UT’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) maintained another year of positive momentum during academic year 2018-2019. Our students, faculty and staff have been very productive at all aspects of education, research and service, with 87 new BS degree graduates and 18 PhD and MS students leaving our department to join international corporations, academic institutions, national laboratories, and highly reputable graduate schools. Many of these students have left UT with highly competitive honors, such as a Fulbright Scholar, a Rhodes Scholar, a Goldwater Scholar, a UT Torchbearer, and so on.
Our research profile continues to ascend, with expenditures and publications likewise rising to historic levels, and a new ranking of our graduate program within the top 40 public academic institutions nationwide. The department’s expenditures and publications both reached record highs this past year: $6.7 million in research dollars and our number of ISI indexed refereed publications is at 314.
In spring of 2019, the CBE Department added three new members to its Hall of Fame, which was instituted in 2016 to honor former students and faculty members who have made memorable contributions to our department, the university, the State of Tennessee, and the world at large. Joining former inductees this year were Prof. Emeritus Charles Moore, who taught in CBE for more than 50 years, and two of his former students who went on to highly successful industrial careers, James Downs of Eastman Chemical Co. and Virginia Butler, recently retired from the UT Health Science Center.
As I close this year’s message, I want to take the opportunity to sincerely thank all of our alumni, donors, and corporate sponsors who have continuously supported CBE over the past years to enable the tremendous growth that you can read about in this report. For your generous help, we are continually grateful and feel blessed to have such a talented and highly motivated group of constant supporters at our back. Thanks to each of you, our vigorous expansion that began way back in 2006 has continued unabated, in terms of teaching, research, and impact. With each passing year, our footprint gets larger as we march into the future. Thank you for your support.
Bamin Khomami
Granger and Beaman Distinguished University Professor
Head, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering