Alumni Newsletter - Biochemical engineeringcbe.rutgers.edu/pdf/Alumni Newsletter Fall 2013.pdf ·...

Alumni Newsletter Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Fall 2013 Message to the Alumni: A year has passed since we sent you the previous issue of this newsletter and many interesting events have transpired since then, as depicted by the collage of photographs below, created by Sumit Sikka, BS ‘13.

Prof. A. Constantinides, Director of Alumni Relations

It's been a wonderful four years. After balancing equations, moving electrons, making bonds, flowing through pipes, transferring heat, sizing reactors, simulating controllers, and designing plants, our time at Rutgers University finally ends. We've had a great time being your mentors, friends, and study buddies. Whether it was 4am in the Microlab or hanging out at the departmental socials, we're thankful for the time and the memories. Thank you, RU Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department. Best of luck CBE classes of '14, '15, '16. Over and out. Cordially, CBE Class of 2013

Alumni Newsletter Fall 2013

2

Message from the Chair Dear Alumni and Friends of our Department:

I am pleased to reach out to you with all the exciting news about our department. After serving the department for 15 years as an Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor, the faculty trusted me to become Chair as of July 1st this year. I am honored and excited about the new position and I would do my best to serve the department in that power.

During this past year Dr. Yee Chiew served the department as an interim chair managing the position of Associate Dean of International Programs and the chair position both with great success. This newsletter will give you a glimpse of what is happening in the department and share some of your exciting news.

During this past year:

• Prof. Prabhas Moghe has been promoted to the rank of Distinguished Professor. Prof. Stavroula Sofou has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. She has been awarded a Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence and a Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. These awards are bestowed in recognition of outstanding scholarly and teaching accomplishments as documented in the evaluation that has led to Dr. Sofou’s promotion. Prof. Rohit Ramachandran has also been re-appointed at the rank of assistant professor. Prof. Fuat Celik who was teaching for the first year in our department, received the 2012-2013 Teaching Excellence Award chosen by the graduating senior class to recognize his dedication in teaching. Prof. Ioannis Androulakis received the 2013 Outstanding Engineering Faculty Award to recognize his exceptional achievements and contributions.

• The Rutgers University chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) hosted the 2013 AIChE Mid-Atlantic Conference on April. Our students did an outstanding job organizing the event and raising funds working with their faculty advisor Prof. Silvina Tomassone. Our team received the first place in the Chem-E-Car Competition. You will find more details of this event in the newsletter. We are extremely proud of the students that managed to put together such an event.

• One of our alumni, Dr. Greg Russotti (PhD 1996), has been selected to receive the 2013 School of Engineering's Distinguished Alumnus in Education and Research Award, and another alumnus, Remo Colarusso (BS 1983), to receive the Distinguished Alumnus in Industry and Commerce Award. These awards honor alumni of the School of Engineering whose achievements have significantly contributed to the advancement of new technologies. We are very proud and excited that two chemical engineering alumni will be recognized this year and we are looking forward to an exciting event on October.

Last but not least I would like to share with you the “sweet and sour” news of Prof. Constantinides’ retirement. Dr. C decided after serving the department for 44 years to focus on other aspects of life and he will retire effective December, 2014. Before he leaves, however, he would like to embark on a fund-raising campaign to endow a student scholarship in his name. He envisions this scholarship to be based on your contributions to help him fulfill his dream to leave behind an ever-lasting legacy of his dedication to the students (you) for all those years. Alkis joined the Department in 1969 and has been a loyal member of its faculty ever since, serving as Director of the Graduate Program from 1976 to 1984, as Chair of the Department from 1996 to 2002, and as Director of Alumni Relations from 2002 to the present. Alkis has a record of receiving the most “Excellence in Teaching Awards” in the history of the department! I would personally miss his energy and encouragement in all of the steps of my career.


3

Thus, I urge you to consider providing support to this cause (the link for the donations website is given later in this newsletter). Your support will make a huge difference and would mean a lot to your Professor Alkis Constantinides. Finally, let me wish you a healthy and productive year. Please provide us with your feedback on this newsletter, the Department, and the University. Best wishes, Marianthi Ierapetritou

Dr. C through the years


4

Graduation 2013

Members of the Graduating Senior Class of 2013 at the Department’s reception for students, parents, and friends.

Happy faces at the Dean’s reception and at graduation.

The Graduating Senior Class of 2013.


5

2013 AIChE Student Awards The following students were honored at the Awards Dinner sponsored by the New Jersey Section of the AIChE, on March 11, 2013:

From left: Serena Mueller and Adam Freitag (Junior Merit Award, tie), John Santiago (Senior Merit Award), Emanuel Scoullos (Science & Research Award), Sumit Sikka (Most Deserving Award). Awards Received by Graduate Students

Dana Barrasso (above) received the 2012-2013 Best Teaching Assistant Award selected by undergraduate students of the Department of Chemical and Chemical Engineering. Fani Boukouvala, co-advised by Professors Ierapetritou and Muzzio received the 2012 CAST (Computing and Systems Technology) travel award. The awards consist of $500, plus a ticket to the CAST Division Dinner at the Annual Meeting, where the recipients will be officially recognized and presented with the check. The award is very competitive and only the very best students get it. Fani will also compete as a finalist for the CAST presentation award for the same work.


6

2012-2013 Slade Honors Program Five students participated in the J.J. Slade Honors in the 2012-2013 Academic Year. They are shown below receiving their certificates from Prof. Yee Chiew, Interim Chair.

