Rachel A. Segalman, the Edward Noble Kramer Professor of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Materials and the Warren G. and Katharine S. Schlinger Department Chair of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will present the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AIChE’s) Andreas Acrivos Professional Progress Award Lecture for 2023. The 2022 recipient of AIChE’s Acrivos Award for Professional Progress in Chemical Engineering, Segalman will discuss her research during the 2023 AIChE Annual Meeting on Tuesday, November 7, in Orlando, Florida.
The Andreas Acrivos Award for Professional Progress in Chemical Engineering recognizes the contributions of a chemical engineer in their early career. The award is endowed by the AIChE Foundation and named in honor of Andreas Acrivos, Professor Emeritus at The City College of New York, who is a pioneer in the field of fluid dynamics and an influential leader in the chemical engineering profession. The associated lecture is a highlight of each year’s AIChE Annual Meeting — a foremost educational forum for chemical engineers working in research and development.
In her lecture, entitled “Charge Neutral Polymer Complexes as Battery Components,” Segalman will discuss superionic conductivity, and her research team’s work to design semi-crystalline zwitterionic polymers that demonstrate superionic conductivity for use in lithium ion batteries and other applications.
A member of the UC Santa Barbara faculty since 2014, Segalman and her research group work on controlling the structure and thermodynamics of functional polymers for energy applications including polymeric ionic liquids, as well as semiconducting and bioinspired polymers. She is the Associate Director of UC Santa Barbara’s Center for Materials for Water and Energy Systems, a co-editor of the Annual Reviews of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and an associate editor of ACS Macro Letters. She is also a co-author of the recent U.S National Academies study, Chemical Engineering: Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century, and a former Board Director of the Materials Research Society — among many activities and affiliations.
Segalman is a Fellow of AIChE and the American Physical Society, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. She earned her BS from the University of Texas at Austin and her PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara — both in chemical engineering. She performed postdoctoral at the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France.
Additional information about the 2023 AIChE Annual Meeting is available at www.aiche.org/annual.
About AIChE: AIChE is a professional society of more than 60,000 members in more than 110 countries. Its members work in corporations, universities and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop safe and useful products for the benefit of society. Through its varied programs, AIChE continues to be a focal point for information exchange on the frontier of chemical engineering research in such areas as nanotechnology, sustainability, hydrogen fuels, biological and environmental engineering, and chemical plant safety and security. More information about AIChE is available at www.aiche.org.
