Graduate students in chemical and biomolecular engineering (ChBE) at Rice University have been recognized by the department with the top graduate student awards for their research.
Doctoral student Christian Conrad has received the 2021-22 Sunit Patel ’85 Endowed Fellowship Award. Named for a distinguished ChBE alumnus, it recognizes the most outstanding graduate student research in the third year of residency or later.
Feng-Yang Chen, a fourth-year doctoral student, is the recipient of the 2021-22 Riki Kobayashi Fellowship. This award, in memory of a longtime faculty member and former chair of ChBE, recognizes the best Ph.D. thesis proposal in terms of originality, creativity and accomplishment after the second year in residency.
Conrad is a member of the Catalysis and Nanomaterials Laboratory headed by Michael Wong, the Tina and Sunit Patel Professor in Molecular Nanotechnology and ChBE department chair. Conrad earned his B.S. in ChBE from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2016.
Chen’s adviser is Haotian Wang, the William Marsh Rice Trustee Chair and assistant professor of ChBE. Chen earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from National Taiwan University in 2016 and his M.S. in ChBE from Cornell in 2019.
Honorable mention for the Kobayashi Fellowship went to Safiya Khalil. She earned a B.S. in chemical engineering from Khalifa University of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi in 2019. Her adviser is Rafael Verduzco, professor of ChBE.