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Faculty Honors & Awards

The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering includes 24 core faculty members, as well as courtesy faculty with major appointments in fields such as biomedical engineering, environmental engineering, chemistry, and materials science and engineering.

Our faculty members have been frequently recognized for their excellence in research and teaching. Among the core faculty there are 11 National Science Foundation PYI/NYI/CAREER Award recipients, 2 Packard Science and Engineering Fellows, 3 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and winners of numerous other research awards.

2021-2022

• Randy Snurr, Omar Farha, Chad Mirkin, Tobin Marks, and George Schatz were named to the ISI highly cited researchers list for 2021.
• Julio Ottino was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.  Membership in the academy is one of the highest honors given to a scientist in the United States. 
• Linsey Seitz received an NSF CAREER Award.
• Julius Lucks was elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s (AIMBE) College of Fellows.
• Mitchell Wang was one of six Northwestern faculty awarded a prestigious 2022 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. 

2019-2020

• Randy Snurr, Omar Farha, Chad Mirkin, Tobin Marks, and George Schatz were named to the ISI highly cited researchers list for 2020.
• Mike Jewett was invited to give the Fredrickson Lecture at the University of Minnesota in the fall.
• Harold Kung received the 2020 George A. Olah Award in Hydrocarbon or Petroleum Chemistry from the American Chemical Society.
• Linsey Seitz was named a Scialog Fellow.  As a Scialog Fellow, she attended Scialog:  Advanced Energy Storage in November.  This meeting and the funding are supported by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the Sloan Foundation.
• The Illinois Science and Technology Coalition named Mike Jewett and Josh Leonard as 2019 Researches to Know in the categories of Advancing Technology (Jewett) and On the Cutting Edge (Leonard). 
• Mike Jewett was appointed as Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering in recognition of his superb research and teaching accomplishments.  
• Mike Jewett was elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows – Class of 2020.
• Harold Kung received the George A. Olah Award in Hydrocarbon or Petroleum Chemistry from the American Chemical Society.
• Randy Snurr, Omar Farha, Chad Mirkin, Tobin Marks, and George Schatz made the ISI highly cited researchers list for 2019. 
• Mitchell Wang received an NSF CAREER Award.
• Randy Snurr who was identified as one of twenty outstanding reviewers in 2019 by the ACS Committee on the Petroleum Research Fund.
• Jennifer Dunn was named co-chair of the Northwestern Sustainability Council.
• Linda Broadbelt received the 2019-2020 Ernest W. Thiele Award from the Chicago Section of AIChE.  The Thiele award is sponsored by BP and recognizes the "outstanding contributions to our profession by a Midwest region chemical engineer" each year.
• Randy Snurr, Neda Bagheri, Omar Farha and their co-authors received the IChemE Senior Moulton Medal for "best paper published by the Institution" in 2019-2020! IChemE is the UK analog of AIChE, who established the Moulton award in honor of Lord Moulton who developed ChemE in the UK in 1914-18. They join a prestigious list of previous winners for their paper "Energy-based descriptors to rapidly predict hydrogen storage in metal-organic frameworks,” Molec. Systems Design Eng. 4, 162-174 (2019).
• Linsey Seitz was elected a Director of the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division of AIChE. 
• Mike Jewett was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
• Randy Snurr was elected a Fellow of the International Adsorption Society.
• Luis Amaral received the Provost Award for Exemplary Faculty Service.
• Danielle Tullman-Ercek received the 2020 Young Investigator Award from Biochemical Engineering Journal. 
• Justin Notestein was appointed Director of the Center for Catalysis and Surface Science. 
• Linda Broadbelt was named one of Crain's 2020 Notable Women in Stem.
• Omar Farha was elected as a Foreign Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences.
• Julius Lucks was named a finalist for the Blavatnik National Awards.

2018-2019

• Northwestern Engineering’s Joshua Leonard was among five Northwestern faculty members who received the 2018 University Teaching Awards
• The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a global science-based organization whose driving mission revolves around conservation efforts for people and nature, appointed Professor William Miller to their Illinois Board of Trustees./li>
• Northwestern Engineering Dean Julio M. Ottino and Associate Dean for Research Linda Broadbelt were both honored with awards from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).
• Neda Bagheri was invited to serve on the scientific advisory board for the Allen Institute for Cell Science. She was also invited to be a distinguished speaker at the Accelerated Discovery Lab at IBM Research - Almaden.
• Michael Jewett was named the conference chair for the 8th International Conference on Biomolecular Engineering.
• Michael Jewett was named a finalist for the 2019 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, one of 31 scientists and engineers recognized nationally this year and considered to be among America’s most important young scientific researchers aged 42 years or younger.
• Chad A. Mirkin received a 2019 Nakamura Award from the American Association for Advances in Functional Materials. He also earned the distinguished Harrison Howe Award from the Rochester Section of the American Chemical Society, recognizing scientists’ outstanding contributions to chemistry.
• Harold Kung received one of the Ten at Ten Awards from the US Department of Energy, recognizing two new electrode technologies for next-generation lithium-ion batteries developed based on research that was initiated in the Center for Electrochemical Energy Science
• Linsey Seitz was named a Scialog Fellow and attended a program for early career rising stars interested in pursuing collaborative, high-risk, highly impactful discovery research on untested ideas applicable to creating breakthroughs in energy storage.
• Josh Leonard was chaired the 6^th International Mammalian Synthetic Biology workshop at Northwestern, May 17-19^th. This workshop is the premier gathering for the community dedicated to harnessing the power of synthetic biology for medical applications, and NU’s Center for Synthetic Biology is the first organization to host the meeting outside the Boston area.
• Luis Amaral and Linda Broadbelt were elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows.  
• Mitchell Wang was selected by the American Physical Society to represent the Division of Polymer Physics as the invited lecturer at the U.K. Polymer Physics Group meeting.
• Luis Amaral was elected a Fellow of the Network Science Society.

