News

Jul 25
2025
Anika Jena, a rising fourth-year chemical engineering major at UC Santa Barbara, has earned an opportunity to present her work on powerful supramolecular biomaterials and nucleic acid nanotechnology at next month’s American Chemical Society (ACS) Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. Jena was one of only ten undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral chemists... read more »
Jul 14
2025
UC Santa Barbara chemical engineering professor Rachel Segalman has been named the university’s new Vice Chancellor for Research (VCR), effective July 1. The announcement was made by Chancellor Henry T. Yang, marking the conclusion of a comprehensive national search led by a campus advisory committee co-chaired by materials professor ... read more »
Jun 24
2025
A paper led by UCSB alumnus Michael C. Burroughs (PhD ’21) has won the 2025 Journal of Rheology Publication Award. The award is given to the best paper to have appeared in the journal during the previous two years, as determined by a panel of senior members of the Society of Rheology (SOR). Titled “Flow-concentration coupling determines features of... read more »
Jun 20
2025
The UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering’s 2025 Undergraduate Commencement is just days away for seniors. The ceremony will take place on Friday, June 13, at 1 PM on Commencement Green. Graduating senior Changxuan Yang will be part of a select group of students leading the class of 2025 into the ceremony as banner carriers. He earned the opportunity after receiving the... read more »
Jun 9
2025
Each spring, the UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering (COE) bestows a handful of prestigious awards upon graduating seniors, who excelled both inside and outside of the classroom. Each recipient will be honored on stage during the college’s Undergraduate Commencement, which will take place at 1 PM on Commencement Green on Friday, June 13.  Hynes-Wood Award... read more »
May 7
2025
Scientists at UC Santa Barbara and Northwestern University have created the first synthetic fragment of tau protein that acts like a prion. The “mini prion” folds and stacks into strands, or fibrils, of misfolded tau proteins, which then transmit their abnormally folded shape to other normal tau proteins. Misfolded, prion-like proteins drive the progression of tauopathies... read more »
Apr 8
2025
For the 24th year in a row, the chemical engineering graduate program at UC Santa Barbara has ranked among the top ten public universities in U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 Best Graduate Engineering Schools report, which was released on April 8. The graduate school rankings were based entirely on peer surveys submitted by department heads at public and private... read more »
Apr 1
2025
The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the world’s largest organization for chemical engineering professionals, has awarded one of its most prestigious honors to UC Santa Barbara chemical engineering professor James B. Rawlings, selecting him for the 2025 John M. Prausnitz AIChE Institute Lecturer Award, an accolade given to a distinguished... read more »
Mar 27
2025
UC Santa Barbara chemical engineering professor Rachel Segalman has received a distinguished honor within the scientific community by being elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a commendation bestowed upon less than 1 percent of AAAS members each year. She is among 471 scientists, engineers, and innovators... read more »
Mar 4
2025
From helping students thrive in the classroom and in campus housing, to conducting undergraduate research at UCSB and at a national laboratory, Chandraki Chatterjee has remained extremely active while pursuing her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at UC Santa Barbara. Recently, a committee in the Chemical Engineering Department selected the fourth... read more »
Feb 26
2025
Few people have heard of the chemical ethylene oxide, but all of us have used products that rely on it for their production, from antifreeze and plastics to textiles and disinfectants. It is what’s known as a platform chemical — one that is the basis for many other chemicals — and it’s worth about $40 billion per year on the global market. But the ethylene oxide... read more »
Feb 20
2025
Chemical engineering faculty at UC Santa Barbara have awarded fifth-year PhD student Anukta Datta the department’s prestigious Schlinger Fellowship for Excellence in Chemical Engineering Research for the 2024-‘25 academic year. Established through a generous gift from Warren and Katharine Schlinger, the award recognizes a fourth- or fifth-year doctoral... read more »