Education in Engineering Lecture
Co-hosted with the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education & Practice (ISTEP)
Eric Kaler, Case Western Reserve University
Host: Prof. Krishna Mahadevan
I will describe the outcomes of a US National Academies (NA) study I chaired called “New Directions for Chemical Engineering.” As described by the NA Press, it “details a vision to guide chemical engineering research, innovation, and education over the next few decades. This report calls for new investments in U.S. chemical engineering and the interdisciplinary, cross-sector collaborations necessary to advance the societal goals of transitioning to a low-carbon energy system, ensuring our production and use of food and water is sustainable, developing medical advances and engineering solutions to health equity, and manufacturing with less waste and pollution. The report also calls for changes in chemical engineering education to ensure the next generation of chemical engineers is more diverse and equipped with the skills necessary to address the challenges ahead.
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Eric W. Kaler is the president of Case Western Reserve University. He joined Case Western Reserve in July 2021 from the University of Minnesota, where he served as university president for eight years. An accomplished chemical engineer and visionary university leader, Kaler’s career in higher education spans more than 40 years. He has significant expertise in elevating research, expanding fundraising, forming collaborative partnerships, encouraging entrepreneurship, and advocating for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Kaler studies surfactant and colloid science and engineering. His work on these ‘complex fluids’ has implications for many processes and products, ranging from pharmaceutical formulations to personal care products to enhancing oil-field production. He has published over 200 papers and holds 10 U.S. Patents and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (2010). He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2014) for his leadership in engineering and in higher education. He was a member of the inaugural class of the National Academy of Inventors (2012). He also is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society.
Born in Vermont, Kaler is a first-generation college graduate who earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota.
View the complete 2022-23 LLE schedule
Questions? Please contact Professor Jay Werber (jay.werber@utoronto.ca) or Sophia Lu (soph.lu@mail.utoronto.ca).
Panel Discussion: Envisioning the Future of Chemical Engineering Education
Confirmed Panelists:
Eric Kaler, President, Case Western Reserve University
Ajay Kochhar (ChemE 1T3), President & CEO, Co-Founder, Li-Cycle
Sandra Odendahl (ChemE MASc 9T0), Senior Vice President & Head of Sustainability and Diversity, BDC
Michael Sefton (ChemE 7T1), University Professor, University of Toronto
Rossetti Room
4:30pm – 5:30pm
(Free)
The panel discussion will also be livestreamed through Zoom (registration not required):
Meeting link: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/83556865393
Meeting ID: 835 5686 5393
Passcode: ChemE2023
Poster & Cocktail Reception
Mountbatten Salon
5:30pm – 7:00pm
(Free, cash bar)
37th Dinner
Churchill Ballroom
7:00pm – 9:30pm
($100/Person)
All events will be held at the Chelsea Hotel, 33 Gerrard St W. REGISTRATION HAS NOW CLOSED!
CHECK OUT THIS YEAR’S SPONSORS! If you wish to become a sponsor, email jennifer.hsu@utoronto.ca
Maciek Antoniewicz, University of Michigan
Host: Prof. Chris Lawson
Syntrophy, or cross-feeding, is the co-existence of two or more microbes whereby one feeds off the products of the other. Recently, we have developed an integrated multi-scale flux modeling approach that allows us, for the first time, to dissect interactions in microbial communities using 13C tracers. Specifically, to quantify metabolism and identify cross-feeding interactions we have developed a compartmental multi-scale 13C metabolic flux analysis (13C-comMFA) approach that quantifies metabolic fluxes for multiple cell populations in microbial communities without separation of cells or proteins. In this presentation, I will illustrate our investigations of metabolic interactions between E. coli auxotrophs that are unable to grow on glucose in minimal medium by themselves, but can grow on glucose when cultured together. Using our novel 13C-comMFA flux analysis tool we have quantified metabolic interactions (i.e. metabolite cross-feeding) in four distinct synthetic E. coli co-cultures. We also applied adaptive laboratory evolution to elucidate how syntrophic interactions evolve and are strengthened through adaptive co-evolution of co-cultures. Overall, the methods we have developed for studying microbial communities enable a broad new area of investigations, allowing us and others to dissect complex microbial systems that are of significant importance in biology but cannot be investigated with current tools. More broadly, by better understanding syntrophic relationships at the genetic, molecular, cellular and systems levels we are generating new knowledge on microbial syntrophy that enables us to ensemble synergistic interactions in engineered microbial communities for novel applications.
