Top 10 Highlights of 2023

Professor Tom Truskett and his wife, Van Truskett, both Texas ChE alums (B.S. ’96), made the cover of Texas Leader magazine. They share their path to making an unrestricted planned gift to support the department and talk about their first-hand experience of how donor generosity can have a life-changing impact on research and students.

Student-led Texas AIChE chapter, founded in 1941, is the hub of chemical engineering at UT Austin, providing students with resources to enhance their time at UT Austin and beyond. Eyeing a broader audience, AIChE launched a podcast: The Chemmunicator – “a student’s one-stop destination for all things education and career-related.”

Texas ChE welcomed four honorees into the 2023 class of Academy of Distinguished Chemical Engineers: Tim Go, Toni Crawford, Steve Cramer and Tony Go. The highest honor bestowed by the department, inductees are respected leaders in Fortune 200 energy companies, process engineering and academia.

Professor Benny Freeman was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering. Assistant Professor Brian Belardi received the Packard Science and Engineering Fellowship. Professor and Chair Delia Milliron received the Materials Research Society (MRS) Medal. Professor Michael Baldea was named Editor-in-Chief of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research Journal.

Professor Hal Alper received the Andreas Acrivos Award for Professional Progress, Professor Benny Freeman the Braskem Award for Excellence in Materials Engineering and Science, Professor and Chair Delia Milliron the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum (NSEF) Award, and Assistant Professor Joaquin Resasco and Alum Jovan Kamcev were both named 35 Under 35.

Texas ChE graduated 31 Ph.D.’s from #7 Top Graduate Chemical Engineering program in the nation. Meet 5 graduates here. LatinX in ChE leaders honored with AIChE’s 2023 IDEAL Award; Fabiola Chapa Villareal, co-founder of LatinX in ChE and Ph.D. candidate with the Peppas Lab, David Alfonso Castilla-Casadeigo, postdoctoral scholar in the Rosales lab and Isabela Ramirez Velez, co-founder of LatinX in ChE and graduate research assistant.

With overseas travel bans lifted post-COVID, May Terms were opened to more students than ever. Engineering Global Health, led by Professor Jennifer Maynard, asked students to tackle pressing healthcare issues while in Barcelona, Spain. Professor Brian Korgel, Associate Prof. Nate Lynd and Assistant Prof. Joaquin Resasco, with the help of additional teaching assistants, welcomed 80 students to Japan for Advanced Nanotechnology + Innovation for Beginners.

Texas ChE pulled off UT Austin’s first-ever Zero Waste tailgate during our much-anticipated annual Alumni Weekend. With guidance from UT’s Resource Recovery team, student volunteers helped educate tailgaters at trash, recycle and compost receptacles about proper bin usage. We collectively achieved a 92% trash diversion rate from landfills and incinerators. And, special thanks to Chevron for sponsoring our tailgate.

A new HyVelocity Hydrogen Hub is a collaborative effort of academia, non-profit research organizations and leading energy companies, aimed at delivering clean hydrogen innovation and good-paying jobs to local communities in Texas and the Gulf Coast region. Professor Brian Korgel, director of UT Energy Institute, offers insight into UT Austin as a founding member and the long-term goals of the partnership.

Through NSF’s Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future grant program, Texas ChE Professors Tom Truskett, Delia Milliron and Adrianne Rosales are leading research to drive the design, discovery and development of advanced materials. Separately, the Center for Dynamics and Control of Materials (CDCM), part of NSF’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC) program, will receive $18 million over six years to bring life to materials with enhanced properties and capabilities.