Page 2 - CEMS News Winter 2023

MESSAGE FROM THE HEAD
Dear CEMS Alumni and Friends,
This newsletter reports several exciting developments in CEMS that occurred this Fall that we are eager to share with you. In the last newsletter, I explained that the Department is preparing to launch its first new degree program in 40 years: the Masters in Data Science in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. This
new degree, which ultimately will be open to working professionals as well as recent Bachelors students, has been motivated by a call from industry for engineers trained in the latest methods in statistics and machine learning for processing enormous data sets that are now commonly generated in research and development laboratories. Importantly, for our students the new
MS degree will expand their opportunities for exciting careers and competitive salaries. I am very pleased to say that this new effort is
being generously supported by alumni and friends of CEMS (see page 14), as well as industry. Thanks to several major recent gifts, we will be offering substantial fellowships to new students in the first cohort that will arrive on campus in the Fall of 2023. We are truly grateful for this new student support that will energize our data science initiative.
On the research front, CEMS landed a major $10.6 million grant from the Department of Energy to fund a new multi-investigator effort, the Center for Programmable Energy Catalysis (CPEC, see page 7). Led by CEMS faculty member Paul Dauenhauer, CPEC will focus on exciting new strategies to accelerate chemical reactions on electronically tunable catalysts. The advances will lead to significant energy savings for chemical transformations and help promote the electrification of the chemical industry. Center-level funding is extremely important in today’s competitive research environment and with the start of CPEC, CEMS now has three major centers involving its faculty, the other two being the NSF funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) led by Chris Leighton in CEMS (see page 12), and the Center for Sustainable Polymers, led by Marc Hillmyer in Chemistry.
Finally, as you saw on the cover of this newsletter, Fall Semester 2022 saw the publication of our department history, Quality and Community, by our own Ken Keller (see page 4). It is a wonderful book that captures what is special about CEMS, and I encourage all of you to read it (it’s available on the Artmobile website or Amazon). The faculty and I are extremely grateful to Ken for his willingness and dedication to write our story.
My thanks to you for reading our newsletter and for supporting CEMS. I wish you all the best in 2023!
C. Daniel Frisbie
C. Daniel Frisbie, Head
WINTER 2023
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.
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