise some of the top people in the field. 

Wu, a former member of the Dan Schwartz Group and now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, submitted his dissertation, "Nanoparticle Tracking to Probe Transport in Porous Media," in 2021. Porous media — materials containing pores — are used in processes such as food processing, water treatment and pharmaceutical production. There are currently no universal models that can predict mass transport due to the complexity of porous media and the coupled dynamic mechanisms at work during the process.

In 2021 Wu won the CEAS Outstanding Dissertation Award. The award recognized the quality and excellence of Wu’s research as well as his dissertation presentation. 

The Victor K. LaMer award will be presented to Wu at the 2023   to be held in Raleigh, North Carolina June 4-7. Wu will deliver an award lecture on June 7.

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