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Maciek R. Antoniewicz is a Full Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan. Dr. Antoniewicz earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Delft University of Technology (2000), and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006). After graduating he performed post-doctoral research at the DuPont Company. Dr. Antoniewicz started as an Assistant Professor in 2007 at the University of Delaware and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2013 and to Full Professor in 2017. In 2019, Dr. Antoniewicz moved to the University of Michigan.
Dr. Antoniewicz is an expert and a pioneer in the field of 13C-metabolic flux analysis (13C-MFA). Dr. Antoniewicz has received many awards for his research accomplishments, including the DuPont Young Professor Award (2008), the James E. Bailey Young Investigator Award in Metabolic Engineering (2008), the NSF CAREER Award (2011), and the Biotechnology and Bioengineering Daniel I.C. Wang Award (2015). In 2018, Dr. Antoniewicz was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). His current interests include elucidating syntrophic interactions in microbial communities, adaptive laboratory evolution, optimizing CHO cell cultures for therapeutic protein production, and metabolic engineering of microbes for enhanced utilization of renewable substrates for production of value-added chemicals.
View the complete 2022-23 LLE schedule
Questions? Please contact Professor Jay Werber (jay.werber@utoronto.ca) or Sophia Lu (soph.lu@mail.utoronto.ca).
Alex Lee
Research Scientist, Air Quality Research Division
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)
Abstract: Atmospheric carbonaceous aerosols can have significant impacts on both air quality and climate. However, impacts of atmospheric brown carbon (BrC), the light absorbing fraction of organic aerosols (OAs) that can heat up the atmosphere, on global and regional climate are subject to large uncertainties due to the lack of understanding on their sources, formation processes and atmospheric evolution. While biomass burning has been recognized as the major sources of atmospheric BrC in global scale, the contributions of other primary sources and secondary processes to atmospheric BrC remain less understood. The first part of this talk will focus on the field observations in Singapore, a well-developed coastal city in warm and humid tropical region, based on a novel combination of high resolution aerosol mass spectrometry and aethalometer measurements. The results provide evidence that local combustion emissions and fresh secondary OA (SOA) formed with industrial influence can be important sources of BrC in urban environments, and biomass burning-derived BrC observed during the haze episode in the Southeast Asian region are susceptible to significant degradation in light absorptivity during regional transport. The second part will present laboratory observations that shows the dynamic impacts of relative humidity on secondary BrC formation in aqueous-phase upon fast droplet evaporation that is relevant to atmospheric cloud processing. The potential effects of anthropogenic-biogenic interactions on secondary BrC formation via aqueous-phase processing will be also discussed.
Biography: Alex Lee is a Research Scientist in Air Quality Research Division at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). Alex obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and pursued his postdoctoral research at the University of Toronto. Before joining ECCC, Alex was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore. His is particularly interested in investigating aerosol properties and compositions that are relevant to climatic and health impacts. His recent research focuses on optical properties of black and brown carbon, particle-bound reactive oxygen species and its potential linkage to human health, and characterization of micro/nanoplastic in airborne particles.
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Patrick Lee, Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto
Abstract: Most new polymeric products contain two or more polymers and/or functional additives resulting in desired properties contributed from each component. Recently, our group is focusing on creating hierarchically structured hybrid composites and coextruded micro-/nano-layered structures to tune the material properties. In this presentation, an approach will be presented to develop synergy-induced hierarchically structured Polypropylene (PP)-based hybrid composites, reinforced with Graphene Nanoplatelets (GnP) and Glass Fibers (GF), capable of achieving advanced properties and functionalities. These advanced multifunctional hybrid composites can be tailored for a variety of high-performance applications by exploiting the mechanisms governing the synergistic effect. In this hierarchical system, the GnPs (i.e., nano-sized filler) are chemically and electrostatically attached to the GFs (i.e., micro-sized filler), favoring load transfer at the interface, while simultaneously enhancing the crystalline microstructure of the PP matrix. Furthermore, the volume exclusion effect induced by the GFs, promotes the formation of GnP-based conductive networks. Strategically controlling the reinforcement concentrations has been proven to directly influence the magnitude of these mechanisms, effectively enhancing the synergistic effect, thereby allowing the mechanical, electrical, and thermal conductive properties of these advanced hybrid composites to be tailored based on their application.
