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DAVE C. SWALM SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING E-NEWSLETTER

Volume 2, Number 3

January/February, 2003

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FROM THE DEPARTMENT HEAD…

I hope this finds you not buried in snow. We have had a really rainy and cold winter in Starkville, and all of us are looking forward to some warm weather and sunshine in March.

There is something unique about children and pets. In our household, I get to be the “bad guy” on not buying additional pets for our household. Whenever we see a pet store, the boys go in and want to buy lizards, salamanders, spiders (mostly because they know I don’t care for spiders), gerbils, mice, etc… Their mother tells them “go ask your Dad”, and they inevitable “no!” comes when talking with their father. However, persistence is certainly one of my children’s traits. Around Christmas time, the usual discussion about pets came up, and in a moment of weakness, I mentioned an off hand comment about getting another dog. The words were not out of my mouth before Noel had found some dogs in the newspaper. Needless to say, after Christmas, we bought a new beagle puppy for our household (named Juno), joining our 11-year-old dachshund as a family pet. I had forgotten the joys of owning a puppy.

On one of the visits to the Vet, Juno had some unusual worms. Noel said that the vet told her that we should put lime down in the yard to kill off the dormant worms. I remember hearing this and not really thinking about it. Well, I come home one day late (about 8:00 p.m.), and find a large bag of lime in the garage. It was supposed to rain that night, so I was informed that the lime had to be spread over the yard (yes, it was dark outside) that evening. The spreader was broken, so I used a Bulldog Deli cup to spread the lime by hand across the yard (which only took about 60 to 90 minutes). The entire time I was spreading this lime in the dark, I tried to think of what made me give in on getting another pet….

March Madness is almost upon us, and if you haven’t been following MSU Basketball, we will have two great teams in the NCAA Tournaments. My prediction (you read it here first…is that we will have both the ‘Dawgs and the Lady ‘Dawgs in the Elite 8). Make sure you let everyone around you know where you went to school!

There has been a lot of activity in the School of Chemical Engineering since our last newsletter. Please keep those alumni updates coming! Also, please continue to surf our WWW site occasionally to see pictures of what is happening at MSU.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the newsletter. Go Dawgs!

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SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING HIRES 2 NEW FACULTY MEMBERS

The School of Chemical Engineering recently completed our faculty search, and it is my pleasure to introduce the two newest members of the Chemical Engineering “family”:

Adrienne Minerick:

Adrienne is working on her Ph.D. under the direction of Dr. Hsueh-Chia Chang at Notre Dame. Prior to enrollment at the University of Notre Dame, she finished her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan. While at Notre Dame, Ms. Minerick has been active in working with the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, and was a session instructor in the Ameritech Precollege Minority Engineering Program and in the Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics program. During her time as a doctoral student, she has advised several undergraduate students on research projects in the area of biomedical engineering.

Adrienne has been recognized for her scholarship on several occasions. She is currently a Bayer Scholar in the Center for Environmental Science and Technology at the University of Notre Dame. She was also recognized as a Clare Boothe Luce Fellowship Scholar from 1998 - 2002. Ms. Minerick's research interests are in the general area of Biomedical Engineering, particularly related to electrokinetic separations and biomedical microdevice fabrication. Adrienne will provide some additional support and expertise to our growing program in biotechnology and bioengineering.

Rafael Hernandez:

Rafael is currently an Instructor in Chemical Engineering at MSU. Prior to that time, he was an Instructor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, and a Research Chemical Engineer at the US Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station. Dr. Hernandez obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez in 1993 and 1996, respectively. Rafael completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from MSU in December of 2002. Dr. Mark Zappi, Texas Olefins Professor of Chemical Engineering, served as his research advisor.

Rafael has been honored for his professional accomplishments on many occasions, which includes his selection as the recipient of the 2002 College of Engineering Graduate Student Research Award. He is a member of Sigma Xi, AIChE, and ACS. Dr. Hernandez's research interests are in the general area of Environmental Chemical Engineering, and he will provide some additional support and expertise to one of Chemical Engineering's strategic program areas.

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AICHE WINS FIRST PLACE DURING E-WEEK

This past week was national Engineer’s Week. One of the events that goes all week is the “Best Major” award. Each department competes in a series of different events, and gains points for placing first, second, third, etc…. Chemical Engineering won the Best Major award in 2001, and finished as runners-up to Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in 2002. Once again, going into the final day, ECE and ChE were neck and neck for first place. When the final results were announced, there was a tie for first-place between ECE and ChE for this year. Congratulations to the students who participated helping ChE to another first place award. I am already looking forward to next year’s event!

