News

The University of Waterloo’s Department of Chemical Engineering ranks first in Canada in the latest National Taiwan University Ranking, which measures universities’ research output and impact.

This is the eighth consecutive year in which our department has been ranked first among all of the chemical engineering departments in Canada, an honour it has held for 9 of the 11 years that NTU has ranked the top 300 universities in 10 subjects.

The Department of Chemical Engineering’s Aiping Yu has been awarded a prestigious 2020 E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship.

Each year, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) recognizes six highly promising early-stage researchers in the natural sciences and engineering with an E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship, in recognition of their efforts and to enhance their research capacity so that they can become leaders in their field and inspire others.

Professor Michael Tam has been awarded $800,000 in federal funding to develop compostable personal protective equipment (PPE) and antimicrobial coatings to help fight COVID-19.

He hopes to produce face masks and other PPE from natural rather than synthetic materials, and develop coatings and sprays to protect PPE and high-touch surfaces from contamination by the virus.

Professor Emeritus Ken O’Driscoll passed away on August 4, 2020, at the age of 89.

O’Driscoll was an internationally respected polymer science researcher, a talented teacher, and a kind and inspirational mentor who worked in the Department of Chemical Engineering between 1970 and 1992. His research in polymerization kinetics and polymer synthesis and characterization influenced many products we know and still use today, including hydrophilic contact lenses (also known as ‘soft contact lenses’), which he developed in 1971.

Chemical Engineering graduate Khristen Lowe (BASc ‘20) played an integral role in the Faculty of Engineering’s Fall 2020 virtual convocation celebration on Saturday. He joined Kelsey Malott (BArch ’19, MArch ’20) as co-host of the event and he delivered an inspiring valedictorian address for graduates of the faculty.

The Department of Chemical Engineering placed 87^th in worldwide university rankings for 2021, joining three other Waterloo Engineering subjects in the top 100.

After joining chemical engineering professor David Simakov’s research group last month, postdoctoral researcher Edris Madadian is applying advanced thermochemical and biochemical technologies to remove contaminants from sewage sludge, the main by-product of wastewater treatment plants.

Professor Eline Boghaert has been honoured by the Faculty of Engineering, with the assistance of the Sandford Fleming Foundation, for her outstanding commitment to excellence in undergraduate teaching. She is one of three instructors to be awarded the Faculty of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award this year.

Professor Marc Aucoin from the Department of Chemical Engineering is working with Professor Brian Dixon from the Department of Biology and Dr. Kevin Stinson of St. Mary’s General Hospital in Kitchener, Ontario, to explore antibody testing as a means to a safer and minimally disruptive return to normalcy as quarantine restrictions are lifted.

During World War II, when countless wounded soldiers required a scarce and expensive medicine, chemical engineers helped solve the problem that had limited its availability. In a triumph of chemical engineering, John McKeen used deep-tank fermentation to scale up production of penicillin, the first modern antibiotic. Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau, another talented chemical engineer, designed the first commercial-scale penicillin plant. 

With their contributions to penicillin’s breakthrough, McKeen and Hutchinson Rousseau helped reduce the cost per dose, save thousands of lives and set the course for the industrial-scale production of other lifesaving drugs. As today’s chemical engineers address the many threats associated with COVID-19, will we see chemical engineering triumph again?