Sammy Gulrajani, Polymer Drugs for Controlled Drug Delivery, Faculty Advisors: Dr. Kathryn Uhrich (Chemistry Department) and Dr. Masanori Hara

Sang Yun Lee, Design of Tunable Aggregate Morphologies using Peptide Blocks, Faculty Advisors: Dr. Yee Chiew and Dr. Meenakshi Dutt

Paul Ludford, Computational Studies of Domain Formation in Two-Component Livid Vesicles, Faculty Advisor: Dr. Meenakshi Dutt

Emanuel Scoullos, Resilient Graphene Based Foams for Lightweight Applications and Electrochemical Processes, Faculty Advisor: Dr. M. Silvina Tomassone

(No photo available) Evan Koufos, The Effect of Lipid Chain Length and Lipid Head Architecture on the Mechanical Properties of Amphiphilic Bilayers using Dissipative Particle Dynamics, Faculty Advisor: Dr. Meenakshi Dutt

Please visit our website for more news of the Department: http://cbe.rutgers.edu/


7

The 2013 AIChE Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference The Rutgers University chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) hosted the 2013 AIChE Mid-Atlantic Conference on April 5th and 6th. The location of the conference was Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ and the Heldrich, New Brunswick, NJ. The two day Conference featured a plant tour at Bristol-Myers Squibb, a Chem-E Jeopardy event, a Research Paper Competition, a Research Poster Competition, and the Chem-E-Car Competition. Workshops were given by representatives from Bristol-Myers Squibb, DuPont, Rutgers Alumni, and AIChE Young Professionals. Topics included Chemical Engineering in crystallization, Six Sigma, and steel. Sponsors of the Conference were: Jannsen, Colgate-Palmolive, DuPont, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Boehringer Ingelheim. Financial support was also provided by the School of Engineering, the Department Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Ms. Deborah Rech-Ferrone (CBE alumna, MS ’92), and the Rutgers University Alumni Association. Chem-E Jeopardy Jeopardy! styled competition where students compete for the top score and a qualification spot at the National Conference this fall. The results of this competition were:

1. West Point 2. Rutgers University: Sammy Gulrajani (BS ’13), Paul Ludford (BS ’13),

Matt Young (BS ’13), and Vetri Velan (BS ’14) 3. University at Buffalo

Research Paper Competition Students presented their published paper in a 15 minute + 5 min Q&A format. Winners were given an award and cash prize. Additionally, winners were invited to compete on the National level. The results were:

1. Kirsten Parratt – Princeton University 2. Alice Stanton – Princeton University 3. Ashley Kaminski – Lafayette College

One Rutgers student participated in the Research Paper Competition: Marco Armenante (BS ’14) Research Poster Competition Students presented their research paper in a 5 min poster format. Winners were given an award. The results were:

1. Mark McCormick – United States Military Academy 2. Nicholas Patterson – Stony Brook University 3. Mikel Dermer – University of Virginia

Two Rutgers students participated in the Research Poster Competition: Sammy Gulrajani (BS ’13) and John Santiago (BS ’13) Chem-E-Car Competition Students teams competed in a distance competition involving small, shoe-boxed sized “Chem-E-Cars” powered by alternative energies. Each car must start and stop on a chemical reaction. The teams were told the distance the car must travel only an hour before the competition. Additionally, a variable


8

weight was placed on the car, also given an hour before the competition. The cars must stop on the line. Winners were given an award and cash prize. The results were:

1. Rutgers University – Car name: “Sir Winski” Team: Captain Gary Spingarn (BS ’13), Matthew Cerwinski (BS ’13), Maya Gelman (BS ’14), and Ingrid Joylyn Paredes (BS ’15). The faculty advisor of this team was Prof. Silvina Tomassone.

2. Virginia Polytechnic 3. City College of New York 4. University of Maryland 5. Stony Brook

This is the first time ever that the Rutgers University Chem-E-Car Team has placed first in the Regional Chem-E-Car Competition. The winning car is pictured below:

“Sir Winski”

Who says we don’t have fun in the microlab?


9

Professor Emeritus Wolf Vieth

Wolf Vieth (pictured above with his wife Peggy) Prof. Emeritus, 1996, was Chairman of the Department at a critical juncture in its formative years, 1968 - 1978. During that time, the Department adopted the dual focus of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. He had been an active researcher and author since 1961, spending seven years on the MIT faculty, becoming Associate Professor and Director of the MIT School of Chemical Engineering Practice. Wolf’s work continues to have considerable impact, sixteen years after his retirement. Since 1996, his author citations have nearly doubled to a total of more than 3,000. The main reason for this is the filling of a crucial need by his premier reference book, “Diffusion in and Through Polymers,” Hanser Press, 1991, which, together with a key cluster of five related articles accounts for nearly one-half of all citations to date. The material for the book originated in his work at MIT and continued through the years at Rutgers. In addition, one of his patents, “Electroco-deposition of Collagen-Enzyme Complexes,” underwent resurgence in 2010, being applied to the development of medical stents, tissue scaffolds, and in controlled release applications.

Recent Faculty Honors and Awards

Professor Marianthi Ierapetritou was elected to be Chair of the Department of Chemical and

Biochemical Engineering starting on July 1, 2013. Marianthi obtained her BS from the National Technical University in Athens, Greece (magma cum laude), her PhD from Imperial College, London, in 1995 and subsequently completed

post-doctoral research at Princeton University before joining Rutgers University in 1998. Among her accomplishments are the School of Engineering Outstanding Faculty Award in 2012, the Rutgers Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence in 2004, and the prestigious NSF CAREER Award in 2000. Marianthi’s research focuses on the following areas: 1) process operations; (2) design and synthesis of flexible manufacturing systems focusing on pharmaceutical processes; 3) modeling of reactive flow processes; and 4) metabolic engineering. Marianthi has been active in the CAST division of the AIChE as a program director for the last two years, and she was elected last year as a vice chair. In her role as a second vice-chair, she initiated an enhance-ment of the Student travel award to include the Student presentation award, which was implemented with great success. She has also been a chair for the area 10A programming in 2006 and an elected Trustee of CACHE for the last 7 years where last year was elected as vice president. Professor Stavroula Sofou has been awarded a Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence and a Presidential Fellow-ship for Teaching Excellence. These awards are bestowed in recognition of outstanding scholarly and teaching accomplishments as documented in the evaluation that has led to Dr. Sofou’s recent promotion to Associate Professor with tenure.


