COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Nov. 18, 2008 – Daniel Arnold, a senior in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&MUniversity, has been elected executive student committee president of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).

Arnold, who hails from Richmond, Texas, was elected at the organization’s centennial annual meeting in Philadelphia this month. The newly formed national position represents the highest-ranking office within AIChE that a student may serve.

As executive student committee president, Daniels will help coordinate the activities of AIChE’s more than 160 student chapters, which are located across nine geographic regions throughout the nation.

He will be primarily tasked with developing approaches for enhancing cooperation among schools belonging to the same region, increasing overall student enrollment in AIChE, and helping facilitate communication between the national level of AIChE and its student chapters to promote awareness of the institute’s many available resources and programs.

“I’ve been in AIChE since I was a freshman, and I’ve seen and experienced a lot of the good that the organization does,” Daniels said. “For chemical engineering students, I can’t imagine any reason why they shouldn’t be a part of AIChE.”

AIChE is the world’s leading organization for chemical engineering professionals, with more than 40,000 members from 93 countries. Student chapters of AIChE provide access to a variety of resources, including seminars, field trips and service projects – all aimed at enhancing a student’s academic career as well as helping assist in the transition from the classroom into a professional environment.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Nov. 18, 2008 – Tankers transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) have yet to experience a major accident but with more of the energy source being transported than ever before and in a post-Sept. 11 environment, preparing for a potential disaster is critical, says a Texas A&M University authority on disaster mitigation and process safety.

Spearheading a collaboration of more than 40 experts from industry, academia and various regulatory agencies, M. Sam Mannan, professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, is working to develop models that can help predict the behavior of the intense fires resulting from a potential LNG tanker spill.

The group’s findings are detailed in a white paper developed by the Mary Kay O’Connor Safety Process Center, of which Mannan serves as director. The paper, which is the result of a workshop sponsored by the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, is available to a variety of private entities and regulatory agencies and can be downloaded at http://psc.tamu.edu/links/lng-white-paper-on-pool-fire-modeling.

Liquefied natural gas is natural gas that has been cooled to the point that it condenses to a liquid. That process reduces its volume by about 600 times, making it more economical to transport. For a fire or hazardous situation to occur, LNG must be ignited after first vaporizing and mixing with air in the proper proportions. That conversion can happen very quickly once a spill occurs, Mannan said.

“With LNG, as soon as you release it into the environment it starts to evolve vapor because of its chemical properties,” Mannan explained. “That vapor is the problem, as it is what creates the fire.”

While the United States has federal regulations in place that address potential spills from land-based LNG facilities, regulations do not exist for LNG spills on water, despite the primary mode of transportation being sea-faring vessel, Mannan said.

He believes much of this can be attributed to the fact that large-scale transportation of LNG has not occurred until recently. Increased worldwide demand for energy has resulted in greater amounts of LNG being transported with greater frequency between continents, Mannan noted. In addition, little thought was given to the possibility of an intentionally caused catastrophic release of LNG from a tanker prior to Sept. 11, Mannan said.

The result has been a void of knowledge when it comes to understanding how these potential fires will react with their environment if they occur over water, he said. It’s a troubling scenario if the spill is intentionally caused in a populated coastal area. That’s why Mannan’s group went to work, producing detailed mathematical calculations that explain and project the behavior of these fires.

“I think it’s very important to have something like this laid out not only for the science discussed but to give people in industry and government a way of doing the right calculations for these fires,” Mannan said. “I think it sets the stage for not only people to understand what it is we can do today based on the available knowledge but also what future direction we need to take.

“I think it would irresponsible of us to wait for an incident to happen. We have to find the knowledge to understand these potential phenomena better.”

Working to develop a consensus approach in modeling these potential fires, Mannan said the group examined numerous factors, including the size of the spill, its dispersion in water and the intensity of the heat radiation generated from a fire if the spill is ignited.

These are all aspects of a pool-based LNG fire that will vary greatly from one that occurs over land, Mannan explained.

