Honoring the Next Generation in Engineering Research

PITTSBURGH (Nov. 15, 2019) — For the second consecutive year, a graduate student from the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering has won the AIChE’s Computational Molecular Science and Engineering Forum (CoMSEF) annual Graduate Student Award. 

Yasemin Basdogan, a doctoral student in chemical engineering, was awarded the honor in recognition of her significant contributions in her work on using machine learning to study local solvation environments with John Keith, PhD, associate professor of chemical engineering and R.K. Mellon Faculty Fellow in Energy.

“Yasemin is a tremendous student, and I was happy to nominate her for this national award,” says Keith. “Awards like this showcase the impressive work of our students and are a great way for them to get visibility and be well-prepared for an ultra-competitive academic job market. They also demonstrate our department’s success in personalizing the training and mentoring of our great students to achieve their goals.”

The work uses computational tools to study ion solvation environments, an approach that will be useful for the atomistic modeling of ions in different solvents. 

Last year, Michael Taylor, working with Giannis (Yanni) Mpourmpakis, PhD, was awarded the honor for his work on computer-aided descriptions of materials stability at the nanoscale. 

The prize comes with a plaque and an honorarium. Students are nominated by their dissertation advisor and must present a poster at the CoMSEF Poster Session at the AIChE Annual Meeting. Awards are based on the student’s CV, the nomination letter from their advisor, the quality of the poster and the student’s ability to describe their research.

“As researchers, pursuing impactful research is our primary goal, but being able to effectively communicate that research is a challenging but vital skill to learn,” says Keith. “This recognition shows that Yasemin is poised to continue excelling at both.”

Author: Maggie Pavlick