10

Prof. Fuat Celik receiving the 2013 Teaching Excellence Award chosen by the Graduating Senior Class of the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. Delivering the Award are seniors Anurag Sakhamuri and Sumit Sikka.

Professor Ioannis Androulakis is the recipient of 2013 Outstanding Engineering Faculty Award. This award is an important opportunity for our Engineering community to recognize the special achievements and contributions of its dedicated faculty members. Prof. Androulakis has been recognized for his contributions. The Board of Governors of Rutgers University approved the promotion of Professor Prabhas Moghe to Distinguished Professor effective July 1, 2013. Alumni News Steven Myles, BS ’71, MBA ’79, has been retired for the past four and one half years after a 37 year career with ExxonMobil starting at the Bayway Refinery. During his career, Steve held engineering and supervisory positions at the refinery and at the Bayonne Chemical Plant and completed an MBA at Rutgers Business School in 1979. After several managerial assignments at Bayway, he then spent 15 years in Houston and transitioned from refining / chemical engineering to systems project management and eventually to Systems Management. The merger with Mobil allowed him to transfer back to East Coast to

Virginia where he and his wife have resided for the past 13 years. During all this time, they raised two boys, Tony, who lives in California, and Brad, who lives in nearby DC. Steve’s work with ExxonMobil was "left brain" oriented, so in his retirement, he has decided to exercise the "right brain" instead. He has taken up oil painting and drawing on a full time basis and has sold a number of originals and commissioned works. Steve’s work has been accepted into several prestigious art shows and has appeared in local newspaper features. He is a member of a Gallery in Occoquan, Virginia. Steve says: “I cannot say that my career in art is financially rewarding as was my career in industry, but I can say that I am enjoying it immensely and hope to continue growing as an artist in the future. In the meantime, my work can be seen on www.stevemylesart.com.”

After graduation in 1978, Raymond Pilch, BS ’78, joined Exxon Chemical Company in the Agricultural Chemicals Division (Florham Park, NJ) as a process engineer. His main respon-sibilities were to conduct process improvement studies and to troubleshoot plant operations for Exxon's fertilizer plants around the world. He was fortunate to get a one-year assignment in Exxon's Thessaloniki, Greece, refinery/chemical plant from 1980 to 1981. During that assignment, Ray returned to the U.S. in October, 1980, to marry Linda Logan and she joined him in Thessaloniki to enjoy the great Greek way of living. His main responsibility in Thessaloniki


11

was to implement advanced computer control of the ammonia plant. It was an exciting time because it was the first time Exxon had implemented computer control in an ammonia plant. After returning from Greece, Linda and Ray settled into Piscataway and had their first child, Raymond. Michael followed two years later and Jacqueline two years after that. All three are now Rutgers alumni and Raymond was captain of the Scarlet Knights football team in 2004, having started at three different positions over three different seasons. He lived his father’s dream of being a walk-on to the football team which was virtually impossible for a chemical engineering student that had to work part-time while commuting to college. Raymond (senior) worked another three years for Exxon after returning from Greece, but became bored with the work - especially because Exxon sold off their Greek operations - so, he joined Combustion Engineering in Bloomfield, NJ and developed operator training simulators in their Simcon subsidiary (now owned by RSI out of Grenoble, France). After five years he became a principal engineer and experienced with the simulation of refining processes, so with the advent of cheaper and faster computers he took a chance to realize his college dream of one day owning his own computer and he struck out on his own and became self-employed in 1989 as a dynamic simulation expert. Ray says: “Being self-employed has been a great source of freedom and opportunity. It was possible because of the great education I received at Rutgers College of Engineering. I was able to take care of my parents in their times of need by inviting them to live with Linda and me and our children in Piscataway. Self-employment also allowed me to have a constant presence as our children were growing up. And even though my office is just down the hall from my bedroom, the business has taken me all over the world. And we have season tickets for football and love to tailgate every home game.” Pictured above (from left to right) are Linda, Jackie, Mike and Raymond, Sr., at Jackie’s 2008 graduation from the Rutgers School of Engineering.

Carrie Gillespie, MS ’78, retired in 2006 as a Project Manager for Shell when she was working in London. Shell offered her many opportunities in Refining (process engineer, process control engineer, operations and technical management, project management) and in their Internal Management Consulting group in downtown Houston. In London, she managed a group of 30 IT professionals from around the world to develop the hydrocarbon management business design for a global SAP conversion. Now Carrie gets to do what she loves most - travelling and blogging about it (www.kewview.blogspot.com). She is on a country hunt with the arbitrary goal of 100 countries - 27 more to go! Houston is her home base. She lives with Richard and two miniature schnauzers named Guapo (means "handsome" in Spanish) and Darla. Carrie’s Dad lives nearby in a retirement home and she is surrounded by caring friends and neighbors. Richard and Carrie enjoy golf, round dancing (choreographed ballroom), hiking, travel, restaurants and movies. The photo above shows Richard and Carrie trying to Tango in front of a glacier on their Patagonia adventure that included a cruise around Cape Horn. Barry M. Weinstein, BS ’79, MS ’84, has worked in the food and PCP industries in NJ and in California. After 20 years of practice in the corporate arena he began to work for himself in 1999. Barry has been fortunate to set up a successful consulting practice in Orange County


