Chemical, Materials & Biomolecular Engineering Department Introduces New Faculty Members!
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Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D., is a Chemical Engineering Professor, and the Dean of the School of Medici ne. Dr. Laurencin obtained his B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University 1980. In 1987, he simultaneously he earned a Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering/Biotechnology, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he was a Hugh Hampton Young Scholar, and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and earned the Robinson Award for Excellence in Surgery. For his dissertation, Laurencin developed a polymer-based drug-delivery system; these better preserve a molecule's bioactivity after it enters the body than do traditional pills. This led to a drug-delivery system for patients with brain cancer.
Dr. Laurencin continued clinical training at the Harvard University Orthopaedic Surgery Program, becoming Chief Resident in Orthopedic Surgery at the Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School. During this time, he was an instructor in the Harvard–M.I.T. Division of Health Sciences and Technology, where he directed a biomaterials laboratory at M.I.T. After Harvard, Laurencin spent a year in sports medicine at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, then joined the Medical College of Pennsylvania's Hahnemann University, which soon merged into Drexel University. There, he started the Center for Advanced Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering and helped usher in a new frontier in orthopedic surgery — biodegradable polymer materials for fracture repair and tissue engineering.
Dr. Laurencin is a board certified in orthopedic surgery. In 2003 he joined the University of Virginia where he continued to develop therapies to repair soft tissues such as the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee. Laurencin's newest work uses polymer-based drug-delivery systems and nanotechnology to enhance bone and tissue regeneration.
Dr. Laurencin received recognition of his research work involving biodegradable polymers and was awarded the Presidential Faculty Fellowship Award from President William Clinton in. Dr. Laurencin is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and an International Fellow in Biomaterials Science and Engineering. He most recently received the William Grimes Award for Excellence in Chemical Engineering from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Leadership in Technology Award from the New Millennium Foundation. Also, Dr. Laurencin has been elected as a member of the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences for his professional achievement and commitment to service.
Dr. William Mustain will be joining the Department of Chemical, Materials & Biomolecular Engineering as an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering. Dr. Mustain received his Ph.D. from Illinois Institute of Technology and has been completing a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests include the development of new materials for proton exchange membrane fuel cells; the development of a room temperature molten carbonate fuel cell; aerobic biocathodes for oxygen reduction reaction;  microfabricated biological fuel cells and fundamental studies on both electrochemical kinetics and ionic transport in solid electrolytes. As a graduate student at Illinois Institute of Technology, his work focused on the design of platinum-free, methanol tolerant catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (OOR). Dr. Mustain was within the first group to demonstrate and fully characterize the high activity of cobalt-palladium alloy electrocatalysts for the ORR at the PEM cathode. He has had the honor of being awarded the Illinois Institute of Technology Outstanding Teaching Assistant of the Year Award in 2004, as well as a Hamid Arastoopour Excellence in Education Award. Illinois Institute of Technology also recognized Dr. Mustain as a Heald Scholar in the years of 1998-2002. Dr. Mustain’s work has been published in seven journal articles, eleven conference presentations, two proceeding papers and four patent disclosures.
 Dr. Brian G. Willis will join us as an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering. Previously, Brian was an Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 1999. Dr. Willis maintains a vigorous research program in nanotechnology with applications for biochemical sensors, molecular electronics, semiconductor devices and fuel cells. His research, on the convergence of integrated circuit technology with molecular devices creates a great opportunity for chemical engineers to make a unique contribution to the next generation of computing technology. Dr. Willis has been the privileged recipient of three National Science Foundation awards including, NSF CAREER Award, an EECS Award and a NSF-NER Award. In addition, he has earned an Emmert Faculty Fellowship, from the University of Delaware, the Dow Corning Award for the first course in Chemical Engineering, as well as ranking second place in the Nanotech Measurement Contest. Dr. Willis has already made numerous contributions to course and curriculum development and currently has more than twenty refereed publications.
Dr. George A. Rossetti, Jr., has accepted an Associate Professor position in the Materials Science & Engineering Program. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a M.S. in Materials Engineering, both from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Dr.  Rossetti earned his Ph.D. in Solid State Science from The Pennsylvania State University and performed post-doctoral work in solid-state chemistry and crystal physics at Princeton University. His broader research theme relates fundamental aspects of structural transformational processes and solid-state reaction phenomena to the control of microstructure and physical properties of ceramic materials. His current research interests focus on thermodynamic and statistical mechanics theory of coupled chemical and dipolar ordering phenomena in dielectric crystals; high-temperature thermochemistry of complex oxide dielectrics; soft solution growth of ceramic particles; reactive processing of piezoelectric ceramics and crystals; experimental investigations of phase transformations and microstructure evolution in ferroelectrics; and physics of dielectric and electromechanical devices. Among Dr. Rossetti’s many accomplishments, he has been the invited Plenary Lecturer and U.S. Basic Science Delegate to the 13th US-Japan Seminar on Dielectic and Piezoelectric Ceramics; an invited contributor to the book Piezoelectronics: Evolution and Future of a Technology; an invited contributor to the special volume, 55 Years of Ferroelectrics; an invited speaker at the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Dielectric Society in London; an Exchange Scientist at Mitsubishi Kasei, Ltd., Yokohama, Japan, as an invited participant under the Penn State US-Japan Bridge Building Program; and the winner of the Prix du Seminaire de la Recherche, Saint-Gobain Worldwide Corporate Research Prize.
 Dr. Jeffrey R. McCutcheon, is joining the department with a dual affiliation with the Chemical Engineering Program and the Center for Environmental Science & Engineering (CESE). Prior to joining UConn, Dr. McCutcheon was involved in post-doctoral research at Stoney Brook University involving electrospun nanofiber nonwoven webs for use as substrates for novel water filtration membranes. Dr. McCutcheon also headed the research staff of a spinoff company that emerged to commercialized this membrane technology. Dr. McCutcheon is keenly interested in water desalination techniques and in salinity-based power generation. His research goal is to design, construct and characterize novel membranes for use in sustainable water treatment, desalination, and power generating processes. Dr. McCutcheon has eight journal publications and 17 conference proceedings based on his desalination and energy research. He is also co-inventor on two patent applications. He earned his M.S. ('03) in chemical engineering, and his Ph.D. ('07) degree in chemical/environmental engineering from Yale University.
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