News

Congratulations to the Department of Chemical Engineering’s Professor Hamed Shahsavan for his recent honour by the National Academy of Sciences in America. He was the lead author of a paper chosen as a finalist for a Cozzarelli Prize, which recognizes the top work published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2020.

Professor Rajinder (Raj) Pal of the Department of Chemical Engineering is a world-renowned researcher and an award-winning instructor with a reputation for helping students understand some of the discipline’s most complex and abstract concepts relating to transport phenomena and thermodynamics.

Zhongwei Chen, Canada Research Chair in Advanced Materials for Clean Energy and Chemical Engineering Professor and Linda Nazar, Canada Research Chair in Solid State Energy Materials and University Professor, received more than $2 million in infrastructure funding from the federal government’s Canada Foundation for Innovation for the proposed Ontario Centre for Battery and Electrochemical Research.

Chemical Engineering Professor Tizazu Mekonnen has been named Inaugural Director of the Indigenous and Black Engineering and Technology (IBET) PhD Project. This new partnership, which includes the University of Waterloo and five other Ontario universities, aims to diversify academia and Canadian technology industries by increasing the number of Indigenous and Black Canadians pursuing engineering and technology degrees at universities across Ontario.

With deep sadness, we announce the death of second-year Chemical Engineering student Mihir Rodrigues, who passed away from a heart-related issue on December 29th, 2020, while he was at home in India.

When faced with a new challenge, it never hurts to call a friend for advice. But, as many first-year students discover, it can be difficult to find someone who can relate. Fortunately, this year’s new chemical engineering students have exactly that – an experienced buddy to steer them in the right direction.

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 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.

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.