Page 10 - CEMS News Summer 2020

GIVING MATTERS
Investing in the Next 100
Matthew Tirrell, former CEMS faculty member from 1977-1999, renews his investment in graduate fellowships.
“Historic occasions such as the CEMS Centennial
and Jubilee year offer us unique opportunities for reflection. I began my career as a faculty member more than 40 years ago at the University of Minnesota. I remain immensely grateful for my 22 years in CEMS
as a professor and department head, which provided me the superb foundation upon which I have built my entire career as an academic leader. I have witnessed firsthand the profound impact that fellowship funding has made on my own career as a faculty member working to sustain a research group, but perhaps more importantly, the meaningful difference it has made in the lives of graduate students whose careers have been successfully launched and whose lives have been changed.
Philanthropic investment has been critical to magnifying the intellectual output of this department’s faculty
and students. I was proud to return to campus last
June to deliver remarks at the Centennial and Jubilee Celebration dinner. As I shared that evening, I believe that each and every one of us who have participated in one way or another in the life of CEMS should make an active, new commitment to help sustain it for another century. Our own philanthropy is an important statement, but so is spreading the word about what a remarkable
Sallye Gathmann, ChE
Matthew Tirrell Fellowship recipient
“I grew up in Churchville, New York and attended Clemson University for my undergraduate education.
I decided to attend the University of Minnesota for my graduate studies due to the uniqueness of the program. Few, if any, of the other top universities have a joint department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. Additionally, as I was open to studying a range of topics, I wanted to join a larger department where I would have a variety of options.
I am co-advised by professors Dan Frisbie and Paul Dauenhauer, so my research is at a unique intersection of electronic materials/devices and gas-phase heterogeneous catalysis.
place this is
and providing employment opportunities to the human capital that Minnesota Chemical Engineering and Materials Science produces, from internships to PhD researchers. This Department is a powerful resource for the region,
the country, and
the world. I am
proud to renew
my support at this
historic moment in its history and I remain proud to carry a part of CEMS with me everywhere I go.”
Matthew Tirrell
Robert A. Millikan Distinguished Service Professor and Dean, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago
Fellowship funding allowed me to pick my current co-advisement, as this supplemented my external fellowship such that my advisors were able to take me without having current grant funding. This is incredibly meaningful to me, as the Dynamic Catalysis project
is what I was, by far, most
excited to work on. Further,
this allowed me to pick
advisors who are supportive
of my career goals and promote career development workshops and activities to me.”
Matthew Tirrell
10 www.cems.umn.edu
Sallye Gathmann