2017-2018

• Professor Linda Broadbelt received the E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, awarded by the American Chemical Society (ACS) and sponsored by ExxonMobil Research & Engineering.
• Linda Broadbelt was named a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
• Jennifer Dunn was appointed to a National Academy of Science committee on developing a research agenda for utilization of gaseous carbon waste streams.
• Omar Farha, Tobin Marks, Chad Mirkin, George Schatz, and Randy Snurr were named 2017 highly cited researchers by Clarivate Analytics
• Omar Farha was named fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science
• Michael Jewett and Julius Lucks were invited to join the inaugural Leadership Council of Engineering Biology Research Consortium, the premier organization for engineering biology in the United States.
• Michael Jewett joined the managing board of the Society of Biological Engineering within the American Institute of Chemical Engineering.
• Josh Leonard was elected vice chair of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Food, Pharmaceutical, and Bioengineering Division and will ascend to chair next year. He was also selected to join the scientific executive committee of GP-Write, a multinational synthetic biology project dedicated to realizing whole genome synthesis in order to understand, engineer, and test living systems.
• Mitchell Wang was selected as a fellow of the 2017-18 Searle Fellows program, which helps early career faculty develop expertise and knowledge about learning and teaching.
• Adjunct professor Gregory Maher received the 2017 Cole-Higgins Award for Excellence in Teaching from the McCormick School of Engineering.

2016-2017

• Michael Jewett received the highly competitive MURI grant to develop new types of electrical materials for battery storage and sophisticated lightweight electronics.
• Bill Miller was appointed to the Science Advisory Committee of The Nature Conservancy of Illinois.
• Chad Mirkin received the prestigious 2016 Dan David Prize in the Future Time Dimension for his trail-blazing breakthroughs in nanoscience.
• Igal Szleifer received the Cole-Higgins Award for Excellence in Advising for fostering learning and creativity in a positive environment.
• Julio M. Ottino, dean of Northwestern Engineering, received the prestigious 2017 Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education from the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
• Assistant Professor Neda Bagheri received a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation, the foundation’s most prestigious honor for junior faculty members.
• Associate Professor Michael Jewett was honored with a 2017 Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence Award, recognizing his dedication to high-quality education and passion for advancing his discipline through teaching.
• Professor Linda Broadbelt was named the 12th recipient of the Dorothy Ann and Clarence L. Ver Steeg Distinguished Research Fellowship Award.
• Professor Luis Amaral was named Erastus Otis Haven Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering. The award will support his research which provides insight into the emergence, evolution, and stability of complex social and biological systems.
• Wes Burghardt was elected fellow of the Society of Rheology.
• Michael Jewett was appointed to the editorial board of Cell Systems.
• Danielle Tullman-Ercek became an editor of the journal mSystems.

2015-2016

• Julius Lucks received the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award.
• Mike Jewett was invited to speak at an invitation-only meeting organized by The Royal Society and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), sponsored by the Sackler Foundation, where leaders will discuss the Trends in Synthetic Biology  and Gain of Function and Implications for Regulation.
• Mike Jewett’s work on a novel protein conjugation method that offers new possibilities for biomaterials was featured on the cover of Bioconjugate Chemistry.
• Randy Snurr is the 2015 recipient of the Ernest W. Thiele Award from the Chicago Local Section of AIChE.  Randy joins a stellar list of recipients, which includes current and former NU faculty members: Harold Kung, Julio Ottino,George Bankoff, Dick Mah, and George Thodos.  Randy received the award "For advancing the application of nanoporous metal-organic frameworks in gas separations and storage and showing the power of molecular simulation to design new adsorbents”.
• Michael Jewett was elected as the Division 15 (Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering) Vice Chair for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers for 2016, succeeding to chair in 2017.
• Randy Snurr was named to the 2015 list of Highly Cited Researchers by Thomson Reuters.
• Harold Kung has been appointed Editor-in-Chief for Applied Catalysis A: General, which is a newly created position.
• Josh Leonard was invited to testify before the World Anti-Doping Agency on the potential for using advanced gene therapy and synthetic biology technologies to cheat in sports.
• Michael Jewett was invited to give the Suzanne C and Duncan A Mellichamp Distinguished Lecture at the  Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Josh Leonard’s research was featured in a Science Magazine technology feature on extracellular vesicles.
• Linda Broadbelt delivered a plenary lecture at the 24^th International Symposium on Chemical Reaction Engineering.