“The heat transfer characteristics are going to be different between a land-based spill and a spill on water,” he said. “The water itself, depending on the temperature, may cause the LNG to vaporize faster.”

Another difference, he said, is in the containment of such spills. Mannan pointed out that a LNG spill on land would most likely be from a storage tank built to engineering standards and also contained within a diked area that would limit the spill. However, a water-based spill wouldn’t be contained as easily since tankers obviously can’t be diked.

While the complexities of water-based LNG spills have been recognized by various groups in industry and government there has been little agreement on a systematic, structured approach for addressing such scenarios, Mannan said. He believes the findings and calculations provided by his group will help change that.

“If you have knowledge of how big a spill could be and what the consequences could be, then you can develop a prevention program to prevent that from happening in the first place,” Mannan said. “But more importantly, once we know the nature of the spill and the consequences then we can do planning with regard to response. Whether it’s intentional or unintentional, this could happen, and we want to know how to respond to it.”

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Contact: M. Sam Mannan at (979) 862-3985 or via email: mannan@tamu.edu or Ryan A. Garcia at (979) 845-9237 or via email: ryan.garcia99@tamu.edu

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Nov. 17, 2008 - Yue Kuo, Dow Professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been appointed a formal member of the Engineering Panel of the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong.

Kuo, who was officially named a member by RGC Chairman Roland Chin, will hold membership through 2010 and serve on the engineering panel of the council, which is Hong Kong’s equivalent to the National Science Foundation.

The RGC is established under the aegis of the University Grants Committee (UGC). It is responsible, through the UGC, for advising the Government of the Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China on the needs of Hong Kong’s higher education institutions in the field of academic research and for the distribution of funding for academic research projects undertaken by academic staff of UGC-funded institutions.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Nov. 10, 2008 – Babatunde A. Ogunnaike, professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware, will discuss his research on control systems Wednesday and Thursday (Nov. 12-13) as the inaugural speaker of the McFerrin Lectures at Texas A&M University.

Ogunnaike is scheduled to present “Elucidating the Control Mechanism for DNA damage repair with the p53-Mdm2 system: Single Cell Data Analysis and Ensemble Modeling,” Wednesday at 3 p.m. in Rm. 106 of the Jack E. Brown Building. The following day he will present “Design, Development and Implementation of An Alternative Structure for Next Generation Regulatory Controllers” at 3 p.m. in Rm. 256.

Ogunnaike, the William L. Friend Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware, is the first visiting lecturer to have the McFerrin title bestowed upon him. His presentations are sponsored by Texas A&M’s Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering.

“Babatunde Ogunnaike is a pioneer in control systems and systems biology, and we’re very excited to have him join us and inaugurate the McFerrin Lectures,” said Michael V. Pishko, Charles D. Holland ‘53 Professor and head of Texas A&M’s chemical engineering department.

“The McFerrin Lectures represent a golden opportunity for our students and faculty to interact with the some of the world’s leading researchers,” Pishko added.

Ogunnaike’s research interests include modeling and control of industrial processes; the application of process analytical technology for control of pharmaceutical processes; identification and control of nonlinear systems; the interaction of process design and process operability; applied statistics; biological control systems; and systems biology with application to neuronal responses and cancer.

He is the author or co-author of three books including a widely used textbook, “Process Dynamics, Modeling and Control,” published by Oxford University Press. He also serves as associate editor of the journal “Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research.”

Ogunnaike is the recipient of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers 1998 CAST Computing Practice Award, the 2004 University of Delaware’s College of Engineering Excellence in Teaching award, the 2007 ISA Eckman Award and the 2008 American Automatic Control Council’s Control Engineering Practice Award.

Named in honor of Arthur R. “Artie” McFerrin, Jr., a 1965 graduate of Texas A&M and an avid supporter of both the department and university, the McFerrin Lectures were established to enable prominent chemical engineering researchers from throughout the world to visit Texas A&M and interact with students and faculty through lectures on their given areas of expertise.

