News & EventsDepartment Events
Events
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Mar31
EVENT DETAILS
Spring Break Ends
TIME Monday, March 31, 2025
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Apr1
EVENT DETAILS
Spring Classes Begin - Northwestern Monday: Classes scheduled to meet on Mondays meet on this day.
TIME Tuesday, April 1, 2025
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Apr9
EVENT DETAILSmore info
Natural killer cells in immunotherapy: current status & challenges
Allogeneic Natural Killer (NK) cells are a promising immunotherapy for several cancers due to their natural anti-tumor activity and favorable safety profile. Their diverse array of activating and inhibitory receptors enables them to target heterogeneous tumors. However, their use as cell therapies faces challenges, including the lack of scalable cell sources for clinical-scale manufacturing, significant donor-to-donor variability, and the need for robust and predictive preclinical assays to validate NK efficacy. Currently at ImmuneBridge, we utilize a novel small molecule, IBR403, to expand cord blood unit (CBU) derived hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). We have built a screening platform that enables use of CBU segments, leaving the clinical CBU untouched for selective manufacturing. HSCs from segments are then used for NK differentiation and HSC-NKs are thoroughly characterized by phenotyping and functional assays. This screening platform enables us to select superior donors that outperform others in anti-tumor response, which can then be expanded and used as off-the-shelf therapies.
Ece Canan Sayitoglu is a bioengineer with extensive research experience in fields including immunology, molecular biology, genetic engineering and cancer immunotherapy. She has a BSc in Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, and completed her MSc in Immunology at King's College London and PhD at Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey. She worked as a postdoctoral research scientist at Nova Southeastern University (FL) and more recently at Stanford University (CA) before joining the ImmuneBridge team. Her doctoral research focused on enhancing lentiviral gene delivery in human NK cells for better targeted therapies, and her postdoctoral studies helped advance genetically modified NK cells and T cells for various cancer immunotherapies. She has been a senior scientist at ImmuneBridge since 2023, working on HSC-derived NK cells. She is passionate about creating off-the-shelf cell therapies for cancer patients.
TIME Wednesday, April 9, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Will Chaussee william.chaussee@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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Apr10
EVENT DETAILS
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present a seminar by Suljo Linic, Martin Lewis Perl Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering at The University of Michigan.
Suljo Linic will present a seminar titled "Chemical catalysis and environment: the good, the bad, the ugly and the path forward.”
ABSTRACT
I will discuss the historical links between chemical engineering, chemistry, energy systems, and environmental sustainability. I will outline the transformative potential of chemical catalysis in the design of sustainable energy systems and the key limitations preventing us from taking advantage of this potential. I will outline some promising directions, focusing on one specific avenue that we have been exploring. In this context, I will discuss our recent work on developing multifunctional catalytic materials that allow for not only the control over the structure of the active catalytic site but also the environment in which this active site resides. By controlling the environment, we are able to control the chemical potential of reactive species and therefore direct chemical transformations in specific (desired) directions.
I will illustrate the phenomena using examples of developing catalyst/membrane multifunctional systems for oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) and propane dehydrogenation (PDH). OCM is a direct route for converting methane into ethylene and ethane (C2). When performed in conventional packed bed reactors (PBRs) this process suffers from significant thermodynamic and kinetic limitations over almost all explored catalysts. We will show that a membrane/catalyst system with distributed oxygen feed (i.e. an O2- conducting membrane reactor) and properly selected catalyst and membrane materials can give significantly higher C2 selectivity and yield compared to a PBR. In another example, we will focus on PDH. The conversion in the PDH reaction is equilibrium limited. We will show how membrane/catalyst systems allow us to in-situ remove H2 from the product stream and by taking advantage of the Le Chatelier's principle remove the equilibrium limitations on the reaction conversion.
