Greetings from the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering.
Over the past year, we have navigated the challenges of a global pandemic while remaining focused on being a high-impact department recognized for excellence and leadership in continuously advancing chemical engineering science.
Our department remains among the top nationally ranked chemical engineering programs in the United States, due in large part to the caliber of research our faculty is involved in.
Groundbreaking research and transformative innovations from our department this year include a breakthrough technology on a new battery platform that is completely metal free to a framework for synergistic interaction between renewables and carbon capture to understanding the mechanisms behind the motility of carcinogenic bacteria.
Our faculty have received multiple awards, including the 2021 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Sustainable Engineering Forum Research Award, the 2021 Rising Star award by the American Chemical Society, the 2021 Computing and Systems Technology Division Outstanding Young Researcher Award and being elected fellow to professional societies such as the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas.
Of course, we are nothing without our students. Total student enrollment for 2020-21 topped 1,000, including 819 undergraduate students and 131 doctoral students. We conferred degrees for 231 undergraduate, 29 master’s and 28 doctoral students. One of our undergraduates, Marco Solarte ’21, was selected as an Outstanding Student Award recipient by the Texas A&M Foundation Board of Trustees.
I would also like to recognize the generosity of our former students, many of whom established scholarships this year. Among those are Janet ‘84 and Kyle ’82 Cuellar, Bryce Alexander ’19, Carolyn and Edwin “Ed” H. Moerbe Jr. ’61, Loren and Shaw Ottis ’00 and Michelle Scudder ’80 and Brooks W. Herring ’80.
I hope you enjoy this overview of our department.
Sincerely,
Arul Jayaraman
Professor and Department Head
Ray B. Nesbitt Endowed Chair
Presidential Impact Fellow