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Events

May
18
ChBE Seminar Series: Chinedum Osuji,University of Pennsylvania
McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
9:30 AM LR4, Technological Institute
EVENT DETAILS
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present a seminar by Chinedum Osuji from University of Pennsylvania as part of our ChBE Seminar Series.
Chinedum Osuji will present a lecture titled "Creating Useful Nanostructured Soft Materials (and single crystals) by Directed Self-Assembly."
ABSTRACT: Controlling structure and thereby manipulating the properties of matter is a central concern for material scientists and chemical engineers. A striking disparity exists in our ability to enact such structural control in self-assembled soft materials, relative to hard condensed matter systems. This talk examines strategies for directing self-assembly in nanostructured soft matter to create useful materials, including single crystals and materials with bespoke textures. Our focus is on self-assembly of block copolymers and small molecule mesogens. The ability to precisely control their chemical functionality combined with the readily tunable characteristic length scales (~1-100 nm) of their self-assembled mesophases position these systems as a versatile and attractive class of materials for compelling applications ranging from membranes for size and chemo-selective transport, to optics, and lithography. As a result, there is intense interest in elucidating the physical processes relevant for directing their self-assembly to create application relevant structures, with a goal of exploiting such fundamental understanding to create useful materials or devices. This presentation discusses such directed self-assembly of soft nanostructured materials and emerging methods for generating highly ordered and hetero-structured systems. In particular, we focus on recent advances in the creation of highly ordered nanostructured membranes for water purification and electrochemical devices, and small length scale structures for lithography in microelectronics.
Prof. Chinedum Osuji received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT in 2003, for studies of structure-property relationships and self-assembly of liquid crystalline block copolymers with Prof. Edwin L. Thomas. From 2003-2005 he was a Senior Scientist at Surface Logix Inc. where he worked on soft lithography, and from 2005-2007 was a Postdoctoral Associate in Applied Physics at Harvard University with Prof. David A. Weitz where he studied shear-induced structure and dynamics of colloidal gels. From 2007-2018 he was on the faculty at Yale University in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. In 2018 he joined the University of Pennsylvania where he is currently the Eduardo D. Glandt Presidential Professor, and Chair, in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and a secondary member of the faculty in Materials Science and Engineering. Prof. Osuji is an Associate Editor for Macromolecules and serves on Editorial Advisory Boards for Physical Review Materials, Journal of Materials Chemistry, and ACS Polymers Au. He leads an experimental research group focused on structure and dynamics of soft materials and complex fluids. Topics of interest include structure-property relationships in ordered soft materials, directed self-assembly of block copolymers and other soft mesophases or molecular materials, and rheology and slow dynamics of disordered systems.
Prof. Osuji is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a recipient of a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (2008) and the 2010 Arthur Greer award of Yale College. He received an Office of Naval Research's Young Investigator award and a 3M Nontenured Faculty award in 2012. He is the recipient of the Dillon Medal of the American Physical Society (2015), the Hendrick C. Van Ness Award (2019), and the Nano Research Young Investigator Award (2019). He is also a recipient of the Intel Outstanding Researcher Award (2021) and a Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (2022) for his research on advanced membranes for water purification.
Bagels and coffee will be provided at 9:30am, and the seminar will start at 9:40am. Please plan to arrive on time to grab a bagel and mingle!
*Please note that there will be no Zoom option for seminars this year.
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TIME Thursday, May 18, 2023 at 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM
LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute    map it
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CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
Sep
8
Welcome & Breakfast for New McCormick PhD Students
McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
9:00 AM LR2 & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute
EVENT DETAILS
Enjoy a welcome from Dean Christopher A. Schuh and other McCormick leaders, and receive a Northwestern Engineering T-shirt. A free light breakfast on the Tech East Plaza will follow.
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TIME Monday, September 8, 2025 at 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
LOCATION LR2 & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute    map it
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CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Sep
12
New Undergraduate Fall 2025 Registration
University Academic Calendar
All Day
EVENT DETAILS
New Undergraduate Fall 2025 Registration
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TIME Friday, September 12, 2025
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CONTACT Office of the Registrar    nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
Sep
15
Welcome & Luncheon for New Full-time Graduate Students
McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
11:00 AM Ryan Auditorium & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute
EVENT DETAILS
Enjoy a welcome from Dean Christopher A. Schuh and other McCormick leaders, and receive a Northwestern Engineering T-shirt. A free lunch on the Tech East Plaza will follow.
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TIME Monday, September 15, 2025 at 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
LOCATION Ryan Auditorium & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute    map it
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CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Sep
16
Fall Classes Begin. Change of Registration (Drop/Add) Late registration for returning students begins
University Academic Calendar
All Day
EVENT DETAILS
Fall Classes Begin. Change of Registration (Drop/Add) Late registration for returning students begins
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TIME Tuesday, September 16, 2025
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CONTACT Office of the Registrar    nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
Sep
18
ChBE Seminar series: Yash Chainani and Beth Dibiase, students seminars
McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
9:30 AM L361, Technological Institute
EVENT DETAILS
More details to come.
Bagels served at 9:30am, seminar to start at 9:40am.
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TIME Thursday, September 18, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION L361, Technological Institute    map it
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CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
Sep
25
Annual Alumni Lecture: Sara Yacob, ExxonMobil
McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
9:30 AM L361, Technological Institute
EVENT DETAILS
More details to come.
Bagels served at 9:30am, seminar to start at 9:40am.
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TIME Thursday, September 25, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION L361, Technological Institute    map it
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CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
Oct
2
ChBE Seminar Series: Shirley Meng, University of Chicago
McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
9:30 AM L361, Technological Institute
EVENT DETAILS
More details to come.