BIO
Suljo Linic was born in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he completed his elementary and high school education. His family were forcefully displaced from Bosnia during the Bosnian war of 1990s. He moved to the USA in 1994 after being awarded a faculty scholarship from West Chester University (West Chester, PA). He completed his BS degree in Physics with minors in Mathematics and Chemistry at West Chester University (PA) in the spring of 1998. Suljo obtained his PhD degree in chemical engineering in 2003 working with Prof. Mark Barteau at University of Delaware, specializing in surface and colloidal chemistry and heterogeneous catalysis. He was a Max Planck postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Dr. Matthias Scheffler at the Fritz Haber Institute of Max Planck Society in Berlin (Germany), working on first principles studies of surface chemistry. He started his independent faculty career in 2004 at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he is currently Martin Lewis Perl Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering. He was also a Hans Fischer Faculty Fellow from 2015 to 2019 at the Department of Chemistry at Technical University in Munich.
Suljo’s research has been recognized through multiple awards including the Gabor A. Somorjai Award by ACS, the Emmett Award by The North American Catalysis Society, the ACS Catalysis Lectureship for the Advancement of Catalytic Science awarded annually by the ACS Catalysis journal and Catalysis Science and Technology Division of ACS, the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Young Investigator Award by American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the ACS Unilever Award awarded by the Colloids and Surface Science Division of ACS, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award awarded by the Dreyfus Foundation, the DuPont Young Professor Award, and a NSF Career Award. Suljo has presented more than 200 invited and keynote lectures. He serves as the associate editor of ACS catalysis journal.
Bagels and coffee will be provided at 9:30am, and the seminar will start at 9:40am. Please plan to arrive on time to grab a bagel and mingle!
*Please note that there will be no Zoom option for seminars this year.
TIME Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION LR5, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Olivia Wise olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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Apr16
EVENT DETAILSmore info
TBD
TIME Wednesday, April 16, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Will Chaussee william.chaussee@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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Apr17
EVENT DETAILS
More details to come.
TIME Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION LR5, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Olivia Wise olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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Apr23
EVENT DETAILSmore info
TBD
TIME Wednesday, April 23, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Will Chaussee william.chaussee@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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Apr24
EVENT DETAILS
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present a seminar by Jerrod Henderson from The University of Houston as part of our ChBE Seminar Series.
Jerrod Henderson will present a seminar titled "Using the Photovoice Method in Engineering Education: Visualizing Engineering Identity.”
ABSTRACT
Researchers have shown that students are most likely to leave engineering undergraduate programs during their first two years. Justifiably, several studies have investigated first-year student persistence, which has informed the development of interventions to address challenges. While those interventions have improved freshmen retention in some institutions, less has been published on the impacts of these interventions on the sophomore student experience. In this study, we examined the experiences of sophomore engineering students and explored how these experiences relate to their identities as engineers. We conducted this study using photovoice, a participatory action-based research methodology in which participants submit photographs to describe their experiences and provide recommendations for improving them and resolving their concerns. Four participants submitted three sets of pictures and participated in focus groups. We inductively developed three themes: “on the frame, out of focus, and prefigures.” We gained insight into what interest, competence, and recognition as engineers meant to students. Participants grappled with the tension between their personal, social, and engineering identities. Photovoice empowered them to author that they could exist beyond the murky middle. This work has the potential to yield solutions that institutional stakeholders can implement, such as creating cultures of well-being, self-reflection, and belonging.
BIO
Dr. Jerrod A. Henderson (“Dr. J”) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston.
He began his higher education pursuits at Morehouse College and North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, where he earned dual degrees in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Dr. Henderson has dedicated his career to increasing the number of students who are on pathways to pursue STEM careers. He co-founded the St. Elmo Brady STEM Academy, an after-school educational intervention that introduces fourth and fifth-grade students and their families to hands-on STEM experiences. This program has served hundreds of students in Illinois and Texas.
His research group aims to understand student engineering identity trajectories and success mechanisms, using interpretive qualitative and action-based participatory research methods.
