Chemical Engineering Professor Honored for Outreach, Teaching

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A faculty member in the Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering received an award from AIChE, a global organization of chemical engineers, for her educational outreach project.

Natacha Souto Melgar, teaching assistant professor, is the first recipient of the AIChE Separations Division Education and Outreach Award since 2016. The award provides up to $5,000 to support educational and outreach initiatives that improve or enhance the teaching separations in chemical engineering. Souto's teaching method is unique in that it focuses on active learning techniques and mentoring students in lab courses where the students design their own experiments.

Souto's project is designed to give undergraduates a hands-on experience in studying the diffusion of a solute in aqueous solutions.

"In this project, a group of four undergraduate students, supervised by me, will establish an experiment, perform multiple experimental runs, and prepare an experimental handout," Souto said. "This experiment will be implemented as a permanent experiment in the senior laboratory course. Also, the team will make a video demonstration of this experiment to be included in the AIChE Separations Division website to reach the AIChE community."

Souto's proposal was unanimously approved by the AIChE Separations Division officers and directors.

David Ford, head of the Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering, said the award represents a positive step for the undergraduate chemical engineering experience.

"I congratulate Dr. Souto on being selected for funding by the Separations Division of AIChE," he said. "Her new experiment will help us keep our undergraduate lab up-to-date and relevant to industrial practice."