Secondly, a fundamental and experimental investigation of cell nucleation and growth mechanisms in advanced Micro-/Nano-Layered (MNL) polymeric structures with alternating film and foam layers will be discussed. Foams can be prepared from any type of plastic by introducing a gas or supercritical fluid (SCF) within the polymer matrix. The applications of microcellular plastics containing billions of tiny bubbles less than 10 microns in size have broadened due to the lightweight characteristics, excellent strength-to-weight ratios, superior insulating abilities, energy absorbing performances, and the comfort features associated with plastic foams, as well as their cost-effectiveness and cost-to-performance ratios. We found that the cell nucleation and growth phenomenon in MNL systems are governed by the synergy of two categories of parameters: morphological parameters (i.e., film and foam layer thicknesses and the number of layer interfaces) and material parameters (i.e., material stiffness and compatibility with neighboring layers). The presence of adjacent film layers can significantly increase cell density through three mechanisms: promoting heterogeneous cell nucleation, preventing cell deterioration, and confining cell growth. The influence of film layers varied in different layer thickness regions and interface densities, where stiffer and more compatible film layers produced higher cell densities.
Biography: Dr. Lee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. He received his B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia, and then obtained his M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 2001 and 2006, respectively. Then he pursued Postdoctoral study in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Lee began his professional career at The Dow Chemical Company in 2008. He was a Research Scientist and Project Leader in Dow’s Research and Development organization. Dr. Lee joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Vermont as an assistant professor in 2014. Since joining UVM, he created his own research platform on the lightweight and smart composite structures. He joined the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at The University of Toronto starting July 1st, 2018.
Dr. Lee’s research areas focus on processing and characterization, and processing-structure-property relationships of hybrid nano-composites and foams. He has 84 journal papers, over 100 refereed conference abstracts/papers, 5 book chapters, and 20 filed/issued patent applications. He is the PI or co-PI on domestically and internationally awarded grants from various government agencies and industries. Among his honors, Dr. Lee received the G.H. Duggan Medal from Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) in 2020, the AKCSE Early Achievement Award in 2019, the US National Science Foundation Early Faculty Career Development Award (NSF CAREER) in 2018, the Polymer Processing Society (PPS) Morand Lambla award in 2018, the Hanwha Advanced Materials Non-Tenured Faculty Award in 2017, and 3 best paper awards from the Society of Plastics Engineer (2005, 2 in 2011).
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Jaan Kers
Professor of Wood Technology
Department of Materials and Environmental Technology,
Tallinn University of Technology
Tallinn, Estonia
Abstract: Cellulose, as the most common bio-polymer in the world, is an important resource for replacing fossil-based plastics. Cellulose is not intrinsically thermoplastic and must be chemically modified to achieve melting behaviour, expected by the plastics processing industry. The cellulose modification methods known so far are resource- and energy-intensive. This stimulates development of more sustainable routes. Therefore, TalTech is devising and demonstrating novel, sustainable esterification routes for preparing thermoplastic fatty acid cellulose esters (FACEs). Sustainability is ensured by minimizing the impact of the esterification agents, dissolution environment and modification methods. The cellulose esterification processes are based on chemically modified plant oils, new protonic ionic liquids, catalytic effects and the mechanochemical effect of reactive extrusion (REX). Certain components of the ionic liquids, the organic superbases can catalyze the esterification reactions. Plant oils and especially their production residues are valuable source of sustainable, fully bio-based esterification reagents. Their reactivity is improved by certain chemical modifications as well as catalytic and mechanochemical effects. The process can accept several primary or secondary sources of cellulose as dissolving pulp or microcrystalline cellulose. The study is accompanied by life cycle assessment of both production and products, including recycling of solvents and by-products, environmental durability of biopolymer films and recyclability. Research in REX experiments with a recently installed laboratory scale pilot-line is directed by project PI Prof. Andres Krumme.
Biography: Professor Jaan Kers has received his BSc and MSc. in production technology from Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) followed by the doctoral degree in Mechanical Engineering, also from TalTech (2006). He has 6 years of work experience in the private sector and over 17 years in the Department of Materials and Environmental Engineering at TalTech. He leads the research group of wood and composite materials. He is teaching wood science, wood- based products technology and biobased composites and he is program director of international Master’s curriculum, Technology of Wood, Plastics and Textiles“. His current research interests are in the areas of wood technology, wood modification, densification and natural fibre bio-composite materials. He has over 70 publications.
Host: Professor D. Grant Allen, dgrant.allen@utoronto.ca; Please contact Professor Allen if you’d like to arrange a meeting with Professor Kers.
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Dr. Misael Sebastián Gradilla-Hernández
Dr. Martín Esteban González López
Sustainability and Climate Change Laboratory
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Guadalajara Campus, Jalisco, Mexico
Abstract: This seminar will cover two important aspects of sustainable management practices. The first aspect will delve into the sustainable management of water bodies in Mexico, focusing on microbial ecology and metagenomics. Case studies including Lake Cajititlán, Lake Atotonilco, and the Santiago River will be presented to emphasize the significance of studying the microbial communities in water bodies for understanding their role in maintaining water quality. Advanced sequencing techniques and metagenomics will also be discussed as powerful tools for water quality monitoring and assessment, including the identification of emerging contaminants and the development of water quality indices.
