The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present our annual Alumni Lecture with guest speaker, Sara Yacob (PhD '15) from ExxonMobil.

Sara will present a seminar titled, "Integrating Energy Outlooks and Fundamental Research."

ABSTRACT: Increasing global energy supply AND reducing emissions is not only possible - it's essential. Within the context of the evolving energy transition, chemical production plays an important role both today and in a lower-carbon future. This underscores the vital task of reducing CO2 emissions associated with the production of chemicals. In processes with a high degree of interacting variables, technoeconomic assessment and process conceptualization are important tools for identifying key catalytic or separation variables that can influence emissions while maintaining the competitiveness of the overall process. The information extracted from these tools help guide and target fundamental research in areas that can have high impact. This presentation will examine the Outlook for Energy, and will share examples, such as ethylene production, to demonstrate the value of a process conceptualization-based approach for identifying competitive technology solutions.

Sara Yacob is the Separations Fundamentals Manager in the Active Materials and Process Research Division at ExxonMobil Technology & Engineering Company in Clinton, NJ. She received her B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Northwestern University, where she worked with Dr. Justin Notestein. Her graduate research investigated catalytic routes to methyl methacrylate via ethanol carbonylation, yielding propionates. She joined ExxonMobil 10 years ago following her graduate studies and has held a number of technical and leadership roles in the development and application of advanced catalytic and separation technologies across refining, petrochemical, and low-carbon process platforms.

Bagels served at 9:30am, seminar to start at 9:40am.