He was most recently recognized by INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine as an Inspiring STEM Leader, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) Outstanding Young Alumni Award, and with a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2023 to advance his work that centers engineering identities of Black men in engineering.
Bagels and coffee will be provided at 9:30am, and the seminar will start at 9:40am. Please plan to arrive on time to grab a bagel and mingle!
*Please note that there will be no Zoom option for seminars this year.
TIME Thursday, April 24, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION LR5, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Olivia Wise olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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Apr30
EVENT DETAILSmore info
TBD
TIME Wednesday, April 30, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Will Chaussee william.chaussee@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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May1
EVENT DETAILS
More details to come.
TIME Thursday, May 1, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION LR5, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Olivia Wise olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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May7
EVENT DETAILSmore info
TBD
TIME Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Will Chaussee william.chaussee@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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May8
EVENT DETAILS
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present a seminar by Michael Charles, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University.
Michael Charles will present a seminar titled "Sustainable Engineering for Equitable Futures: Empowering Indigenous Sovereignty.”
ABSTRACT
Climate change poses threats to all life on our planet but the consequences do not impact all communities equally. With the complexity of the technological, political, and economic systems that humankind has built around ourselves, even our solutions to address climate change redistribute risks disproportionately. In this seminar, we will dive into how sustainable and systems engineering methodologies can assess the trade-offs that must be considered to make “sustainable” decisions. Further, we will explore the role that data analysis and localized information can play in advocating for the empowerment and safety of vulnerable communities, and in particular, Indigenous communities. These themes will be demonstrated through a variety of projects focused on renewable energy transitions, health-centered design, sustainable food systems, and just data and research governance.
BIO
Michael Charles (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, an Affiliate Faculty of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, and a Faculty Fellow of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. He received his B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) from Cornell University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in CBE from The Ohio State University. His expertise involves developing computational sustainability frameworks that integrate dynamic ecological models and data-driven storytelling to advocate for underrepresented communities. As a Diné (Navajo) scholar, he’s committed to fostering mutually respectful partnerships with Indigenous communities. His vision is to combine computational methods with community-centered relationships to translate research into action. At Cornell University, the Charles Research Group focuses on nature-responsive design, frameworks for sustainable systems development, and utilizing data to empower communities to navigate complex sustainability challenges. Along with his research, he works with the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change to advocate for Indigenous rights, leadership, and self-determination within UN Climate Negotiations.
Bagels and coffee will be provided at 9:30am, and the seminar will start at 9:40am. Please plan to arrive on time to grab a bagel and mingle!
*Please note that there will be no Zoom option for seminars this year.
TIME Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION LR5, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Olivia Wise olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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May14
EVENT DETAILSmore info
TBD
TIME Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Will Chaussee william.chaussee@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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May15
EVENT DETAILS
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present a seminar by Nikhil Nair, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Tufts University.
Nikhil Nair will present a seminar titled "Understanding and mitigating host-part incompatibilities during microbial engineering.”
ABSTRACT
One of our major goals is to elucidate and highlight the unexpected outcomes that result from modifying living systems and formalize them under the umbrella of “incompatibilities”. For example, when multiple recombinant proteins are co-expressed in bacteria like E. coli, the cellular growth rate reduces, due to the burden of protein expression. However, the same system can be considered an incompatibility between the resources used for protein synthesis and the bacterial host’s intrinsic resource demands for growth. Similarly, when a recombinant enzyme is expressed in a recombinant host, its off-target activity on host metabolites can result in the re-distribution of fluxes through a number of host metabolic pathways. While such activity is frequently filed under promiscuous enzymatic activity, the same can be considered an incompatibility between the enzyme and the host’s metabolic network. We have spent significant effort in systematically exploring the origin of these numerous host-part incompatibilities (where, the added component, like recombinant protein, is referred to as a biological “part”) in efforts to explain previously inexplicable experimental observations. By understanding the origins of incompatibilities, our work has revealed fundamental insights into cellular physiology and enabled the development of more robust and efficient engineered biological systems.
