Spring marks a season of celebration and growth, and this year we honor the accomplishments of 14 BBE undergraduates, 24 SSM undergraduates, and five graduate students from the Class of 2025! I was very happy to visit with our graduates and their families at the departmental receptions and shake hands with our students at each commencement.
On April 24, the BBE Scholarship Gala was held in Bell Museum to raise funds for undergraduate scholarships, and network with our donors and alumni. I am very thankful to everyone who joined the event. I would especially like to acknowledge our sponsors!
Gold sponsors:
Lexington Manufacturing (President - Mike Dillon)
Forest Products Distributors (President - Carroll Korb)
Silver Sponsors:
Gevo (CEO - Pat Gruber)
Smurfit Westrock (Beau Cooper and Mike Gunderson)
Bronze Sponsors:
Tetra Pak (Nathan Korlesky, Team Leader Process Engineering)
Roger Ruan & Amy Song
Tom Kortuem (Novonesis)
And a big thank you to all our supporters of this event. With your generosity at this event, along with your annual giving, the department was able to award 72 BBE and SSM undergraduate students with scholarships for the 2024-25 academic year in a total amount of $183,500! You can view photos from our scholarship Gala here.
I am grateful to Advisory Council Board members for their valuable support and contributions to the Board meeting on April 30, and to industry sponsors and faculty advisors for supporting BBE and SSM Senior Capstone projects, which were presented on the same day.
In this issue of the BioBriEf, we celebrate the retirement of Professor Ulrike Tschirner. She spent 30 years in our department educating and inspiring the next generation of engineering students.
Congratulations to several faculty: Roger Ruan for receiving the Award for Excellence in Academic Service Unit; Omar Espinoza for the promotion to Full Professor; Jiwei Zhang for the tenure and promotion to Associate Professor; Natalie Hunt for the promotion to Teaching Associate Professor, and Rebecca Forman for both receiving the 2025 Richard C. Newman Community Impact Award and for her promotion to Teaching Associate Professor!
We feature four undergraduate students on their unique journey in this department: Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering student Brooke Brenden, and Sustainable Systems Management students Lauren Ryan, Armina Utas, and Ben Schiltz.
Our alumni spotlights feature two of our proud alumni: Marc Baldemor, a Capital Projects Manager at Cargill, and Olivia Veloske, a Process Engineer at HBW Solutions.
Kudos goes out to BBSEM graduate student Nandin Ganjoloo who received the Distinguished Poster Presenter Award at CFANS Research Symposium!
Last but not least, please remember to register by June 5 for our TAPPI/BBE Golf Outing in support of BBE scholarships!
Hua Zhao, Professor and Head