 COLLEGE HOME | LEHIGH HOME | SEARCH |
 |
|
 |
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
 |
October 2003 Chemical engineering celebrates centennial with a look at past, present and future. A panel discussion featuring four of the nation's top chemical engineers will highlight a symposium on Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 29-30, when the department of chemical engineering celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding as a program. Four Chemical Engineering professors named to endowed chairs at annual Founder's Day ceremony. Four faculty members of the Department of Chemical Engineering were named to endowed chairs during Lehigh's Annual Founder's Day celebration, Friday, October, 2003. Professors Manoj Chaudhury, Anthony McHugh, Arup SenGupta, and Israel Wachs were honored. Click here to see the Endowed Chairs Award brochure. Manoj haudhury was named Franklin J. Howes Jr. Distinguished Professor. The Howes Professorship recognizes outstanding individual merit and accomplishment by a faculty member.
Anthony J. McHugh, professor and department chair of chemical engineering, was installed as P.C. Rossin Senior Professor. This chair recognizes outstanding individual merit and accomplishment by a faculty member.
McHugh’s current projects include modeling flow-induced crystallization in fiber spinning and film formation, flow-induced ordering and transitions in solutions, processing-rheology interactions in dendritic and hyperbranched polymers and blends, and the dynamics of phase inversion, particularly as it relates to injectable, controlled-release drug delivery. In 1988, he received the Senior U.S. Scientist Award from Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Arup SenGupta, professor and department chair of civil and environmental engineering, and also professor of chemical engineering, was installed as P.C. Rossin Senior Professor. This chair recognizes outstanding individual merit and accomplishment by a faculty member.
SenGupta and his students have developed an inexpensive and easy-to-operate well-head system that uses a hybrid sorbent to remove arsenic from groundwater. The system has been installed with success in 100 villages in East India. An estimated 80 million people in South Asia suffer from drinking water contaminated with excessive levels of arsenic. Israel Wachs, professor of chemical engineering, was installed as G. Whitney Snyder Professor. This chair recognizes outstanding individual merit and accomplishment by a faculty member.
Wachs holds two dozen U.S. patents, including one for a new catalytic process that could help North America's paper mills save up to $300 million a year while eliminating most emissions of pollutants contained in acid rain and greenhouse gases. The process converts methanol, a toxin, into formaldehyde, which is used to make plywood and other products. It eliminates most emissions of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. The process was tested by Georgia-Pacific Corp. in a pilot plant for two years. A bountiful year for ChE faculty and students Besides the 100th anniversary of the founding of their program at Lehigh, faculty and students in the department of chemical engineering are celebrating a year marked by a large number of awards and achievements. See more details >> NSF gives $1.38-million entrepreneurial boost to bioengineering program. Program has strong ties to the Department of Chemical Engineering. The National Science Foundation has awarded Lehigh $1.38 million to help give the university's one-year-old bioengineering program a technical entrepreneurship focus. Incoming Professor of Chemical Engineering, Anand Jagota, will become the director of the bioengineering program begining in January, 2004. See more details >> Chaudhury co-edits new book Manoj Chaudhury, who is internationally renowned for his research into surface science and adhesion, has co-edited a new textbook called Surfaces, Chemistry and Applications. See more details >> |
|
|
||||
 |
||||||||
 |
Chaudhury, who joined the faculty in 1994, directs Lehigh's Polymer Interfaces Center. In his research, he studies new methods of modifying the surfaces of organic and inorganic materials to enhance their performance in adhesion, friction, wetting and biocompatibility, without affecting their bulk material properties. Chaudhury has published five articles in Science magazine, the nation's premier journal for scientists and engineers.
McHugh, who joined the faculty in 2002, has gained an international reputation for his research into polymer materials and engineering, including polymer colloids, polymer processing rheology, and polymer solutions with applications in membrane formation and controlled drug-delivery systems.
SenGupta, who joined the faculty in 1985, has made many contributions to the fields of environmental engineering, environmental separations of heavy metals, remediation of contaminated groundwater, purification of drinking water, and wastewater treatment. He has taught and served as a consultant in a dozen countries, including India, Bangladesh, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Germany and Ecuador. He holds one U.S. patent for an invention that selectively removes phosphate from water and another for 
Wachs, who joined the faculty in 1987, is a pioneer in the use of Raman spectroscopy in nanotechnology, the characterization of catalysts, and the creation of new products. He has developed several new techniques for examining the amorphous phases of the surfaces of mixed metal oxides. In 2002 Wachs won the EPA's 