2014-2015 graduate studies brochure

8/9/2019 2014-2015 Graduate Studies Brochure

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Massachusetts Instituteof Technology

Department of ChemicalEngineering

GraduateStudies


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“Chemical engineering prepares

you for solving big picture

problems while still being aware

of what’s happening on

the molecular scale.” Paula HammondDavid H. Koch Professor in Engineering


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Why come to MIT ChemE?

The world today faces many challenges.Even when it comes to our most basicneeds – from the foods we eat to themedicines we take, the clothes we wear,and the energy we use – the world isready and waiting for new ideas.

And chemical engineers are uniquely prepared not only to come up with newideas, but also to turn them into real solutions.

Chemical Engineers solve problems at the most fundamental levels. And atMIT, chemical engineers are solving a wide range of problems with great depth.As one of the largest chemical engineering departments in the country,MIT chemical engineering has 35 professors with expertise in energy andsustainability, materials, polymers, biotechnology and manufacturing.Each of our labs runs multiple well-funded research projects giving ourgraduate students incomparable opportunities to immerse themselves inthe research programs they are most interested in.

At MIT, you may end up with an advisor who is a legend. You may end upworking with a young innovator. Or more likely, someone who is a little bit ofboth.No matter which path you follow, MIT chemical engineering will give you ampletime and the nancial support to make the right choice. Whether your dream is towork in academia, industry or to create your own company, MIT chemical engi-neering has the people, the resources and the path to get you there.

Want to learn more?

Turn the pages and explore our world of chemical engineering.MIT Chemical Engineering. We put molecules to work.


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Types of Research

Go with the ow. The Novartis-MIT Center for ContinuousManufacturing is creating acontinuous manufacturing pro-cess for pharmaceuticals. Keyto the continuous system is thedevelopment of chemical reac-tions that can take place as thereactants ow through tubes,as opposed to the huge vatsin which most pharmaceuticalreactions now take place.

Understanding HIV.MIT chemical engineers havemade breakthroughs in thestudy of the HIV virus. Novelmonitoring techniques for cell

response to HIV and the newidentication of some of thevirus’s vulnerabilities couldhelp AIDS researchers developnew vaccines.

Wound, heal thyself.Assistant professor BradleyOlsen is developing smartbandages that stop bleedinginstantly and use bio-inspiredmaterials that help the bodyheal itself.

Live wire. Professor MichaelStrano discovered a pre-viously unknown phe-nomenon that can causepowerful waves of energyto shoot through minusculewires known as carbonnanotubes. The discoverycould lead to a new way ofproducing electricity.


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“The future is bright for chemi-cal engineers. Think about theworld today. We need to feedand clothe billions of people,we have to nd new energysources, and we want to helppeople live longer and healthier.

These are all things chemicalengineers are involved in.Molecular interactions are theroot of everything. In chemicalengineering, we teach ourstudents to translate thesemolecular interactions intoeveryday – and not so every-day – products and processes.As a result, they go off in manydirections, creating andimproving pharmaceuticals,fuels, polymers, plastics,cosmetics, cereals and more.”

Klavs Jensen , Department Headand Warren K. Lewis Professor ofChemical EngineeringOn Being a Chemical Engineer

Nature’s chemicalfactory. Associate professorKristala Prather is turningsingle-celled organisms intominiature chemical plantsby embedding multipleenzymatic pathways insidethe bacteria cell walls.

Plastics. Chemical engineersare nding ways to harvestbiodegradable plastics frombacterial strains that storeexcess energy in the form ofpolymers instead of fats.

DIY Energy. Think like achemical engineer andimagine a world withself-powered iPads, spray-onvirus-based batteries, and

self-healing solar cells.

Wrap it Up. Novel plasticbags, envisioned by profes-sor Paula Hammond, mayhelp preserve the casavaharvest in Africa by blocking

out oxygen, a food spoiler,and consuming the oxygenalready inside the bag.

Wear your Metabolism onYour Sleeve. MIT chemicalengineering professors aredeveloping tattoos made ofuorescent, glucose-detect-ing nanoparticles that maysoon help diabetics monitorblood-sugar levels.

Cancer-seeking Missiles. Institute professor RobertLanger’s lab helped createdrug-carrying nanoparticlesdesigned to specically seekout prostate tumor cells anddestroy them.


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Yuriy RománAssistant Professor of Chemical Engineering

Catalyzing Greener ProductsWith a changing climate and shift-ing fossil fuel economics, there’s aburning need to change the waythe world makes and uses cata-lysts: the materials that induce or

accelerate chemical reactions and are often the keyto making chemical processes industrially viable. The drive to use plants rather than fossil fuels asfeedstock means the catalytic materials used toprocess petrochemicals need to be adapted —or entirely new ones developed — to work withbiomass.

Roman’s lab is working on the catalytic conversionof the inedible parts of plant matter, such as cel-lulose and lignin, into chemicals useful for mak-ing fuels and substances like plastics, adhesives,lubricants, detergents, fertilizer, and pharmaceuti-cals. Cutting-edge catalysis research requires tools

and skills from a range of disciplines, includingspectroscopy, materials design, and computationalmodeling. “Boundaries between the different eldsare really fading, and I think this is something that’sreally important to embrace,” says Román. “This issomething that I feel is very specic to MIT, in thatthe barriers to interact with people from differentdepartments are low,” he says. “As we start workingat the interfaces of elds, we should begin to seenew game-changing discoveries.”

Bradley OlsenAssociate Professor of Chemical Engineering

Injectable Implants The idea of an implant that slowlyreleases drugs only in tissues thatneed them used to be sciencection until chemical engineers– many of them at MIT – devised

novel drug-releasing materials. Now, Bradley Olsenimagines turning these devices, which in manycases must be surgically implanted to reach thediseased tissues, into injectables. “Getting theseimplants would be like getting a shot instead ofsurgery,” says Olsen, which is not only safer forthe patient, it saves in terms of medical costs. “It’shuge in terms of patient care.”

The key, says Olsen, is in how you make theimplant. His research focuses on developingnew hydrogels, gels that have a exibility thatresembles human tissues and that are alreadyused in biomedical devices such as contact lenses

and tissue engineering scaffolds. While hydrogelsretain some of their key properties after injection,they don’t live up to clinical demands yet. “Youhave to be very careful about the hydrogel,”says Olsen. “The cool thing is that with newbiotechnology tools, we are starting to make thegels out of the same components that peopleare made out of. So as the research advances, theinjectable implant will behave more and morelike natural tissue.”

Cutting-EdgeResearch

“In many ways MIT was the birthplace of the discipline of chemical engineering,” says Bernat OllePhD ’05, “And still today the department continues to set the standard for the discipline and lead theway in opening new research directions for the eld.”


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Sean Hunt, Current PhD Student

Graduate Research:Making the Unsustainable Abundant

When one considers nonrenew-able resources, the rst to cometo mind are fossil fuels: petro-leum, coal, and natural gas. Therapid depletion of these unsus-

tainable resources has sparked global research onrenewable-energy technologies, such as fuel cells,electrolyzers, and lithium-air batteries.

Unfortunately there is a common unsustainablethread that links these burgeoning technologies:a dependence on platinum-group metals (PGMs):platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium,and osmium. These are the most stable and activecatalysts, but also the six least-abundant metalson the planet. Thus they’re unsustainable resourc-es that are currently needed to enable renewableenergy technologies. Sean Hunt got an idea: “Rather than nding newmaterials to replace PGMs in specic reactions, isit possible to modify [more abundant] metals tocatalytically mimic the PGMs?”

Hunt has created a special ceramic coatingmethod to synthesize nanoparticles with the sametraits as the unsustainable PGMs. He is now work-ing to make the process more efficient and lessexpensive, which could make the creation and use

of renewable technologies much more feasible.

Siddarth Srinivasan, Current PhD Student

Graduate Research:Chemical Engineering off a Duck’s Back

Feathers have long been recog-nized as a classic example of ef-cient water-shedding — as in thewell-known expression “like wateroff a duck’s back.” A combination

of modeling and laboratory tests has now deter-mined how both chemistry — the preening oil thatbirds use — and the microstructure of feathers, with

their barbs and barbules, allow birds to stay dryeven after emerging from amazingly deep dives.

Siddarth Srinivasan studies how cormorants andother diving birds are able to reach depths of some30 meters without having water permanently wettheir protective feathers. He and his research teamhave been able to separate chemical and structuraleffects to show why the combination of surfacecoating and shape is so effective.

The researchers took feathers from six differenttypes of diving birds. They coated them with a layerthat neutralized the effect of the preening oil, andthen recoated them with hydrophobic material,preventing variations in oil composition from af-fecting the results. “This might lead to the design ofarticial surfaces that do the same thing,” Srinivasansays. “Let’s say you make a hydrophobic surface sothat even if it wets, by designing it the right way, just by shaking it the water might spontaneously

dewet, and it would be dry again.”