2014-2015

• Michael Jewett was selected as the recipient of the McCormick Cole-Higgins Award for Excellence in Teaching.
• Keith Tyo has won an NSF CAREER Award for his project “Engineering Non-Growth Metabolism for High-Yield Biochemical Production”.
• Josh Leonard was invited to give a keynote lecture on the interface of synthetic biology and regenerative medicine at a meeting of the Society for Biomaterials (March 23) and at the Second International Workshop on Mammalian Synthetic Biology - the premier event in this emerging field (April 25).
• Research from Randy Snurr’s group on destruction of nerve agents in metal-organic frameworks was published in Nature Materials and also featured in Science.
• Eric Masanet was selected to serve as Head of the International Energy Agency’s Energy Demand Technology Unit in Paris for his sabbatical leave.
• Michael Jewett was the recipient of a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award.
• A paper from Michael Jewett’s lab, “Protein synthesis by ribosomes with tethered subunits”, was published in Nature.  Erik Carlson, a graduate student in Mike’s lab, was the first author. This work was highlighted in numerous venues, for example  "News of the Week" in C&E News, The Scientist, and Scientific American, among others.
• Harold Kung has been awarded the 2015 R.H. Wilhelm Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.  This is an Institute-level award, AIChE's most prestigious awards, honoring eminent chemical engineers for career accomplishments, service to society, and service to the institute.

2013-2014

• Harold Kung was named a Walter P. Murphy Professor, was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and also was appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of Industrial Engineering and Chemistry Research.
• Randy Snurr was named as one of Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers for 2014. Snurr and the others earning this honor earned the distinction by writing the greatest numbers of reports officially designated by Essential Science Indicators as Highly Cited Papers—ranking among the top one percent most cited for their subject field and year of publication, earning them the mark of exceptional impact.
• Luis Amaral was selected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
• Mike Jewett was appointed as one of four associate editors for the journal ACS Synthetic Biology and was selected as McCormick Teacher of the Year through the Cole-Higgins Awards for Excellence in Teaching. He was interviewed for Microbe magazine related to his Nature Molecular Systems Biology paper on ribosome synthesis. He was also elected as the second Vice Chair of Division 15c, Bioengineering, which is part of the Food, Pharmaceutical, and Bioengineering Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and will succeed to first Vice Chair and Chair in subsequent years.
• Eric Masanet, joint with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was selected as a participant in the National Academies Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium. Masanet was featured on WBEZ's Worldview program discussing food waste.
• Dean Julio M. Ottino was invited to deliver the second Thomas H. Chilton DuPont Lecture.  
• Papers published by Fengqi You’s group in AIChE Journal were the first and fourth most highly cited papers in 2012, and first and third most highly cited papers in 2013. You’s work on solar panel manufacturing that was published in Solar Energy has received significant attention from the press, including a feature in Nature.
• Keith Tyo received an NIH Transformative R01 Award as part of a team comprised of researchers from Harvard, Northwestern, RIC, and MIT that is focusing on recording neural activities onto DNA.
• Linda Broadbelt was appointed as an associate editor of Industrial Engineering and Chemistry Research, was elected to the Electorate Nominating Committee of the Engineering Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was elected as the second Vice Chair of the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and will succeed to first Vice Chair and Chair in subsequent years.
• Wes Burghardt was elected as the Vice Chair of the Polymer Physics Division of the American Physical Society and will help lead the division for the next four years through succession.

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2012-2013

• Two faculty members, Luis Amaral and John Torkelson, were selected as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• Mike Jewett was selected as a participant in the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers in Engineering symposium.
• Jennifer Cole was selected to the equally prestigious National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium.
• Josh Leonard was selected as a recipient of the Ver Steeg Faculty Award in recognition of excellence in work with graduate students.
• Fengqi You was awarded the 2013-14 NU-Argonne Early Career Investigator Award for Energy Research.
• Julio M. Ottino presented the 2012 TechniGraphicS Foundation Lecture at IIT Bombay, India, delivered the Distinguished Research Lecture in Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, delivered an Eminent Lecture at the National Technical University of Singapore and a keynote Lecture to their Board of Trustees, and was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
• Keith Tyo was selected as one of only 20 participants to the SynBio LeAP (Leadership Accelerator) workshop which emphasizes synthetic biology in the public interest.
• Harold Kung was appointed as an honorary professor at the Nanjing University of Technology and was appointed to the Fundamental & Computational Science Directorate Advisory Committee of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
• Linda Broadbelt was invited to give a keynote lecture at the North American Meeting of the Catalysis Society.
• Justin Notestein’s paper “Shape-selective sieving layers on an oxide catalyst surface” was published in Nature Chemistry and featured in Chemical and Engineering News.
• Randy Snurr was named to the Editorial Board of the journal Adsorption and the journal Adsorption Science & Technology.
• Eric Masanet's work on slashing greenhouse gas emissions from big data centers was published in Nature Climate Change.