Regents Professor M. Sam Mannan spoke at the 2010 3rd World Conference on the Safety of Oil & Gas Industry. COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Oct. 12, 2010 - Discussing the status and trends in process safety technology employed throughout the world, M. Sam Mannan, director of the Texas A&M University System Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University, delivered a keynote address at the 2010 3rd World Conference on the Safety of Oil & Gas Industry (WCOGI) in Beijing.   Mannan, who holds the title of regents professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M, presented "Globalization and its Challenges in Industrial Process Safety" as part of ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, May 5, 2010 - Helping to inaugurate the first American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) chapter in South America, Thomas K. Wood, professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, recently visited Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. The new chapter of the professional society of chemical engineering has been established at Universidad de los Andes by Wood's former doctoral student, Andrés González Barrios who now holds the title of professor. Along with 2009 AIChE President Professor H. Scott Fogler of the University of Michigan and Professor Luke Achenie of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Wood, the T. Michael O'Connor II Chair, helped ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Jan. 20, 2010 - Regents Professor Sam Mannan, holder of T. Michael O'Connor Chair I and director of the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University, will present the second lecture of the Texas A&M at Qatar distinguished lecture series Tuesday, Jan. 26. The lecture, "Lessons Learned from Past Incidents Shed Light on Present Day Needs and Challenges in Process Safety," will focus on why the science, education and research for process safety are important. The lecture will provide a framework in which industry, government, academia and other stakeholders can work together to reduce the probability of occurrence and the consequences of natural gas liquids (NGL) incidents. Mannan, ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, April 28, 2009 - Gilbert Froment, research professor in Texas A&M University's Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering and the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, will present his research Thursday, April 30 at the University of Texas at Austin as part of the Chemical Engineering Graduate Spring Seminar Series. Froment is scheduled to deliver his presentation, "Kinetic Modeling of the Hydrocarbon Processing and Catalyst Deactivation by Coke Formation," at 3:30 p.m. in room 2.218 of the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Building. His talk will detail an approach developed for hydrocarbon processes catalyzed by acidic solids, loaded or not with metals. These processes, Froment says, involve very complex reaction networks, ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, April 21, 2009 - M. Sam Mannan, director of Texas A&M University's Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, will speak about mitigating the risks caused by potential spills of liquefied natural gas as part of a keynote presentation at the annual spring meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Mannan, who is holder of the T. Michael O'Connor Chair I in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, is scheduled to deliver his presentation Wednesday, April 29 in Tampa at the event's Gas Utilization Luncheon at the Tampa Convention Center. The increasing demand for natural gas has significantly increased the possibilities of LNG imports in the United ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, April 16, 2009 - M. Sam Mannan, director of Texas A&M University's Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, will discuss emerging trends in process safety management as part of the keynote address at the national meeting of the Auditing Roundtable, talking place April 21-23 in San Antonio. Mannan, regents professor and holder of the T. Michael O'Connor Chair I in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, is scheduled to deliver his presentation at 12 p.m., Tuesday, April 21 at the Hyatt Regency San Antonio. The Auditing Roundtable is a professional organization dedicated to the development and professional practice of environmental, health and safety (EHS) auditing. This year's theme, Doing ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, March 30, 2009 - Mahmoud El-Halwagi, professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, recently presented research on advanced optimization-based techniques for the simultaneous process and product design at the University of Oklahoma. El-Halwagi, an internationally known authority on process integration, led a graduate seminar for the university's Department of Chemical, Biological, and Materials Engineering. As part of his presentation, El-Halwagi presented a systematic approach to the synthesis and selection of products and their manufacturing processes. This approach, he said, is particularly attractive in the cases of emerging industries such as integrated biorefineries and therapeutics manufacturing. The key concept, he explained, is that the various reactants, ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, March 18, 2009 - Discussing modeling and simulation studies conducted on various complex materials systems, Tahir Cagin, professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, recently presented his research at the annual American Physical Society Meeting in Pittsburgh. His invited presentation, "Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Interfaces in Complex Materials," was one of two talks featured in "characterization and modeling of surfaces and interfaces" focus session. It detailed interface chemistry and role of strain in photoluminescence of embedded silicon nanocrystals in silica matrix in the context of solar energy applications; the role of nanostructure in thermoelectrics such as superlattices, nanoscopically thin films and nanowires for improving the efficiency of converting waste heat ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Feb. 6, 2009 - Perla Balbuena, professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, will present her research in the area of fuel cell catalysts Feb. 9 at the University of Florida. Balbuena will discuss "Challenges in the Design of Active and Durable Fuel Cell Catalysts" at 4 p.m. in the New Physics Building (NPB) as part of the chemical engineering department's seminar series. Balbuena's presentation