The McFerrin Lectures are made possible by the generosity of McFerrin, who serves as chairman and CEO of KMCO, Inc. and in 2005 committed $10 million to establish an endowed fund in support of chemical engineering at Texas A&M.

McFerrin is an Outstanding Alumnus of the chemical engineering department and a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award - the highest honor bestowed upon a former student of the institution.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas Nov. 7, 2008 – A process developed by researchers at Texas A&M University that could result in more affordable gasoline is a step closer to reality now that a large-scale demonstration facility has been built to test the new technology.

The Advanced Biofuels Research Facility, which is located in Bryan, Texas, was today formally dedicated with a ceremony attended by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who lauded the potential of the facility and the technology known as the MixAlco process.

“I want Texas to be the epicenter of alternative fuel development in the world, not just in the United States,” Gov. Perry said. “This project and what Terrabon is doing is very much in line with that.

“What’s good for America is right here on this piece of property – becoming independent in our energy production.”

The MixAlco process, developed by Professor Mark T. Holtzapple and Research Engineer Cesar B. Granda, both in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M, is capable of producing renewable gasoline from biomass – any feedstock including, trees, grass, manure, sewage sludge, garbage, agricultural residues and energy crops.

It does this by converting the biomass into mixed alcohols that can be blended into gasoline. Using additional steps, the alcohols can be converted into gasoline that is nearly identical to that which is derived from crude oil, Holtzapple explained.

Holtzapple said the new process should serve as significant step in helping relieve the United States’ dependence on foreign oil, which accounts for 73 percent of the oil used by the nation.

“Mark, I want to say thank you for loving your country enough to spend the time that you have in the development of this technology, Gov. Perry said. “If everything goes as planned here at Terrabon, we’re going to be making a difference in the world.”

For more than three years, testing has been underway at a smaller pilot plant in College Station. The pilot plant can process up to 100 pounds per day of biomass feedstocks, such as paper wastes and even chicken manure. The tests, Holtzapple said, have been so successful that the process is now ready to be validated at a larger scale.

The new demonstration plant, which was formally named “Energy Independence I,” will test the commercial feasibility of the technology, using sorghum as the primary feedstock for the conversion process.

The demonstration plant will have a loading capacity of 400 tons of biomass, which equates to a digestion rate of five tons per day, Holtzapple said. Plans call for the process to run in 80-day cycles. The plant has the potential to produce about 300 gallons of gasoline per day, he said.

In the process, biomass feedstock is treated with lime and then fermented using microorganisms in soil to form organic salts. Water is then removed by a process similar to that used to desalinate sea water, and the mixture is heated to form ketones – which are commonly used solvents, such as nail polish remover.

“All of this is kind of modeled after a cow,” Holtzapple explained. “The way a cow works is that it eats grass. The grass is dirty, and the rumen of the cow – that first stomach – acts as fermentor, converting that grass into vinegar.

“What we are doing is essentially scaling up a cow.”

Later at an oil refinery, Holtzapple explained, hydrogen is added to the ketones to form mixed alcohols, which are then combined with existing gasoline before being transported. Unlike ethanol, which cannot be transported through pipelines because of its tendency to absorb water, mixed alcohol can be transported via existing pipelines to gas stations throughout the country, he noted.

A key aspect of the MixAlco process that differentiates it from more costly alternatives is its ability to rely on naturally occurring soil organisms to digest the biomass, Holtzapple said. This means that the MixAlco process doesn’t require the often costly sterile environments needed by other methods that utilize genetically engineered organisms, he explained.

In addition, the alcohol-based fuels produced from the crops used by the MixAlco process are more productive in terms of net energy per acre than the well-publicized method that involves utilizing corn to produce ethanol, Holtzapple said. This means less land is required to grow feedstocks. Per acre, farmers can grow two to 10 times more energy crops than if they were growing corn, he said.