• New energy technologies,including photovoltaics, fuelcells, biofuel renement, and gasto liquid transformations.

• Biomedical devices andmethods including cancer andAIDS research.

• Materials for electronic, optical,medical, and energy-conversiondevices.

• Biotechnology fortherapeutics and biofuels.

• New approaches to pharma-ceutical manufacturing.

• Process design and control forchemical, energy-conversion

and materials processes.

Areas of Focus:

“MIT offers two things that are hard to nd anywhere else in the country. First, the faculty size islarge and many of the faculty are running large groups. As a result, the range of research topics isvery wide,” says Kevin Dorfman PhD ’01, “Second, the entrepreneurial spirit at MIT is astonishing.”


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Practice School

It started out a century ago, in 1916, when MIT

chemical engineering alumnus Dr. Arthur D. Little

and professor William Walker wanted to add a

practical component to education in chemistry.

They founded, with $300 thousand of funding

from George Eastman, of Eastman Kodak, the

School of Chemical Engineering Practice. Just ve

sites participated at rst – all in the Northeast,

all traditional chemical industries working on

dyes, abrasives, solvents and fuels. Today,

Practice School students consult with companies

all over the world to help them solve their

toughest chemical engineering challenges, from

food to pharmaceuticals to nance, in what is still

the only academic program of its kind.

“In this profession, more

truly than any other, oneneeds to get into the waterto learn to swim.”Arthur D. Little, Practice School Founder

Practice School Site:Corning, Inc., Corning, New York

Station director Bob Hanlon found it atremendous opportunity to engage with aFortune 500 company focused on innovation.Corning’s selected projects provide a greatmix of theory and experimentation, of funda-mentals and applications, and of technologiesand chemical engineering concepts, ranging,for example, from Corning® Gorrilla® Glass andCelcor® substrates (used in catalytic converters)to mol-sieve drying, surface energy character-ization, ion-exchange, and photo-catalysis.

The students’ hosts also introduced them toNiagara Falls, a bus tour of the Finger LakesWine Region, and excursions to NYC’sBroadway and Chinatown.

Practice School Site:Novartis, Basel, Switzerland

The Practice School has had stations atseveral Novartis locations, including France,California, Italy, and its headquarters in

Switzerland. MIT students have helped thehealthcare company on several projects,including optimizing existing processes, usingnear infrared spectroscopy for analysis andcontrol, and dealing with the optimization of aultraltration/dialtration operation. Studentsalso found time to take part in Basel’s “Fasnacht,”the city’s ancient three-day carnival, and seethe countryside, including visits to Colmar andStrasbourg, in Alsace, France.


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Practice School Site:

General Mills, Minneapolis, MinnesotaOne of the world’s most iconic food companies,General Mills manages a myriad of top foodbrands. Our students have helped it keep itsstanding by applying their chemical engineeringskills to real-world applications. Recently,students have focused on modeling productquality metrics in dough by describing theleavening reaction kinetics, thermodynamics,and constituent transport phenomena in the

system. Another project focused on designinga process and corresponding control systemto be used with new packaging for an existingproduct. And they still found time to catch a RedSox-Twins game, hike, and sample several greatrestaurants in the area.

Christine Ensley MSCEP ‘14

Sustainable Energy and Skills

When nearing the end of her under-graduate work, Christine Ensley knewshe wanted to enter industry with “(a)the strongest foundation in ChemEfundamental principles possible and(b) the skills and condence to applythis knowledge base to whatever mycareer could throw at me.” A PracticeSchool degree was a perfect t.

Ensley is now in Chicago workingfor method , a sustainable home andpersonal care products company.“There is no way I would have beengiven this opportunity without myMSCEP degree,” She says. “ method is a very lean, fast-paced companythat typically only recruits experi-enced candidates. My experience atPractice School helped give them thecondence to bring me in as a part oftheir Process Engineering team.”