will detail some of the most important challenges associated with the design of efficient alloy nanocatalysts, due to the harsh chemical environment where these catalysts work. Metal nanoparticles used as catalysts in low-temperature fuel cells are expected to provide the ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Jan. 15, 2009 - Zhengdong Cheng, assistant professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, recently presented his research at the 17th International Symposium on Processing and Fabrication of Advanced Material, held in New Delhi, India. An authority in the area of complex fluids, Cheng, was invited to speak about "Cell Encapsule and Novel Particle Fabrication via Microfluidics and Electrospray." When in India, Cheng also visited students from the Indian Institutes of Technology as well as universities and institutions who had expressed interest in Texas A&M's graduate programs in chemical engineering and materials science. At Texas A&M, Cheng's research focuses on the self-organization of intelligent colloids ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Dec. 8, 2008 - Juergen Hahn, assistant professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, will discuss his research on systems biology January 7 at The Georgia Institute of Technology. Hahn's presentation "Developing Improved Models of Signal Transduction Pathways via Systems Biology" is part of a seminar series sponsored by Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Hahn's research focuses on the development of new systems analysis techniques and their application in systems biology as well as for traditional chemical engineering processes. Applications of these techniques include sensitivity analysis of signal transduction pathways, image analysis techniques for fluorescence microscopy images, model reduction for controller design ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, August 6, 2008 - Perla Balbuena, professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&MUniversity, has been invited to speak at a workshop examining catalysis research at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Balbuena, an authority in the area of catalysis, will participate in the workshop "Grand Challenges in Electron Chemistry and Catalysis at Interface," taking place Aug. 10-15. She will speak about "Challenges in the Design of Active and Durable Nanocatalysts." Balbuena's research focuses on understanding and predicting thermodynamic, transport and kinetic properties of materials using state-of-the-art first principles computational chemistry and physics methods. Her work focuses on bulk and nanomaterials used as catalysts and electrolytes in ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, April 4, 2008 - Mahmoud El-Halwagi, professor and holder of the McFerrin Professorship, in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University was a featured speaker at a seminar series at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this week. Speaking as part of a series sponsored by the university's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, El-Halwagi discussed his research group's work in the area of process integration, detailing new research in componentless design and its applications in chemical engineering optimization. This research is a key element in the field of property integration introduced by El-Halwagi and co-workers. The basic idea is to develop optimization tools for the design ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, March 24, 2008 - Carl Laird, assistant professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, will discuss his research on estimating parameters of infectious disease models and optimizing the design of interventions March 27-28 at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Laird will present his research to a select group of Canadian researchers and policy-makers in the field of public health. His presentation will be part of a workshop aimed at stimulating discussion between policy-makers, academics and health professionals on a broad range of issues related to use of information technology and operations research methods in public health decisions. Among the areas that will be examined ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, March 11, 2008 - Tahir Cagin, professor in Texas A&M University's Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering is scheduled to discuss his research Thursday, March 20 at the International Conference on Computational and Experimental Engineering and Sciences in Honolulu, Hawaii. Cagin's address, "Modeling and Design of Polymeric Architectures for Chemical Sensing," will be a featured presentation at the week-long conference, which is aimed at bringing together researchers from the world's academia, industry and governments to discuss the recent advances in computational and experimental engineering and sciences and to facilitate collaborative research efforts. Utilizing rational design and molecular-level simulation approaches, Cagin and his graduate students are working on procedures to expedite the ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, March 10, 2008 - M. Sam Mannan, professor in Texas A&M University's Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, is scheduled to deliver Iowa State University's Wendell Miller Distinguished Lecture, Friday, March 14. Mannan, who also serves as director of Texas A&M's Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, will discuss "globalization and its challenges in industrial process safety" at the lecture, which is sponsored by ISU's College of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. In the industrial safety arena, Mannan says, globalization introduces significant challenges due to the diversity in defining what is considered "safe" and what is accepted as the appropriate level of tolerability of risk. These concerns ... Read More »

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Jan. 31, 2008 - Thomas K. Wood, the T. Michael O' Connor II Chair and professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, will deliver the keynote address at the "Second Srinakharinwirot Conference" in Thailand, taking place Thursday and Friday (Jan. 31 - Feb. 1). Wood's participation in the conference, sponsored by Srinakharinwirot University, is expected to further promote academic cooperation between Texas A&M University and the Srinakharinwirot system of universities in Thailand. Addressing a host of faculty, students and staff from Srinakharinwirot University as well as representatives from the private and government sectors, Wood will speak about his research involving E. coli bacteria and its energy-related implications. ... Read More »