Just as important, Holtzapple said, this process is environmentally friendly. The combustion of biofuels is clean-burning and doesn’t contribute to global warming because no net carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, he explained. Any carbon dioxide that is released is recycled through photosynthesis, unlike what occurs during combustion of fossil fuels.

What’s more, there is less potential to damage ground water because less waste is being stored in landfills. In addition, the energy crops that the process uses require less fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides than do traditional crops such as corn, Holtzapple added.

“It’s thanks to the innovation by these researchers at Texas A&M that we’re going to be able to be turning this non-food biomass into fuel,” Gov. Perry said. “This facility represents the future.”

The MixAlco technology is licensed to Terrabon, LLC. Terrabon was organized in 1995 to commercialize three technologies that share the same suite of patented intellectual property developed at Texas A&M.

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Contact: Mark T. Holtzapple at (979) 845–9708 or via email: m-holtzapple@tamu.edu or Ryan A. Garcia, (979) 845-9237 or via email: ryan.garcia99@tamu.edu

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Nov. 6, 2008 – R.A. Mentzer, a distinguished engineer who served more than 28 years with ExxonMobil in a variety of capacities, including that of safety, health and environment manager for ExxonMobil Development Company (EMDC), has joined the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center and the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Mentzer, who retired from EMDC this month, will conduct research at the center in a number of areas, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) and fire and consequence modeling. In addition, he is scheduled to teach a safety engineering course beginning this spring.

“We have been very fortunate to attract someone of Dr. Ray Mentzer’s caliber to the center,” said M. Sam Mannan, professor and director of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center. “The center’s program will benefit greatly with his addition.”

Throughout his career, Mentzer has been involved in developing and teaching various company training courses and served on numerous domestic and international industry committees, most recently as chair of the technical committee of the Center for LNG.

Mentzer joined Exxon Production Research Company (EPRCo) in 1980 as a Research Engineer in the Production Operations Division in Houston. With EPRCo, he progressed through numerous technical research assignments until 1984 when he transferred to the Eastern Production Division of Exxon Company USA (EUSA) in New Orleans where he served the operating units of EUSA in technical, planning and supervisory assignments within the engineering and environmental/regulatory disciplines.

In 1993 Mentzer transferred to Houston as an adviser in EUSA’s Public Affairs Department, and three years later was named compliance manager for the downtown production organization. In 2000 he was appointed environmental and safety manager in London for Europe & African affiliates of ExxonMobil Production Company.

A decade later, Mentzer would return to Houston as the LNG regulatory manager for EMDC, responsible for the permitting of several LNG terminals. He was appointed manager of EMDC’s Safety, Health and Environment organization in 2006.

Mentzer completed his undergraduate career at the University of Illinois in 1974 and earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from Purdue University in 1976 and 1980, respectively.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Nov. 3, 2008 – Suljo Linic, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, will discuss his research on electro-catalysts Wednesday, Nov. 5, as part of the Fall 2008 J. D. Lindsay Lecture Series at Texas A&M University.

Linic is scheduled to present “Design of Heterogeneous (Electro)catalysts Guided by
Molecular Insights” from 3-4 p.m. in Rm. 106 of the Jack E. Brown Building. His presentation is sponsored by Texas A&M’s Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering.

Linic’s research focuses on the application of various state-of-the-art theoretical and experimental tools aimed at advancing predictive theories of materials, particularly developing concepts that will be helpful in first principles design of catalytic materials.

His presentation will detail the development of robust and selective electro-catalysts and catalysts for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) and epoxidation reactions. SOFCs convert the chemical energy of combustible fuels into electricity.

Linic received his undergraduate degree in physics from West Chester University, and he earned his doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware. He joined the University of Michigan in 2004 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Germany.

Linic has received several honors and distinctions, including a National Science Foundation Career Award, the Soros Foundation Fellowship, the West Chester University Faculty Scholarship, the University of Delaware Competitive Fellowship Award, the University of Michigan Rackham faculty Development grant and the Young Scientist Prize from the Council of the International Association of Catalysis Societies.