“Practice school was obviouslya once in a lifetime experi-ence. You enter these companies and are exposed to people in very inuential roleswithin those organizations.You work closely with themeveryday, and make connec-tions that will be invaluablethroughout your career.”Christine Ensley ’14, Practice School alumna


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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology stands among theworld’s preeminent research universities and is home to one ofthe broadest and most advanced arrays of technical facilitiesanywhere in the world. We seek to develop in each member ofthe MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely,creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind. n 81 present and former members ofthe MIT community have won the NobelPrize. Nine current faculty members areNobel laureates.

n Coeducational and privatelyendowed, MIT includes over 1,000faculty and approximately 4,500 under-graduate and 6,700 graduate students. The university’s research sponsorship forscal year 2013 was $675.3 million. The154-acre campus stretches more than amile along the leafy Cambridge banksof the Charles River, just a bridge awayfrom the lively heart of Boston. n Boston, one of America’s oldest cit-ies, has evolved into a center for socialand political change, the economic andcultural hub of New England, as well asa home to world-class shopping andexciting sports teams: the worldchampion Celtics, New England Patriots,Red Sox, and Bruins. Easily accessiblefrom the city are opportunities to hike,bike, ski, sail, and rock-climb. FromCambridge and Boston, it is an easydrive to the mountains of Vermont, thewoods of Maine, or the beaches of CapeCod.

n The MIT campus is just a shortwalk or T (subway) ride from down-town Boston. Transportation is

available on foot or bicycle, on a citybus, or on an MIT SafeRide shuttle.Our students get free admission anddiscounts to places like the Museum ofScience, the Museum of Fine Arts, theBoston Symphony Orchestra, and theBoston Ballet. Tickets for Bruins, Celt-ics, and Red Sox games are available,and a bus runs to Gillette Stadium,for those who want to attend Patriotsgames. n The MIT Campus also offersopportunities to relax, one being theIntramural (IM) Sports Program, atime-honored tradition of the Insti-tute. Chemical Engineering graduatestudents have historically been strongparticipants in the IM program, frombadminton to ice hockey to bowling toag football.

Be it academics, research,or IM dodgeball, you can ndyour path at MIT.

MIT andCambridge/Boston


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Graduate study at MIT offers students the opportunity to doimportant, leading-edge research in any of a broad range ofinnovative areas and to work alongside our distinguished faculty,each a leader in his or her chosen specialty. Our students alsotake advantage of the extensive resources within the department,throughout MIT and in the intellectually and culturallyrich Greater Boston area.

MIT Chemical Engineering offers three distinctgraduate programs:

PhD/ScD Degree The Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Science degrees in

Chemical Engineering are identical. Students may choose theappellation they prefer. This traditional, research-based doctoraldegree program provides a thorough grounding in thefundamental principles of chemical engineering as well asan intensive research experience.

PhDCEP DegreeOffered nowhere else but MIT, the Doctor of Philosophy in Chemi-cal Engineering Practice degree program enhances a traditionaldoctoral program by leveraging the unique resources of MIT’s

David H. Koch School of Chemical Engineering Practice (PracticeSchool) and the world-class leadership instruction of MIT’s SloanSchool of Management while still allowing students to completethe program in approximately 5 years. The PhDCEP programbuilds a solid foundation of industrial experience, research andbusiness, preparing students for a quick launch into leadership.

MSCEP DegreeAlso unique to MIT, the Master of Science in Chemical EngineeringPractice degree program provides hands-on, real-worldexperience in industrial settings. Students complete twosemesters of graduate-level courses at MIT (core plus electives),followed by one semester at industrial sites of the Practice Schoolunder the direction of resident MIT staff. Credit for the PracticeSchool semester is accepted in lieu of a Master’s thesis.

DegreeRequirements/Options

“The reason I chose MITwas due in large part to

the variety of research

areas offered by the

faculty and the rich

tradition of preparing

future faculty members

as well as successfulentrepreneurs. Given that

I was uncertain about my

desired research area and

whether I would pursue

a tenure track position

or an entrepreneurial

endeavor, I knew MIT hadme covered.”

Todd Zion PhD ’04, president of454, LLC, and founder of Smart-Cells, winner of MIT’s $50K Entre-preneurship Competition and nowowned by Merck.


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Where our PhDs go

Entrepreneurs Just some of the companiesfounded by graduates and faculty

Abcor IndustriesAcusphereAdimabAdvanced Inhalation ResearchAlkermesAlnylam PharmaceuticalsAmgenArsenal MedicalAspen TechnologiesBIND BiosciencesBiogen Idec

BioProcessors Corp.BioScaleEcho PharmaceuticalsEnumeral BiomedicalFocalGenzymeGVD Corp.IntelligenIonicsLiving Proof MatTek Corp.

MicroCHIPS, Inc.Mitra BiotechmNEMOSCIENCE GmbHMomentaNano-CNewcoGenOptifoodPerSpective BiosystemsPervasisPromethegenPulmatrix Inc.PureTech VenturesSelecta BiosciencesSemprus BiosciencesSeventh Sense Biosystems T2 Biosystems Transform Pharmaceuticals

Matthew Stuber, PhD ‘13

Co-founder, WaterFXMatthew Stuber says he chose

MIT for graduate studies not justfor its reputation, but for “thediversity in interesting problemsthat are studied and the oppor-tunity to make a substantial im-

pact on a global scale. The high concentration ofbrilliant minds at MIT fosters a very creative andmotivating environment that I found invaluablefor my personal and professional development.”