12

CA, focusing on scale up and manufacture of products in the food industry. He also does some teaching occasionally for the ACS and the AIChE in the areas of food manufacture and Project Management. He is currently listed in the ACS course catalog for their program in Cross Functional Project Management. Barry and his wife Elizabeth have 2 daughters and 6 grand-daughters living in New Jersey. They travel back east a few times a year to visit family and friends. James M. Segal, BS ’80, MBA ’87, is currently a Director in the Data Excellence & Analytics area of Shared Business Services at Merck & Co., Inc. He has been at Merck for 31 years, having held various positions in Engineering, Procurement and Information Technology. After graduating in 1980 as a biochemical engineer,

Jim first worked as a process engineer in the pulp & paper industry. In 1987 he received the MBA degree from Rutgers and then his career transitioned from engineering to business

management. Jim is certified as a Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma and Change Management. He says: “The problem-solving and math skills, developed all those years ago at Rutgers are now serving me well to help me apply analytics and statistics to improve business processes.” Jim is married to Leslie, an Electrical Engineer who graduated from Virginia Tech, and who has worked many years successfully as an entrepreneur and business owner. They have two sons, one who graduated from Virginia Tech and the other from Penn State and who have careers working in software and digital systems processing. Dr. William T. Hensler, Jr., BS ‘80, PhD ’94, has recently taken a position at Nanotherapeutics,

Gainesville, FL, as Head of Operations, where he is responsible for the development and GMP manufacture of vaccines, biologics and medical counter measures (MCMs) for the Department of Defense. This major initiative as service provider to the DoD has a potential value of $360 million over a ten year period, starting with the design and construction of the Nanotherapeutics Advanced Development and Manufacturing facility. Bill has been a long time consultant to the Pharmaceutical and Biotech industry through his organization Alantra Biotech Services, Inc. Cynthia Ulrich, BS ’80, MS ’87, will be retiring from Bristol-Myers-Squibb this year. Cynthia says: “I am taking advantage of early retirement as I have been with BMS for 30 years now! It seems like I was just in engineering and pharmacy school. I am not sure what I am going to do other than take the summer off and enjoy myself fishing and playing golf. Then who knows what my next adventure will be? Best regards and thank you for the newsletter. I always enjoy reading what is going on!” Howard H. Kim, BS ‘80, MS ’82, worked in the pharmaceutical industry for several years. In the past five years, he has been building his marketing and consulting business for Korean pharmaceutical companies. This is financially difficult, but is definitely more rewarding. “To do this,” Howard says, “I spend about 1/2 of my time in Korea. This also gives me more time to spend with my extended family. I truly believe this is time well spent, since they are aging - money cannot buy lost time. I have never lived my life with any regrets, and never will. I am returning to the U.S. next week to a new house that my wife purchased during my stay in Korea. We are downsizing to about 1/3 of the size we had previously.”


13

After completing the Ph.D., Dr. Talat Ciftci, PhD ’81, did a post-doctoral study at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology. During the following twenty years Talat worked in positions from scientist to general manager in big corpo-rations such as Bristol-

Myers Pharmaceuticals, Syracuse, NY, Pakmaya Yeast and EczaCibaSI Pharmaceuticals in Turkey. Talat also obtained an MBA degree while in Syracuse. For the last twelve years he has been an entrepreneur. His latest company, Biosfer Consulting, has been active in the field of biotechnology and strategy since 2006. Talat and his wife, Gulen, are still working and living in Istanbul. Their two sons are also engineers, and they are doing their graduate studies in Europe. Talat says: “Since I had been teaching courses and publishing, I obtained my associate professorship in 1993 at Istanbul Technical University. Last year I became a full professor in Bahcesehir University in Istanbul. For the time being, I am working as the vice president and the acting dean of engineering.”

Sam Kirzner, BS ’81, says “It's been a long time since leaving the Banks of the Old Raritan in 1981. My education at Rutgers prepared me well for my now 32 year career with ExxonMobil. Currently, I am "Global Project

Development Advisor" and based in Fairfax, VA. But, as the title implies, I travel quite a bit. I've held a number of positions within ExxonMobil and have moved quite a bit including foreign assignments. Personally, I have been married to my High School sweetheart for over 30 years now. We have two girls - both married and living on the East Coast. We now live in Arlington, VA and are really enjoying the urban life style with easy access to everything that DC has to offer - before our next move - Houston in early 2015. We still follow the triumphs and tragedies of our beloved Scarlet Knights football team. Hope all of our classmates and faculty are doing well. RU RAH RAH.” William J Bennett, BS ’82, MS ’85, has 30 plus years of experience in the Fine Chemicals and Pharma-ceutical Industry. Over more than half of this time he filled a variety of roles in Chemical and Biochemical Process Development and Manufacturing with American Cyanamid (which was later bought by American Home Products/Wyeth) with ancillary responsibilities in Process Safety and Hazards Evaluation (thanks Prof. Burton Davidson) and Regulatory compliance. In this role he started up more than 20 manufacturing processes/plants worldwide, thus aiding the launch of about 15 new products. His particular expertise in managing development and solving difficult problems he attributes to the “finite differences” approach learned from Prof. Alkis Constantinides – getting the approximate answers that can be obtained immediately and using that information to refine the answer. Bill then joined a startup Biotech (Keryx Pharmaceuticals) as the VP of Pharmaceutical Development & Manufacturing (with CMC QA/Regulatory oversight). After a Phase 3 failure, Bill spent 3 years as a CMC/Regulatory consultant (Bennett Pharma


14

Solutions), ending up at EUSA Pharma (a small UK biotech company) for which he filled the QA, Regulatory, and Technical Development roles working as an interface with the FDA on the review of the BLA for a new biologic. After EUSA obtained FDA approval of their new vaccine for acute lymphoblastic lymphoma (ALL), the company was bought by Jazz Pharmaceuticals. Bill is now the Head (VP) of their Biologics (CMC) Development group. Bill is now located in the Philadelphia area after more

than 30 years in New Jersey. Patrick S. Till, BS ’82, is an environmental, health and safety coordinator with an international gasket manufacturer. He got his PE in 2007, and has worked in several industries, including electronics, explosives, chemicals, environmental remediation, and trash-to-steam. Patrick says “I wish that I could say it was an easy road, but I took a very circuitous route to where I am today.”

