News

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?

The University of Waterloo’s Department of Chemical Engineering is tied for first in Canada with the University of Alberta's Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering in the 2020 Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, released by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy.

The Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, which also publishes the prestigious Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), is an independent organization dedicated to “research on higher education intelligence and consultation.” It has been using a transparent methodology and objective third-party data to rank and present the world’s top universities since 2003 and academic subjects since 2009.

The Global Ranking of Academic Subjects measures universities’ quality of education, faculty, research output and influence, as measured by citations.

When the coronavirus pandemic necessitated the closure of university campuses across Canada, the Department of Chemical Engineering quickly transitioned the last few weeks of classes online so students could finish their term from the safety of home. At the same time, our spring term instructors began adapting their lectures, which would begin in just a few short weeks, for online delivery. Now, with these experiences as a foundation, we are building upon our successes and incorporating the best aspects of remote teaching into our plans for future terms.