The second aspect of the seminar will concentrate on maximizing bioenergy production from agro-industrial wastes in Jalisco. Specifically, streams of livestock waste, tequila vinasses, and cheese whey will be analyzed to identify the feedstock effects on the methanogenic dynamics and clusters for energy distributed ecosystems in anaerobic digestion systems. The seminar will emphasize the optimization of bioenergy production from agro-industrial waste streams in Jalisco with a specific focus on the study of biochemical methane potential (BMP). Additionally, the seminar will explore the potential for decentralized energy production using small-scale anaerobic digestion systems and its implications for sustainable agro-industrial waste management.
Bios: Misael Sebastián Gradilla-Hernández, a former General Director of Environmental Protection and Management of the Ministry of Environment and Territorial Development of the government of Jalisco, Mexico, has been a research professor and the leader of the Sustainability and Climate Change Laboratory at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Guadalajara since 2011. He obtained a degree in environmental engineering from ITESO and went on to earn a master’s degree in science and technology with a specialization in Environmental Engineering and a Doctorate in Biotechnological Innovation from CIATEJ. Additionally, he obtained a second Doctorate in management from the University of Guadalajara, specializing in environmental management and sustainability.
Dr. Gradilla-Hernández is a member of the National System of Researchers and specializes in the monitoring and assessment of surface water sources and in biotechnological strategies for the treatment of wastewater and solid waste, including anaerobic digestion and microalgal treatment. He has participated in numerous projects related to the water quality and emerging contaminants in water sources in Jalisco, such as Lake Cajititlán, Lake Atotonilco, Lake Zapotlán, and the Santiago River, and in circular economy projects for the treatment of liquid effluents from agro-industrial origin, such as livestock waste and tequila vinasses.
Dr. Gradilla-Hernández has co-authored several environmental programs of the State of Jalisco, such as the strategy to reduce food loss and waste in the state of Jalisco, the comprehensive waste management program “Jalisco Reduce”, and the development of a support system for decision-making in Río Santiago. Currently, he is leading the Sustainability and Climate Change Lab initiative at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Guadalajara, financed by the European Union.
Martin Esteban Gonzalez Lopez is a Chemical Engineer with a Master of Science in Forest Product Science, and a Doctor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Guadalajara. He is a Level I Researcher of the National System of Researchers by the National Council of Science and Technology of México. Currently, he works as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Tecnológico de Monterrey in the Sustainability and Climate Change Laboratory. Dr. Gonzalez’s research interests include the sustainable use of lignocellulosic waste to produce biodegradable materials and environmental remediation applications in water treatment.
Dr. Gonzalez has conducted research at the Institute of Science and Technology of Polymers in Madrid, Spain, and Université Laval in Quebec, Canada, where he worked under the guidance of Dr. Denis Rodrigue, a renowned researcher in the field of polymers. He obtained an honors degree during his Master’s and Doctoral studies and received the State Award for Innovation, Science and Technology in the Postgraduate Thesis category in 2019 and 2021, respectively, due to his excellent academic performance and published scientific articles.
Benjamin Sanchez-Lengeling
Research Scientist, Google Research
Abstract:
With deep learning techniques and large datasets, we have ways of transforming molecules into vectors with meaningful qualities for chemistry. How do we design operations that are useful for specific chemical contexts? In this talk, Benjamin Sanchez-Lengeling will showcase part of his work on using machine learning, specifically graph neural networks, to build maps of olfaction and chemical structure. And then using these tools to drive scientific discoveries.
Bio:
Benjamin Sanchez-Lengeling is a research scientist at Google Research on the Brain Team working at the intersection of molecules and AI. His research centers on using and improving computational tools for molecular discoveries, striving to make them real, for molecules of all sizes: small, large (proteins) and periodic (polymers); in application areas that include solar cells, solubility, drug-design, and olfaction. He cares about interpretability for scientific discoveries and making research clear and approachable. Besides research, he is also passionate about science education and divulgation. Benjamin is one of the founders and organizers of a STEM-education NGO Clubes de Ciencia Mexico and a LatinX-centered AI conference RIIAA.
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All ChemE alumni from years ending in 3 or 8 are welcome to attend.
The event will start with a mix-and-mingle session in the undergrad common room (WB238) from 1-2pm, followed by an exclusive one-hour lab tour departing from the same location at 2pm. Don’t miss out on the chance to catch up with old friends and see the latest advancements in ChemE. Be sure to register now to secure your spot!