In 2015, Duncan & Suzanne Mellichamp generously endowed a new lecture series in the Department of Chemical Engineering to highlight up and coming Chemical Engineers. 

On February 15th, 2018, the department hosted the second “Duncan & Suzanne Mellichamp Emerging Leader Lecture” at UC Santa Barbara. 

Associate Professor V. Faye McNeill from the Columbia University was the Mellichamp lecturer, giving an outstanding talk titled “Aqueous Atmospheric Chemistry: From the Molecular to the Regional and Global Scales.” 

“Visiting USCB for the Mellichamp lecture was truly an honor and a great experience for me,” Prof. McNeill said. “I had a wonderful few days getting to know the faculty and students of the department and enjoying the friendly and intellectually vibrant Santa Barbara atmosphere.”

The Mellichamp Emerging Leader Lecture features up and coming researchers in a wide variety of Chemical Engineering disciplines supported by the generous endowment. 

“Suzanne and I have established three of these ‘outstanding mid-career lectureships’ (here at UCSB, Purdue, and Georgia Tech), believing that the best new work comes from younger, active faculty, and that they should be singled out for recognition early,” said Professor Emeritus Duncan Mellichamp. “A secondary objective is to bring faculty to campus who are working in fields that are not represented by our own interests, people whose work otherwise might not be on the department faculty’s radar. Professor McNeill is an excellent  example of both concepts. Her work on aerosols and ice particles in the atmosphere gives us considerable insight into how they can affect our perceptibly changing climate. She is a working recipient of this honor.” ChE

– Melissa Walker is the Communications Coordinator for the Department of Chemical Engineering