Lafayette Sweeps Technical Oral Presentation Awards at AIChE Regional Meeting

Lafayette College chemical engineering students took home top honors in the Regional Student Technical Presentation Competition (STPC) at the recent American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Mid-Atlantic Regional Meeting hosted at Lehigh University—earning a clean sweep of the podium.

First place went to Sophia (Bella) Harrill for her presentation, “Hydrolytic Degradability of Biobased Thermosets from Birch Bark.” Advised by Professor Melissa Gordon, Harrill evaluated the end-of-life degradability of biobased plastics synthesized from birch bark.

Second place was awarded to Sarah Sergi, also advised by Professor Gordon, for “Tuning the Volume Phase Transition Temperature of Crosslinked Hydrogels using Carbon Dioxide.” Sergi presented her work on the development of a “smart” hydrogel, engineered to alter its physical and chemical behavior in response to carbon dioxide.

Third place went to Anthony Malshyti, advised by Professor Michael Senra, for “Assessing the Accuracy of Predicting the Cloud Point of Biodiesel using Ideal Solution Theory.” Malshyti explored the reliability of thermodynamic modeling in predicting the cloud point—the temperature at which biofuels begin to solidify—an important factor in biofuel performance and usability.

The strong showing underscores the depth of Lafayette’s undergraduate research and the quality of student-faculty collaborations in chemical engineering. Congratulations to all three students on their outstanding work and well-deserved recognition!