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Stanford University Engineering Chemical Engineering Stanford, CA 94305-5025 STANFORD CURTIS W. FRANK School of Engineering William M. Keck, Sr. Professor Stauffer III, Room 111 CHEMICAL Chair, Department of Stanford University EngineerinG Chemical Engineering Stanford, CA 94305-5025 November 2004 Dear Chemical Engineering Alum, It is a pleasure to take this opportunity to tell you about the past year in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Let me begin this annual letter with our most exciting news. We successfully completed two of our three open faculty searches with two extremely strong candidates: Zhenan Bao and Andrew Spakowitz. As you will see from the following descriptions of their work, Zhenan and Andy will add important new dimensions to the research and teaching portfolios of the department. Zhenan Bao joined us in March 2004 as an Associate Professor after eight years at Lucent Technologies – Bell Labs Innovations as a distinguished member of the technical staff. In her research, she takes an interdisciplinary approach to address technologically important issues related to using organic materials for electronic devices. One of her major contributions has been the development of high-performance organic semiconductors for large area flexible circuits and displays. Her current research interests include the understanding of self-assembly at different length scales using building blocks such as organic molecules and nano-objects. Her primary focus lies in chemical and biological sensors, nano-electronic devices, and molecular memories. Zhenan plans to develop new courses that integrate frontier research topics into traditional chemical engineering classes. She currently serves as a member of the executive board of directors for the Materials Research Society and as a member of the executive committee for the Polymer Materials Science and Engineering Division of the American Chemical Society. She has been selected as a Stanford Terman Fellow and has been appointed as a Robert N. Noyce Faculty Scholar. Andy Spakowitz received his Ph.D. from Caltech this past summer and is starting a two-year postdoc at U.C. Berkeley. He will make regular visits to Stanford to discuss his research and teaching plans with the faculty and to meet with prospective Ph.D. students. His future research at Stanford will use a combination of analytical theory and computational techniques to understand the underlying physical phenomena in biological systems. His first broad research goal is to study the packaging of DNA in chromatin, focusing on the dynamic behavior that influences gene regulation and the physical effects of twist, topology, and confinement on the DNA strand. The processes responsible for the packaging of our meter-long genome within a micron-sized nucleus involve physical manipulation of the DNA strand at the base-pair level while maintaining its accessibility to enzymes. His second broad research goal is to develop an understanding of the cytoskeleton from the self-assembly of the protein filaments that comprise the cytoskeleton to the collective behavior of the cytoskeletal network and its role in cellular mechanics. Finally, Andy seeks to determine the basic principles behind the corkscrew motion of a bacterium’s flagella. Understanding the underlying physical forces responsible for bacterial propulsion may provide possible methods for generating thrust in nano-mechanical applications. Phone: 650.723.4573 • Fax: 650.723.9780 • E-mail: [email protected] • Web: chemeng.stanford.edu Updates on activities of the remainder of our faculty follow: Stacey Bent directs a very active research group focused on a number of projects related to electronic materials. The group continues to investigate topics ranging from organic functionalization to retinal prostheses and also has started a new activity on the fabrication of nano-scale fuel cells. This year, Stacey served as adviser to a large class of first-year graduate students, and she traveled widely to present her group’s research at invited lectures. Gerry Fuller was most pleased to deliver three honorary lectures this past year: the Holtz Lecture at Johns Hopkins, the Smith Lecture at Cornell, and the Pearson Lecture at UCSB. While visiting Santa Barbara, he enjoyed the wonderful mountain biking routes into the hills above that city. He also presented at invited lectures and conferences in Switzerland, Wales, Greece, and Australia. Additionally, Gerry helped to teach the European School on Rheology in Belgium as a guest lecturer last fall. Research in the Fuller group continues to focus on problems connected to complex fluid interfaces, with applications that include emulsion and foam stability and the dynamics of lung surfactants. For the past two years, Gerry and his wife, Mary, have served as Resident