surface spectrometer donated by Champion Paper.
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| Prof. Jeffrey Koberstein and a $1 million
surface spectrometer donated by Champion Paper. |
"Traditionally, chemical engineering has been the most multi-disciplinary department in the School and that is how it has grown," said Jeffrey T. Koberstein, the new Chemical Engineering Chair. "We are well situated to be a conduit to all sorts of departments on campus and we, as a department, can be the arch that bridges a variety of disciplines." The words stream out as Prof. Koberstein discusses the past, present, and future of the School's Chemical Engineering Department. After months of study conducted by strategic planning experts, he said, the department "is well positioned to compete with the big boys of chemical engineering." He cites the interdisciplinary nature of departmental initiatives. The Institute for Molecular Sensing is cooperating with the Chemistry Department and hopes to involve the Mechanical Engineering Department; the Genome Center is working on biological sensing that brings the Medical School, computer science and electrical engineering into the mix.
Chemical engineering has been the home for soft matter research on polymers and colloids, and, with the biological revolution, there is a need to design new biomaterials on a molecular level that are not just reactive with tissue but interactive as well. He theorizes that it will not be long before implants such as one for a hip replacement will cause new bone to grow. There is already work on regeneration of blood vessels and the new field of tissue engineering has opened up to chemical engineers who are materials-oriented.
"In the future," he said, "we hope to develop the department through additional joint appointments with departments such as applied physics, materials science, and biomedical engineering, as well as expanded collaborations with chemistry and biological sciences."
"Chemical engineering has faced a subtle revolution and is dealing with the same subject matter it has traditionally, but there is a shift in emphasis and a new department infrastructure," he said. The three focal areas for the newly invigorated department are: bioengineering, soft matter and interfacial engineering, and electrochemistry.
Dr. Koberstein points to Elmer Gaden as a founding father of bioengineering, saying the department will continue to strengthen that area and shrink the field of chemical processing to the cellular and molecular level. In the field of soft matter, the department will be at the forefront of utilizing polymers for bioengineering. The leadership of Harry Gregor and Huk Yuk Cheh pointed the department in the direction of electrochemistry, which has broadened to make applications into microelectronics and the concept of "lab on a chip," using a tiny chip for processing instead of a large piece of machinery.
"We are taking our research efforts from large scale to small scale, whether it is remote sensors, portable labs, speeding up genomic sequencing, or combinatorial chemistry. It is engineers who will design and build the equipment that drives combinatorial chemistry," he said.
The physical facilities for the department will also reflect the new vision. Inadequate classrooms and labs will be replaced with smart classrooms and modular undergraduate lab space. "Our students told us they wanted tables, not desks so our new computer labs will be equipped that way; our focus is to create an integrated environment that is conducive to learning."
The strategic planning is not over but the work is proceeding on schedule. Next up: creating an integrated undergraduate/graduate library that will form the basis for social interaction, like an Internet café, located on the same floor as TAs' offices, with tables for homework and an endless supply of coffee always available.