In the Name of Progress

Just times right after successful the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, the Section of Energy’s highest honor for mid-career scientists, Rachel Segalman, professor and chair of UC Santa Barbara’s Chemical Engineering Office, realized she’d acquired one more best honor — the Andreas Acrivos Award for Expert Progress in Chemical Engineering, among the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AIChE) most prestigious prizes.

The AIChE on a yearly basis provides the Professional Progress Award in recognition of one particular researcher’s sustained mental management and important contributions to the area of chemical engineering. Segalman was acknowledged for “pioneering studies of purposeful tender elements including semiconducting block polymers, polymeric ionic liquids, and hybrid thermoelectric materials.”

“Much like the Lawrence Award, the Acrivos Skilled Development Award is particular because some of my particular heroes have won it,” mentioned Segalman, referencing Frances Arnold (2004) and Matthew Tirrell (1998), the former dean of UCSB’s University of Engineering. “While the Lawrence Award is distinctive for the reason that of its stature in the U.S. authorities, the Acrivos Specialist Development is a recognition from my peers.”

Segalman’s investigation focuses on controlling the self-assembly, composition, and qualities in practical polymers. Structural handle more than smooth matter by microscopic length scales is a essential instrument for optimizing homes in purposes ranging from photo voltaic and thermal electrical power to biomaterials.

An elected member of the Nationwide Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Physical Modern society, Segalman’s perform has presented important insights into the molecular basis for the thermoelectric effect in organic molecules, an critical stage to subsequent developments in natural and organic thermoelectrics, a area in which she has emerged as a pioneer via her elementary advances in the science of molecular thermoelectrics and engineering their design and style.

Segalman also has created crucial connections among the molecular and mesoscale composition of polymers and their capability to transportation digital and ionic cost, most a short while ago demonstrating superionic conduction in polymers. She is affiliate director of the Materials for Water and Strength Units, which seeks to make very similar connections with application to the purification of h2o from perniciously contaminated resources.

“We are exceptionally happy to congratulate Rachel Segalman on getting just one of the optimum honors awarded in chemical engineering,” claimed Tresa Pollock, interim dean of the College or university of Engineering and the Alcoa Distinguished Professor of Resources. “Peer recognition of her groundbreaking experiments on functional soft components and their effects in the chemical engineering and resources science disciplines is properly deserved.”

Acrivos is an internationally acknowledged educator and researcher who helped change the field of chemical engineering, in particular in the areas of fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer. His study on the circulation of viscous fluids designed it possible to product, assess and engineer chemical and fluid procedures, with programs in industries these kinds of as microelectronics and petroleum restoration.

Segalman briefly shared an business with Acrivos although she was an assistant professor at UC Berkeley and he was on sabbatical.

“He was checking out Berkeley for my initial number of months on faculty,” she recalled. “His mentorship and primarily his warmth and welcome to academia made a long lasting effect on my profession — to this working day, they remind me how significant that first welcome is in a career. So, it is significantly thrilling to acquire this award that is named right after him.”

Segalman will obtain the award in November, at an honors ceremony during the 2022 AIChE Annual Assembly.