Barry Skoultchi, BS ’84, MS ’88, is a licensed Professional Engineer in the states of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Upon graduating from Rutgers, Barry first started work in the environmental field working for the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, and then for Rutgers Enviro Sciences. He has been working for 26 years for The Whitman Companies, and currently holds the position of CEO. The Whitman Companies is an environmental and engineering consulting company located in Cranbury, NJ. Throughout his career, he has provided expert testimony on various matters and coordinated numerous environmental investigations, design and remedial action projects, including UST, indoor air quality, soil and ground water remediation and others. His current responsibilities include developing the strategic plan to advance the company’s service lines and plotting out the firm’s future direction and vision.

Dr. Cecilia Vargas (in photo above with Barry Skoultchi) obtained all of her degrees in Chemical Engineering (BS ’84, MS ’86, PhD ’89) from Rutgers University. After completing her studies, she employed as a research scientist for Johnson & Johnson where she worked on several different projects involving fluid flow modeling and polymer processing. She spent time interacting with engineers, product development specialists, as well as product marketing groups. After leaving her research position, she transitioned into academia by accepting a post-doctoral research position at the AgBiotech Center at Cook College, Rutgers University. Her research focused on identifying naturally occurring bacteria with the ability to degrade halogenated compounds such as PCB’s, dioxins, as well as fluorinated aromatic compounds. While at Cook College, she got involved in teaching an Environmental Science course, and eventually accepted a full time


15

teaching position at DeVry University where she taught Environmental Science, Chemistry, Biology, as well as mathematics courses. Currently, she teaches Chemistry at Union County College. Barry Skoultchi and Cecilia Vargas have been happily married for 25 years, and live in Skillman, NJ with their 3 children (Aaron, 21, Mari, 18, and Noah, 10) and their dog, Butters.

James J. Marsh, BS ’84, is the Chief Executive Officer of Global Risk Consultants (GRC), a $70 million global full-service, risk control consulting firm. He directs all financial, operating, training, and consulting services of GRC’s global network, which includes more than 370 employees in 16 countries. During his career, Jim has managed risk management professionals specializing in operational, environmental and hazard risk consulting engagements, developed a risk assessment model for holistic risk mapping, and served as an adjunct instructor at a corporate training institute. In addition to his BS Chemical Engineering, Jim Marsh has an MS in Business Management from Stevens Institute of Technology, where he currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management. Jim is also on the Board of Directors for Global Risk Consultants Corp, Global Risk Miyamoto and the ARISE Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company (ABIIC) Risk Retention Group. He is a member of the Risk & Insurance Management Society (RIMS), National Fire Protection

Association (NFPA), Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Jim is happily married to his wife, Annette, of over 20 years, and they have three teenage children. He is an avid triathlete, skier, and hiker. Jim recently completed a half-marathon in May and is currently training for a half Iron Man in September. Dan Welch, BS ’86, is currently a Partner and Senior Engineer with Sierra Research in Sacramento, CA. Sierra is a small consulting firm, based in Sacramento that specializes in air quality issues for stationary sources, motor vehicles and other mobile sources, and fuels. Dan has been with Sierra since 1998. He specializes in permitting and regulatory compliance issues for power plants and other stationary sources. Dan has recently added to his resume green energy projects, such as ethanol plants, hydrogen plants, concentrating solar power plants, and biomass power plants. Dan has been married to his wife, Nicole, for 10 years. Nicole is a consultant specializing in organizational development, coaching, training, human resources, and recruiting. Nicole started

her own consulting practice two years ago. Dan and Nicole have a beautiful 4-year old daughter, Natalie, who is their little miracle. She amazes them every single day. They also have three dogs and a cat. They recently bought a new home in Sacramento and are still settling in.


16

Dan gets together with several Sacramento Rutgers alums during the fall to subject themselves to the angst that is Rutgers football. A habit he just cannot seem to shake. Scott Gerbman, BS ’91, started his career at the Bayway refinery and had arranged a few tours of the refinery for Dr. C’s classes in the 1990's and early 2000’s. Scott says: “Life has dealt me a fortunate set of cards since we have last spoken. My career at Bayway ended in 2004 when I left ConocoPhillips to take the job as the Planning and Economics Manager for Premcor at their Delaware City Refinery. In 2005 Valero bought Premcor and I remained at the refinery for one more year with Valero as the Planning and Economics Director. In October of 2006 my career switched gears as I took a job with Lukoil Pan Americas in Red Bank, NJ as a gasoline trader. My years of refinery economics were a good bridge to make that leap into the commercial realm of refined products. Lukoil Pan Americas is the US branch of LITASCO, the international commercial arm of OAO Lukoil. In 2010 the Red Bank office was moved into Manhattan where I have worked until now. I have just left Lukoil to take a position as Senior Director of clean products for PBF Energy. PBF owns the Delaware City Refinery, Paulsboro Refinery, and the old Sunoco Toledo refinery. I will have responsibility for commercial management of all gasolines and distillates. I will be starting this new job on August 1st. I am happily married to my wife Debbie now 16 years. Debbie is also a graduate of Rutgers with a degree in psychology. We have two beautiful boys; Ryan age 13 and Jacob age 12. I currently live in Fair Haven, NJ in Monmouth County. “ Dr. Mark Riley, PhD ’94, and his wife Dr. Jill Bonita, PhD ’94, moved to Lincoln, NE in Oct of 2012, because Mark took the position of Department Head in Biological Systems Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Department has a good sized program with 32 faculty and close to 400

