Three Cullen College professors have been recognized by the University of Houston for their excellence in professorship and research as part of the university-wide teaching and research awards given each spring.

Two Cullen College Ph.D. students received awards at the Spring Symposium of the Southwest Catalysis Society’s poster contest month on the UH campus. Matthew Oleksiak and Manjesh Kumar received top honors for their posters, “Controlling Crystal Polymorphism in Organice-Free Synthesis of Zeolites” and “Tuning the Physicochemical Properties of Zeolite Catalysts Through Molecular Design,” respectively.

Each spring, the University of Houston recognizes exceptional faculty member across the university at the annual UH Faculty Excellence Awards Ceremony. This year, nine Cullen College of Engineering faculty members were honored for their great strides in teaching and research excellence.

Manjesh Kumar, a Ph.D. candidate in the UH Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was selected by the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering (CRE) Division Travel Awards Committee to receive a travel award to attend the upcoming American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Meeting in San Francisco from November 3 – 8.

Continuing its commitment to education at the University of Houston, ConocoPhillips is donating $1 million to UH’s growing Energy Research Park (ERP) and $125,000 to various engineering, science and business programs.

We can all breathe a little easier with Mike Harold around.

Alexandra Lupulescu, a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Houston Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was selected as the winner of the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division Poster Competition held during the 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, for her poster titled “Employing Molecular Modifiers to Tailor the Crystal Morphology of Zeolite Catalysts.”

The state of Texas received more than 270 proposals for its Norman Hackerman Advanced Research Program. In the end, only 12 grants were awarded, two of which went to researchers with the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering.

Malaria has been one of the world’s biggest killers for as long as records have been kept (and almost certainly longer). According to the World Health Organization, in 2008 alone the disease claimed approximately 881,000 lives, making it responsible for approximately 1.5% of all deaths worldwide. That year it was responsible for more than 5.2% of all deaths in low-income countries and a startling 20% of childhood deaths in Africa.