Student Awards

 IPEC Graduate Student Award Recipients

Guluzar Gorkem Buyukgoz and Eylul Cetindag, PhD candidates, were awarded this year’s IPEC Foundation Graduate Student Award (Scholarships of $1500 each) for their research accomplishments. This prestigious and highly competitive award by the International Pharmaceutical Excipients Council (IPEC) of the Americas Foundation is given in conjunction with the Annual Conference of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS). At the Award Ceremony, Guluzar presented her work, titled, “FDM 3D Printing Technology for Pharmaceutical Applications”, and Eylul presented her work, titled, “Towards Quality by Design (QbD) of Pharmaceutical Oral Films Loaded with Poorly Water-Soluble Drugs”. Details of their work may be found in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics, 591 (2020) 119987, and Carbohydrate Polymers, 250 (2020) 117012, respectively. They are both advised by Prof. Rajesh N. Davé.

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Women In Chemical Engineering Award Recipient

Sangah Kim, a PhD candidate was a recipient of this year’s Women in Chemical Engineering (WIC) travel award to participate in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) annual meeting. In addition, she also received a highly competitive Computational Particle Fluid Dynamics (CPFD) Particle Technology Form (PTF) poster award for her research that she presented at the 2020 AIChE Annual Meeting. As a part of her eligibility for these awards, she made an oral presentation, titled, “Impact of dry coating on the agglomeration and dissolution of cohesive, poorly water-soluble drug powders” and presented a poster, titled, “Can you improve the dissolution rate of micronized poorly water-soluble drugs after dry coating with hydrophobic silica?”. These prestigious awards are issued every year to recognize and support the student’s research activities and their values. Sangah is advised by Prof. Rajesh N. Davé.

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1st Place National AIChE Chem-E Car Poster Competition Winner

Congratulations to the Chem-E Car Team for placing 1st place at the National AIChE Chem-E Car Poster Competition! Read article

View poster NJIT Hy-lander: A Fuel Cell-Powered Rover 

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CHEM-E CAR TEAM ADVANCE TO NATIONALS

Congratulations to the NJIT ChemE Car team, the team captain Diego Franco and student supervisor Anh Tong on advancing to the nationals! 

 

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2020 NAMF Finalists

Chadakarn Sirasitthichoke, PhD candidate, was selected as one of the three finalists of the 2020 NAMF Student Award Competition organized by the North American Mixing Forum (NAMF) for her paper titled “Hydrodynamic Characterization of USP Dissolution Apparatus 1 Under Different Basket Mesh Sizes." Unfortunately, due the pandemic the conference was postponed until 2022 and Chadakarn was invited to attend and give her presentation remotely at the AIChE Meeting being held virtually in November 2020. Congratulations Chadakarn! Advisor: Dr. Piero Armenante

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2020 Presidential Leadership Award Recipient

William Ho, PhD student, chemical engineering, recipient of the 2020 Presidential Leadership Award. William serves as a mentor for undergraduate and high school students working in the research lab under the direction of Dr. Xu. Will is the founder and president of the Science and Politics Society dedicated to involving stem students in politics. Congratulations Will on your well deserved recognition!    

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Ogochukwu Enekwizu, PhD candidate, received the Air Pollution Educational and Research Grant (APERG) and a job offer from Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Air Pollution Educational and Research Grant (APERG), Mid-Atlantic States Section of the Air and Waste Management Association (MASS-A&WMA)

This award for doctoral students and post-doctoral scientists provides financial support to pursue research careers in the environmental field, particularly in the areas related to air pollution, air quality, and the atmosphere. The award is $25,000, with two to five awards made per year.

Post-doctoral Researcher Position at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton NY

This highly competitive position is in the Aerosol and Microphysics Group and it is to conduct laboratory experiments to investigate the microphysical, optical, and cloud-nucleating properties of soot aerosols. This research will be a natural extension of the work Ogo has been doing during her doctoral study at NJIT. 

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2020 NAFEMS Award Recipient

Chemical Engineering Senior Vasilios C. Halkias has won the 2020 International Association for the Engineering Modelling, Analysis and Simulation Community (NAFEMS) Americas & engineering.com Student Award!  He received the award for his work on creating the “Tubular Flow Reactor App”, on which he worked under the supervision of Profs. Voronov, Barat and Molodetsky.  

Successful teaching of the fundamental engineering principles is critical to preparing the next generation’s workforce.  However, in today’s uncertain world of the COVID-19 pandemic most experimental laboratories (including those used for academic courses) have been shut down.   The application that Vasilios has created is based on a tubular flow reactor (TFR) in the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) chemical engineering laboratory. TFRs are fundamental to chemical engineering and are used in countless applications in production of chemical products in industry.  It is a part of a larger project the goal of which is to create self-standing executable COMSOL apps, that students / teachers across the world could use “out of the box” in order to learn the science behind basic engineering processes (such as the TFR).  It is lead by Prof. Voronov and funded by the Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE) organization. Additionally, Vasilios has mentored a team of his classmates who worked on similar COMSOL apps, as a part of the above-mentioned project.

