While the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the lasting effect on student groups like the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Association (ChEGSA) cannot be overstated. In an instant, we were unable to carry out our traditions or hold in-person events, and with few incoming students, we struggled to recruit new members. It’s important for us to recognize that it was only due to the perseverance of a handful of key individuals over the last three years, including former ChEGSA presidents Chris Klassen, Jesus Baltazar and Kyle Kersey, that ChEGSA adapted and remained central to the CBE community. When I took on the honor of serving as the ChEGSA president last May, my primary goal was to continue the effort started by Kyle Kersey to recover by bringing back traditions and guiding a new generation of leaders in our school.
Over the last year, I have continually been impressed by our new generation of graduate students, who have, voluntarily and without pay, put in a significant amount of their own time to make ChEGSA successful in our mission over the past year even amidst A-exams, Q-exams and countless research struggles. I would like to share how our work has continued ChEGSA’s commitment to fostering a vibrant community in Olin hall:
Professional Development
Our collaboration with the CBE Industrial Council was initiated by Kyle Kersey and led to a site tour at Air Products in Allentown, PA, last year. This year, Julia Donlevie, taking over Kyle’s role as the Professional Development Coordinator, organized a visit to Corning’s R&D facilities and diesel plant. We are so grateful to everyone at Corning who made the trip possible and fielded numerous probing and insightful questions from our grad students during the two tours. Julia will serve as Professional Development Coordinator next year and plans to organize future visits to Corning and other industry partners.
Graduate Research Symposium
One of our long-running traditions is to hold a research symposium, giving an opportunity for graduate students to showcase their research through posters and oral presentations. This gives students practice presenting their work at academic conferences and is important for networking with industry. For the second year in a row, our Symposium Chair Fiona Mukherjee has done a phenomenal job organizing the event. The symposium included a full day of impressive oral presentations and a poster session. The keynote address was given by Professor David Gracias from Johns Hopkins University on some remarkably futuristic applications of soft robotics coming out of his lab. The event concluded with an awards ceremony at the Johnson Museum, where we all celebrated the excellent work presented throughout the day.
ChEGSA Invited Speaker
Each year, ChEGSA has the privilege of inviting a speaker to present at our Monday morning seminar. This year, David Pine, from NYU, presented a remarkable story about the effort within his lab to create optical semiconductors from patchy nanoparticles. Unlike most research presentations, which span a few years at most, the work presented in this seminar spanned decades — showing how generations of graduate students incrementally contributed to a truly remarkable result of achieving the desired crystal structure. In a scientific world where sensational and expedient research is everywhere, Professor Pine’s seminar was a reassuring demonstration of how rigorous science builds upon itself to achieve incredible results.
Social Events
The true heart of ChEGSA lies in social events. By bringing the school together, we find a common community to share concerns, bounce ideas off each other, and relax from research. In September, Preston Hollopeter spearheaded a first-of-its-kind paintball event, which was very well received, and wrapped up with an end-of-summer BBQ. In addition to biweekly board game nights and periodic movie nights, the fall semester continued with our annual Halloween party and collaboration with the school’s Diversity and Inclusion Program to put on a potluck Thanksgiving lunch. Over the spring, we held a CBE paint night and Thai-dye event (tie-dye and Thai food). At the end of the spring semester, we threw down the gauntlet to the biomedical engineers, and challenged them to kickball and yard games. We were roundly defeated and suffered great shame. The food was good though.