In honor of Professor J.D. Lindsay, Texas A&M’s first chemical engineering department head, the department established the Lindsay Lecture Series to bring speakers to the university. Coming from both industry and academia, the lecturers are recognized for their accomplishments in the practice, teaching and/or research of chemical engineering. The series also allows the lecturers several days for visiting the university and the department and for exchanging ideas on teaching and research objectives and methods.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Oct. 29, 2008 – Chemical processing plants throughout the nation will likely be subjected to increased government regulation in the coming years as efforts are made to foster a reliability within the industry on par with that of the aviation and nuclear power industries, said John S. Bresland, chairman/ chief executive officer of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), at a Texas A&M-sponsored symposium held this week.

“Certainly, I think we’re going to see more oversight,” Bresland said. “Regardless of who wins the election, I think you are going to see a change in attitude, especially on regulation – more oversight from OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], more oversight from Congress.”

Bresland’s comments came as part of a presentation on the CSB, which he delivered at a two-day symposium aimed at making the process industry a safer place. The event was sponsored by Texas A&M’s Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center, which is housed in the university’s Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering.

Bresland said issues of Congressional authorization remain a challenge to the CSB and that his organization is engaged in efforts to clarify certain issues that currently inhibit CSB operations.

“Just as one example, when we get to the scene of the accident, there are some issues around the appropriate retaining of the equipment that was involved,” Bresland noted. “We don’t have the authority to say, ‘Leave that there. It should not be touched.’”

Bresland was appointed by President George W. Bush as chairman and chief executive officer of the CSB in 2008 after previously serving as a CSB board member from 2002-2007. Before joining the board, Bresland was a staff consultant to the Center for Chemical Process Safety of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, working as a project manager on two committees and writing books on dust explosions and the management of reactive chemical hazards.

At the CSB, which became operational in 1998, Bresland leads an entity responsible for investigating the numerous chemical-related accidents that occur each year throughout the nation. He estimates that the CSB collects information on 800-900 chemical-release incidents annually, but because of budget, manpower and the intensive time required to effectively investigate each incident, Bresland said only eight to 12 major accidents are examined. Bresland said he would like to increase that number in future while still being selective about the incidents investigated.

Over the course of his career, Bresland has investigated fatal accidents resulting from explosions at a sugar refinery, an ink processing plant and even a convenience store that didn’t properly evacuate after encountering a propane leak. His organization’s mission, he said, is about much more than simply determining what went wrong at a specific site; it’s about education and prevention. That’s why in addition to issuing recommendations to a facility, the CSB has adopted an active role in communicating its findings through published reports, educational videos and press conferences.

“I don’t want to see any more combustible dust explosions,” he said. “I was at the Imperial Sugar facility, and it was a terrible tragedy. People were not only killed, they spent months and months in comas and suffered terrible burns before ultimately dying. These are so preventable. They should not happen. We need to get that message out.”

That’s just one of many messages that are part of an overall mission, described by Bresland, as moving companies in the chemical processing industry to be high-reliability organizations.

Realizing that goal, he explained, begins with awareness by those in the process industries of the numerous safety challenges posed by their operations – operations that are vital to the nation but ones in which the focus must be on both process safety and personnel safety.

In addition, efforts to address these safety issues must begin at the upper levels of each company, he added, noting a growing expectation for increased executive leadership on process safety.

“Part of what [company executives] do needs to come with an understanding of the fact that they’re dealing with large, complex, potentially hazardous operations,” he said.

“My message is run it safely, keep your plants running and keep your people safe,” Bresland said.

The symposium “Beyond Regulatory Compliance, Making Safety Second Nature” featured a wide variety of safety-related lectures and presentations, including incident surveillance and safety performance, equipment integrity, facility design, risk analysis, management for process safety and engineering ethics. In addition, the symposium featured exhibits from companies looking to demonstrate products, technology and software related to process safety.