Fellows in West Lagunita dormitory and have had a terrific time sharing their lives with 180 undergraduates. They plan to stay there one more year before returning to their home on campus. Curt Frank has made the adjustment to being chair; that is, he now has a good idea of what needs to be done in the job and is working hard to fulfill all of the tasks. His research program in soft materials is moving more toward biophysics and biomedical materials. Several of his students are working on various aspects of phospholipid bilayers, which show promise as scaffolds for proteins to be used in lab-on-a-chip devices. In addition, he collaborates with a large group from the Department of Ophthalmology (School of Medicine) on an artificial cornea based on polymeric hydrogels and is initiating projects with groups from Immunology and Virology. Curt continues to serve as director of the Center on Polymer Interfaces and Macromolecular Assemblies (CPIMA) as it moves into its tenth year. Finally, Curt made many useful contacts on his first trip to China in June. He plans to use these ties in the recruiting of Ph.D. students and in establishing new collaborations. Camilla Kao expanded her research group to 10 Ph.D. students. She and her group continue to study how bacteria that make commercially important pharmaceuticals can be engineered to increase yields. Her students presented their work at several conferences, including the AIChE national meeting in San Francisco in November 2003 and the International Symposium on the Biology of Actinomycetes in Melbourne, Australia, in December 2003. In addition, she taught undergraduate and graduate courses in biotechnology. Chaitan Khosla still maintains a large research group focused on studying the protein engineering of polyketide synthases. In a relatively new activity, he has made considerable progress in the chemistry and biology of celiac sprue, a hereditary disease that causes a gluten allergy that requires lifelong attention to strict dietary rules. Chaitan serves as the president of the Celiac Sprue Foundation, which is dedicated to the understanding, control, and eventual eradication of this disease. In January, Chaitan became the Wells H. Rauser and Harold M. Petiprin Professor in the School of Engineering. Bob Madix continues his work on the fundamentals of surface reactivity, currently emphasizing the relationships between phenomena on the atomic level and surface-averaged kinetics and mechanisms. Scanning probe microscopes add the capability of observing reactions in situ on the atomic scale. Two of his Ph.D. students graduated with the Class of 2004. Bob remains on the editorial boards of several journals. Charles Musgrave had an interesting year. A 10-day trip to Japan on a U.S. Young Researchers Exchange Program on Nanotechnology for the NSF-MEXT conference counts as one of the highlights. Charles also enjoyed a trip to Paris, where he was invited to speak about atomic layer deposition (ALD) at the ECS meeting. It was also a good opportunity to bring his wife, Luanne, and enjoy one of the world’s great cities! The Musgrave group’s work in the chemistry on ALD continues to be widely recognized. Moreover, it has affected the decision making at many companies with whom they interact, including Intel, Texas Instruments, Applied Materials, and Toshiba. Intel recently hired Joseph Han (Ph.D. ’04) specifically to help implement ALD of high-K materials for the 2007 technology node. Charles’ group remains hard at work applying quantum methods and computational materials chemistry to bio and organic reactions on semiconductor surfaces, ALD, and fuel cells. Meanwhile, the Musgrave family keeps growing – the newest member being daughter Valerie’s hamster. Wife Luanne still enjoys riding their horse, and Charles has recently become an avid T- ball fan – or rather, he is when his boys (little Charles, Grant, and Andrew) play. Channing Robertson has completed his second year as Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in the School of Engineering. In order to make room for his new duties, he had to spend less time in the classroom and in the laboratory. However, he still managed to teach ChE 20, the introductory Chemical Engineering course, as well as a sophomore seminar with his former Ph.D. student Shari Libicki, who now works at Environ. In addition, he coordinates the yearlong Bio-X seminar series on “Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Biosciences.” He continues to make presentations on the Bio-X Initiative to audiences around the world and traveled to Bangalore, Singapore, and Shanghai this past summer. He is director of the Stanford- NIH Biotechnology Training Program and is already at work preparing for its renewal. This proposal will cover the time period from July 2006 through August 2011. At
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