Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry

LUTGARDE RASKIN, University of Michigan Can engineering controls shape the drinking water microbiome and reduce the risk of opportunistic infections?  Biological treatment processes and particularly biofiltration have gained tremendous popularity in the drinking water field over the past decade. However, we do not yet understand how biofiltration, disinfection, and transport of treated water through distribution systems […]

ALÁN ASPURU-GUZIK , University of Toronto Hosted by the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, Lectures at the Leading Edge enhance our culture of excellence by providing a rich view of the broad landscape and far-reaching horizons of chemical engineering and applied chemistry education and research. Closed-loop Discovery of Materials: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Predictive […]

RON WEISS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Synthetic biology is revolutionizing how we conceptualize and approach the engineering of biological systems. Recent advances in the field are allowing us to expand beyond the construction and analysis of small gene networks towards the implementation of complex multicellular systems with a variety of applications. In this talk I will […]

JOHN LIENHARD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Thermodynamics and transport in desalination systems engineering  The world’s renewable fresh water supply may be considered to be the difference between precipitation over land and evaporation; and this supply is essentially fixed while world population has risen sharply and the water demands of growing economies continue to rise. As a […]

IAN GILMORE, National Physical Laboratory, UK Metabolic Imaging at the Single-Cell Scale: Recent Advances and Future Challenges in Mass Spectrometry Imaging Super-resolution optical microscopy using fluorescent labels has been transformational in allowing the machinery of life, e.g. proteins, to be seen at the nanoscale. There is a great desire in the life-sciences to achieve this level […]

ALFRED SPORMANN, Stanford University Microbial Electrosynthesis for a Carbon-Neutral Energy and Chemicals Economy

JENNIFER CASE, Virginia Tech Going beyond the fads and jargon: What does research tell us about teaching for high quality learning in science and engineering?  There is much contemporary talk on how university teaching is outdated, and how radical change is needed to accommodate the needs of current students and the expectations of the workplace. Many […]

Host: Prof. Grant Allen As we move towards UN Sustainable Development Goals, there is a growing interest to produce chemicals and materials from renewable feedstock to lower our reliance on fossil fuels. Over the years, my research team has developed a portfolio of bio-based chemicals and industrial materials using natural polymers as the building block. […]