Established in 1995, the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center is dedicated to enhancing safety in the chemical process industry. The center conducts various educational endeavors aimed at “making safety second nature” to everyone in the industry. In addition, center researchers work to develop safer processes, equipment, procedures and management strategies to minimize losses.

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Contact: Ryan A. Garcia at (979) 845-9237 or via email: ryan.garcia99@tamu.edu

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Oct. 28, 2008 – Three graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher from the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering have won awards at the 12th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences (micro-TAS 2008), held this month in San Diego.

Jen-Huang Huang, Yu-Wen Huang, Serdar Ozturk and Jeongyoon Kim all received recognition for their research, which they presented at the conference.

“This is the top conference in the area of miniaturized devices for chemical and biochemical analysis,” said Associate Professor Victor Ugaz, who supervises the students. “These awards are very selective, and it is unusual for any single institution to bring home this many.”

Jen-Huang Huang and Kim received the “Young Researcher Poster Award” for their work in a joint collaboration with Assistant Professor Arul Jayaraman titled “Rapid Fabrication of 3D-Branched Microvascular Flow Networks.” Their poster was one of only four selected as award winners out of a total of 589 posters presented at the conference. The award, which included a $500 cash prize, was sponsored by the Society for Chemistry and Micro-Nano Systems.

Yu-Wen Huang received the “Art in Science Award” for an image selected from her work titled “A Versatile Platform for Rapid Label-Free Detection of Proteins and Small Molecules Using Microfabricated Electrode Arrays.” This newly established award draws attention to the aesthetic value in scientific illustrations while still conveying scientific merit. The award, co-sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Royal Society of Chemistry, consisted of a $2,500 cash prize. The image also will be featured on the cover of an upcoming issue of the journal “Lab on a Chip.”

Ozturk was named recipient of a student travel grant in the amount of $500 to present his work titled “Microfluidic Investigation of Mass Transport Enhancement in Nanoparticle Suspensions.” These travel grants were awarded through a competitive process to provide support for outstanding student presentations.

A hub for nano, bio, and medical research, the 12th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences attracted more than 800 scientists and professionals from around the world who are engaged in research on the use of integrated microsystems and nanotechnology for chemistry and life sciences.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Oct. 28, 2008 – Looking to “drive” home the point that chemical engineering can be fun, students from the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering “Chem-E-Car” team participated in the 21st Annual Chemistry Open House and Science Exploration Gallery at Texas A&M University, which was held this month.

The award-winning event, which was free and open to the public, included various exhibits, demonstrations and computer activities from several departments, including physics, biochemistry and chemical engineering. In addition, the event featured the “Chemistry Road Show” in which popular science demonstrations of fire, explosions, weird polymers and super-cold materials were conducted.

Supervised by Senior Lecturer and Assistant Head for Upper Division Programs Lale Yurttas, the Chem-E-Car class was on hand to demonstrate its projects – small team-designed vehicles that are powered by various chemical reactions. As part of the exhibit, the students showed a solar car powered by a chemoluminescent reaction, a bio-diesel engine car and a newly designed five-cylinder pneumatic piston engine.

The cars, which are engineered to travel a designated distance and stop, all while carrying a specified cargo, are developed each year by teams of students enrolled in a one-credit-hour chemical car design course sponsored by Texas A&M’s student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Teams from around the state and nation annually compete in regional and national competitions, sponsored by AIChE.

At the open house, the innovative car designs as a recruiting and teaching tool, helping to get both the children and adults who attended the event excited about science. And it was one of a number of exhibits that made for an exciting and educational day.

“I don’t know the proper word for the Saturday, October 25 presentation, but it was awesome,” wrote Ellen Stephenson, a visitor to the open house, in a letter lauding the event. “My grandson, daughter and I moved as quickly as we could to see everything there was to see, feel and hear.

“What a plus for the campus. There’s nothing dull about science. We have two Aggies in the family and are encouraging a third. He was very impressed.”