Faculty

Jennifer Sinclair Curtis, Distinguished Professor in the University of California, Davis, Department of Chemical Engineering, has been named the 2023 recipient of the Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement by a Woman Chemical Engineer by the American Institute of Chemical Engineering.

For most people, contracting Zika virus, a flavivirus carried by mosquitos, is akin to getting any mildly inconvenient virus. You might get a fever and a rash, and it's gone in a few days. But for pregnant people, there is a roughly 4% chance that a bite from a mosquito with Zika virus could have life-altering effects on developing fetuses in the form of microcephaly, a neurological condition that indicates an under-developed brain.  

Professor of Chemical Engineering Adam Moule was one of several University of California, Davis faculty to receive funding from the Science Translation and Innovative Research, or STAIR, proof-of-concept grant program, the UC Davis Office of Research announced.

Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Priya Shah, Ph.D. '11, is deciphering the behavior of the Zika virus on animal cells to delve into the possibilities for mitigating the sickness in humans.  

For the first time on a commercial scale, researchers from UC Davis have controlled the redox potential during a wine fermentation, an important step in making winemaking more efficient and reproducible and paving the way for a new generation of experiments in viticulture, microbiology and fermentation. 

Jennifer Sinclair Curtis, Distinguished Professor in the University of California, Davis, Department of Chemical Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Curtis, who served as the first female dean of the UC Davis College of Engineering from October 2015 through December 2020, is one of 16 current UC Davis faculty members in the academy.

For UC Davis Chemical Engineering Professor Greg Miller, a new course began with a single sip.  While tasting whiskey with friends, he noted an unusual peppery flavor and became curious how it was produced. The more he looked, the more he realized that there wasn’t an easy answer, as most whiskey distillers rely on tried-and-true recipes instead of science.  

Engineering in the food industry requires a knowledge of food processes, science, chemical engineering principles and culture. This spring, chemical engineering undergraduate students learned about all four during a guest lecture and Native American cooking demonstration from Café Ohlone, the world’s first and only Ohlone restaurant.

Chemical engineer and microbiologist Priya Shah has been awarded $40,000 for her project that unravels the essential aspects of arbovirus replication, and aims to thwart a major source of emerging disease by identifying novel therapeutic targets.