Tulane University faced a struggle for survival in the fall of 2005 when the city of New Orleans was devastated in the wake of the flooding from Hurricane Katrina. This article chronicles the experiences of the department and its efforts not just to maintain viability but also to look to the future with a renewed sense of purpose.
Dr. Hank Ashbaugh won the Honorable Mention Award for the prestigious Leon Heller Postdoctoral Publication Prize given by Los Alamos National Laboratory. His paper titled "Scaling-particle theory and the length scales of hydrophobicity" was published in "Reviews of Modern Physics" in January, 2006. He has been invited to present his research at a special colloquium at Los Alamos this Fall.
Doctoral students Donghai Wang and Tom Fu won the first and third place awards at the Chemical Engineering Graduate Symposium held at West Virginia University, Sept 17–18, 2005. This is a tremendous achievement given the fact that Tulane had shut down due to hurricane Katrina and all the students and faculty were in evacuation mode. Donghai traveled from Albuquerque, New Mexico and Tom from San Antonio to Morgantown, West Virginia to present their research. They have truly upheld the research excellence of the department and are to be commended for their dedication. Many thanks to their advisors, Yunfeng Lu and Kyriakos Papadopoulos respectively, for their commitment to sending them to the conference during this difficult time.
Yunfeng Lu and Vijay John are principal investigators of a three year grant from the EPA Nanotechnology program. The grant is to develop novel nanostructured materials for the environmental remediation of chlorinated compounds.
Dr. Ashbaugh is the recipient of a 2005 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, sponsored by the Department of Energy. www.orau.org. The Department is very proud of Dr. Ashbaugh's achievements and his early promise. We look forward to his establishing a very successful academic career at Tulane.
Recognizing the need to honor deserving scholars and to increase the visibility of the school’s research activity, the Outstanding Researcher Award was established in 2001 by the faculty of the School of Engineering upon the recommendation of the School of Engineering Research and Graduate Studies Committee.
300 Lindy Boggs Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, T: 504-314-2914, F: 504-865-6744 chemeng@tulane.edu