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Events
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Apr16
EVENT DETAILSmore info
Towards personalized treatments for perinatal mood disorders
Depression during pregnancy and postpartum, perinatal depression, is common, affecting approximately 10-12% of pregnancies. Perinatal depression has devastating consequences for both the mother and the infant, such as preterm birth and abnormal neurological development. Yet, we do not fully understand the pathobiology of perinatal depression, precluding us from developing novel strategies to prevent and treat this condition. The microorganisms that reside in our gastrointestinal system are essential for our mental health through what has been coined as the gut-brain axis. In this talk, I will present the results of our clinical study, MoMent, in which we use a whole-body dynamic systems approach to study perinatal depression. Our pregnant participants complete several mental health questionnaires, provide blood and fecal samples, and undergo electroencephalography multiple times during the perinatal period. Statistical, computational, and network analysis of temporal multi-omics (metagenomics and metabolomics) and neuroimaging data integrated with animal models (fecal microbiota transplants) reveal that the gut microbiota could be a novel avenue to treat and ideally prevent perinatal depression.
Dr. Beatriz Peñalver Bernabé is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago. Dr. Peñalver Bernabé obtained her bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Murcia, Spain, and her master's degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. After working in the polymeric industry for several years, she decided to return to academia, and she obtained her doctoral degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University under the supervision of Drs. Linda Broadbelt and Lonnie Shea. Thanks to the instrumental funding from the T32 Biotechnology Training Program, she realized her passion for improving women's health. Dr. Peñalver Bernabé completed her postdoctoral training with Dr. Jack Gilbert at the University of Chicago, where she focused on understanding the role of host-microbial interactions in human health. Her team focuses on conditions that affect women's health during their reproductive lifespan, such as infertility, perinatal disorders and the menopause transition and employs a combination of advanced statistics, machine learning and network approaches to reveal the underpinnings of these regulate these conditions.
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
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present student seminars by Kevin Fitzgerald and Caleb Lay as part of our Spring 2025 seminar series.
Kevin Fitzgerald will present a seminar titled "Engineering Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1 for Enhanced Cyanophycin Production in Wastewater.”
In alignment with global engineering targets to improve supply chain sustainability, contemporary waste streams are increasingly recognized as promising nutrient sources for biological upscaling. Agricultural and municipal wastewaters, in particular, offer attractive opportunities due to cost-negative substrates and existing treatment infrastructure. Among the value-added products of interest, cyanophycin—a non-ribosomal polypeptide composed primarily of arginine and aspartic acid—has emerged as a compelling target for metabolic engineering due to its ease of purification and potential downstream applications as a nutritional supplement or platform chemical. Critically, cyanophycin is natively synthesized by several wastewater-associated microbes, making it a natural candidate for bioproduction in waste-fed systems.
In this seminar, I will present our ongoing efforts to engineer a strain of the naturally competent bacterium Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1 to produce cyanophycin under conditions suitable for industrial application. As an early contributor to this project in the Tyo lab, I have adapted methods for the separation, visualization, and quantification of cyanophycin. Building on this workflow, I have focused on deregulating the biosynthesis of arginine—the limiting precursor in cyanophycin production—to enable product formation without the need for external amino acid supplementation. I will also share preliminary results from our efforts to modulate the rate of cyanophycin synthesis relative to cell growth, with the goal of optimizing key bioprocess metrics including productivity, titer, and substrate utilization efficiency.
Caleb Lay will present a seminar titled " Enhancing Cell-Free Expression and Oxidative Folding of Complex Disulfide-Bonded Protein Therapeutics.”
Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) has emerged as a powerful platform for biomanufacturing, offering rapid, scalable, and distributed production of protein therapeutics. However, CFPS remains inefficient for proteins requiring complex disulfide bonds, limiting its ability to produce difficult-to-express biologics such as monoclonal antibodies and thrombolytics. These proteins frequently misfold and aggregate in vitro, severely reducing their bioactivity. Overcoming this challenge requires a deeper understanding of oxidative folding and the development of strategies to enhance disulfide bond formation.
This work presents the largest systematic study to date on improving disulfide-bonded protein folding in cell-free expression systems, evaluating over 300 oxidative folding effectors selected through an exhaustive literature search and computational analysis. These effectors span a broad range of eukaryotic, bacterial, and archaeal proteins, including well-characterized folding factors from E. coli, yeast, and humans, as well as novel candidates identified through sequence similarity networks. By systematically assessing both orthologous effectors (species variants of known folding proteins) and non-orthologous effectors (diverse classes of oxidoreductases, isomerases, and chaperones), we identified key proteins that significantly enhance the yield of properly folded, active proteins such as reteplase and trastuzumab. These FDA-approved therapeutics rely on correct disulfide bond formation for function and efficacy, making these improvements particularly impactful. Notably, a previously unstudied ortholog of DsbC from Photobacterium damselae—which outperformed native E. coli DsbC, the current gold standard oxidative folding effector used in industry and academia—enhanced active reteplase and full-length trastuzumab production by over 50%. Additionally, we are systematically testing combinations of top-performing effectors and developing combinatorial mimics of periplasmic and endoplasmic reticulum folding networks to recapitulate synergistic interactions that exist in vivo. The development of a high-throughput fluorescence-based reteplase activity assay has accelerated this screening effort, enabling rapid quantification of oxidative folding efficiency and guiding optimization strategies.
By systematically mapping the impact of oxidative folding effectors in CFPS, this work advances the field of synthetic biology and provides a framework for rationally engineering cell-free platforms for therapeutic protein production. These findings not only enhance the capabilities of cell-free systems but also lay the groundwork for decentralized, on-demand biomanufacturing of complex biologics.
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 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
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department is pleased to present a seminar by Astrid Müller from the University of Rochester as part of our ChBE Seminar Series.
Astrid Müller will present a seminar titled "Electrocatalysis for Sustainable Chemical Manufacturing and Defluorination of Forever Chemicals.”
ABSTRACT
Electrocatalysis offers a sustainable route to chemical production by replacing fossil fuel–based methods with energy-efficient processes powered by renewable electricity. It also presents a promising solution for remediating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water. Viable electrocatalytic systems must use nonprecious materials, function in aqueous environments, consume minimal energy, and effectively degrade pollutants, goals that require a fundamental understanding of reaction mechanisms and strategic nanocatalyst design.
Our research leverages pulsed laser in liquid synthesis to fabricate nanocatalysts with precisely controlled surface properties, enabling a quantitative understanding of electrocatalytic processes, particularly within the complex electrode microenvironment. We demonstrate that laser-synthesized, earth-abundant mixed-metal nanocatalysts on high-surface-area carbon supports can selectively oxidize toluene to benzyl alcohol with high activity. Additionally, we achieve complete defluorination of diverse PFAS in aqueous electrolytes using laser-made bimetallic nanocatalysts.
The unifying theme of our group is to advance the design and fabrication of nanocatalysts for the electrocatalytic generation of reactive species from water, aimed at sustainable applications. This work is driven by an atomistic understanding of catalyst materials, electrode interfaces, and reaction mechanisms to enable scalable, eco-friendly chemical manufacturing and water treatment technologies.
BIO
Astrid M. Müller is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Rochester since 2018. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Technical University of Munich in Germany, earning the equivalent of a double major at the BS and MS level in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Prof. Müller obtained her PhD in Physical Chemistry (magna cum laude) for work on ultrafast reaction dynamics at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany. Her postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley and UC Riverside involved developing a fundamental understanding of laser–matter interactions. As a staff scientist at Caltech, she pioneered the pulsed laser synthesis of earth-abundant water-splitting materials to enable decarbonization technologies. Her independent research centers on gaining a quantitative understanding of electrocatalytic processes and reactive species from water, utilizing pulsed laser techniques to create nanomaterials with controlled surface properties. This work uniquely positions Prof. Müller’s group to understand how nanocatalysts and electrocatalytic mechanisms impact the performance of nanomaterials in sustainable energy, green chemistry, and aqueous PFAS destruction applications.
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 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
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 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
More details to come.
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)
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Jun4
EVENT DETAILSmore info
TBD
TIME Wednesday, June 4, 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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Jun5
EVENT DETAILS
More details to come.
TIME Thursday, June 5, 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)