students. They were fortunate to hire 5 faculty last year and have 3 open searches at this time. Mark says: “Jill and I had been in Arizona for 15 years, which we enjoyed greatly, but it was time to move forward.” Dr. Jeffrey Zalc, BS ’95, MS ’98, PhD ’00, lives in Aurora, Illinois with his wife, Maura, and their two daughters, Beatrice (8) and Margaret (4). Jeff works for BP's Refining & Logistics Technology group in Naperville, where he leads a team that develops detailed refining process models and related tools. Dr. Subhash S. Kale, PhD ’96 is planning to join Bechtel on July 15, 2013 in Houston, TX. After starting his career in R&D, Subhash has been in industry for about 34 years in various engineering design, process simulation companies. His wife works for Baylor College of Medicine and his daughter works for Google in the San Francisco area. Dr. Scott M. Lieberman, BS ’98, and his family just moved to Iowa City, Iowa, as he takes on his new position as Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Rheumatology at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and Attending Physician in Pediatric Rheuma-tology at the University of Iowa Children's Hospital. In this position, Scott will continue to care for children with rheumatic diseases but will also now be principal investigator of his own research lab focusing on the role of T cells in autoimmunity, specifically studying an animal model of Sjogren syndrome (an autoimmune disease characterized by destruction of tear-producing and saliva-producing glands). His son (6 1/2 years old) and daughter (2 1/2 years old) are enjoying the new adventure including so much nature and open space in the Midwest! (a big change from center city Philadelphia!). Scott’s wife is enjoying the new adventure as well and has started her own medical communi-cations company.


17

Emmanuel Yamoah, BS ’98, has been at Procter & Gamble since graduating from Rutgers in 1998. This year he celebrated 15 years with the company. Two years ago he relocated with his family from Cincinnati to Connecticut, where he is currently a global innovation manager for Duracell R&D. Emmanuel has been married for 9 years, and has two children, a seven year old daughter and a two year old son who are enjoying the East Coast/New England area. They look forward to getting engaged in more RU alumni activities now that they are in Connecticut. David Mercando, BS ’98, is an Associate Director, Engineering in Global Technical Operations for Merck & Co. He has several global projects and his primary role is to provide technical support to Merck's facilities in Europe. David’s daughter just graduated from Stuart Country Day School. She graduated with high honors and has enrolled at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA. She plans to major in Biochemistry. David’s son finished his freshman year at The Pennington School. His goal is to go to school for Aeronautical Engineering. David’s wife, Noreen, is a physician at the VA, and they live in Princeton, NJ.

Dr. Edit Szalai, BS ’98, MS ’00, PhD ’02, after 6 years of living in London UK, she relocated with her husband to Fort Collins, CO, in the summer of 2011. She found a great position at Colorado State University soon after arriving to Colorado, working as a program development manager at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. This position uniquely integrates her background in science and business, and she is happily utilizing a lot of information from the years spent at Rutgers University completing the PhD in Chemical Engineering. Edit’s husband, who is originally from Auckland, New Zealand, is enjoying his first years living in the United States. They got married in a tiny, two-person ceremony in Rocky Mountain National Park. Colorado living has been all that they hoped for - small town, and amazing outdoors at their fingertips. Joseph Milowic, BS ’98, is a Partner at the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP in New York City. He focuses on patent and trade secret litigation and arbitra tions. Joe is part of a team that represents Google, HTC, and Samsung in the smart-phone patent wars against


18

Apple, Microsoft, and others. Essentially they are defending Android, which is under attack because of its open source nature. Joe also uses his biochemical engineering background to represent pharma, chemical, and biotech companies. He says: “I don't sleep much, but am having fun. I live in Forest Hills, Queens with my dear wife who grew up in Forest Hills from the time she arrived in the US as a child from India, and with our soon to be seven year old daughter. She's taking drum lessons and loves it. I would love to hear from fellow alumni: [email protected]” Following graduation from Rutgers, Dr. Pratik Jaluria, BS ’99, pursued a career in engineering consulting working for Kvaerner John Brown. During a period of several years he worked for a variety of biotech and pharmaceutical clients including Merck, Pfizer and Imclone. In 2002, Pratik started graduate studies in Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. His work focused on cell-line engineering and bioreactor optimization. Concurrent with the graduate work, he was awarded a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. After completion of the PhD in 2007, Pratik went to work for a startup vaccine manufacturer in NJ for about a year. He left to join Alexion in Connecticut in 2008 as a senior scientist in the process development group. After a series of promotions, he is currently the head of the Upstream Development group managing 14 scientists.

Melissa Gregory-Mollet, BS ’02, has been working in Contract Manufacturing at Genen-tech the last three years. She managed the company’s relationships with CMOs as well as performed sourcing activities. This year

Melissa moved into a Supply Chain role, managing production schedules and orders with

contract manufacturers. She is based in South San Francisco, CA. In her free time, Melissa likes doing Crossfit and snowboarding. She just went on a heli-trip to Alaska this year!

