Page 2 - CEMS Winter 2022 Newsletter

MESSAGE FROM THE HEAD
C. Daniel Frisbie
Dear CEMS Alumni and Friends,
As I write this, our Spring Semester is getting underway, and even amidst the current uncertainty associated with the spread of the omicron variant, we have much to be positive about regarding the current 2021-2022 academic year. Our Fall Semester was a terrific success – we relaunched in-person instruction in September after a 17 month hiatus (March 2020-August 2021) in which every lecture was taught online. The enthusiasm of our students and faculty during the first weeks of class this fall was truly palpable; everyone seemed to enjoy being back together in lecture halls, classrooms and laboratories, and the University’s face mask requirement was but a small impediment to social
interaction. We were able to complete the semester without major disruption
or widespread illness. We begin the Spring Semester hopeful that the high vaccination rates among our students, staff, and faculty will allow us to continue our in-person instruction uninterrupted through till May.
Besides prevailing over the pandemic there were other “firsts” for CEMS
this Fall. Professor Paul Dauenhauer launched our first course dedicated to teaching principles of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship – ChEn/MatS 5803 Commercialization of Chemical and Materials Technology. This 5000-level course is designed to appeal to graduate students and advanced undergraduates alike and aims to help students understand the broad spectrum of factors that are necessary to achieve commercial success with a new product or process. In conjunction with this course, we launched a startup pitch competition termed “The Crucible Prize” (referencing the cast bronze sculpture at the entrance to Amundson Hall) to encourage entrepreneurial thinking among our students. You can read more about these new initiatives in this newsletter.
The Department also celebrated several retirements. Longtime teaching faculty Raul Caretta and Jeff Schott retired after over two decades of involvement with our unit operations teaching laboratory. Friedrich Srienc, who was jointly appointed
in CEMS and the BioTechnology Institute, also completed phased retirement, as did longtime, much-loved staff member David Giles, who ran the Department’s rheology lab for many years. We are grateful to all of these individuals for their years of service to CEMS, and you can read more about them in the following pages.
I hope this newsletter finds you in good health, and I look forward to updating you this summer on other new initiatives we have underway in CEMS. As always, our students, faculty, and staff are very busy!
C. Daniel Frisbie, Head
WINTER 2022
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS SCIENCE HEAD
C. Daniel Frisbie
EDITORS
Courtney Billing Gayle Gabrielski Mary Kosowski
CEMS News is published semi- annually by the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science for alumni, faculty, staff, students, and friends of the department.
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
College of Science & Engineering University of Minnesota
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421 Washington Avenue SE Minneapolis, MN 55455-0132 USA
Phone: 612-625-1313
Fax: 612-626-7246
Email: cemsdept@umn.edu cemsalum@umn.edu cemsnext100@umn.edu
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