BIO
Nik Nair (naa-year) received his B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell University (Ithaca, NY) in 2003. While at Cornell, he was a founding member and lead guitarist of the not-so-well-known progressive metal band called “Rubicon”. After graduation in 2003 and a brief stint at Bristol Myers Squibb, where he worked as a manufacturing research scientist in biotechnology purification development, he received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign under the guidance of Prof. Huimin Zhao. He joined Tufts in 2013 after completing a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship in Microbiology and Immunobiology at the Harvard Medical School in Prof. Ann Hochschild’s lab. He was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2020. He is a recipient of the 2016 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. The Nair Synthetic Biology & Systems Bioengineering Lab focuses on two major areas of research – 1) biosynthesis of renewable fuels and chemicals from sustainable feedstocks, and 2) engineering proteins and microbes to improve human health. In his spare time, which is increasingly rare, he likes to play guitar, golf, and video games and watch trashy TV shows like 90 Day Fiancé and Sister Wives. His long-term plans include starting several companies based on lab-developed technologies and eventually resurrecting “Rubicon” once his young sons are old enough to master their instruments (Kiran: guitar; Liam: keyboards)
Bagels and coffee will be provided at 9:30am, and the seminar will start at 9:40am. Please plan to arrive on time to grab a bagel and mingle!
*Please note that there will be no Zoom option for seminars this year.
TIME Thursday, May 15, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION LR5, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Olivia Wise olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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May21
EVENT DETAILS
TBD
TIME Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Will Chaussee william.chaussee@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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May22
EVENT DETAILS
More details to come.
TIME Thursday, May 22, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION LR5, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Olivia Wise olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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May28
EVENT DETAILSmore info
TBD
TIME Wednesday, May 28, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Will Chaussee william.chaussee@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)
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May29
EVENT DETAILS
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present our annual Contextualizing Engineering Seminar by Luke Landherr, COE Distinguished Teaching Professor of Chemical Engineering and Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies at Northeastern University.
Luke Landherr will present a seminar titled "Drawn To STEM: The Integration of Visualization Into Education Through Comics and Animation To Improve Learning."
ABSTRACT
One of the major obstacles to effective learning in STEM is the abstract nature of many core STEM concepts. While traditional approaches include examples of real-world applications, demonstrations, and/or hands-on experimentation, the depth and complexity of these concepts can cause such efforts to be unsuccessful. Further exacerbating the problem, some theoretical concepts do not have obvious visual representations that could make the concepts less abstract and so more comprehensible to students.
The benefits of broadening visual instruction in education are not just restricted to learners with particular inclinations toward visual learning. Studies have shown that combining text with images improves students’ retention of information, and multimedia presentations of concepts allow for better transfer of the gained knowledge towards solving problems. In short, increasing the visual content of STEM instruction promotes students’ conceptual understanding.
Recently, the use of comics and animation as learning tools has grown dramatically, with a broad set of artists, book series, and videos all dedicated to integrating visualization into educational approaches. This seminar will focus on the range of techniques being used; the potential of comics and animation in improving student enthusiasm, confidence, and understanding; the impact of these techniques observed thus far; and the means by which other educators can attempt visualization techniques on their own.
BIO
Dr. Luke Landherr is a COE Distinguished Faculty, teaching professor and the associate chair for undergraduate studies of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University. They conduct engineering education research into novel visual teaching techniques for undergraduate and K-12 STEM education. Their comics to teach complex science and engineering concepts have been adopted by colleges and high schools throughout the U.S., U.K., Belgium, and Denmark, and they helped to write and create the Crash Course: Engineering video series. They are currently a regular contributor to the Chemical Engineering Education journal producing the Drawn To Engineering comic, and have received multiple AIChE and ASEE awards for their work.
*Bagels and coffee will be provided at 9:30am, and the seminar will start at 9:40am.
TIME Thursday, May 29, 2025 at 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION LR5, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Olivia Wise olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)