Yuanyuan Ji's three-minute thesis presentation was selected as the audience choice winner at the University of Virginia's seventh annual Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition. Yuan is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Geise Research Group. With a single slide, she spoke for three minutes about her research focused on “Using Selective Membranes to Provide Clean Water for Everyone.” Ji was one of 10 finalists from across the University and one of four finalists from UVA Engineering following a preliminary round of the competition.

Bev Miller, a second-year Ph.D. student in Assistant Professor Steven Caliari's lab, took first place with her talk, titled “Electrospun Hyaluronic Acid Hydrogel,” at the University of Virginia's 15th annual Engineering Research Symposium, also known as UVERS. The symposium included two poster presenters and one oral presenter per department determined from an abstract submission. The presenters were judged by industry members and professors from across the UVA School of Engineering during the symposium event on March 28.

Professor William S. “Bill” Epling, chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, was honored by the Graduate Engineering Student Council as the 2019 Advisor of the Year among UVA Engineering faculty. The award, given for exceptional support in graduate research, was presented at the 15th annual University of Virginia Engineering Research Symposium.
Natalia Diaz, a Ph.D. student in Epling's lab, supported his nomination for the award in part because it's clear that he cares about the well-being of his students both in and out of the lab.

The Trigon Engineering Society has awarded Assistant Professor Rachel Letteri the 2019 Thomas E. Hutchinson Award for “Outreach to students, enthusiastic lectures, obvious love of teaching, and contributions to the Engineering School.” Prof. Letteri joined the Department of Chemical Engineering in August.

Third-year Ph.D. candidate Saringi Agata has won the technical presentation competition at the National GEM Consortium Annual Board Meeting and Conference. Congratulations, Saringi!

Alumnus Ernie X. Pérez Almodóvar recently was promoted to director of manufacturing at Amgen in Juncos, Puerto Rico, where he has worked since earning his Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 2012. Pérez Almodóvar was a researcher in Lawrence R. Quarles Professor Giorgio Carta's Bioseparations Lab while studying at UVA. In 2012, he earned the Louis T. Rader award.

Alex Chen, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate, is the lead author with Assistant Professor Josh Choi of “Origin of vertical orientation in two-dimensional metal halide perovskites and its effect on photovoltaic performance.” The article appeared in Nature Communications, a publication of the premier scientific journal Nature. Other students in Choi's lab who contributed to the article are Michelle Shiu, Jennifer Ma, Matthew Alpert, Depei Zhang, Benjamin Foley, Detlef-M. Smilgies and Seung-Hun.