Bagels served at 9:30am, seminar to start at 9:40am.
Dr. Y. Shirley Meng is a Professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. She serves as the Chief Scientist of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS) Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Meng is the director of Energy Storage Research Alliance (ESRA), an innovation hub funded by US Department of Energy, Office of Science.
She is the principal investigator of the research group - Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC), that was established at University of California San Diego since 2009. She held the Zable Chair Professor in Energy Technologies at UC San Diego from 2017-2022 and founded the Sustainable Power and Energy Center (SPEC) in 2016. Dr. Meng received several prestigious awards, including ACS Research Excellence in Electrochemistry (2024), ECS Battery Division Research Award (2023), the C3E technology and innovation award (2022), the Faraday Medal of Royal Chemistry Society (2020), International Battery Association IBA Research Award (2019), Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Finalist (2018), C.W. Tobias Young Investigator Award of the Electrochemical Society (2016) and NSF CAREER Award (2011). Dr. Meng is elected Fellow of Electrochemical Society (FECS), Fellow of Materials Research Society (FMRS) and Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is the author and co-author of more than 320 peer-reviewed journal articles, two book chapters and eight issued patents. Dr. Meng received her Ph.D. in Advance Materials for Micro & Nano Systems from the Singapore-MIT Alliance in 2005. She received her bachelor’s degree in Materials Science with first class honor from Nanyang Technological University of Singapore in 2000.
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TIME Thursday, October 2, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION L361, Technological Institute    map it
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CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
Oct
9
ChBE Seminar Series: TBA
McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
9:30 AM L361, Technological Institute
EVENT DETAILS
More details to come.
Bagels served at 9:30am, seminar to start at 9:40am.
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TIME Thursday, October 9, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION L361, Technological Institute    map it
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CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
Oct
16
ChBE Seminar Series: Matt Gebbie, University of Wisconsin-Madison
McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
9:30 AM L361, Technological Institute
EVENT DETAILS
More details to come.
Bagels served at 9:30am, seminar to start at 9:40am.
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TIME Thursday, October 16, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION L361, Technological Institute    map it
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CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
Oct
22
19th Annual Mah General Lecture: David Sholl, Oak Ridge National Laboratory | "How Reliable is the Chemical Engineering and Materials Chemistry Literature?"
McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
4:00 PM Technological Institute
EVENT DETAILS
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present the 19th Annual Richard S.H. Mah Lectures on Modeling and Computation in Chemical and Biological Engineering with David Sholl from The University of Tennessee Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
How Reliable is the Chemical Engineering and Materials Chemistry Literature?
Reliability and reproducibility are bedrock principles of quantitative research in engineering and the physical sciences. Systematic efforts testing reproducibility of findings from the peer-reviewed literature in fields including biomedicine and psychology have given striking examples with high failure rates. How relevant are these observations to the chemical engineering and materials chemistry literature? This question has always been important for researchers basing their work on earlier reports, but has even more resonance when considering AI methods that are trained on large collections of published data. I will describe systematic efforts to assess reproducibility in studies of porous adsorbents, and argue that the characteristics of this specific topic are relevant to many areas in chemical engineering and materials chemistry. I will also describe approaches available to individual researchers, reviewers, and journals to improve reproducibility.
David Sholl is the Executive Director and Vice Provost of the University of Tennessee Oak Ridge Innovation Institute (UT-ORII), Director of the Transformational Decarbonization Initiative at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Editor-in-Chief of AIChE Journal. From 2022-2023 he was a Strategic Policy Advisor for DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. From 2013-2021 David was the School Chair of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. He has published over 400 papers and several books. David was on the Board of Directors of AIChE from 2019-2021 and in 2020 chaired the inaugural Gordon Research Conference on Chemical Separations. In 2024 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
A reception will be held after the general lecture. More details to come.
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TIME Wednesday, October 22, 2025 at 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
LOCATION Technological Institute    map it
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CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
Oct
23
19th Annual Mah Departmental Lecture: David Sholl, Oak Ridge National Laboratory | "When Do I Get My Flying Car? Assessing The Potential Of AI To Revolutionize Separations Science"
McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
9:30 AM L361, Technological Institute
EVENT DETAILS
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present the 19th Annual Richard S.H. Mah Lectures on Modeling and Computation in Chemical and Biological Engineering with David Sholl from The University of Tennessee Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
When Do I Get My Flying Car? Assessing The Potential Of AI To Revolutionize Separations Science
Artificial intelligence and machine learning have been suggested as tools that will revolutionize many areas of science and society. I will discuss the potential and pitfalls for these methods in a key field within chemical engineering, namely separations science. Examples will include scanning collections of thousands of porous materials for adsorption-based separations of complex molecular mixtures, searching for high performance materials for Direct Air Capture of carbon dioxide, and developing mixed matrix membranes for gas separations.
David Sholl is the Executive Director and Vice Provost of the University of Tennessee Oak Ridge Innovation Institute (UT-ORII), Director of the Transformational Decarbonization Initiative at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Editor-in-Chief of AIChE Journal. From 2022-2023 he was a Strategic Policy Advisor for DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. From 2013-2021 David was the School Chair of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. He has published over 400 papers and several books. David was on the Board of Directors of AIChE from 2019-2021 and in 2020 chaired the inaugural Gordon Research Conference on Chemical Separations. In 2024 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
Bagels and coffee will be provided at 9:30am, and the seminar will start at 9:40am. Please plan to arrive on time to grab a bagel and mingle!
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TIME Thursday, October 23, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION L361, Technological Institute    map it
ADD TO CALENDAR
CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
 
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