Dr. Nick (Nikolay) Zaborenko, BS ’04 is continuing his work at Eli Lilly and Co., working in the Small Molecule Design and Development and focusing on continuous-flow process development of pharmaceuticals. He lives in Indianapolis, IN, and will be getting married on August 10th. Above is a photo of him and his fiancée, Callie Archibald (soon to be Callie Zaborenko). Murat Ozbas, BS ’04, has been working as a Systems Engineer at GSE System in Eldersburg, MD for almost 7 years now. GSE is a next-generation simulation, training and engineering services provider. Murat is married and has a son and a daughter. Kimun Park, BS ’04, says: “I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that I am grateful to be part of the class of ’04 and it was an honor and a pleasure to have learned from Dr. C and the rest of amazing faculty at the Department. Currently I am working full-time as a Clinical Testing Manager for Hair Care, Estee Lauder Companies in Long Island, NY. You may ask what does Chemical Engineering have to do with cosmetics, but you should realize that a degree in Chemical Engineering from Rutgers University


19

prepares you for the challenge ahead in any industry. You are a thinker, a problem-solver, and an engineer. I am proud of my engineering education from Rutgers University, and I hope my classmates are also doing well and being successful in their current careers. I look forward to hearing from you all and hopefully we would have a nice reunion in the near future.”

Andy Ward, BS ’06, is marking 5 years with SWM International, a manu-facturer of specialty papers in Spotswood, NJ. Andy’s position is Controls and Instrumentation Engineer with responsibilities in all facets of papermaking, from pulping and bleaching

to paper machine operation and quality. He has recently become certified as a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Andy lives in Brick, NJ with his wife Karen, two dogs and two cats. Andy and Karen have just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. Andy’s hobbies include playing guitar and sailing on Barnegat Bay.

Following graduation, Matthew Phelan, BS ’06, spent a year conducting DARPA-funded, lithium-ion battery research for SKC before leaving to become an assistant editor at Chemical Engineering

magazine. In 2008, he began a three-year association with the educational children's publication Weekly Reader magazine writing and drawing a recurring comic entitled "LabRats." His reporting (and jokey fake reporting) has appeared in The Onion, Salon, Wonkette and Inside Climate News among others. For three years, Matthew edited text-books, and produced story-boards for Pre-Media Global for clients like Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Matthew is not married yet

and doesn't have kids or even a dog. About once a month, he very seriously considers applying for legitimate employment as a chemical engineer. Daniel Fritz, BS ’09, is working as a process engineer supporting bulk sterile API manu-facturing at Merck & Co. in Virginia. He will be starting business school this fall working toward the MBA degree with a concentration in Supply Chain Management. Daniel got married on August 21st, 2010 and they have recently purchased their first home. After graduation, Anand Shah, BS ’09, ventured into a management track with Verizon Wireless. He obtained a job with Verizon Wireless in their Network Leadership Development Program. A leadership program that involves rotations between various Verizon locations and roles in the hopes of developing soft and hard manage-ment/leadership skills. He was in Boston for 18 months as a traffic engineer, in Philadelphia for 18 months as a data engineer, and now his current rotation is in Albany for 18 months. Anand is currently a manager of operations and for the past year he has been doing his MBA at RPI. Anand has gone through a rigorous schedule with full time school and full time work, currently working 40 hours weeks and taking 18 credits with the hopes of graduating in August. His next steps are to obtain a job in Verizon HQ and move up the ranks from there. Albert Gasser, BS ’10, says: “Last time I e-mailed you I was working in Florida developing a business plan for the next greatest biofuel company. Unfortunately, the technology was not ready for prime time, and the overall economics were not very competitive. So after a difficult job search, I am now in Schenectady,


20

NY working in Business Development for Automated Dynamics (AD). AD manufactures high performance composite structures and manufacturing equipment. My role here is to

focus on expanding business in the Aerospace market. Although I never really worked in an engineering role, I have found that my ChemE degree from Rutgers has opened many doors to opportunities I would not have otherwise,

especially given the tough job market. I am currently living in Albany, NY with my girlfriend Deborah. I have attached a recent photo. If any alumni are in the Albany area, don't hesitate to look me up! Thanks for keeping in touch and putting together these newsletters Dr. C. I will be very interested to see what others are up to.” Sunny Kanneganti, BS ’10, is ending his tenure at Merck Pharmaceuticals, about three years starting right after graduation from Rutgers, to pursue education at Harvard Business School. He will be at Harvard for two years, and unsure where his career will go from there. Since graduating from Rutgers, Sho Ohata, BS ’10, has been working at Con Edison and has held various positions there. He was accepted into Con Edison as a GOLD associate (a rotational program) where he spent 16 months in two different positions in the company. Sho worked as an analyst modeling the reliability and the cost of electricity in Con Edison’s service territory during his first rotation. He completed a cost impact study to customers of a NOx emission regulation that would have impacted many generating stations in NY State. During his second rotation he was an operating supervisor supervising union overhead linemen in Queens, NY. Sho worked through the heat wave as well as Hurricane Irene restoring customers. Upon graduation of the program Sho took a position in the Project Engineering group

where he manages engineering projects that support the needs of substations and steam generating plants. After graduating from Rutgers University, Ayanna Campbell, BS ’11, attended and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with the Master's degree in Chemical Engineering. She was then blessed with the opportunity to work for Estee Lauder as the Quality Assurance Lab Specialist, where she supervises the Analytical, Microbiology, and Products/ Color Labs. Ayanna keeps in close contact with her fellow Rutgers ChemE Alumna, Alicia Boyd, as well as Abiola Eisape (Rutgers I.E)!

