UW Chemical Engineering

Dr. Shachi Mittal, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, has been awarded an Early-Career Investigator Travel Award by the National Cancer Institute. This award will support Mittal in presenting her research at the 15th Early Detection Research Network Scientific Workshop this fall.

“This is an incredible honor,” Mittal says. “It’s an opportunity to share this work with the EDRN community alongside leaders who have shaped the field of early cancer detection, and it means a great deal to see our work recognized as relevant to the network's mission."

Learn more about the work Mittal will present at the Early Detection Network workshop at www.cheme.washington.edu/news/article/2026-07-27/dr-mittal-awarded-early-career-travel-grant-national-cancer-institute

Next week's speaker in the Distinguished Young Scholar Seminar series – Paul Sagoe!

Sagoe is a Ph.D. candidate at Syracuse University, where his research focuses on "developing macrophage-targeted micro- and nanotechnology platforms for drug delivery and immunomodulation in osteoarthritis and inflammatory diseases."

Learn more about Sagoe's research with his talk, "Tiny but Mighty: Polymeric Platforms for Targeted Macrophage State Reprogramming in Osteoarthritis," next Tuesday, August 11, from 4-5 p.m. on Zoom.

Learn more about Sagoe and see the rest of the speaker lineup at cheme.washington.edu/calendar

Cheers to the engineers! 🍻

ChemE Brew Club, a student organization that introduces students to the art and science of brewing and distilling, recently celebrated a collaboration with local company Fremont Brewing. Their collab, the limited-release Dawg Water, was a slightly hazy beer with notes of bread dough, stone fruit, light florals and fresh grass.

The beer was well received – so well, in fact, Fremont Brewing sold out in just a couple weeks! But anyone who missed it should take heart, says Lizzie Clemens, president of the club. In the next academic year, the club is planning another collab with Fremont Brewing, expanding on their work with Dawg Water, and are in talks with other local breweries! Stay tuned 😄

Anuja Tripathi will give her presentation as part of the Distinguished Young Scholars Seminar next Tuesday, August 4.

Tripathi is a postdoc at Northwestern University. Her research spans two primary areas, including the synthesis and engineering of functional materials to enhance catalytic performance and the recovery of critical elements from waste streams. Catch Tripathi's presentation, "Towards Critical-Material Circularity: Recovery and Scalable Regeneration from Secondary Resources," from 4-5 p.m. next Tuesday on Zoom.

Learn more about Tripathi and see the rest of the speaker lineup at cheme.washington.edu/calendar

The Distinguished Young Scholars Seminar is excited to welcome Ricardo Mathison next Tuesday, July 28.

Ricardo is a postdoc at Johns Hopkins University, where he is working to "bring machine learning to heterogeneous catalyst discovery." He will deliver his talk, "Understand, Discover, Control: AI-Driven Tools for Accelerated Reaction Engineering," next Tuesday from 4-5 p.m. on Zoom.

Learn more about Mathison and see the rest of the speaker lineup at cheme.washington.edu/calendar

Jullien Berzuela, lead grants manager for the Department of Chemical Engineering, has been awarded the department's Distinguished Staff award! This annual award honors an outstanding staff member who has gone above and beyond in their work.

One of the nominating faculty wrote: “To my group, Jullien is more than our grants manager. She is an active member of our team... Her reliability, persistence, and understanding of the grants process provide me and my students a level of security that is difficult to find in these times. I am grateful for her support and strongly believe she deserves recognition for the exceptional care and commitment she brings to her work.”

Congratulations, Jullien! Your work is essential to the department, and we are incredibly lucky to have you! 💜💛💛💜

Next week's speaker in the Distinguished Young Scholar Seminar series – Gregory Parisi!

Parisi is a postdoc at of Pennsylvania, where he studies dynamic wetting phenomena, thermoresponsive hydrogel composites and phase-change liquid-infused coatings for adaptive control of interfacial transport. Make sure to catch his talk, "Switchable Interfaces: Controlling Heat and Water Through Stimuli-Responsive Materials," next Tuesday, July 21, from 4-5 p.m. on Zoom.

Learn more about Parisi and see the rest of the speaker lineup at cheme.washington.edu/calendar

University of Washington College of Engineering

The next Distinguished Young Scholars Seminar will feature Brett Graver, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Delaware.

Graver will give his talk, "Identification and Engineering of Prokaryotic Argonautes for Biotechnology App," on Tuesday, July 14 from 4-5 p.m. on Zoom. From Graver's research, he aims to "better understand the structural basis of Argonaute function and expand the utility of these emerging molecular scissors for in vivo application and point-of-care diagnostics."

Find Graver's bio along with more event details at cheme.washington.edu/calendar

ChemE Alum Ben Magruder, B.S. ‘20, was awarded the prestigious Schmidt Science Fellowship earlier this year. The Schmidt Science Fellowship is awarded to promising early-career scientists who are looking to pivot to a new area of study.

Magruder will transition from Materials Science to Biochemistry, studying how neurogenerative diseases start at the molecular level.

“The Schmidt Science Fellowship gives me the chance to dive headfirst into a whole new discipline and really push the limits of what I can get out of my postdoc,” Magruder says.

Learn more about Magruder's academic journey: www.cheme.washington.edu/news/article/2026-05-21/cheme-alum-ben-magruder-awarded-schmidt-science-fellowship