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 – 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 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 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 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 the university level, he is one of four faculty members on the Provost’s Budget Group and will embark on his third term in that capacity this fall.

Eric Shaqfeh has been heavily involved in the launch of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, or ICME (a new School of Engineering initiative directed by Parviz Moin). In fact, Eric chairs the curriculum committee; he has been leading meetings since October 2003. The result – a new curriculum and graduate program that will hit the Stanford Bulletin this fall! While on sabbatical in spring 2004 as the Hougen Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Eric finished his review article on “Single Molecule Visualizations on Simulations of DNA in Flow” for the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics. His research continues to be focused on DNA dynamics and turbulent drag reduction. There has been considerable interest in these topics, as he received invitations to speak at the American Physical Society in Montreal, the International Congress on Rheology in Seoul, Korea, and the Hougen Lectures at University of Wisconsin. The new year promises more excitement – he will be teaching a class in the ICME curriculum, graduating four Ph.D. students, and working toward a “sea test” of turbulent drag reduction technology for the Navy.

Jim Swartz graduated his first Ph.D. student this year and another two Ph.D. students walked through the 2004 graduation ceremony. In addition to the excitement of graduating his first student, Jim is seeing his research on cell-free protein synthesis bearing fruit. Jim also edited a book on cell-free technology that was published last year, and he had 10 papers published or accepted in 2004. His group made a total of 17 presentations at the recent AIChE and ACS national meetings, and he was invited to make the keynote presentation at an international cell- free meeting in Berlin.

In other news, his lab’s research results spawned a new company called Fundamental Applied Biology. The new company will focus on the commercial production of protein pharmaceuticals. As if he were not busy enough, Jim served as one of the founding faculty for the new Bioengineering department. He also is on the managing board for the Society for Biological Engineering, a new organization being formed within AIChE to coordinate and expand its emerging leadership role in biochemical and biomedical engineering.

Graduation Highlights Our 2004 graduation ceremonies were held once again in the family-friendly space between Stauffer III and the old Chemistry building. While the graduates sat on the Stauffer walkway, their families and friends, numbering in excess of 250, expanded beyond the confines of our two tents. We felt great awarding B.S. degrees to 20 undergraduates and learning about their plans for the future. Channing Robertson hooded our eight M.S. co-term students, and Gerry Fuller hooded 11 M.S. candidates. Finally, 15 Ph.D. candidates were hooded by their research advisers.

Strategic Planning In last year’s alumni letter, I described how Chemical Engineering will participate in the major Stanford initiatives related to biological engineering, energy, materials, and computational mathematics. We have moved forward in each of the areas in the past year.

Bioengineering Jim Swartz, a very active founding faculty member of the new Bioengineering department, has been offered a 0 percent time appointment in that department. This will facilitate the development of new courses that serve the needs of both the Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering departments and will likely lead to Ph.D. students from Bioengineering joining Jim’s group.

Environment and Energy The Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) recently initiated several research projects and established protocols for supporting a broad range of activities in environmental science and engineering and alternative energy sources. Jim Swartz continues to collaborate with Professor Alfred Spormann (Civil and Environmental Engineering – CEE) on the bioproduction of hydrogen. In a related area, Curt Frank will start collaboration with Professors Dick Luthy and Craig Criddle (both from CEE) on a “green chemistry” seed project designed to seek environmentally benign replacements for fluoropolymers currently used as hard disk lubricants.

Advanced Materials A third initiative is directed toward the establishment of five Advanced Materials Laboratories that will provide the infrastructure for fabrication and characterization of hard and soft materials. Directed by Curt Frank, the Soft and Hybrid Materials Facility is the laboratory most closely associated with Chemical Engineering. Its static and dynamic light scattering equipment – the first instrument to be acquired – has experienced increased use by the Stanford community throughout the year.

Computational Mathematics Perhaps the most dramatic changes in the last year were associated with the planning for the Institute for Computational Mathematics and Engineering (ICME). The institute will combine focused faculty interest in analysis and computation with coordinated teaching of core engineering mathematics courses. As mentioned previously, Eric Shaqfeh is the chair of the ICME curriculum committee.

In my last alumni newsletter, I also outlined the five elements of our strategic plan: research, teaching, industrial, alumni, and financial. I am happy to report that we also have made progress in each of these areas.

Research Strategy We plan to maintain departmental balance among our current research themes of molecular transport and mechanics, surface reactivity and interface science, molecular computation and simulation, soft materials physics and chemistry, and molecular and cellular biological engineering. This remains our goal as we fill our remaining faculty vacancy and plan for future retirements. Opportunities for incremental growth in faculty size seem to be the brightest in the areas of energy and the environment, molecular and cellular bioengineering, and electronic materials processing.

Teaching Strategy We define teaching in the broadest sense; we include lecture courses as well as individual mentorship of Ph.D. students. Over the past four years, the development of a series of bio-related courses constituted the biggest change in our curriculum. We anticipate that some of these courses will be integrated with the curriculum of the Bioengineering department, thus serving both communities. Due to our growing enrollment in co-term and M.S. students, we plan to examine the M.S. curriculum in the coming year to ensure that we are meeting student needs. Finally, we want to maintain our healthy undergraduate enrollment of 20 to 25 graduates per year, nurture our M.S. program through our co-terms and external students, and maintain our Ph.D. recruiting yield at 15 to 20 students per year.

Industrial Strategy We wish to significantly enhance our ties to industry through a variety of modes. First, we will maintain our existing traineeship (NIH Biotechnology Training Grant) and research center (NSF MRSEC Center on Polymer Interfaces and Macromolecular Assemblies), both of which have industrial links. Second, we also will strive to establish new traineeships and centers with industrial involvement. We are considering an internship program that would provide incoming M.S. and Ph.D. students with the opportunity to obtain industrial experience prior to starting graduate classes. As relationships strengthen, these interactions may lead to future academic/industrial research collaborations. Alumni Strategy Last year, we told you that we were planning to increase our alumni activities to help strengthen our ties with you. Our initial efforts concentrated on our Mason Lecture series. Favorable comments on the poster session last year led to a repeat poster session this year; we plan to continue this as a vehicle for showing you snapshots of current research. In addition, we presented an overview of department activities to our Leadership Council. New and returning members gave us extremely useful comments. We plan to make the Leadership Council a regular event with specific actionable targets in the future.

Our hospitality suite at the AIChE annual meetings have been very well received.

Financial Strategy I indicated last year that the department faces four critical financial challenges: start- up funding, graduate fellowships, undergraduate laboratory renovation, and department operating funds. We still face these same challenges in the upcoming year. Start-up funding will be used for laboratory renovation for Zhenan Bao and Andy Spakowitz, our newest hires. In order to compete successfully with other research- intensive departments across the country, we need to be able to provide graduate fellowships to our students. Our undergraduate laboratory requires a makeover to update the instrumentation. Currently, however, our department funds are fully allocated toward our operating expenses. We would like to increase our departmental operating fund so that we have some capacity for flexibility to pursue unplanned opportunities.

Staying Connected I encourage you to keep abreast of the activities in the department by visiting our website at chemeng.stanford.edu and by remaining an active member of our alumni community by keeping us apprised of your activities and whereabouts. Of course, you are always welcome to visit us whenever you are in the area. You can log on to soe.stanford.edu/alumni/ update.html to update your contact information. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Curtis W. Frank William M. Keck, Sr. Professor Chair, Department of Chemical Engineering