On July 13, Keith Croly, BS ‘11, got married to Kara Haggerty. Several members of the Class of 2011 were in attendance (see above, from left to right): Tiffany Chiang, Kimberly Ulaky, Keith Croly with his wife Kara, Paul Berger, Sharon Shliechkorn, Chelsea Stanton, and Kevin Cosman. Samie Leigh, BS ’12, began working at ExxonMobil Chemical Company right after graduation, in product development technology. Her position involves developing high density polyethylene resin for blow molding and injection molding application. Next month, Samie will start a part- time law program at the University of Houston to study intellectual property. She hopes to use the degree to move into ExxonMobil's legal department. Samie says: “Houston has brought me many new


21

experiences including a dueling piano bar, the rodeo, country dancing, turtle racing, and a huge culture of amazing restaurants and food trucks. I have also had a chance to visit nearby cities like New Orleans, Austin, and Dallas. Several weeks ago, I purchased my first house within the inner loop of Houston. I am excited to begin making memories in one of the fastest growing cities in North America.” Sameera Namazi, BS ’12, pursued the Masters in Chemical Engineering at Columbia University. There, she did research in the field of Protein Engineering which was entirely new and fascinating to her. In May of this year, she graduated with the MS in Chemical Engineering. Currently, Sameera is working in the same Protein Engineering lab for the summer as a Staff Associate while simultaneously looking for a full-time R&D job in the pharmaceutical industry. Sagar Patel, BS ’12, is currently at Axiall Corporation as a Process Engineer supporting the Vinyl Chloride plant near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Axiall is a new company formed through the merger of Georgia Gulf and PPG’s commodity chemicals business. They specialize mostly in chlorovinyls and aromatics. Sagar has been working for Axiall for the past 6 months and he absolutely enjoys working there. Sagar says: “It was a culture shock moving to Baton Rouge, LA, from NJ but it has been a great experience.” Joseph (Joey) Vella, BS ’12, recently finished his 1st year in the Chemical Engineering PhD program at Princeton University. He is co-advised by Professors Panagiotopoulos and Debenedetti. His project is titled "Simulations of liquid metals as plasma facing components for fusion energy systems". Joey is looking forward to his second year where he plans to continue making progress on his project, taking more courses, and being a TA for the first time.

Paul Ludford, BS. ’13, is currently living in New Jersey. He recently moved out of New Brunswick up to Fanwood next to Scotch-Plains and Westfield. He has spent a couple weeks off from job applications to travel around Massachusetts, Maine, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, and Washington D.C. It was nice break from everything and saw a lot of awesome sights. Paul has since spent most of his time trying to learn how to create a functioning app for android and applying for as many jobs as he can find. So far, he has received two interviews: one company is 1010data for the position of Analyst in New York and the other is BASF for the position of Chemical Operator. Paul says: “It has been tough getting any feedback at all for jobs I apply for, so I am ecstatic that I got two in a row. My goal for the future is to hopefully save up some movie and get myself settled somewhere in New Jersey a little less temporarily.” Sam Dilks, BS ’13, is a Process Engineer working on the design phase of a pharmaceutical plant for Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics. The plant will be designed and be built in modules in the United States, mostly in South Carolina, and then shipped down to Pernambuco, Brazil where it will be used to produce the Meningitis B vaccine. Sam has been working with many other engineering disciplines along with Chemical Engineers, from all over the United States and even Brazil. Sam says: “Although I have only been working here for a couple weeks, I have attended several meetings where the material that I learned in Dr. C’s class has been very useful. I am constantly surrounded by conversations about heat exchangers, bioreactors, vessels etc. Specifically, I attended a meeting with one of the vendors that will be manufacturing some of the heat exchangers that will be used and there was a discussion of the relationship between heat transfer coefficient and surface area. They discussed the approximate size heat exchanger


22

that would be sufficient for planning purposes. I feel that the Final Design Project that we had to complete in Dr. C’s class was very compatible to the job that I am performing now and it is giving me an edge over my coworkers. Although the project I did was the conversion of natural gas to

liquefied natural gas, the equipment and unit operations are very relevant to the pharma-ceutical field. I would like to thank Dr. C for teaching our class and hope that he is doing well.”

You are invited to attend the reception for Alumni and Friends of the

Department of Chemical & Biochemical Engineering at the

2013 AIChE Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA November 4, 2013

7:00-9:00 pm Hilton Union Square, Room: To be announced

Facebook We have formed a group on facebook:

Rutgers Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Alumni Please join us by going to the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/219883551396204/

LinkedIn We have formed a group on LinkedIn:

Rutgers Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Friends & Alumni Please join us by going to the link below:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=4056832&trk=anet_ug_hm

We have made it easy for you to

Contribute to the Dr. Alkis Constantinides Scholarship Fund.

To do so, please go to the web site of the Department (http://cbe.rutgers.edu/) and use the Donations button, which is located at the bottom of the Home page and on

the Alumni page. This will take you to the RU Foundation website. Make your gift and specify that it is in honor of the Dr. Alkis Constantinides Scholarship Fund.

Or copy the link below to your Internet Explorer: http://cbedonations.rutgers.edu

Please update your personal information with us. Name: _______________________________________________________________________

Rutgers Degree(s) and Year(s) of graduation: ________________________________________

Home address: _________________________________________________________________

City: _________________________________ State: ___________ Zip: __________________

Home (or cell) telephone: ____________________ Work telephone: _____________________

Employer: ________________________________ Position: ____________________________

e-mail address: _________________________________________________________________

Comments or news:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please print this page and the next one (back-to-back), fill out the above form completely, fold at dotted line (with our address showing on the outside), staple, add postage, and mail it back to us. Or you may e-mail the above information to [email protected]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prof. A. Constantinides Director of Alumni Relations Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 98 Brett Road Piscataway, NJ 08854

Add postage

Alumni Newsletter - Biochemical engineeringcbe.rutgers.edu/pdf/Alumni Newsletter Fall 2013.pdf ·...

Documents

Transcript of Alumni Newsletter - Biochemical engineeringcbe.rutgers.edu/pdf/Alumni Newsletter Fall 2013.pdf ·...