Stuber’s research at MIT was computational;and focused on robust simulation and designof novel process systems under uncertainty. Putsimply, he worked on developing tools for de-signing and validating worst-case performanceand safety of process systems to be deployedin extreme and hostile environments. Thereal-world impact is that safer and more robustsystems may be engineered a priori as opposedto a posteriori following a disaster or failure.

Upon graduation, Stuber cofounded WaterFX,which focuses on desalinating diverse saltwatersources using renewable energy, specically so-lar energy. “My time at MIT prepared me by notonly giving me the tools and skills to synthesize,design, and optimize novel process systems butit prepared me to think creatively and criticallyas well as conduct independent high-qualityresearch. The reputation of MIT also attractsmany entrepreneurs and thinkers looking tostart companies and consult on ideas that givemany students, myself included, unique accessto interesting non-traditional career and busi-ness opportunities. “


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Lashanda Korley PhD ’05Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University

“MIT is a such a unique place and denitely

a destination for graduate studies, especiallyCourse 10. It’s a place to engage, explore, andtackle the world’s challenges, and a place tobuild and nurture lifelong relationships.”

For LaShanda Korley the choice to study chemical engineeringcame not as an epiphany, but through a process of elimination.“I was interested in how molecules work and I was good atmath, chemistry and physics, so if you put it all together, itsays ChemE,” she says. “But the reality is that I went to summercamp and knew I didn’t want to do electrical or mechanical

engineering.” The remainder, chemical engineering, turned outto be a perfect t.

Today, Korley runs her own lab at Case Western ReserveUniversity. The lab, called “M-cubed” for mechanically-enhanced, multifunctional materials, focuses on materialsinspired by natural substances, such as the titin proteinor spider silk, that have special strength or toughness orresponsiveness to heat or light. She applies her innovations tomaking protective fabrics, food packaging, scratch-resistantcoatings, optical and mechanical sensors, and even drug-delivery and tissue engineering scaffolds.

While her work in Paula Hammond’s research group cementedher interest in the design of polymeric materials for highperformance, MIT culture also played a big role in shapingKorley’s ideas. “On the campus, in the halls, at symposia, therewas this vibrancy. Everybody was excited to talk about whatthey were doing,” she says. “It just opens your mind to startthinking about the next big thing.”

California Institute of TechnologyColorado School of MinesColumbia UniversityCornell UniversityDartmouth CollegeDuke UniversityEmory UniversityGeorgia Institute of TechnologyHarvard UniversityHong Kong University of Science and TechnologyImperial College LondonJohns Hopkins UniversityKAISTMichigan State UniversityNational Univeristy of SingaporePrinceton UniversityRensselaer Polytechnic InstituteSeoul National UniversityStanford University Tsinghua UniversityUniversity of California at DavisUniversity of California at Berkeley

University of Colorado at BoulderUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUniversity of MissouriUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Texas at AustinUniversity of Wisconsin at Madison

Thought Leaders Just some of the universities wheregraduates teach and do research


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You may have heard that Chemical Engineeringat MIT has been ranked #1 by US News and WorldReport for over twenty years and counting, or thatMIT chemical engineering is one of the largestchemical engineering departments in the coun-try. No matter what you want to do in ChemE,they probably have someone here at MIT whois teaching it or researching it or, at the very least,wants to start it.

That’s the great thing about MIT. It’s lled with energy.A different kind of energy. MIT attracts bright people whohave a passion for turning ideas into reality. MIT is a place where

students and professors are also innovators and life-long learners.It is a place where people are more interested in moving forwardtogether than being competitive separately. It’s a place wherepeople love to learn and discover.

And MIT is a place where people have a lot of fun.

Maybe it’s chemistry. Maybe the place is engineered for

innovation. In Course X, no doubt, it’s a little bit of both.

MIT Chemical Engineering. We put molecules to work.

Let Us Show You

For more information visit: http://mit.edu/cheme/


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Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyDepartment of Chemical Engineering

Building 6625 Ames StreetCambridge MA 02139 USAtel: 617.253.4561fax: 617.258.8992

http://mit.edu/cheme/ MITChemEng

MIT ChemE

2014-2015 graduate studies brochure

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