This student award includes a $1,000 first prize and entry into the NAFEMS global student competition for a chance to attend the 2021 NAFEMS World Congress free of charge to present his work to an international audience.  

Read article

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Chemical Engineering Scholar Accepted In The National Society of Collegiate Scholars

Sara Abdelhamid, chemical engineering sophomore, earns acceptance into The National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS). The National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS) is an honors organization that recognizes and elevates high-achieving students. NSCS provides career and graduate school connections, leadership, and service opportunities, and gives out more than $1 million annually in scholarships, awards, and chapter funds. As a member, you’ll be part of a prestigious community with lifetime benefits.

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NJIT 2020 Goldwater Scholar Class Among Largest In US

NJIT undergrads continue to earn the nation’s top academic honors, the latest being a new university record of four students named Goldwater Scholars this year by the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. The scholarship is recognized among the country’s most prestigious for STEM undergraduates pursuing research careers. Read more.. 

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New Business Model Competition Winner

(Pictured L to R: Michael Ehrlich, Ahn Tong, Thomas Ungerland, and Owais Aftab)
 

Anh Tong, PhD student, won $3,000 in an elevator pitch New Business Model Competition. Many entrepreneurs submit practical innovative ideas for review by a panel of judges at a chance to win a $3,000 summer fellowship to pay them to work on their idea. Program sponsor Capital One provides Innovation Acceleration Fellowships to winners ($3,000 each). The Fellowships allow winners to work on their business ideas, while they participate in the NJIT Martin Tuchman School of Management Summer Lean Start-up Accelerator. Anh and only three other students received the 3k award out of the 92 initial competitors. Learn more about the competition here: http://centers.njit.edu/njiac/students/challenge/index.php

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GSA Research Day 2019 Best Poster Award Winner  

Daniel Hastings, Ph.D. student, won the Best Poster Award at the Graduate Student Association (GSA) Research Day 2019. Advisor: Edward Dreizin

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Lydia Rodriguez, Ph.D. student, is the recipient of the Minority Affairs Committee Foundation Travel grant. This award supported the 2019 AIChE full conference registration and additional conference related expenses. Lydia also contributed and presented as a panelist at the session titled "Career Paths: perspectives by Minority Professionals in Chemical Engineering." She presented a poster at the poster session and attended other sessions (and future webinars) focused on advancing the careers of minorities in chemical engineering. Advisor: Kam Sirkar

Liang Chen, Ph.D, student, is the recipient of the 2019 Pharmaceutical Discovery, Development and Manufacturing (PD2M) Student Award. The award is sponsored by Pfizer and Dr. Chen will receive a commemorative plaque along with a check for $5,000. The awards ceremony will be held during the 2019 AIChE Annual Meeting on Monday November 11, 2019, from 6:30 to 9:30 PM in the Hyatt Regency Orlando. Advisor: Rajesh Dave 

Faustin Arevalo an undergraduate chemical engineering student is the recipient of the Minority Affairs Committee Foundation Scholarship Grant at the 2019 AIChE Annual Conference. He was awarded $1,700 through the grant to travel to the AIChE Conference. Advisor: Ecevit Bilgili.

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AIChE  ChemE Sports Competition Winners

NJIT's first ever ChemE Sports Team consisting of Ariana Tay, Alexander Olowniuk, and Byeong Chan "Daniel" Son and David Matuszewski placed 2nd in the AICHE's first inaugural ChemEsports Competition! 

ChemEsports is a live ChemEsports competition on optimization and safety, open to academia and industry, using a simulated distillation column provided by Simulation Solutions Inc.  The competitors were given real-life scenarios that could be observed in a plant and an objective to complete within a given timeframe.  Typically, the teams competed head to head by running two simulations simultaneously on laptop computers, with the goal of maximizing profit for the plant. Thanks to the coaches (Irina Molodetsky, Nellone Reid and Bob Barat) who helped prepare them. Congratulations, everyone!

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AIChE 2019 Undergraduate Poster Award Winners

Sara A. Abdelhamid  (Faculty Advisor: Piero Armenante)
Effect of Tank Bottom Shapes on Njs and Power Dissipation in Stirred Vessels Under Different Baffling Configurations​https://aiche.confex.com/aiche/2019/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/585954 

​Keanu Radgman (Faculty Advisor: Ecevit Bilgili)
Release of Griseofulvin from Spray-Dried Nanocrystal–Amorphous Solid Dispersions (HyNASDs): Impact of Surfactant​https://aiche.confex.com/aiche/2019/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/587639 

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Recipient of the 2019-2020 AIChE MAC Scholarship Award

Daniela Bushiri, chemical engineering senior and vice president of the NJIT AIChE Student Chapter, is the recipient of the 2019-2020 AIChE Minority Affairs Committee College Scholarship Award.