Notes from the chair

James B. Rawlings (21K JPG)

The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering will celebrate its 100-year birthday in 2005. The planning for the centennial celebration is under way now. We plan to update the department's display cases and website with pictures and other documents relevant to the department's history. Bob Bird is updating Olaf Hougen's department history, On These Foundations, which covers the founding of the department through 1970. We hope to publish the complete department history in 2005, and to share excerpts from the history in upcoming newsletters. Please share with us any other ideas that you have for the centennial celebration.

In the first years of the 20th century, those who promoted establishment of a department of chemical engineering at UW stressed the economic benefits that the state would realize from the investment. A new report issued by the Southern Growth Policies Board and funded by the National Science Foundation, placed UW in the top 12 among all U.S. universities that seek to invigorate state economies through technology transfer and the development of companies born of university research. Our department, as predicted a century ago, is contributing strongly to UW's standing. You can read about Nick Abbott's newly established corporation, Platypus Technologies, in the "Faculty News" section. Jim Dumesic and scientist, Randy Cortright (PhD '94) are in the process of establishing another company, VIRENT Energy Systems, to build on some exciting developments arising from their catalysis research. Look for more news on this in future issues.

The department is very pleased to announce that David M. Lynn will join our faculty in the fall as an assistant professor. Dave received his PhD in chemistry and will bring outstanding synthetic chemistry skills to the department. Dave was hired as part of a campus-wide initiative to promote interdisciplinary hiring and research in the area of functional organic materials, one of many "cluster hire" initiatives across campus. The functional organic materials group had representation from Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, and Materials Science and Engineering. Paul Nealey and Nicholas Abbott were the ChE representatives. For more on David Lynn, see the article about him in this issue.

Attracting top faculty and students to the department, and providing them with state-of-the-art research facilities, are increasingly expensive propositions. As state support increasingly lags behind the level of expenditure required to maintain a top-flight department, we find that we need to enhance our departmental endowment funds. News of a major bequest from the estate of Elinor Dahlke, widow of Edward Dahlke (BS '37), appears in an article in this issue. An anonymous donor has established the Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot Graduate Fellowship Fund with a gift in the form of a charitable remainder trust. We hope to grow this fund into a major department asset for continuing to attract outstanding graduate students to the department. For further information on how you can help the department while honoring these three outstanding teachers, scholars and colleagues, please see the BSL Fellowship Fund article. Deb Holt at the UW Foundation (608/263-0779 or deb.holt@uwfoundation.wisc.edu) is a tremendous resource for anyone exploring gift options or looking at estate planning.

On a personal note, I was pleased to finish in the spring a textbook, Chemical Reactor Analysis and Design Fundamentals, with my co-author, John Ekerdt (BS '74), chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering at University of Texas at Austin. My wife, Cheryl, and I published this book as Nob Hill Publishing. You can see more information on the book at www.globaldialog.com/~nobhill.

I also tried in the spring semester an experiment in technology enhanced education. The students taking the reactor design course were loaned laptop computers, and the classroom was equipped with a wireless network. My lectures were posted on the web, and the students and I solved computational problems in class as part of the lectures. The student feedback indicated that the interactive problem solving was a significant addition to the lectures; it was a lot of fun for the instructor as well. I predict many more experiments of this type will be taking place in the department as we find ways to take advantage of technology to enhance the educational experiences of our students.

James B. Rawlings