Tag: chemical engineer

Challenging perceptions in chemical engineering research

Chemical engineering is everywhere. Research plays an integral part in the development of solutions to help society.

IChemE’s recently formed Research and Innovation Community of Practice (R&I CoP) aims to identify and promote key areas of research and innovation in chemical engineering, as well as champion chemical engineering research through input into policy work and via materials that demonstrate the importance of chemical engineering research to everyday life.

But are there preconceived ideas about chemical engineering research? And how do the researchers themselves define their work, activities and contributions to society?

These are ideas that Owen Jones-Salkey from the R&I CoP’s Challenging Perceptions of Chemical Engineering Research Working Group wanted to dig deeper into. In this blog, he explains more on a survey conducted on this, the key findings and what’s next.

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GUEST BLOG: CPD requirements are changing – are you ready?

In this blog, Alan Harper, the CPD Lead of IChemE’s Professional Formation Forum, urges members to prepare for mandated CPD audits. He explains what’s changing and why taking part in the audit is important for members.

Continue reading GUEST BLOG: CPD requirements are changing – are you ready?

Sharing lessons to improve competence and capability in process safety – #HazardsAus2019

Chemical and process engineers are key contributors to making working environments safer.

Sharing good practice in this is vital. And so is sharing lessons that have been learned along the way.

That’s why each year we bring leading chemical and process safety experts across Australia and New Zealand together at our conference Hazards Australasia.

This year’s event at the Hilton Brisbane, Australia on 13-14 November 2019 focusses on the theme ‘competence and capability’ and the technical programme features a new panel made up of process safety experts from the regulating bodies across the two regions.

Under the title, Lessons for industry safety cases, the panellists will discuss the importance of sharing lessons from process safety incidents and how the recent Work, Health & Safety review could affect process engineers.

Ahead of this panel discussion, we caught up with some of the panellists to understand some of the challenges and opportunities to improve the safety culture in the process industry in Australasia.

Continue reading Sharing lessons to improve competence and capability in process safety – #HazardsAus2019

World Water Day – ‘Leave no one behind’

The theme this year for World Water Day is ‘Leave no one behind’, working to the Sustainable Development Goal of achieving universal access to safe and affordable drinking water by 2030. Playing a key role in this mission are chemical engineers from both academia and industry; who are working on water projects around the world.

In today’s blog we take a trip down memory lane, and reflect on some great examples of members who have used their chemical engineering skills to help people in developing countries access clean water.

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Chemical Engineer makes final three in research project competition

Three researchers at the University of Birmingham are battling it out to be crowned the winner of the university’s Philanthropic Research Project 2018.

The university has announced the finalists of its research project competition – selecting three that have the potential to change lives. Birmingham has committed to fundraising for the chosen winner over the next year, helping to drive their research forward to potential commercialisation opportunities – ultimately providing benefit to more people.

One of the finalists is Dr Sophie Cox from the Department of Chemical Engineering. Her project, Engineering new medical systems to fight antimicrobial resistance, is focused on combating antibiotic resistance, which is predicted to kill more people than cancer in a few years’ time.

Read on to find out more about her project, and how you can help her chances of winning the competition.

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10 female engineers on how to #BeBoldForChange #IWD2017

Today is International Women’s Day.

Celebrating the achievements of women, and various successes in gender parity, it provides us with the perfect opportunity to shine a light on the important issue of diversity in our profession.

The percentage of female undergraduates studying chemical engineering in UK is just above 25%. It’s higher than any other engineering discipline, but there’s still more to be done.

The theme for International Women’s Day 2017 is #BeBoldForChange. To celebrate, our member-led diversity network has shared ten inspiring quotes from their popular ‘Women in Engineering’ webinar series on changing attitudes, highlighting how the engineers featured #BeBoldForChange in their careers.

These women (and one man!) are all at different stages of their fulfilling careers. Their words should inspire you to be #BeBoldForChange too.

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Guest Blog: What happens to the batteries when cars die?

Not all chemical engineers end up on an oil rig. It’s a profession that can pull you in various directions, to various places and companies, tackling various problems. No chemical engineer is the same  – that’s the beauty of it.

In a relatively short time Amrit Chandan has established himself as a serious entrepreneur. His company, Aceleron, uses fundamental chemical engineering principles to tackle very real challenges in our society. In today’s blog post Amrit tells us, in his own words, about his chemical engineering journey and why Aceleron, a business under 18 months old, has been turning heads.

Amrit Chandan
Amrit Chandan

Name: Dr. Amrit Chandan

Qualifications:

PhD in Chemical Engineering (Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and their Applications)

BSc (Hons) Chemistry Class I

Job Title:

Co-Founder and Business Development, Aceleron

Bio:

Amrit is an experienced engineer specialising in electrochemical technologies, specifically fuel cell technology. He co-founded battery reuse company, Aceleron in 2015. Aceleron seeks to provide low cost energy storage to developing regions.

Previously, he worked as a Technical Specialist in low carbon vehicles at Cenex, providing expertise and specialist knowledge for Cenex’ programmes and demonstrator trials.

Amrit has published 10 academic papers on a range of topics from marketing to fuel cell technology development, and was named Business Quarterly Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year 2014. Most recently, Amrit was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Class of 2017.

Continue reading Guest Blog: What happens to the batteries when cars die?

Top 5 UK Women in Chemical Engineering #NWED2016

The Top 50 Women in UK Engineering was published today by the Daily Telegraph, in partnership with the Women’s Engineering Society (WES). It celebrates female engineers across a broad range of sectors and disciplines to mark National Women in Engineering Day – 23 June. Over 800 nominations were received, so to make the Top 50 is a huge achievement.

But which chemical engineers made the list?

1. Dame Judith Hackitt

IChemE AGM 20 05 13

The first chemical engineer to make the list (coming in at number 18), Dame Judith Hackitt, spent 23 years in industry before moving on to represent various professional institutions and boards. She was the Chair of the Health and Safety Executive for 8 years, and has recently become Chair of the EEF.

Judith was IChemE President 2013-2014, is an IChemE Fellow and an active member of the Institution. She is passionate about valuing diversity, and is strongly opposed to positive discrimination and tokenism. An interview we did with Judith for International Women’s Day is available here.

TOP QUOTE: “Teachers are ill-informed about engineering. They don’t know what it is and they have pre-conceived notions that it’s dirty, its greasy, it’s all these things which it’s not. And they say ‘No, that’s not for girls.’ You still find that even now, forty years later.”

Continue reading Top 5 UK Women in Chemical Engineering #NWED2016

Ten of the best engineering memes ever (Day 325)

Today’s blog is going to be a little different from my previous posts.

Sometimes, when it comes to describing a profession such as chemical engineering, less is more. When my blogging elves pointed me in the direction of memes, I was pleasantly surprised by their ability to capture the engineers’ sense of humour in a single image.

For those of you who don’t know what a meme is, it is an idea, concept or catchphrase that spreads from person to person usually via the Internet. They can often take the form of an image (as featured in today’s blog), video, vines, or even #hashtags. 

So after a little more digging and research, we put together a list of some of the funniest engineering related memes. This might brighten up your Friday morning.

And without further ado, here are the top ten:

1. Engineers and their trusty Casio calculators

Photo Credit | 9GAG
Photo Credit | 9GAG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading Ten of the best engineering memes ever (Day 325)