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ADDITIONAL AICHE NATIONAL MEETING NEWS

In the last newsletter, I highlighted many of the School’s achievements at the AIChE National Meeting. In addition to the presentations highlighted in the last issue, there were two more presentations that were left off:

Sandra V. Serrano Bennun, “Production of 7-Tetradecene by Reactive Distillation”, which was presented at the Topics in Systems in Process Design Poster Session.

Julio A. Martinez, “A New Approach for the Estimation of Monod Kinetic Parameters”, which was presented at the Biotechnology Poster Session.

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CORPORATE SPONSOR NEEDED FOR DESIGN AWARDS

Each semester, the School recognizes student achievement in Process and Plant Design. We award $150 to the best-written design report, and $50 each to the two best oral presentations on their final designs. The School has picked up this expense in the past, but we would like to have a corporate sponsor for these awards. If you or your company is interested in sponsoring these awards for either this year or next year, please send me an email note (schulz@che.msstate.edu).

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MISSISSIPPI CHAPTER OF SOCIETY FOR PLASTICS ENGINEERS MEETS IN SWALM

The School of Engineering has an active student chapter of the Society for Plastics Engineers (SPE). Each February, we host the statewide meeting of SPE in the Swalm Building. As part of the evening, there was a poster session where students involved in polymers and other materials present their work for the visiting industrial folks involved in SPE. This was followed up with BBQ dinner, with a short presentation afterwards given by Dr. Don Trotter on the MSU Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems. The Chapter officers and advisor (Dr. Hossein Toghiani) did a spectacular job showcasing Chemical Engineering to the plastics industry in the state. Congratulations on a job well done!

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ALUMNI UPDATES

EARLY C. EWING, JR. I am Early C. Ewing, Jr. and I graduated in Chemical Engineering in Jan. of 1943. I had a good job waiting for me at Camp Shelby, MS immediately thereafter. I like so many others from the ROTC at Miss. State went to OCS and from there to an AA battery at Camp Edwards, MA. B24 anti-submarine scouts took off constantly (they also returned) and pretty soon I got transferred to the Air Corps. I wound up as a navigator in the 13th Air Force in the Pacific. One of my classmates at State was on the same troop ship to the pacific having been transferred with his 12omm anti-aircraft gun to an anti-tank Battery. We flew several observation missions over the Southwest Pacific islands including French-Indochina (ever hear of that)? After being discharged I came back to Miss State and took courses in Agronomy. I was married to Margaret Mays Patterson of Benoit, MS by this time. Then I spent a year at Cornell University and earned another BS degree, this time in plant breeding. I worked for the Miss. Experiment Station, for Delta & pine Land Co for 30 years and for ARCO seed Co for 5 years. I have a son who graduated from Miss State in Nuclear Engineering and works for Entergy and a daughter who teaches Science at Washington School and Delta State. I am on the Benoit School Board and operate a small orchard. This is about 60 years in not many more words.

MILTON YOUNG. Yesterday I was notified by iSource Magazine (see below) that I have been designated a Business 2003 Pro to Know. "Business Pros to Know" are those individuals who are spearheading today's supply chain enablement projects. This designation is in recognition for the work my group doing to advance e-procurement at Whirlpool. iSource also published an Interview with me in their December/January issue (available on-line at www.isourceonline.com - When the Supply Chain support the Brand).

At Whirlpool, I am the Global Director for Strategic Sourcing Strategy and Planning and have responsibility for overall procurement strategy development, e-Procurement coordination and projects and supplier diversity. For supplier diversity we were also recognized last month by Div2000 with an honorable mention in their list of America's Top 50 Organizations for Multicultural Business Opportunities in 2002 as determined by

I've been at Whirlpool for 8 years, the last two in Global Procurement. Prior to that I spent 4 very exciting and fruitful years in laundry product development as the Director for Project Planning and Finance for the Calypso and Catalyst washer projects. These washers earned #1 rating from Consumer Reports for top loading and high efficiency washers. I also spent two years as Director for Financial Planning and Analysis for the North American Region. I joined Whirlpool after 6 years with Exxon (there was no Mobil then) in a variety of finance positions with Exxon USA in Houston, TX and Esso Inter-America in Coral Gables, FL.

After graduating from Miss. State (BS-CHE, 1983), I earned an MS-CHE from Yale University, worked two years for General Motors as a project engineer and then earned my MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University.

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