Author: lcs108

The ChBE Anti-Racism Diversity Equity and Inclusion (ARDEI) Committee just hosted the second, Northwestern Context, Connections, and Community Symposium (C3S). The purpose of C3S is to provide provide Northwestern PhD and postdoctoral scholars from underrepresented groups an opportunity to showcase their scientific accomplishments and meet and network with industrial representatives that have similar backgrounds. This event was open to all students from all departments, disciplines, and research areas.

Jane was one of four students selected to present at C3S, along with a vibrant poster session and two invited speakers (one from industry and one from academia).

Congratulations to Jane and Ruihan who presented their work at C3S. Also a huge congratulations to AJ for organizing and facilitating the entire Symposium!

Matt traveled to Nairobi to participate in the Joint Undertaking for an African Materials Institute, JUAMI, which is a virtual institute that offers intensive, two-weeklong live-in “schools” designed to immerse researchers in a worldwide community tackling the most pressing technical problems of our times. The JUAMI Schools feature presentations from leading materials researchers in classroom and seminar settings, engaging hands-on learning activities, and collaboration building that outlives the two-weeklong program. Matt presented a poster on his work, connected with possible collaborators, and had a fantastic immersive experience. Congratulations Matt!

You can read more about JUAMI here and the workshop in Nairobi here.

The Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience (CESR) at Northwestern hosted a 3 Minute Thesis competition where participants submitted a video recording of 3 minutes or less summarizing their thesis research for a non-specialist audience. Submissions were open to any current Northwestern Ph.D. student working in sustainability. You can check out their videos and more information about the event here.

The Mission Accessible program at Northwestern is a series of “challenges” for faculty to complete and in doing so, revamp their Canvas course content  pages to ensure that they are designed with accessibility in mind. Linsey is one of 31 faculty at NU to complete “Mission: Accessible” this past year. Check out the Mission: Accessible Wall of Fame.

Robby Lu is one of 87 new awardees across the nation for the 2022 DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Program; this program will enable him to carry out part of his doctoral dissertation/thesis research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for six months. His project at LLNL will investigate electrochemical production of green cementitious material from silicates in tandem with water electrolysis and CO₂ capture with Dr. Jiaqi Li. Congratulations Robby! The Seitz Lab is looking forward to this new collaboration opportunity sponsored by DOE.

Linsey was delighted to present work from the group on “Tuning Dynamic Materials and Systems for Electrocatalytic Processes” to a group of industry representatives, professors, postdocs, and students with the Michigan Catalysis Society (Chapter of the North American Catalysis Society) in Livonia, Michigan! There were lots of great questions and discussions!

Linsey enjoyed visiting the University of Houston, meeting faculty, postdocs and students in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, and presenting research from the group! Thank you for being great hosts!

Kavi is moving to DC for 12 weeks for a full-time hands-on training and educational program at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. With the Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship Program, she will learn about science and technology policy as well as the role that scientists and engineers play in advising the nation. Congratulations Kavi!

This perspective paper addresses the stability concerns for electrocatalyst materials used to drive oxidation reactions, particularly considering water oxidation in acidic environments as is relevant for proton exchange membrane water electrolysis technologies. This work compares degradation processes in both diagnostic aqueous media systems and more applied membrane electrode assembly devices and discusses the application of S-number as a metric by which to assess intrinsic material stability in both systems. Finally, we summarize and recommend approaches for standardizing electrocatalyst performance and intrinsic material stability assessments.

Kwaku, a junior in Chemical Engineering, joins the group! He will be investigating and optimizing electrode geometry and reactor design for electrochemical production of hydrogen peroxide. Welcome to the group!