Northwestern Chemical & Biological Engineering Department

03/13/2026

Northwestern Engineering's Justin Notestein has been named the McCormick School of Engineering’s Associate Dean for Research and Doctoral Education, effective September 1, 2026. Notestein succeeds Professor Erik Luijten, who in January was named the University’s next provost.

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10/24/2025

We heard two fantastic lectures from our 2025 Richard S.H. Mah Lecture speaker David Sholl this week!

Dr. Sholl is the Executive Director and Vice Provost of the University of Tennessee Oak Ridge National Innovation Institute, Director of the Transformational Decarbonization Initiative at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Editor-in-Chief at AIChE Journal.

He presented talks titled “How Reliable is the Chemical Engineering and Materials Chemistry Literature?” and “When Do I Get My Flying Car? Assessing the Potential of AI to Revolutionize Separations Science” to our department and a general audience.

Thank you to all who attended and celebrated the 19th year of this annual lecture series with us at our reception!

08/28/2025

The sun was out and (hamburger) buns were out for GSF’s annual department 5k run/3k walk and BBQ this past Friday!

06/13/2025

Our office staff spent an afternoon sipping and painting at the 🌸pink peony club🌸 (aka AARTWERK studio in Edgewater) and took home these art nouveau-inspired souvenirs for their annual staff outing. Eat your heart out, Klimt! 👨🏻‍🎨

06/10/2025

Congrats to PhD student James Ho in the Swearer lab on winning a Ryan Fellowship from the International Institute for Nanotechnology!

06/06/2025

Congratulations to undergrad senior Cecilia Barr, who won the Harold B. Gotaas Award for her excellence in research! Cecilia’s research is focused on finding PFAS free alternatives for high performance Li metal battery electrolytes.

05/09/2025

Congrats to postdoc Rachel Mizenko of the Leonard lab, who won the Zuhair A. Minor Award for Best Doctoral Dissertation through U.C. Davis!

05/07/2025

Profs. Julius Lucks and Danielle Tullman-Ercek recently spoke on Chicago Tonight about how the Trump Administration’s funding cuts and work stoppages directly impact our students and the future of important research our labs are doing to tackle global challenges. Watch the interview at the link in our bio!

05/05/2025

Huge congratulations to Dani Getz on winning a prestigious NSF GRFP fellowship this year! Congratulations also to the Honorable Mention awardees in our department: Matt Hayes, Madeline Mills, Lauren Redus, Wesley Ho, and Cecilia Barr!!

01/31/2025

This week the department staff suited up in their safety gear 🥽 to tour the Karim, Richards, Lopez, Seitz and Wang labs. They had a great time gaining insight on each lab’s research and the equipment they use to conduct it!

01/31/2025