Petroleum Engineering Program Lauded as Model Business/Higher-Ed Partnership
Founded in 2009, the undergraduate Petroleum Engineering Program at the University of Houston already has 400 students and is expected to continue growing. Much of this success is due to the partnership between UH and industry that helped establish the program. The Business-Higher Education Forum, the nation's oldest organization of senior business and higher education executives dedicated to advancing innovative solutions to U.S. education and workforce challenges, recently profiled the program citing it as an example of how "strong, diversified business engagement strengthens new education offerings in high-demand fields."
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Professor's Crystal Formation Theories to be Tested in Space
Thanks to a recent grant from NASA, a University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering professor's theories on crystal formation will be tested onboard the International Space Station. Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering Peter Vekilov won the grant, valued at just less than $100,000, to study how proteins in a liquid solution nucleate, or form crystals. While researchers understand how these crystals grow, how they start — that first transformation from liquid to crystal — is much less understood. One important factor is sheer flow, which can best be isolated in a microgravity environment.
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Video Q&A: Bonnie Dunbar, Retired Astronaut & New UH STEM Center Director
Bonnie Dunbar has had an amazing career: veteran of five space flights, former assistant director at the NASA Johnson Space Center, former president and CEO of the Seattle Museum of Flight. She recently accepted a new challenge, director of the UH STEM Center, which is dedicated to improving STEM Education in the Houston region and beyond.
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Paper Proposes New Methodology to Synthesize Catalysts
Despite the important role they play in the chemical and petroleum industries, the way zeolites catalysts are usually synthesized is surprisingly ad hoc. When developing the chemical reactions that result in zeolite formation, researchers often fail to explore design parameters, such as the ideal temperature or appropriate compositions. Moreover, few researchers have made a serious effort to examine the concerted effects of multiple parameters to create a deeper understanding of zeolite synthesis. Until now, that is. Jeff Rimer, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering with the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, has published a journal article that outlines a method for improving the synthesis of certain zeolites and proposes a new, graphical method of systematically tailoring zeolite crystallization.
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ECE's Wilton Wins Lifetime Achievement Award
The Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society has named University of Houston Cullen College Professor Emeritus Donald Wilton the recipient of its inaugural Computational Electromagnetics Award. This lifetime award honors "career achievements and substantial contributions" to the field of electromagnetics. Widely regarded as one of the leading authorities in the field of computational electromagnetics, he is perhaps best known for establishing a framework for using computer modeling to study electromagnetic scattering by irregular surfaces, such as the curved wing of an airplane. The primary article he and his research team wrote on this subject, "Electromagnetic Scattering by Surfaces of Arbitrary Shape," was published in 1982 and has since been cited more than 3,000 times.
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Luss, Baugh Named NAI Charter Fellows
Two faculty members of the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering were honored recently as members of the inaugural class of charter fellows of the National Academy of Inventors. Dan Luss, Cullen Professor of Engineering in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Benton Baugh, distinguished adjunct professor of mechanical engineering, along with 99 other highly accomplished academic inventors from around the nation, were recognized at the NAI's second annual conference, held last month in Tampa, Fla. According to the NAI website, fellow status "is a high professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society."
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